Paper Mario was a blast to play.
I loved Paper Mario, from the fun battle system (that had a strange amount of depth to it) to the weird storyline / characters, to the charming graphics, it was a blast to play. I had a few complaints but nothing to harsh that brought the game down or anything. I liked Thousand Year Door loads better, since the storyline was so much crazier, and the battle system was overall improved, but I like this game much more than Mario RPG since it had a better battle system, crazier storyline and a much less-linear adventure. So what I'm saying is the games progressed with each new released, but I didn't get to play Paper Mario until now, the missing link.
----------Battle System----------
Paper Mario is a turn-based RPG. The turns are round-based, so Mario's team usually goes first, then the enemy will have their chance to attack and repeat. You can see your enemies on the field before a fight. You can jump them to start a fight or they can bump into you, or you can run away to avoid the battle all together. If you jump on the enemy or hit them with a hammer before a fight then you'll get a bonus attack at the start of the fight, the enemy can also hit you first to get themselves a bonus attack.
Mario gains experience for each enemy he defeats, after 100 experience points he will gain a level. After each level you get to pick which attributes you want Mario to learn, either he can gain 5 more Hit Points, 5 more Flower Points, or 3 more Badge Points. The only way Mario's party members can gain levels is by finding "Power Blocks" on the field, each character can gain up to 2 levels, they gain a new attack with higher strength and defense. Mario's party members don't have HP either, so they can't technically die, and they're rarely attacked, but if they do happen to get hurt they'll be paralyzed for a few rounds.
The badges are probably the deepest thing in the game. You can only max out your badge points to 30 points total, but the best badges usually cost around 6 points each. With the badges you can boost your defense, strength, HP, FP, or gain new attack abilities with your hammer or boots.
After each chapter Mario gains a new Star ability and he gains a new star slot, so in battle he can use one of the stars he saved. Each Star has their own attacks or healing abilities, some will attack entire groups, others will give Mario 20 HP and so on. They each "cost" between 1-3 star slots. Mario can regain star slots by "refreshing" in battle, or they can slowly revive over time.
Mario also has Flower Points to keep track of. When Mario uses a special hammer or jump attack, he then drains a little bit of Flower Points. The same goes for his partners aswell, if they use any of their special attacks, then they drain from Mario's Flower Points. This is basically like using Magic in a Final Fantasy.
The puzzles are fairly basic, so the game was never hard or anything. Each side character that tags along with Mario has some sort of skill you can use on the field. So for instance, Kooper can tuck into his shell and Mario can kick him to hit switches or to retrieve items far away or use Bombette to blow up walls.
----------Characters / Story----------
You play as Mario (duh), and you are sent to a party at Peach's castle. While at the party, Bowser busts in, touting that he stole the Star Rod and all the Stars of Mushroom Kingdom and now he is invincible. Bowser easily dismisses Mario and captures the entire castle. Mario must go on a quest to revive all the Star powers and save Princess Peach to save Mushroom Kingdom.
The game is split into chapters, and they're fairly repetitive. You get an intro skit from Princess Peach and Bowser, then Mario goes to the next town, finds a new sidekick, fights through a dungeon, fights the boss, saves the star and repeat. Despite that, the storyline is very humorous and fun, not quite as crazy as Thousand Year Door ended up being, but there really wasn't anything like this game when it was released.
You usually gain a new skill or partner in each chapter, and with each new skill you get or your partner gets, you can then open new areas or even secret sidequests. This reminds me of a classic Zelda game in a way, so Paper Mario is not linear in a Mario RPG sense, but if you plow through the storyline it can feel linear if you force it.
----------Graphics----------
The graphics are very basic, yet impressive on an artistic standpoint. There's a ton of characters in the game, and a ton of backgrounds, with little repeating levels (I'm thinking of Ogre Battle 64 that recycled so many character sprites and towns and taverns). Each character is carefully drawn up and they have a TON of sprites to them, you won't see the same emotion repeated dozens of times like in some games, so the cutscenes never got old and they're always fun to watch and see what happened next. The level designs was all 3D CGI models, very basic stuff, but it made the 2D characters stand out so much better. Overall, a very nice looking N64 game.
The biggest disappointment for me was the lack of actual "Paper" in this game. I played Thousand Year Door first, so I guess I was just use to that game, but there was a ton of paper abilities in that game, and just silly paper animations. If Mario gets crushed, he'll fold into a piece of paper, or he can get crumbled into a ball of paper, or use his paper abilities to turn into a plane or turn sideways to fit through prison bars. None of that is in this, the only time I remember that Mario is made of Paper is when he goes to sleep at Toads place. Otherwise he's just a basic 2D model, which is still fine, and this is only a minor complaint I guess.
----------Sound----------
For a N64 game, the music is very impressive, not only is the music rememberable, catchy and fun, but there's alot of tunes in the game. The sound effects are really good too, with a huge variety. There's no typical Mario or Peach grunts or screams, that's about the only disappointment.
----------World Map----------
You can view the world map on your menu options. The map looks alot like a Super Mario 3 or Super Mario World map, but you physically have to walk to each destination or in some cases walk through a magical door, ride a whale or any other device that teleports you. The best way to back-track is to find a "secret" sewer in Toad Town that lets you teleport to previous towns by jumping in pipes.
----------Time to Complete Game----------
28:53
This is the save before the final battle and ending sequence, so there's much much more to the game than that time. The final battle can take up to 30 minutes to complete, if not more, plus the ending was fairly long aswell. The game doesn't save afterwards to finish up sidequests, which was disappointing, but oh well.
