Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam

[Kosheh]

good lord e-man did you really have to write a fricken novel

check out my summary of your posts:

"This game looks great"
"It's nice to see they managed to parallel both universes in this crossover game"
"However there's issues with story consistency that sorta bug me and I hope they're addressed in this game"
"Also I'm concerned about the Paper Mario mechanics being the ones seen all over Sticker Star - you know, that one lousy game that's inherently broken because Miyamoto"

"I am also concerned about inconsistencies"
"Paper Luigi is not playable which is kind of concerning, but maybe he's tucked away somewhere in this story (puns)"
"Due to my extensive knowledge of Alphadream games I'm also concerned because this shows they're running out of ideas with the M&L series"

Is every spinoff an alternate universe?

Yes. Personally, I feel like games by Japanese development teams throughout the 90's didn't really think things through on the matters of continuity. Each title was new and fresh and was an expensive risk taken by that company - and with each game tells a new story as it's somewhat tedious to hear the same story repeated several times (case in point: people's disappointment with Starfox Zero not exploring a new chapter) That's why you have games like Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy and Shin Megami Tensei exploring different plots with different characters in different locations; they don't necessarily bear any continuity with one another.
You're probably better off thinking of Nintendo's games in this way so you don't lose any sleep over it.
Interestingly though, I feel like Nintendo's localization teams are solely responsible for throwbacks to older games through dialogue alone - but I think that's solely to keep veteran fans roped in.

It's not until you have this day-and-age of games, where Western developers began to take the helm of game design and create long, intricate, character-driven storylines with tons of continuity between games, where the games continue to build on an existing universe instead of constantly making new ones to elaborate on that now have older, inquisitive, hardcore fans speculating on their continuity and as a result, modern Japanese developers, like American developers are beginning to weave continuity into their game's plots (the best example I can think of at the moment would be the Pikmin series, and the Mario and Luigi saga, in terms of "casting") whereas older franchises are scrambling to weave some continuity into their plots due to demand (as seen in Hyrule Historia)

It's...weird, frankly. It seems to me like Japanese developers focus on core gameplay mechanics with story details as an afterthought (which results sometimes in everything being so different from game to game sometimes, like the original Paper Mario in comparison to TTY it built on the old formula but did everything so differently that it felt incredibly fresh) whereas Western developers develop the two in tandem that results in a more fluid universe and less fan speculation.

Also, they talked about the plot a bit during the Treehouse; Luigi accidentally knocks over a book in Peach's Castle and Paper Mario and co. start spilling out.  Is Peach the one telling all of these stories?  Who knows.

Spoilers: The "narrator" is the king of the Mushroom Kingdom telling folktales of a brave Italian hero [sandwich] to mushroom children in a village made of Mushroom children, that's why you never see him ever. He's a humongous mushroom in the middle of a forest who was like Napoleon Bonaparte-sized when Bowser invaded but he just fleed the kingdom to an old shack but then he grew so huge he pretty much became the forest by growing all over the trees and shit (old age). He just shares the folktales with the town and the story comes out of his spores like a PA system and no one in the Mushroom Kingdom talks about it because 1) he's a coward, ask anyone in the Kingdom and they'll just tell you he's a "fun guy" to cover up the truth and 2) explaining this is just so cute that the Mushroom people fear they'll turn into fungi that spreads across trees and becomes a speaker system too.
The Kart and Party spinoffs are when he's delirious and just talks about all the great times he's had hanging out with "Super Mario"

Bigger spoilers: You are one of the mushroom children and can never leave your house because you share the same psychoactive thoughts with him. You are directly connected to the Mushroom King and he is an invasive species of fungi that has grown all over your house and body.
He's the old man at family-get togethers that really likes telling stories but you can't leave because he is old and you must be polite
He symbolizes the stimuli addiction tied to gaming

Biggest spoilers: Toadsworth is his self-insert OC do not steal. You groan every time his name is mentioned


EDIT: oops i too wrote a fricken novel. dangit