No, but I iwll defend PiT because it is not a rehash.
1. TTYD did many new things, on a system that wasn't an innovative jump over the previous. It deserves to be held just a little bit higher than PiT (and by a little bit, I mean 100 stories higher).
Both TTYD and PiT added a lot to their predecessors, and both games turned what could have been one-shot games into successful series. But if one of them is a rehash, both are rehashes. Neither are. Your definition of rehash is flawed. If you want to talk rehash, look instead to games such as Sonic Rush and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow -- games which are still (justifiably) praised for "staying true to their roots" and things like that (which, you know, if it gets parsed by a less friendly interpreation, comes out as "formulaic rehash"). So, yeah -- go bitch about those games... oh, wait, no... I guess you won't do that, will you?
2. A lame concept padded is still a lame concept. Just because it takes longer does not make the end better. It just means you push more buttons. Eventually, it becomes just as easy.
Easy? Okay, good for you. I found some of the Bros. Items attacks, particularly some of the more advanced ones, challenging right up into the final boss of the game, especially as the items ratcheted up the difficulty the longer you kept going with them. It isn't a lame concept just because you didn't like them -- as I said, it wasn't padding, but it was a ton of additional versatility (always a good thing for the player to have), variety, and interactivity in battle. The Bros. Items contributed to making the battles in PiT incredibly hectic, which I found very enjoyable.
3. And the DS didn't help the Bros. Items come into existence. IIRC, the Select button was unused in M&L. So, ta-dah - in battle, use L and R for the Babies, A and B for the Bros, while out of battle, use the Select button to switch, and the A and B buttons for both the Bros. and the Babies. It may have done some new, but little of it could not have been done on the GBA.
Congratulations, Big Bird, you can count. Yes, the GBA sure does have a lot of buttons! Yeah, it has enough buttons to pull off PiT. Big fucking deal.
4. So, you would rather that they put it on the DS for absolutely no reason and not give it any touch screen support (other than ONE sequence) over giving me a single good reason why it should be on the DS?
Did you actually even play the game? The dual screen was used. The touch screen was not.
The dual screen is still one of the features of the Nintendo DS. The game made very heavy use of the top screen for maps, for much, much more impressive battles (which added to the challenge in guarding attacks from a lot of enemies, aside from making the battle backgrounds and most enemies look a whole lot cooler), for puzzles, for controlling multiple parties at the same time (which I found to be a great use).
All of the features of the dual screen come out to plenty of reasons why the game was just fine on the DS. I also enjoyed the rumble support, while recognizing that that's pretty minor overall. But it added a nice touch to the game. Also, the sound quality was better and the graphics were better -- sprites were bigger and had much more animations, but the increase was a lot more visible in the battles, where the backgrounds were hugely more detailed, there were a ton more enemies, and those enemies had a lot more animations than Superstar Saga enemies did.
5. Then DON'T put PiT on the DS. Put PiT on the GBA, and Paper Mario on the DS. People have never given a single good reason why PiT should be on the DS, and PM should not. Everyone says that "M&L is a handheld game, PM is a console game". So just because neither appeared on both, that means that they cannot appear on both? Yeah, I bet you were all saying that about Wario Land! Until a Wario platformer was developed.
People have given you plenty of reasons, you're just refusing to see them. And no one said "M&L is a handheld game, PM is a console game." What I said was that by creating follow-up games to both Paper Mario 1 and Superstar Saga, Nintendo turned two standalone entries in the Mario RPG series into successful two franchises instead of just one. Now they have two more thriving series, in addition to all else they have. That's a good thing. I don't care about a console/handheld division -- I wanted a console Golden Sun to appear on the GCN, and I'm still waiting for it to now appear on the REV instead (along with a new Golden Sun for the DS). I wouldn't mind a console Magical Vacation, and I loved seeing Fire Emblem return to consoles.
The issue has nothing to do with handhelds versus consoles -- it has to do with the fact that Intelligent Systems created one really great Mario RPG with a distinctivie and unique style; Alphadream then created a second really great Mario RPG with a totally different distinctive and unique style. Had one of those been a disaster, I would've been fine with Nintendo killing off one of the two and just having one of them carry the Mario RPG torch. But that didn't happen -- both were good, both were successful, so it makes perfect sense (and makes me happy as a gamer) to see both franchises continue.
7. I'm convinced that this game is a rush job.
No overworld? Check.
Yup, having no overworld is one of my prime complaints with the game, and one of the things I feel holds it back from being better. It's definitely an error on Alphadream's part -- though I'm not psychic enough to say whether or not it was a conscious design decision or just something left to the wayside because of the need to have the game done more quickly. Regardless, it's a complaint I agree with and one I hope they fix in the next game.
However, while it took out the overworld, PiT did in a shitload more actual fully fleshed out dungeons than SSS had. PiT's level design was about a hundred times better than SSS's (I swear I saw that purplish-grey cave background a million times throughout the game).
Astonishingly short? Check.
Um, no. It's about the same length as Superstar Saga. I believe I beat both in about the same amount of time.
Only one aspect of the DS taken advantage of? Check.
A game doesn't need to take advantage of every aspect of the DS in order to be worthy of being a DS game.
As if this couldn't have easily been a GBA game. Dual screens? Use the GBA as a split screen. It may be low resolution, but I cannot recall a single point in time where I had to make out every little detail of what was going on. I could see the switches, the enemies and the platforms.
So now all the DS games that make brilliant and effective use of the dual screen should've just done the exact same thing on the GBA by splitting its tiny little screen in half? :lol That's almost tendentious enough that it could have come from Drinky Crow. Seriously, you need to take stock of what you're saying, because that remark was shit-dumb.
Yeah, I think Konami should abort the DS Castlevania series and just put them all on the GBA. Cut the screen in half and keep the map on the top half. BRILLIAN! I can't fucking wait to play that on a Game Boy Micro!
Anything I missed there? Oh! Added humor! ...Oh, wait, they took that away. Added sidequests mayber? ...Nope, not there. Added quality? ...Hm, definitely not there.
Wrong again. PiT had plenty of funny moments. The Star Gate scene was funnier than anything in SSS not going by the name of Fawful. The Hammer Bros. scene was great, the two Toadsworths were funny as hell, Stuffwell was great, and on and on. The humor was there. What's more, the writing was (again, on anything not named Fawful) better, too.
To touch on the touch screen thing, I think your interpretation here is absolutely the wrong one to have. The last thing Nintendo should ever be doing right now is telling developers, "Use every feature of the touch screen, including incorporating the touch screen into every aspect of the gameplay, or else you can't develop this for the DS." That would not only be stupid, it'd be levels of hubris not seen from the company since the days of the N64. Not every game needs touch screen controls.
A lot of developers, being comfortable with GBA development, WILL be inclined to go to the DS and want to do, essentially, development for a more technically advanced GBA. Nintendo needs to be perfectly fine with that because not every game needs to be a huge innovation, and there's still a big market for traditional games -- for the DS to thrive as a gaming machine like it is, it needs to have that variety of gaming styles. Nintendo's approach to development needs to be, "You don't want to use the touch screen? That's okay! Develop for us anyway," not "Innovate with our system or get the fuck out."
I see three approaches to DS development:
1. Develop truly innovative and unique forms of gameplay that wouldn't be done on any other system (examples: Electroplankton, Trace Memory, Trauma Center, Kirby)
2. Develop games that integrate the system's new functions, but mainly in simplistic ways that don't really serve to innovate so much as improve and enhance controls (examples: Advance Wars, Phoenix Wright chapters 1-4)
3. Develop games that basically just take advantage of the top screen and in all other ways simply use the system's more traditional upgrades in areas such as graphics and sound (examples: Castlevania, Partners in Time)
None of those three types of development is bad. Allowing all three is what results in the system having varied types of gaming -- innovative, enhanced, and traditional. All three can thrive on it, and I'm fine with all three... and I think that needs to be Nintendo's philosophy with the Revolution as well as with the DS.
But back to Partners in Time, you're basically just wrong. Thanks for playing.
I wouldn't have been happy using the same jump and hammer attacks throughout the entire game. That type of redundancy with attacks hurt RPGs like FFI (in Dawn of Souls, anyway), FFVIII, Dragon Quest I, Suikoden II, and Valkyrie Profile (to a small extent) as far as I'm concerned.