What Made Paper Mario Great
Paper Mario was once something special. It’s rough to think how it’s been two decades since the last good game in the series was released. What happened? The best Nintendo fans have are speculations. Some believe it was Shigeru Miyamoto’s aversion to good storytelling that led to Kensuke Tanabe’s vision and framework for the franchise. Others believe bizarre restrictions on game developers caused the change. Yet more look further back to Super Paper Mario as the turning point of the series. Personally, I believe it’s a combination of most of these speculations that led to what I consider the final nail in Paper Mario’s coffin. That nail was during the 2016 reveal trailer for Paper Mario: Color Splash in which the announcer described Paper Mario as something belonging to the “action-adventure genre.” In order to look back on what made Paper Mario great, it is helpful to also look at what changed since the 2004 release of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door that led the series to what it is today.
The Characters
Regarding those aforementioned restrictions, it was said that individualized, unique characters were “no longer possible” to have in the series. Mr. Tanabe specified that these restrictions went further so as to homogenize Toad NPCs (non-player characters). Given this, it makes sense that Sticker Star, Color Splash, and Origami King all had a proliferation of Toads to the point it’s a gimmick to find them all sort of like Koroks in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. You’d think with an abundance of characters there would be more potential for some to stand out, though as it turns out characters that have no visual distinctions and further have constrained individual characteristics don’t really make for quality characters.
Those make up the majority of common NPCs, but what about the primary characters? Looking at bosses, Sticker Star seemed to do most of what it could given the character restrictions with mildly tweaked versions of existing characters in the Mario universe from Petey Piranha to a snowman. Color Splash followed that up with the Koopalings which, while unoriginal, wasn’t too bad. Origami King did something that I personally think is ingenious. If the series can’t create new, individual characters, why not make new, individual objects!? That’s right, rather than facing actual characters Mario instead faces the likes of a hole punch and color pencil case along with other origami creations. And, of course, he couldn’t do it alone… Well, I guess he could, since the latter 3 games had no partners (the ones in Origami King don’t count). Instead of partners Mario got passive followers you could liken to Navi or Fi from the Legend of Zelda series. These included Kersti, a sticker fairy, Huey, a paint bucket, and Olivia, an origami thingamajig. So, how do all these characters differ from the original Paper Mario?
Paper Mario 64 (PM64) and The Thousand-Year Door (TTYD) had unique partners with unique personalities and unique abilities. This included a mouse that could sniff out treasure, a Koopa that could airlift Mario a short distance, and a shadow creature that could pull Mario into the shadows alongside her. Those are a handful among others, all of which who could perform unique combat abilities as well. To give an example of one partner’s character, he is recruited as a ship’s navigator after providing him with an unsent letter from his late wife who died while he was at sea and whose death had caused him to give up sailing because of his grief. While backstories such as this are incredibly unimportant to the gameplay and main story, they flesh out the world in ways nothing else ever could. As for bosses, PM64 and TTYD have unique bosses unlike the newer games. TTYD and, admittedly, Super Paper Mario (SPM) have bosses with the most fleshed out and unique backstories. And the more common NPCs are waaaay more diverse than Toads (though even between Toads the original games far outclass the newer games), from a tribe of Yoshi, to penguin villagers, to Twilighters who live in a perpetual twilight and suffer a curse of turning into pigs, to Punis who are weird insect-and-mouse-like creatures living in a giant tree, to Flavio. To sum up, PM64, TTYD, and SPM got it right with uniquely designed characters with unique personalities and unique stories while the newer games didn’t.
The World
In a way, areas in the world can be their own characters. They can have their own personalities or geographic features, weather conditions, etc. The Mario franchise could be known for its standardized model of level designs with a generic grassy area, generic sandy area, generic snowy area, and generic lava area as recurring areas. Well, Paper Mario spiced things up. Sure, you can’t really decline to draw from recurring areas—there are only so many biomes possible, after all. PM64 did have a sandy area and lava/volcano area, though they didn’t feel generic. I’m partial to TTYD given it’s the game I started with, though I’d say, objectively, an arena floating in the sky, a near-lawless city of thieves and ruffians, a town, forest, and steeple in perpetual twilight, and a crystal-like forest are some of my favorites thanks to their unique atmosphere and accompanying stories and characters. What sets both original games above the others, including above SPM, is that areas are along the lines of an open world. This doesn’t mean in the sense you can go to any area at any given time, but you have the freedom to do certain things at any given time that isn’t perfectly linear, and have worthwhile reasons to return to areas. Additionally, to borrow a phrase I heard once, the original games are crafted with the theory of world design as opposed to level design. In other words, the areas within the games evoke the sense of being in a world as opposed to a level. This might not be considered that big a deal, though, like the flavorful touches of individual, unique characters, it adds to the engagement players can have with the game. This is one element of an RPG (role-playing game) that the newer games unfortunately let slide.
The Story
It’s somewhat ironic that the franchise that was originally titled Mario Story became what it is today. That is, a franchise that seemingly balks at deep characters alongside deep storylines. PM64 didn’t necessarily deviate from the standard story of a Mario game; Princess Peach got kidnapped by Bowser, Bowser got his hands on some new thing that made it possible, and Mario had to collect several of the same kind of thing to stop Bowser. What it did do differently was follow the stories of multiple characters rather than stick to the sole perspective of Mario—it cut to Peach’s perspective with additional gameplay with her as the lead, as well as provided perspectives from Bowser and several of his underling’s point of view. It befit the qualities of an actual story. TTYD improved upon this idea with even more different perspectives including an entirely unique villain in the way of Sir Grodus. The addition of Sir Grodus and the X-Nauts made the cliche of the captured princess unique again and further developed the relationships between the existing cast of characters (i.e., Mario, Bowser, Peach) alongside the new characters.
I’d like to sing some more praises for TTYD’s story and why I think it’s superior to PM64. What’s already been said about Sir Grodus is one such improvement, but that’s just the main story. What about the stories in the individual chapters? I’d say TTYD had greater high-and-low points while PM64 had more consistent pacing but with milder such points. TTYD felt somewhat slow during certain chapters (2, 4, and 7 come to mind) while others felt wonderful (e.g., chapters 3, 5, and 6). This is partly thanks to backtracking but I’d argue more greatly thanks to the other pieces of the story being so gosh darn good. Chapter 1 had Mario infiltrate a castle and face down a dragon, chapter 2 had Mario take sides in a turf war while fending off X-Nauts, chapter 3 had Mario fight his way to be the #1 fighting champ in a floating arena while uncovering a mystery of foul play going on behind the scenes, chapter 4 had Mario undo a curse on a town, chapter 5 had Mario sail to an island and take on ghosts before siding with the ghosts to battle the X-Nauts, chapter 6 had Mario traveling in luxury while uncovering mysteries and protecting the lives of all on board a train, chapter 7 had Mario go to the moon to finally take down the X-Nauts, and chapter 8 had Mario delve behind the Thousand-Year Door. Speaking of the door, that’s also something TTYD made better about the overall story compared to PM64; it provided a mystery from the very beginning as opposed to everything else you’d expect from a Mario story. TTYD excelled at forming mysteries to weave into the stories and create more engagement. And while backtracking made things feel momentarily slow and tedious, there was no shortage of a good story.
Anyway, back to the overall point on story, Super Paper Mario also admittedly did very well with creating a good story, while its other elements (namely gameplay) paled in comparison to the original games. Sticker Star took two steps back from these stories, and I don’t think the franchise has ever really returned to a place with an entertaining story. With the restrictions on its characters and its producer saying himself that he wanted to avoid complicated stories, how could they?
The Gameplay
Thanks to deeper characters, stories, and a deeper world, side content was much greater before Paper Mario changed. Exploration was more worthwhile and actually rewarding. Things like the Trouble Center, Pit of 100 Trials, Pianta Parlor, Happy Lucky Lottery, Zess T. recipes, and really collecting any and all badges were fun. Additionally, battles were worthwhile and rewarding. The stage design was one of the gimmicks that added something without interfering with the original battle mechanics. The combat from SPM onward is one of the unfortunate areas the Paper Mario franchise dipped drastically in quality. It went from RPG to action-adventure and never was the same again. Stickers, paint, and coins seemed to have replaced the most worthwhile component of combat which was experience points in the newer games. Where once was a unique system of choosing between different “skills” (i.e., flower points, badge points, or health points) came a dreadful system of not getting to choose anything and simply being inundated by stickers, paint, cards, and coins. I blame SPM because it was the first to wreck—cough—I mean, it was the first to change the combat system to a more actiony, gimmicky playstyle. Turn-based combat did return, but without a real reason to battle (and with godawful gimmicks to make them work (and without partners to make battles more interesting)) Paper Mario failed to return to its original greatness.
The Lack of Gimmicks
It’s surprising how much an idea can get in the way of a good game and become the identity of the game. From stickers to colors and paint to most recently whatever the heck Origami King did with spinning a battle field, gimmicks became the sole focus of the game as opposed to the prior elements. The emphasis on everything being paper also wasn’t nearly as thrilling as I’m guessing the game developers seemed to think. To me, things being paper was just the way of the world. It wasn’t something that was constantly being pushed in my face with paper gags and “characters” that are literally tape, a hole punch, and pencils. Paper gags were part of the original games to be sure, though they were used sparingly. They didn’t get in the way and end up creating an experience that was pretty superficial and prevented deeper engagement. This is something no new graphics or no new coat of paint (kek), no matter how good it looks, can overcome.
Now, there’s something I haven’t exactly touched on and that’s whether the direction the Paper Mario franchise went was right or not, at least from a business perspective. It’s hard to say given the more recent games technically sold better than the originals (the exception being Color Splash). I cannot say whether that’s thanks to the franchise actually appealing to more people or there are other factors contributing to it (e.g., video game popularity rising, better marketing). It’d be depressing if lower quality games did appeal to more people, but I personally doubt it. That’s, of course, my own speculation, though. What I can say is that there is certainly interest in a traditional Paper Mario game and my reasoning for that is how Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling, which is virtually a love letter to the original Paper Mario games, succeeded despite being relatively unknown and made by an indie developer. I think Bug Fables also disproved a common claim against the original Paper Mario games in that they’re “outdated” and only appealing because of nostalgia. Bug Fables was severely limited by its controls, but in spite of that it managed to make something memorable, fun, and even re-playable. It proved that the old system still worked and additionally had ways that were innovative—after all, it incorporated three partners at once as opposed to a rotating duo. Its visuals also weren’t exactly amazing to look at, but the characters, story, and world more than made up for it. It’s foolish to even think Nintendo could go back to what made Paper Mario great after all this time. Its developers seem adamant, intransigent, and perhaps completely deaf to what fans of the original games have asked for. But, on the off-chance Paper Mario ever did see a return to form, I could hardly think of someone who’d turn their nose up at a game with good characters, a good story, and good gameplay.
