For a gainfully employed plumber, Mario sure has a way of job hopping.
From being a mega movie star, to being a multifaceted sports aficionado, to being an Olympian, to being a kart racer, to being a fighter, to being a toy collector, Mr. Super Mario has worn a number of radically different hats since debuting in the seminal 1981 arcade game “Donkey Kong.”
And yet, in this writer’s humble opinion, Mario has been at his best when he has abandoned the fancy trappings mentioned above and just goes for a flat — literally — look.
Paper Mario is a version of Mario that is as he sounds: He’s a flat, paper cutout version of the iconic Nintendo mascot.
The paper version of Mario has starred in a number of standalone games, and let me tell you that the first two are absolute must-plays for anyone who claims to be a fan of Mario or role-playing games.
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(The later ones are totally skippable, but more on those later.)
The original “Paper Mario” was something of a swan song for the Nintendo 64, coming out in 2000 (The N64’s successor, the GameCube, would hit the market in 2001) to wide critical acclaim.
The game was a spiritual sequel itself to the lauded 1996 Super Nintendo game “Super Mario RPG,” melding the classic Mario platforming fare with a heavy dash of RPG elements.
“Paper Mario” was a very good game and a finely crafted RPG, but was improved upon in just about every way imaginable with the 2004 GameCube hit “Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.”
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“Thousand-Year Door” and its prequel are both easy recommendations.
Their sequels? Not so much.
Super Paper Mario: This 2007 Wii title tried to tilt the Paper Mario franchise back towards its platformer roots, and the results are mixed. This one is fun, but may be lacking for RPG fans.
Paper Mario: Sticker Star: The 3DS had a number of Hall of Fame caliber games. This 2012 entry into the Paper Mario franchise is not one of them. Somehow both overly simple and annoyingly complicated at the same time, this is the beginning of the “kiddie” era of Paper Mario games.
Paper Mario: Color Splash: The Wii U is arguably one of Nintendo’s worst systems ever, but “Color Splash” was a welcome bounce back from “Sticker Star.” While still overly simple to a fault, “Color Splash” is good fun for young kids.
Paper Mario: The Origami King: The Nintendo Switch has been a veritable smashing success by virtually any metric, but that doesn’t mean all of its games are perfect. “Origami King” is, again, overly simple, but is easily the strongest of the “kiddie” Paper Mario games. It still pales in comparison to the first two.
Given that, nobody is especially clamoring for those four games to come back, but the same can’t be said about “Thousand-Year Door.”
While the original “Paper Mario” is readily available due to the ease of N64 emulation and multiple options to play it on various modern Nintendo systems, the same cannot be said about “Thousand-Year Door.”
Well for fans of that GameCube hit, they were hit with a heaping bit of good news when Nintendo announced a modern remaster of “Thousand-Year Door.”
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No longer stranded on the GameCube, the upcoming remaster of “Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door” would be a fantastic introduction to the franchise for anyone who owns a Switch.
The game will be $59.99 and will be available on the Nintendo Switch come May 23, 2024.
