There aren’t many video games more beloved than the first two entries in the Paper Mario series. The first game, released in 2000 in Japan (as Mario Story) and 2001 in America for the Nintendo 64, was the spiritual sequel to an earlier game for the Super Nintendo called Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars — a Square-developed title that deftly combined the whimsy of the Mario universe with the role-playing sensibilities of Final Fantasy.

The original Paper Mario expanded on its predecessor in pretty much every meaningful way: it exchanged Mario RPG’s static, pre-rendered world for an animated, pop-up book aesthetic. Characters appeared as expressive, two-dimensional paper cut-outs placed in vivid 3D landscapes — hence the game’s title.

This faux-2D gave the game a strong platforming bent that had been absent from console Mario games since 1991’s Super Mario World. Most significantly was the revamped, turn-based battle system — this time, in addition to jumping and hammering on enemies, Mario could utilize a variety of items, battle partners and stat-enhancing badges in fights, making each one a unique exercise in strategy. All in all, it was a recipe for success.

The 2004 GameCube followup, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, took that recipe and perfected it beyond anyone’s expectations. It was bigger, markedly prettier, the story was more nuanced than that of any Mario game that preceded it and the English translation of the game was hilarious (and remains one of the best localization jobs in video game history).

And then, the franchise gradually got weaker.

2007’s Super Paper Mario for Wii was a bona fide platformer that did away with several of the RPG elements that had originally endeared the series to so many. While it was still a solid title, it didn’t feel like a true Paper Mario game: it was too easy, too slow and the heavy text felt perfunctory in the context of a “2.5D” platformer.

And then came 2012’s Paper Mario: Sticker Star for the 3DS — a game that had more in common with classic ‘90s click-and-point adventure games than previous titles in the series. The battle system, while technically turn-based, was also massively simplified, limiting Mario’s abilities to the “stickers” the player had collected. Stronger enemies were only able to be defeated with specific stickers, making most boss battles a process of trial and error. Players were frustrated by this (admittedly imperfect) battle system, and felt the click-and-point elements didn’t make sense in a Paper Mario game.

Because of all this, the fan reaction to Paper Mario: Color Splash — the upcoming installment for the Wii U — has been nothing short of hysteric. When the game was first unveiled in March, many had hoped the game would be a return-to-form for the series. And then at E3, it was confirmed that the game would, essentially, be a successor to Sticker Star.

A group of particularly irate gamers have even created a petition to get Nintendo to cancel Paper Mario: Color Splash; nearly two thousand people have signed it.

We’re here to play devil’s advocate. While it’s certainly understandable that some fans are wary of this new entry in the series, there’s also a lot about the game that looks undeniably promising. Here are the five reasons why you should be optimistic about Paper Mario: Color Splash.

It’s Gorgeous

Even if you aren’t psyched about some of Color Splash’s gameplay mechanics, you can’t deny how pretty it looks. The game is based around the premise of having to repaint the colorless “Prism Island” with the straightforwardly-named Paint Hammer. Any time Mario whacks a pale object or piece of land with his hammer, paint satisfyingly splatters in all directions.

This “color” conceit is a great way for Nintendo to show off just how much the series has evolved visually in the last decade — The Mushroom Kingdom has never looked so vivid. And realistic — maybe too realistic — physics emphasize the series’ unique dimensionality, causing the paper craft figurines to sway and bend in the wind. Just because, you know, Nintendo doesn’t want you to forget that these characters are made out of paper.

It Sounds Great

If what we’ve heard so far is any indicator, the music in Color Splash will be some of the best in the series. The song that plays during the game’s E3 2016 trailer (which is also its battle theme) combines symphonic elements with the modern, electro flair of Super Paper Mario and Thousand Year Door’s soundtracks. The result sounds like a Randy Newman score for a shelved Jetsons film.

It’s Funny

The first scene in the E3 trailer shows a Shy Guy sucking the color out of Toad with a straw. The next scene shows Mario smack a sentient paint box on the head with a mallet. “How would you like it if I whacked you with a hammer while you were sleeping?” the paint box (whose name is apparently “Huey”) furiously retorts.

Nintendo has historically tasked some of the most talented translators in the industry with localizing the Mario RPG games — and that’s because they’re really, really funny (and humor is incredibly hard to translate). Color Splash looks to be no exception.

There’s Loads of Fan Service

Another critique of Sticker Star was that it felt too insulated and not a part of the larger Mario universe. Color Splash looks to remedy that — even the small amount of gameplay we’ve seen is packed with meta self-referencing and appearances from fan favorites like Morton Koopa Jr. of the Koopalings and Draggadon from Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.

It Looks Like Fun

Sticker Star had some good ideas — they were just flawed mechanistically. While the Paint Hammer aspect of Color Splash certainly looks like it has the potential to become repetitive, the gameplay elements carried over from Sticker Star all seem to have been refined: the battle system seems deeper and more fluid; the emphasis on the “paperness” of the game world feels practical rather than gratuitous or merely clever and the characters and dialogue emit that signature Paper Mario spark that was sorely missing from Sticker Star.

Color Splash probably won’t end up being the best game in the series, but it also probably won’t be the worst.