Paper Mario is a Role-Playing GameSpin-Off of Super Mario Bros. developed by Intelligent Systems (who also develop the Wars series and Fire Emblem series) following the general idea of Super Mario RPG (its working title was Super Mario RPG 2), but in a sort of Alternate Dimension where everyone is as thin and two-dimensional as paper (hence the name). It was largely considered the last hurrah for the Nintendo 64, as it was one of only ten games released for the system in 2001, a year that saw twice as many Gamecube games released despite that system not debuting until November.The game and its sequel on the Gamecube, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, are notable for breaking up the static turn-based encounters of many Eastern RPGs with Action Commands and the ability to hit enemies on the field for a First Strike. The sequel took it even further by putting battles onto a theater stage, complete with audience and backgrounds that occasionally fall down on the combatants.While all three games in the series follow different plots, there are certain shared habits. The game is broken down into a prologue and eight chapters. In the first seven chapters, Mario and his gang of "partners" rescue seven mystical stars (much like those in Super Mario RPG), which have the power to stop the bad guys. In the first two games, these stars also give Mario unique powers that require star energy that slowly regenerates in battle (both games feature ways to speed up the process; the sequel ties it to the audience). Other long-term standbys include the ability to cook items, entertaining recurring bosses and giving Peach a role of more than just a Distressed Damsel: While she is taken captive by the bad guys in the first two games, she spies on them to help Mario.Unlike the classic Eastern RPG, only two characters are present in battle at once: Mario and one of his various partners, whose abilities and options are more limited than Mario's, especially in the first game where they didn't even have health (they were simply stunned by the few attacks that could target them). The games are also rather easy on the equipment screen. Mario's weapons, his boots (for the jump attack) and hammer, are automatically upgraded at certain points in the game (also adding new abilities for the overworld) and his partners are upgraded at certain places (increasing their attack power and health and giving them an additional combat ability).That only leaves Badges, items that are equipped using Badge Points and have various effects on Mario (or his partners in the sequel, which had Partner Badges). Some of them give him new abilities, increase his offense or defense, give him an edge against certain enemies, change visuals or sound effects or even put him at a disadvantage (to make the game more challenging).While not exactly a very challenging game, it's a quirky, humourous game (with occasional Lampshade Hanging) that pays homage to Mario's roots, and is praised for the rather dynamic battle system.The series consists of:
Adult Fear: The Yoshis of Lavalava Island go into a panicked frenzy when their children get lost in the dangerous jungle.
Always Night: Shooting Star Summit and Forever Forest. You can actually see the sky fade into darkness as you approach either area, and then back to daylight as you leave.
Tubba Blubba turns out to be pathetically weak once he's no longer invincible (the chapter's actual Climax Boss was instead his own heart, which you fight right beforehand).
Even moreso is Monstar, whose attacks never do more than 1 damage!
Which it was actually intended to be. As it has a huge light show before attacking and actually repeatedly asks Mario if he's scared yet. It was probably intended to be a Breather Boss as it yields a whopping 20 Star Points.
Then there's the fight with "Bowser" before the fight with the Koopa Bros. But the purpose of that battle is to soften Mario up for the real battle that immediately follows.
Not really, anyone who takes a look at the "Bowser" you fight beforehand shouldn't be surprised at how easy it is.
Anti-Grinding: The game refuses to give you Star Points if you defeat enemies that are too weak.
The Dojo Master, as well as the other disciples of the dojo. As you progress through the game, you can keep coming back for new dojo fights, each getting progressively harder until you reach the Master at his full strength.
In Chapter 4, the Anti-Guy guards a chest with a powerful badge; you can either beat him or bribe him with his Trademark Favorite Food (it must be cooked, and although the ingredients are easy to obtain, no recipe for Lemon Candy is ever given). He has no special abilities - just high hp and extremely high attack power.
The Anti-Guy appears again in the final chapter. At one point you take a three question quiz, and getting all wrong (you'd really have to do so intentionally) results in a fight with 'three' Anti-Guys at once.
Kent C. Koopa appears somewhere in the late game, blocking an early path to another town and demanding a rather hefty payment for safe passage. You can pay him the money, beat him up, or take the quicker underground shortcut like you normally do.
Book Ends: The prologue and epilogue involve the Mario Bros. being invited to a get-together at Peach's Castle. The only difference is that you're walking around in the castle in the prologue, and around town in the epilogue.
Butt Monkey: Professor Kolorado. It's not apparent at first, but by the time Chapter 5 rolls around and he accompanies you to Lavalava Island, he's a walking slapstick comedy, getting minced by rolling spike Thwomps, falling 50 feet, and scorching himself in lava multiple times. Not to mention his wife who's usually annoyed that he's almost never at home and always doing expeditions, and eventually begins to send him letters demanding he return home immediately.
Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": Heart Points instead of Hit Points, Flower Points instead of Magic Points, and Star Points instead of Experience Points.
Cerebus Syndrome: You'll quickly notice that this game is a lot lighter than the sequels are.
Chain of Deals: The letter quest, which had you shuttling all over the Mushroom Kingdom delivering everybody's mail. Although it's worth it for a badge that dramatically boosts your evasion stat.
Cloud Cuckoo Lander: The entire penguin population of Shiver City, with the exception of Herringway, has a loose grip on reality and a really excitable nature. Mix this in with a serious penchant for gossip, and the slightest rumor can make them all go completely nuts.
Cognizant Limbs: The Lava Piranha. Notably, the fifth bosses in the two sequels follow his trend.
Convection Schmonvection: Mt. Lavalava. Reaches its logical conclusion when Misstar flies Mario and Kolorado out of it when it begins to erupt, and Kolorado's head is just grazing the surface of the lava as it shoots towards them.
Critical Status Buff: There are a number of Badges that boost Mario's attack power, defense, or evasiveness when his HP is low (5 points or less). "Danger Mario" is one Self-Imposed Challenge exploiting this by combining as many as possible and keeping Mario at 1 HP for as long as possible.
Damn You, Muscle Memory: The first Jump upgrade changes the timing of Mario's Jump action command, because it includes a Ground Pound. The second Jump upgrade changes the timing of the action command back, because it replaces the Ground Pound with a Spin Jump. This makes getting down the timing for Power Bounce tedious, to say the least.
Dangerously Genre Savvy: KammyKoopa proves to be this, investigating leads about Mario's progress throughout the game, and hindering him however she can. This comes to a head when she anticipates the possibility of Mario rescuing all seven Star Spirits, and prepares for it. The only reason Mario comes out okay is because of a Deus ex Machina.
Death of a Thousand Cuts: Lady Bow (succeeded by the Yoshi in the second game) specializes in doing a lot of damage in a flurry of attacks that do one damage each. Because of this, she can't do any damage to monsters with defense. She gets an upgraded attack later that deals two damage per hit for a grand total of ten - higher damage than any of your other partners can pull off in a turn.
Defeat Means Friendship: Lakilester. After you beat him, he asks what you're fighting for. No matter what answer you give, he digs it and decides to join you.
Department of Redundancy Department: Dry Dry Desert, Dry Dry Outpost, and Dry Dry Ruins. Apparently, one "dry" doesn't get the point across.
Detective Drama: The penguin murder mystery. Also gets paid homage to in the sequel.
In fairness, all subsequent fights are probably more about him getting even after his defeat(s).
Distressed Damsel: Subverted somewhat, some sections have you take control of Peach sneaking around in the villain's lair trying to find information for Mario.
Disc One Nuke: If you try hard enough to scavenge the world for Star Pieces, you can buy such things as the Power Plus badge early on in the game. Once you get the Super Boots, you've got Ultra Boots attack power a few chapters early. On that note, a subtler example in that you can go and get the Ultra Boots as soon as Lakilester joins you and use them against Huff N. Puff.
The Star Storm power edges pretty close to this; you get it at the beginning of the fourth (out of eight total) chapter, and it deals 7 unblockable damage to all enemies on the field (in comparison, your regular attacks will never do more than 6 damage without any power-boosting badges). It costs two units of Star Power, which makes it just a bit too costly, but it still shreds through Mooks for most of the game.
Dressing as the Enemy: Peach gets an umbrella that lets her take the form of others as a game show prize from a Koopatrol. She uses this to her advantage, although she doesn't find much out aside from Kammy apparently working on something special for Mario.
Drone Jam: The Koopa Bros. keep you from moving to Koopa Village in Chapter 1, and the penguins in Shiver City will prevent you from leaving the area after you become the prime suspect in a murder.
Early-Bird Cameo: You can fight an enemy, Bzzap!, in Chapter 3. It isn't formally introduced to you until Chapter 6.
May double as Boss in Mook Clothing, depending on your level and build. It does 6 damage in one shot, but has a paltry 3 HP of its own. How many of these do you fight exactly?
Fighting a Koopatrol and Hammer Bro. in Shy Guy's Toy Box is also possible.
Easter Egg: The first two games allow you to transform Mario into his 8-bit form, complete with the classic tune.
Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: One of the few RPGs not to emphasize the system; yes, one exists, but it's little more than the general opposition of fire and water. Instead, the game chooses to emphasize a sort of Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors approach instead. For example: Pokeys have spines all over; Spiked Goombas only have spines up top. Any direct attack on a Pokey (such as Bow's Smack in the first game or Vivian's Fire Punch in the second) will hurt the user, while only direct attacks from above (such as Parakarry's Dive or Flurrie's Body Slam) will hurt the user when attacking a Spiked Goomba. Indirect attacks always work.
And then there's that one enemy: The Spiked Parabuzzy. It has wings, so your hammer can't reach it. It's spiked, so you can't jump on it. What do you do? Well, Throwing Your Hammer Always Works...
Some of this does manage to go through though. That badge that gives you ice powers in Shy Guy's Toybox becomes very useful against the Lava Bubbles on Lavalava Island.
Fake Weakness: You can have Peach tell Bowser that Mario is vulnerable to healing potions; he'll then scatter them throughout the next game area. Also an example of Too Dumb to Live; he believes that Mario hates mushrooms after decades of rivalry.
Gets lampshaded by Kammy when she wonders if the healing items and power ups are really things Mario fears after she conjures them up.
Gameplay and Story Integration: At the end of Chapter 5, Jr. Troopa finally catches up to you... only when you leave the island. When he fights you back at the pier, Jr. Troopa's health is significantly dropped due to swimming across the ocean. Twice.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: During one side quest, you have to return a video tape for a character. After you return it, the character says something along the lines of "You're probably wondering what was on that tape... I'll tell you when you're older." This is repeated in the other two games.
Wait. . . Mario's got a mustache. Just how old should he be before he's old enough? o_O
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The Blooper, Electro Blooper, and Super Blooper, who all appear out of nowhere screaming "BLOOPER!" in huge text while you're exploring the sewers below Toad Town. Although, by the time you see the Super Blooper, the shock has all but worn off.
Glass Cannon: The Bzzap! enemy. It does damage comparable to that dealt by late-game bosses, but it has less HP than some mooks in the very first dungeon. You can encounter a group of them much earlier than you're supposed to, earning you tons of experience.
Goomba Stomp: One of Mario's main attacks, the other being his hammer. Ironically, only Goombario and Goombella, both of whom are Goombas themselves, have similar jump attacks.
Hive Mind: Huff N. Puff. When damage he splits off into several Tuff Puffs which have their own sentience. They refer to Huff himself as Master, despite being smaller parts of him. So it seems Huff is made of roughly 80 individual Tuff Puffs that you knock off and then kill as the battle goes on. As they're knocked off, they are seperated from the central mind and become independent (but still loyal) once more.
Hypocrisy Nod: During the course of the game, there's a news bulletin in Toad Town that has different news articles on the front Mario can read and underground gossip on the back. One time, the back reads, "Both people who read and write these messages must have nothing to do but gossip. Of course, I'm one of 'em."
Idle Animation: The characters fall asleep if you don't move them for too long.
Incest Subtext: Believe it. In the Japanese version, one of Quizmo's questions is What best describes the relationship between Mario and Luigi? One of the answer options is "LOVERS".
Inconsistent Dub: Watt is referred to as both a "he" and a "she," depending on where the text is. Officially, she's female.
Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Merlon and his family. A character in the second game tells you that they are from a special tribe that names their members based on their profession.
Large Ham: A good portion of the series' humor revolves around just how over the top some of the characters speak and act, especially the villains.
Leitmotif: Several bosses have distinct theme music, most notably, the Koopa Bros.
Lemony Narrator: "Who stuck that weird thing into the story?" (referring to the picture of Kammy taped into the picture of the Star Spirits in the intro)
Limit Break: Mario's "Special Moves" are powered by limit break points called "Star Power". Mario gets eight of these special moves over the course of the first two games, and each uses a different amount of Star Power.
Limited Wardrobe: Lampshaded. Twink sees Peach's dresses are all the same, and she is adamant that they are different.
Mirror Routine: Done by Duplighosts in the Crystal Palace.
Subverted in that they do it horribly at one point. When Kooper comes back with four of them, they're disguised as Kolorado, Goompa, Luigi, and Koopa Koot. Kooper gets really mad if you pick the wrong one on purpose.
Monster Town: Found all over the games populated by members of enemy races that are friendly to Mario.
Mook Bouncer: The UFO creatures in Tubba Blubba's mansion.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Nearly all of Mario's companions are heroic individuals of the various enemy types. Other friendly versions of the enemies also appear, implying that not all of them work for Bowser.
Never Say "Die": Blatantly averted in Chapter 7, which contains liberal usages of words like dead, death, kill, killer, murder, etc...
Of course, he wasn't actually dead, although they didn't find this out until the end.
It still completely averts this, especially when the detective accuses Herringway of being a serial killer who bases his novels on his own murders.
No Hero Discount: In this game and all the sequels. You're a worldwide hero needed to save the world/multiverse and you still need to pay for inns, items, and fortunetelling. At least you don't pay for inns in the first game, but considering Mario's more famous in the Mushroom Kingdom than in Rogueport or Flipside, it's not quite enough slack.
Peninsula of Power Leveling: You can get yourself into a fight with some Bzzaps! (bee-like enemies) in Chapter 3, though they're Chapter 6 enemies. Thanks to the game's usage of Anti-Grinding and the Bzzap's Glass Cannon status, you can use them to reap plenty of experience.
Perky Female Minion: Kammy may count; most moments starring her show that her personality is pretty upbeat for someone who gets verbally abused as often as she does.
Pop Quiz: Chuck Quizmo can be found in random spots and will give you a question every time you talk. Successfully answering a question gets you a Star Piece, and he has 64 different questions.
Power of Love: The Star Spirits only grant good and selfless wishes, so when Peach and the grand majority of the Mushroom Kingdom wishes for the Star Spirits to be powerful enough to defeat Bowser, the Right Makes Might-o-meter goes Up to Eleven, into full Deus ex Machina territory. Powered by love.
Powers as Programs: The Badge system works this way. Some badges contain special moves for Mario's hammer and jump, while others contain status buffs or immunities for Mario or his partners.
Punny Name: The Toads of Toad Town all have names that end in "T." This creates several punny names describing them, such as Tayce T., the chef.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: You're joined by a Mario fanboy, a wannabe archaeologist, a pink exploding tomboy, an absent-minded postman, a ghostly Ojou, a baby spark of electricity, a fussy nanny fish, and a p-whipped cloud-riding punk.
Random Effect Spell: Mysteries, which can give you a surprising number of good things. They cost only 1 coin (3 in the sequel), so they're not a bad investment.
Scenery Porn: The cartoony, paper environments in all games are just amazing to look at. Especially in Star Way, where you can look back at the path you came from and see how awesome it is.
Second Place Is For Winners: During one of the sections in which you control Peach, you take part in a game-show-like quiz. First prize is a rather helpful item you can send Mario, but the consolation prize is the Sneaky Parasol, necessary to complete the game.
Shout Out: Mihn T.'s Japanese name is Lip. Both characters are associated with flowers.
In the same vein, Herringway the penguin novelist.
Shows Damage: Happens with a few bosses, such as Huff N. Puff.
Shrinking Violet: One of the Dryites in Dry Dry Outpost is very much so this. Though well-informed, he says everything through his friend and shies away if Mario tries talking directly to him.
Sibling Yin-Yang: Tayce T. from the first game and Zess T. from the second game are sisters, and near opposites in terms of personality.
Sic 'Em: Tends to happen in the cutaway scenes between chapters.
Smooch of Victory: When you return Goombaria's Princess Peach doll, she gives Mario one of these and a Star Piece.
The fifth Star Power, Smooch, has Misstar kiss Mario on the cheek to heal him for 20 HP.
Sound of No Damage: A soft "clink", like a small object falling into a tin cup, is heard when an enemy fails to damage Mario with an attack (or vice versa). It's always accompanied by a small yellow star graphic, instead of the large white star indicating damage.
Most of the Toads have Punny Names that end in the letter "T" (Felissa T., Mihn T., etc).
Another theme throughout the entire series is having the wizards' names begin with "Merl" in homage to Merlin.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: During the You Can't Thwart Stage One/Final Boss Preview battle at the very beginning of the game, Mario is reduced to two Heart Points, and Bowser decides to finish him off with an attack worth 10 Attack Points! (It's important to note that you only have 10 HP to start with.)
Useless Useful Spell: The curses you can inflict on yourself in the first two games give random effects out on occasion, such as doubling your attack power/defense, your experience, or the money you earn from your victory. Unfortunately, said curses have a high tendency to activate when there's absolutely no need for them, such as stomping on the average Goomba, getting double Star Points when you only got one from the battle, and having your defense raised when the only enemy left is flipped on its back unable to do anything.
Video Game 3D Leap: While Super Mario RPG, of which PM is a Spiritual Sequel, was technically already in 3D to begin with (using computer-rendered sprites and backgrounds a la Donkey Kong Country), this game upgrades to fully three-dimensional geometries - well, except for the characters.
And if you talk to him in between the whacks leading up, he apparently becomes more and more incoherent and confused. So not only do you kill him, but you give him brain damage leading up to it as well.
Welcome to Corneria: Subverted with the residents of the Hub Level, who will change their dialogue after each chapter (many having mini-stories of their own) but played straight with most of the other locations, where the residents typically only have pre-chapter, sometimes mid-chapter, and post-chapter dialogue that stays the same for the rest of the game. Some get post-game dialogue, as well.
What the Hell, Hero?: After you defeat Lakilester in battle, his girlfriend, Lakilulu, will ask you politely to spare his life. If you answer "No" she will get angry, throw a Spiny at you, and ask you again.
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