Paper Mario N64 Review: The RPG Where Timing Beats Grinding

Some role playing games open with a prophecy, three maps, and a twenty minute lecture about crystals. Paper Mario opens with a party invitation. Nintendo and Intelligent Systems put it out on the Nintendo 64 in Japan in 2000 and in North America in early 2001, and it is still one of the warmest, easiest to love RPGs on the console.

If you are wondering whether Paper Mario is worth playing today, the short answer is yes. It is also the game we hand to people who swear they do not like turn based combat. Here is the longer answer.

Flat Characters, Surprisingly Deep Game

The look is what everyone remembers. Mario and friends are paper thin cutouts walking around 3D dioramas built from cardboard towns, pop up trees and folded hills. Turn Mario around and he spins like a page catching the light. Stomp an enemy and it flutters off the screen flattened. Nothing here tries to look realistic, which is exactly why it still looks great on a modern TV while plenty of late 90s polygon people do not.

What Is Paper Mario About

Bowser gets to Star Haven before you do. He steals the Star Rod, seals the seven Star Spirits away, and uses the Rod to make himself untouchable. The opening fight is one you are meant to lose, and you do, in front of Peach, right before her entire castle is hoisted into the sky on top of his. Mario wakes up in Goomba Village with no stars, no power ups and a very long walk ahead.

From there the game runs across eight chapters, each a small self contained adventure with its own region, cast and boss, and each ending with a Star Spirit freed. You raid a Koopa fortress, dig through a desert, sneak through a haunted house for a ghost who cannot be hurt, get shrunk into a toy box, sail to a tropical island, climb into a garden above the clouds and cross a frozen mountain pass. Toad Town sits in the middle as your hub, and it changes as the story moves.

Battles Where Timing Beats Grinding

Fights happen on a stage, with curtains and an audience watching from the pit, and that is not only decoration. Every battle is turn based, but nearly every move has an action command attached. Press A as Mario lands to turn one stomp into two. Hold and release the hammer at the right moment for extra damage. Tap a button just before an enemy connects to block part of the hit. Play well and the crowd fills your Star Power, which pays for the special moves the rescued Star Spirits teach you.

Enemies wander the field in plain sight too, so no random encounter yanks you out of a nice walk. Jump on something or swing your hammer before the fight starts and you get free damage before the first turn. Added up, Paper Mario almost never feels like waiting your turn. You are doing something on every action, yours and theirs.

Your Partners Do Half the Work

Mario picks up eight partners along the way, and each has a battle move plus a field ability you need to get around:

• Goombario can tattle on anything, which is the game's running joke and its hint system in one.
• Kooper throws his shell down corridors to hit switches you cannot reach.
• Bombette blows open cracked walls.
• Parakarry carries Mario across short gaps.
• Lady Bow hides Mario from attacks and slaps enemies silly.
• Watt lights up dark rooms and ignores enemy defense.
• Sushie ferries you over water.
• Lakilester floats you over spikes and lava.

You swap partners instantly, in or out of battle, so nobody sits on a bench. Most of the better puzzles come down to which friend you brought.

Badges Let You Build Your Own Mario

Badges are the other half of the system. You find them, buy them, win them and trade for them, then spend Badge Points to equip the ones you want. Some add attacks, some cut damage, some turn your coins into power or your low health into a damage bonus. Every level up asks you to pick one upgrade: more HP, more Flower Points for special moves, or more Badge Points. Two players finishing the same chapter can be running very different Marios.

Peach Gets Her Own Chapters

Between chapters the game cuts to Peach, stuck in the floating castle with a tiny star named Twink. Instead of waiting, she sneaks out of her room, eavesdrops on Bowser's planning sessions and sends Mario what she learns. It is a small thing that does a lot. The person you are rescuing spends the whole game helping you rescue her.

Sound and Pacing

Yuka Tsujiyoko's soundtrack is bouncy, melodic and stuck in your head by Chapter 2. The writing has a light touch all the way through, funny without winking too hard, and side characters get real personalities out of three lines each. Chapters run a couple of hours, and the game never asks you to farm anything before the next door opens.

Is Paper Mario Worth Playing Today

Yes, with one honest note. This is not a hard RPG. If you want punishing fights and spreadsheet builds, look elsewhere, and the early chapters are gentle enough that veterans may need an hour to settle in. What it offers instead is charm, variety and a combat system you play with your hands. A first run lands around 20 to 25 hours, and finishing it feels like closing a good children's book you suspect was written for adults.

SillyJoystick Score: 9.2 out of 10. Points off only for how softly it treats you, which is a strange thing to complain about.

Press Start on Paper Mario

Ready to fold yourself into the Mushroom Kingdom? We carry Paper Mario for N64, region can vary between NTSC and PAL, and every cartridge is tested before it ships. Blowing on the cartridge optional.