To Wii or not to Wii? That is the nagging, fan-angering question provoked by Nintendo's dithering back and forth as to just how we'll be playing Super Paper Mario. One second it's a GameCube exclusive, the next it might be on the Wii as well, and now there's speculation that it's a Wii exclusive. Nintendo doesn't seem to know what's going on; leading us to make plans to hijack the next Ask Iwata session to squeeze answers from the head honchos.

Just how much uncertainty has Nintendo's waffling produced in the gaming community? Well, their media site lists SPM as a GameCube title, release date "TBA." EB Games and allgame.com agree with them on the platform, but report a June 2007 release. GameFAQs.com asserts the same release date as those two sites, but claims that it's a Wii game.

Our favorite entrant in this orgy of obfuscation is Nintendo's own official site, which, though agreeing with the GameCube majority, lists the release date as "Announced." Announced?! If it's announced, but not listed, then where, exactly, does this information lie? Near as we can reckon, it resides somewhere between being and unbeing, floating in some paranormal ether, accessible only through arcane divinatory methods performed 'neath the light of the Blood Moon.

Regardless of how murky the info on Super Paper Mario is, our desire to play it burns undiminished. The game adopts the charming 2D stylings of the Paper Mario titles, and adds a dollop of retro tastiness. It's a side-scrolling platformer for the most part, but with a level "deepifying" mechanic that pushes the flat world into 3D, revealing hidden depths.