Paper Mario

This article covers the computer game. For the computer game series of the same name, see Paper Mario series .

Paper Mario
Original title	マ リ オ ス ト ー リ ー
transcription	Mario story
Studio	Intelligent Systems
Publisher	Nintendo
Erstveröffent- lichung	Nintendo 64 : August 11, 2000 February 5, 2001 October 5, 2001 iQue : June 8, 2004 Virtual Console : July 10, 2007 July 13, 2007 July 16, 2007
platform	Nintendo 64 , iQue , Virtual Console
genre	RPG , platforming game
Game mode	Single player
control	Game controller
medium	320 Mbit plug-in module / module
language	u. a. English , German
Age rating	USK PEGI
information	The age ratings refer to the Virtual Console version.

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

The player takes over the character Mario and has to save the princess Peach from the villain Bowser . The graphic style and the fact that the characters are made of paper in a three-dimensional world are seen as special about the game . The paper theme plays a major role in the game and influences tasks as well as the game plot.

In Japan the game appeared in 2000 under the name Mario Story ( Japanese マ リ オ ス ト ー リ ー , literally: Mario story), 2001 finally in North America and Europe. Paper Mario is the first Mario RPG to be released in Europe and the second to be released in Japan and North America. With Paper Mario: The Legend of the Aeon Gate , Super Paper Mario , Paper Mario: Sticker Star and Paper Mario: Color Splash , four successors to the Paper Mario series have been released so far . On May 14, 2020, Nintendo surprisingly announced the sixth part on their social media. This is called Paper Mario: The Origami King and was released on July 17, 2020.

action

The plot revolves around Mario, who lives in the so-called Mushroom Kingdom. Bowser, the king of the Koopas enters the Star Refuge, the home of the people of the stars, high above the clouds. With the help of Kammy Koopa, his assistant, he seizes the power of the star staff and banishes the 7 big stars in maps.

This is where the actual plot begins: Mario and his brother Luigi receive a letter from Peach, the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, inviting them to their party in their castle. Once there, during the party, the princess is kidnapped by Bowser along with the castle, which is torn from the ground and transported away by airship. Bowser throws Mario out of the already flying lock 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 oldest of the 7 big stars Mario appears in a dream and asks him to come to the falling stars summit.

Arrived at the falling stars summit, Mario the 7 stars appear asking for help and he is given the task of saving the big stars, as Bowser has appropriated the power of the star staff and holds the stars in different areas of the mushroom kingdom. The stars explain to Mario that only using the combined power of the stars can he create a path to the floating castle and fight against Bowser. Mario then goes out 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 the final fight between Mario and Bowser, whereupon Mario defeats Bowser and can free 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 element of the game, on which many puzzles and animations are based. The aim of the game is to free the 7 big stars from 7 different areas and to defeat the final boss named Bowser . To do this, the player has to explore game areas, solve puzzles, make the character stronger and fight against enemies.

During the adventure, Mario meets eight different partners who accompany him. They help Mario solve puzzles and stand by him in the battles. Each partner comes from a different people in the game and each has their own skills that only they can master.

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. This has no combat skills and therefore cannot fight opponents directly, but has to sneak past them. For this reason, the missions for these sections of the game are mainly designed for stealth and resemble stealth computer games in some respects .

Game world

The game world thematically consists 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 . The areas are clearly delimited from each other and are only connected by short distances. The game world outside the cities and villages is populated by creatures that are hostile to Mario. The player usually only gains access to further areas by completing a chapter or a task.

Struggles

As soon as Mario steps into the field of vision of an enemy, he tries to attack Mario. Upon contact with the opponent, the action changes into a kind of arena. There, Mario has to compete against opponents in turn-based battles. Outside of the fights, only one opponent from a group of opponents can be seen. Therefore, the player only sees the actual number of opponents in the battle arena. Each figure is in a specific order, depending on various factors. The player has control over the actions of Mario and his current partner. When it is his turn, the player has the option of attacking with the hammer, attacking the opponent by jumping, using items and trying to escape from combat. In the course of the game, Mario also has the opportunity to use one of the various abilities of the large stars he has already freed once per combat platoon. When it is Mario's partner's turn, the player also chooses the attack they want. The type of attack depends on the partner's specific skills.

Timing is an important element in battles. Clever timing when pressing certain keys can increase the damage that Mario or his partner inflicts on opponents. In this way, the damage caused by the opponents to Mario or his partner can also be reduced.

Role play elements

After the fights, the player receives so-called star points, which vary in number depending on the strength of the opponent and Marios. These can be invested in developing skills when they reach 100 star points each. These skills include the life points, flower points (attack points) necessary to carry out special attacks, and medal points. The latter are necessary in order to be able to create further medals. Medals give Mario special properties and abilities. Each medal requires a special number of free medal points, which means that the number of medals that can be placed is very limited.

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

The special skills of the individual partners also come into play in the battles. The choice of attacks, attack power and life points are determined by the partner's level. Each partner can be leveled up twice in 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 only allows one partner to level up, which means that further blocks have to be found for further leveling up.

control

The player can use the analog stick to move Mario left, right, back and front. He can also make Mario jump with one button. The camera always follows Mario parallel to him. Only at the edge of a section and in houses does the camera stop and wait until Mario has left the area again. In combat, two buttons and the analog stick are used to select possible actions and to timing combat operations.

technology

The movements of the figures are represented by so-called sprites . The figures are just a flat object on which the textures change. There is therefore a separate image for each position of the figures. In contrast to the characters, the background and the objects in the game consist of three-dimensional polygons .

The game is located on a 320 Mbit module. The progress of the game is saved on the game module on an EEPROM memory chip . The progress of the game can be saved in one of the four available memory locations. The optionally available Rumble Pak is supported by the game and enables vibration feedback .

Sound

The pieces of music were composed by Yuka Tsujiyoko. She also relied on pieces of music from the older Mario games, which were composed by Koji Kondo . The sound effects were created by Taishi Senda. The game does not include speech output, the characters are only underlaid with noises and interjections when they speak .

In 2000 the soundtrack for the game was released on 2 CDs with 78 pieces of music. This was produced by the Enterbrain company and distributed by the Japanese game magazine Famitsu .

Development and sales

Paper Mario was developed by the game developer Intelligent Systems . Toshitaka Muramatsu, Takahiro Ohgi and Hironobu Suzuki served as executive directors. The script was written by Kumiko Takeda and Kaori Aoki. Naohiko Aoyama was responsible for the visual implementation as art director. The supervisor was Takashi Tezuka , who works at the Nintendo development studio Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development and is also responsible for monitoring and managing Mario games.

The game was originally supposed to be called Super Mario RPG 2 - but this was not possible because the game developer Square also had rights to the name due to the unofficial predecessor Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars , which was published 4 years earlier .

Paper Mario managed to top the sales charts in the first week after its release in Japan. More than 276,000 games were sold in Japan during this period. A total of 1.38 million copies of the game were sold worldwide, 180,000 of which were in Europe.

Reviews

Reviews

Critics see the game as a combination of a classic role-playing game and the usual Mario game bouncing.

Matt Casamassina of the IGN website praised the game for its unique look and as one of the best role-playing games ever:

"Paper Mario is the best RPG for Nintendo 64, and moreover, a great entry into the genre versus any system. While the cute, simplified look of the game and its similarly colorful mascot characters may turn off those looking for a Final Fantasy killer, it'd be a huge mistake to pass this title up for that reason alone. For underneath its 2D surface, Paper Mario is a fantastically deep, intuitively designed, and wonderfully rewarding experience complete with enhanced takes on old-school turn-based fighting mechanics and a statistic system that would satisfy any RPG fanatic.

A must buy for Mario fans and RPG lovers alike. And if you've never played an RPG before, this is the perfect one to start with. "

- Matt Casamassina : IGN

“Paper Mario is the best RPG for the Nintendo 64 and is also a great introduction to the genre compared to other systems. While the game's cute, simple look and colorful mascot-like characters might put off those looking for a Final Fantasy killer, it would be a huge mistake to miss this game for that reason alone. Beneath its 2D surface, Paper Mario is fantastically deep, intuitively designed, and a wonderfully enriching experience that, when combined with an improved use of old-school turn-based combat mechanics and a skill system, would satisfy any RPG fanatic.

A must for every Mario fan and RPG lover alike. And if you've never played an RPG before, this is the perfect game to start with. "

The game website GameSpot also sees Paper Mario as a game that is based on earlier role-playing games in terms of the feel of the game. The author Ben Stahl wrote that Paper Mario would create nostalgia for fans of older role-playing games and that the game shows what Nintendo can do best, namely classic and good video games. The well-made paper effects add to the nostalgic effect. The role-play elements are, however, greatly simplified in contrast to other role-playing games, because there are only six important developable skills.

He also notes typical parallels in the story with other Mario games . So he describes the course of action with the kidnapping of Princess Peach by Bowser, as a scenario known to Mario fans. Fans are also nostalgic for the characters that have already been seen in other Mario games and that behave exactly as one would expect them to. Bowser is as evil and cunning as ever, Mario the hero, his brother Luigi usually only plays a subordinate role and Bowser's henchmen are just twisted.

The characters' dialogue would be some of the best ever in a Mario game to date. The characters are witty, and there are tons of inside jokes that would create brilliantly funny moments together.

He describes the game as very similar to its unofficial predecessor Super Mario RPG and draws parallels in the game mechanics. The separation from the 3D upper world, on which Mario can move and interact with other people and objects, and the battle arena was already a prominent feature in the predecessor.

In conclusion, he sums up that Paper Mario with the graphics, the outstanding sound and the solid game mechanics is a high quality game on all fronts. The game is a must-have for every Mario fan, and the easily accessible combat system makes it engaging for RPG fans and non-fans alike. Games of this caliber have unfortunately become rare in the meantime, making Paper Mario one of the last great 2D Mario games.

Ratings and awards

The ratings were consistently positive. The media database Metacritic calculated an average of the ratings of 93%. The media database GameRankings calculated an average of 89% based on a different calculation system.

publication	Rating
GameSpot	9.5 / 10
IGN	9/10
Eurogamer	9/10
Famitsu	33/40
GamePro (USA)	80/100

The game has been included in some leaderboards, including among the top 100 games of all time in the American magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly. In the American magazine Nintendo Power, Paper Mario made it to 13th place of the top Nintendo 64 games and 63rd place of the 200 best Nintendo games.

Web links

• Paper Mario at MobyGames (English)
• Paper Mario in MarioWiki (Fanwiki)
• [1] 19-hour long play on Youtube showing the complete game

Individual evidence

1. ^ Paper Mario Nintendo 64. In: Nintendo. Retrieved May 26, 2013 . 
2. ^ Paper Mario Virtual Console. (No longer available online.) In: Nintendo. Formerly in the original ; Retrieved May 26, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Paper Mario - Don't let Paper Mario's flat look fool you - this is easily the deepest RPG for N64. Full review. In: IGN. Retrieved May 26, 2013 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Paper Mario Review. In: IGN. Retrieved December 28, 2013 . 
5. ^ Paper Mario. In: Mobygames. Retrieved May 26, 2013 . 
6. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p} Paper Mario Review. In: GameSpot. Retrieved May 26, 2013 . 
7. ↑ ^{a b} Paper Mario, Album Info. In: Square Enix Music Online. Retrieved May 8, 2013 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b} Paper Mario, Album Statistics. In: Video Game Music Database. Retrieved May 8, 2013 . 
9. ^ Paper Mario Credits. In: Mobygames. Retrieved May 26, 2013 . 
10. ↑ Mario RPG is for the Kids - Miyamoto's RPG sequel is aimed for younger kids, appears on film in 2D. In: IGN. Retrieved May 26, 2013 . 
11. ↑ Nintendo Dominates Japanese Charts. IGN Entertainment , August 18, 2000, accessed May 9, 2013 . 
12. ^ Paper Mario. In: VGChartz. Retrieved May 26, 2013 . 
13. ↑ http://www.metacritic.com/game/nintendo-64/paper-mario
14. ^ Paper Mario N64. In: Gamerankings. Retrieved May 26, 2013 . 
15. ^ Paper Mario Review - Review - the Nintendo 64 breathes its last, with a lick of flame between the teeth. In: Eurogamer. Retrieved May 26, 2013 . 
16. ↑ Weekly Famitsu, Issue 915, June 30, 2006
17. ^ Paper Mario Critic N64. In: Metacritic. Retrieved May 26, 2013 . 
18. ↑ Nintendo Power, 2008, Issue 231 Best of the Best
19. ^ Nintendo Power Top 200, 2006, 1999 edition, Pete Michaud