For a few years now, I’ve been wanting to replay the ‘Classic Era’, i.e. entries chiefly directed by Ryota Kawade, of Paper Mario’s two decades worth of span, gauging and regarding my thoughts about them potentially having changed over time. I never really got the drive to do so for a few reasons, mainly cause I’m stubborn and figured I’d have to replay its spiritual predecessor, Super Mario RPG, first despite thinking tepidly about it, but after a certain Let’s Player was about to wrap up their newly made playthrough of the game, I got bit by the crafty bug and decided now was a good as time as any to jump straight into it. Also, just to be clear here, I’m not gonna be That Guy about the newer games when going over the trilogy. I’m just as annoyed about the discourse surrounding those, and the franchise as a whole, as much as you potentially are.

Now, the development process is rather interesting, and something I’ve only seen gain traction during the last few years. I believe everyone knows about how this is an aforementioned spiritual successor of SMRPG, so I won’t gab too much about it, but there’s still curios available regarding the process before and during the game’s creation. Kawade first signed up to Intelligent Systems around 1994, trying to sign up as a planner but got wrapped up under the designer role due to it containing more openings. This meant that the initial works he’s done for Nintendo were uh, Galactic Pinball for the Virtual Boy, and the SNES version of Wario’s Woods. Around the time production for PM64 began, he joined up with technical supporter Hiroyasu Sasano and of course Shigeru Miyamoto, working alongside notable figures within Nintendo and IntSys’ alumni such as art director Naohiko Aoyama, other directors like Toshitaka Muramatsu and Hironobu Suzuki, veteran programmer Kenji Nakajima, even a couple of Fire Emblem cross-connects of varying intensity such as Kaori Aoki reigning in as one of two writers (though strangely, I got zilch on the other half, Kumiko Takeda, all credits on this person tie back to this game only), Kenichi Nishimaki and Yuka Tsujiyoko to work on sound and music respectively, and finally Mitsuru Matsumoto to also contribute to programming. This was when its shape was truly beginning to form during the 4-year period, by both positing the spent time on creating the battle system in a way that’ll satisfy both the younguns and the older crowd, and arranging the map and puzzle elements within the world to put together a conveyance of this 2D-on-3D approach via pastel colors and paper-style aesthetics closely tied to Aoyama’s concept design. Digging into the factoids of the creation gave me a greater sense of appreciation of the acclaimed charm and wit this game, and the following two titles, are known for.

Often the second thing you hear about the game, it’s captivating seeing how much attention and care was placed onto the world of the Mushroom Kingdom given the frame this was released in. SMRPG might’ve been one of the first pioneers of deepening the well of what’s possible with the Red-Clothed Plumber and Co.’s nature, but within the Mid N64-GameCube period of Nintendo’s history, the company fully began to branch away from the preclusive normalcy, and slackened to a degree that allowed experimentation with its emblematic hallmarks. The usual Toads have a fair bit more going on with their lives, commonly depicted foes such as Koopas, Goombas, etc etc. can be composed as simple denizens of the world, and there’s still many new faces and races to converse with, either reworked from what was available before or brand new types altogether. The map structure, trying its best to strictly fit the mold of a storybook novel, pines the locales you’re appointed to reach traveled to and fro via foot, transportation methods such as a train or a tuna whale, or even within the confines Toad Town itself thanks to a vacant house, a magical flower garden you helped to nurture, and a starry-studded airspace per the completion of the Star Spirit rescues. About the only time you aren’t trekking or hopping over to an established spot over to a new locale is with the cold regions over at the northern end, but considering most of the area is compacted on Shiver City with only selected members able to visit Starborn Valley, it makes sense. Compounding this with Toad Town Sewers opening up or the populace tending to have new routines and idle banter to share as you continue further into the game, and the holistic ethos heightens the, if you permit the Gamer Speak, “feeling of a genuine, lived-in world”. Each time I play or watch this I find something new to warmly dote over, such as the bits of backstory and regular continuation of NPC arcs, the obvious references to various aspects of the Mario world, or even just the little things such as the way text is displayed and presented giving each set of species and individuals their own way of “speaking”, a concept that’s shockingly bare nowadays.

Helping with that is just how damn funny the core package is, having many gags like with the Buzzard encounter in Chapter 2, the backside of Toad Town’s bulletin board, practically everything to do with Jr. Troopa and the Peach segments which I’ll get into later, various idle chatter you can trigger, I’m pretty glad this is still a game to garner some guffaws and chuckles out of me. I'm also kind of shocked I wasn't too into the OST the last time, I wouldn't say it's quite up there with some of my favorites in the other series but previously mentioned Yuka Tsujiyoko did a great job at setting the mood, thrill, bouncy mysticism, and peaceful reflection. Like before, and just as pompous to say, it ties into this feeling of interpersonal connection, especially with how certain beats pan out that stand out even amongst the multitude of other Mario RPGs that have released after this one. This just has me wondering why the heck I've been so dismissive over this for years, it couldn't have been because the aforementioned fandom dilemma cause I try my best to steer clear from that BS nowadays in any form. Maybe it was just from being a dumb teen...

As for the headliner, the battle system gets a hearty mention. Pushing aside the malarkey of this “being one of the few good turn-based RPGs”, there’s a surprising amount of depth and complexity for what’s supposed to be a straightforward frame. With Mario as the main character and therefore the DPSer, partners in this game serve personal roles and jobs to help out, whether that’s as a technician (Sushi and Bow), raw damage (Bombette and Parakarry), straightliners (Goombario and Kooper), or support w/ a pierce damage analog (Watt). While not every partner’s upgrades are wholly worthwhile (or in Lakilester’s case, are severely undercut from prior alternatives), the compartmentalization over these attributes nudge you into trying different strategies and tactful mindsets for a majority of the runtime. Helping with this are several status ailments that can be applied through various means, including the game's Special equivalent Star Power, whereby using up a certain amount of gauges nets you a move that can quickly turn the battle to your favor. Inflicting ones such as Dizzy or Sleep can tighten the HP and Flower Point use:reserve ratio during each bout, which makes this a nice bridge for newcomers to learn the ropes of battle management for other RPGs such as the SMT and DraQue franchise. The prime star of the mechanics, though, is the badge system, which to aptly sum up is closely related to FF7’s Materia system. By nabbing the necessary Badge Points from a level up, and continuing on with the game’s flow, you have a plethora of options to set up a playstyle. Trying out most of the known builds - Evasion, Damage, Danger, Defense, Flower-Oriented, HP-Oriented to name a few - led to a lot of fun moments and personal accomplishments because of it, some of which surprised me since I tended to stick with a rigid style before doing this. Sure, not all the badges are good, but there’s enough on the platter to at least satisfy the curiosity, especially since a hard cap of 30BP means you’re gonna have to think hard about which ones will be more important for the given circumstances.My level format majorly went to BP, sometimes FP which maxes out at 50, and only HP which also maxes out at 50 when absolutely needed, allowing to max out on the first two but barely be underneath the latter’s, but there’s some wiggle room to try and focus on a particular stat for a good while if you want to be daring.

Dissecting the overworld layouts, they’re structured as open environments that tend to feed into each other in one way or another, which frankly is rather esoteric to me due to growing up with the sequels’ linear, more rectangular design, which I can surmise is also why this game doesn’t typically get criticized for its backtracking nature. For instance, Chapter 5, being set within the Yoshi-populated Lavalava Island, spends its first act on trying to reach the volcanic mountain, only to find there’s no feasible way to climb up to it. This then funnels into the second act, where you must find and rescue five Yoshi kids, with the help of a Cheep Cheep named Sushi, off to the side of the village’s path, guided in a way where their location is not only visible with implications, but also allowing you to uncover shortcuts to mitigate the backtracking to either the whale or the village. The final act goes all-in on the linear dungeon aspect, having all of its necessary requirements laid within each room you happen upon after each line down, only ever going back here and there for the optional goodies. It’s this sort of design principle that keeps both the world’s whimsy feel in check, along with not becoming too taxing that it harms the player’s enjoyment. To be clear, though, the backtracking can be egregiously tedious, and while it's usually tied to side activities - and even then, the main offenders are chunks of the hidden Star Piece panels first batch or so of Koopa Koots’ requests, and perhaps Tayce T recipes if you’re meticulous about 100%ing the game - it's rather inductive that times the main story lean heavily into this that it largely suffers. Toy Box in Chapter 4, even with skipping animations, battles, and mashing through dialog, has you going in-and-out its garishly kiddy playground, following up on a line of objectives that can help uncover the next path, being an outlier with its near-hallway design, a maximum amount of four times, only cut down to three due to prescience from either a previous playthrough or looking it up for one sequence. The excess of planning and requirements suddenly thrusted upon the player is much akin to walking around at a theme park and partaking in the fantastical, fantasy dreamscapes, only to then be snatched off to the side to look after bratty tykes after causing mischief with the common folk. If you want my truncated thoughts on the chapter rankings, it’s 3 > 7 > 8 > 5 > 1 > 2 > 6 > 4, with only the latter two being ones I don’t have much positive thoughts on aside from two exceptions.

Ironically, another issue I have stems from overbalancing to the other extreme of being too simple. Perhaps this is due to potential spoilering by later Mario RPGs released in the early 2000s, but it doesn’t sit quite right that the personality depth most of the partners have here are about as expanded as Mallow’s from before, which is to say, slightly moderate. It’s not that they’re bad per se, but the routine of introduction, exploration, then hastened partner-up doesn’t bode well when you consider the numerous alternatives of 25+ hour RPGs you can find on the PS1 from the same generation. While everyone is able to apply some scant comments here and there to help establish their roles, the only ones to wholly escape this predicament are Goombario thanks to his Tattle ability fleshing out his casual yet inquisitive diction, Bow due to having the greater focal point in the events of Chapter 3, and perhaps Parakarry since when’s another RPG gonna let me use a Mailman. Super Paper Mario has a contrasting yet fundamentally similar issue, but that’s in due time, the bottom line here is that I like the cast, yet not adore them. It also sucks this is one of those RPGs that suffers from a “slow start” of sorts, specifically in that the game’s too rigid in its early wheelhouse to really let you experiment with what it has to offer. Hyperbolizing the point it “gets good” doesn’t work since it doesn’t actually last that long, but I’d wager that putting the emphasis on build maintenance over at the end of Chapter 1 instead of the end of Chapter 2 would go a long way to make the early replays more tolerable to digest. Also not really a fan of how some chapters tend to have a fair bit of padding here and there and/or battles typically get slotted into a rote checklist as it goes on, resulting in me mashing through just to get a move on, but to be fair the amount of RPGs I feel escape this sort of rut can be counted on like one hand.

All that said, I definitely feel like Paper Mario 64’s one of those games that’s more than the sum of its parts. Granted, individually each gear range from good-great, but coming together makes it one of the most tightly made RPGs under the Nintendo banner, and is one of a handful of games I feel many people can be able to get something out of even if they’re not fans of the genre. I mean, I’m sure the numerous mods such as Black Pit, Dark Star, and even one that, from what I’ve seen, is an analog of Cooking Mama and Overcooked, an ongoing decompilation nearing completion, and some challenge runs including additional modifiers that are available thanks to Patcher64+, speak for itself: it’s a beloved cult classic. Only thing I’m bummed about is its ease of access, cause having to rely on Nintendo’s exacerbating emulators in a market where the N64’s overall state is slowly but surely getting better - for this replay, I used Ares due to it having access to CRT shader options, but for someone with a lighter set of PC specs I suggest using RMG or perhaps simple64 instead - is rather saddening to witness. I’m not asking for a full-on remake mind you, but an actual port or the NSO N64 stuff being legitimately good would be much appreciated.

Hopefully my bias for the sequel didn’t show too much, cause I do want to stress that not only does this stand strong on its own, there are legitimately aspects of it that I do find better here than in its successor… but that’s to be unraveled in the next storybook.