Paper Mario

Paper Mario (translated: Paper Mario) is a video game for Nintendo 64, belonging to the genre of role-playing games and platformers. The game was developed by Intelligent Systems, an internal first-party game developer for Nintendo.

The player takes over the character Mario and must save Princess Peach from the villain Bowser. What is considered special about the game is the graphic style and the fact that the characters are made of paper in a three-dimensional world. The paper theme plays a big role in the game and influences tasks as well as the storyline.

In Japan, the game was released in 2000 under the name Mario Story (Japanese マリオストーリー, literally: Mario story), and finally in North America and Europe in 2001. Paper Mario is the first Mario RPG to be released in Europe, and the second to be released in Japan and North America. Four sequels to the Paper Mario series have been released to date, with Paper Mario: Legend of the Aeon Gate, Super Paper Mario, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, and Paper Mario: Color Splash. On May 14, 2020, Nintendo surprisingly announced the sixth installment via their social media. This one is called Paper Mario: The Origami King and was released on July 17, 2020.

Plot

The plot revolves around Mario, who lives in the so-called Mushroom Kingdom. Bowser, the King of the Koopas, invades Star Sanctuary, the home of the Star People, floating high above the clouds. There, with the help of Kammy Koopa, his sidekick, he seizes the power of the Star Staff, banishing the 7 great stars in cards.

This is where the real action begins: Mario and his brother Luigi receive a letter from Peach, the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, inviting them to her party at her castle. Once there, during the party, the princess is kidnapped by Bowser along with the castle, which is ripped out of the ground and taken away by airship. In the process, Bowser throws Mario out of the already flying castle through the window. Mario then sails unconscious into a small clearing in the middle of a forest. There he is found and transported to a village. Still unconscious, the eldest of the 7 great stars appears to Mario in a dream and asks him to come to the Shooting Star Summit.

Once at the Shooting Star Peak, the 7 stars appear to Mario asking for help and he is given the task of rescuing the great stars as Bowser has acquired the power of the Star Staff and is holding the stars in various areas of the Mushroom Kingdom. The stars explain to Mario that only by using the combined power of the stars can he create a path to the floating castle and stand against Bowser in battle. Mario then goes and frees the big stars.

After Mario frees all 7 stars, the power of the stars is great enough to create a path to Bowser's floating castle. In the castle, there is a final battle between Mario and Bowser, after which Mario defeats Bowser and frees Princess Peach.

Game mechanics

The game is a turn-based role-playing game that combines two- and three-dimensional elements. The game world is three-dimensional, while the characters and objects are two-dimensional and made of paper. In the game, this is an important gameplay element upon which many puzzles and animations are built. The goal of the game is to free the 7 big stars from 7 different areas and defeat the final boss named Bowser. To do this, the player must explore game areas, solve puzzles, make the character stronger and fight enemies to do so.

Mario meets eight different partners during the adventure who accompany him. They help Mario solve puzzles and assist him in battles. Each partner is descended from a different race in the game and each has their own abilities that only they can do.

After each chapter, the game is divided into eight plus prologue and epilogue, the player takes on the role of Princess Peach for a short time. She has no combat abilities and therefore cannot fight enemies directly, but must sneak past them. For this reason, the missions for these sections of the game are mainly designed for sneaking interludes and resemble stealth computer games in some respects.

Game world

The game world consists thematically of 7 different areas, such as a city, villages, mountains, a desert, island, forests and a toy world in a box. These are all fictional and very comic-like. The areas are clearly delineated from each other and are only connected by short paths. The game world outside of towns and villages is populated by creatures hostile to Mario. The player usually only gains access to further areas by completing a chapter or a task.

Fights

As soon as Mario steps into an enemy's field of vision, the enemy tries to attack Mario. Upon contact with the opponent, the action switches to a kind of arena. There Mario must compete against the opponents in turn-based battles. Outside of the battles, only one opponent of a group of opponents can be seen at a time. Therefore, the player does not see the actual number of opponents until they are in the battle arena. Each character's turn is in a specific order, depending on various factors. The player has control over the actions of Mario and his current partner. On his turn, the player has the option between attacking with a hammer, attacking by jumping on the opponent, using items, and trying to escape from the fight. As the game progresses, Mario also gets the option to use one of the various abilities, of the big stars he has already freed, once per battle turn. When it's Mario's partner's turn, the player also selects the attack they want to use. However, the types of attacks are dependent on the partner's particular special abilities.

Timing is an important element in the battles. By cleverly timing the pressing of certain buttons, the damage caused by Mario or his partner to the enemies can be increased. This can also be used to decrease the damage caused by enemies to Mario or his partner.

Role-playing elements

The player receives so-called star points after the fights, which vary in number depending on the strength of the opponent and Mario. These can be invested in the expansion of the skills when reaching 100 star points each. These abilities include health points, flower points (attack points), which are necessary to perform special attacks, and medal points. The latter are necessary to be able to create more medals. Medals give Mario special traits and abilities. Each Order requires a specific number of free Order Points, which severely limits the number of Orders that can be created.

The type of hammer affects the strength during a hammer attack. During the game, different hammers can be found, each of which is always stronger than the previous one. The new hammer therefore always replaces the existing one. The shoes determine the attack power of a jump attack. As with the hammer, more shoes are found during the game that are stronger and replace the old ones.

The special abilities of each partner also come into play in the battles. The choice of attacks, the attack power and the health points are determined by the level of the partner. Each partner can be leveled up twice during the course of the game. This is done with the help of certain blocks that are distributed and hidden in the game world. Each block allows only one leveling up of a partner, whereby further blocks must be found for further leveling up.

Control

The player can move Mario left, right, back and forward using the analog stick. He can also use a button to make Mario jump. The camera always follows Mario parallel to him. Only at the edge of a section and in houses the camera stops and waits until Mario has left the area again. In combat, two buttons and the analog stick are used to select possible actions and to time combat actions.