Paper Mario

I didn't own an SNES when I was a kid, so when I saw screenshots of Paper Mario in Nintendo Power, I thought it looked like garbage. I had played games like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and Goldeneye, so when I saw these 2D character models in a 3D world I thought the game would be awful. However, the only RPG I had played at the time was Pokemon, so I didn't realize the main appeal of this type of game was the story and character development. Nonetheless, I played the game anyway and instantly fell in love with it.

Sixteen years later, I'm feeling annoyed with recent Mario RPGs. I never played Sticker Star, Dream Team, or Paper Jam, considering they all had mixed receptions, and the upcoming Color Splash (which isn't out at the time of writing) doesn't look like it's shaping up to be good either. So, having not played one of these games since the fantastic Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story on the DS, I decided to download Paper Mario on my Wii U to see if it holds up. And holy crap, it does.

Granted, the main story of this game isn't quite as imaginative as other Mario RPGs. Bowser gets a magic wand, defeats Mario and kidnaps Peach, Mario has to save seven star spirits scattered across the land to save her, blah blah blah. While the main story of the game isn't that exciting, at the very least, the various locations Mario explores throughout the game more than make up for it, and the characters consistently remain fresh and funny. Early on, Mario has a seemingly one-off encounter with Jr. Troopa, a young Koopa still in his egg, and despite Jr Troopa having nothing to do with the overarching story of the game, he consistently pursues Mario to get his revenge, popping up in the most random of locations. He puts so much effort into defeating his presumed nemesis, but each fight ends with the player defeating him and then moving on as if nothing happened. It's in moments like this that the game's writing shines through the more generic main story. It's as if the game only uses the Mushroom Kingdom as a backdrop while the more interesting stories happen in those corners of the world we don't see.

The game's story is great, but fortunately, the gameplay is there to back it up. Like Super Mario RPG before it, Paper Mario's turn-based battle system uses prompted button presses in order to deal more damage or block hits, rewarding skilled players, and keeping the combat constantly interesting. The enemies are nicely varied and now that I'm writing this sentence I realize how boring this paragraph is. Point is, the combat's great.

One particular testament to the game's depth is the badge system, which allows you to equip different skills to adjust to your playstyle. When I was a kid and I played this game, I played it safe and focused mostly on hit points so that I could handle the battles ahead. Now that I'm a much more seasoned player, I went with a more high-risk, high-reward build that occasionally got me killed, but allowed me to speed through the game much faster than before (though judging from the speedrun I watched, I still have a ways to go).

I have to give a shout-out to the level design while I'm here, too. I'm glad Paper Mario figured out faster than most RPGs to ditch the random encounters, because it made avoiding enemies part of the challenge and allowed me to focus on trying to progress through the game. The puzzles are a little on the simple side, but require just enough thought that I didn't feel like I was just being paraded from cutscene to cutscene. Granted, some areas require a little too much backtracking (that Rose in Flower Fields can screw off for making me run back and forth), but I rarely felt lost or bored.

Now, even with all the praise I have for the game and the five stars I'm giving it, there are still better Mario RPGs. I'd rank The Thousand Year Door and Bowser's Inside Story over it, but considering we'll probably never see a rerelease of those two games, Paper Mario's still worth playing if you're in the mood. It has the charm and the gameplay, and it was nice going back to a time when Nintendo still knew what they were doing with Mario. While it'd be nice if Color Splash was good, I'm not getting my hopes up.