As an update to my previous post - upon checking back on my R and L trigger problems, it appears that the two buttons are switched and anything registered as the L trigger is actually the R trigger (similarly, the button registered as R is L). I had this problem playing the 1964 emulator on Mario Party 3, but checking with the 1964 emulator for Majora's Mask (which is already listed as having the graphics broken, I used sound alone to see which button was raising the shield) - same issue. Yoshi's Story on 1964 emulator? Also the same deal. So that issue is actually with the emulator and not the Nintendo 64 games.

Overall: 9.7/10 
(sections are unevenly weighted in my overall rating)
Officially the first of the Paper Mario series, this game starts the series out strong. Nintendo's Paper Mario is an enjoyable game, whether you are new to the game or returning for the sake of nostalgia. The game is well put-together, funny, interesting, and very accessible to all skill levels. It is very different from the typical platform Mario game, instead fitting into the category of RPG, but Nintendo does a great job of making this transition.

Story: 9/10
Nintendo does a great job of utilizing humor in this game. Puns, stereotypes, and even Nintendo's lack of originality are capitalized upon in order to boost the player's enjoyment of the game. As with all Mario games, the princess is kidnapped at the start (this isn't even a spoiler at this point, especially since it is the start of the game). However, in this game Princess Peach is able to assist Mario in between chapters - allowing you to play as Peach sometimes. As Mario, you progress through multiple locations with different specialty items, societal struggles, and indigenous cultures. There is even a noticeable difference in market pricing based on the probable availability of goods in specific towns (fire flowers are cheaper in the desert, snow related items are more expensive). This allows you to do a little bit of "working the market", but is not the fastest way to earn money. The story is long, involving, and has many characters with their own personalities - all of them humorous. I enjoyed the story line of this game immensely, but it is certainly not a serious and original story.

Depth: 10/10
This game offers a challenging but thoroughly enjoyable main storyline, as well as many optional tasks. There is a dojo to beat, cooking recipes to learn, badges and star pieces to collect, and other mini quests to complete. These side activities take up a decent amount of your play time, but they are well-dispersed through each chapter of the story line (there are very few missable items/events, and most of these "missables" are things you will intuitively notice while playing the game).

Graphics: 9/10
The graphics in Paper Mario are very good for their time. Because almost everything is 2-D (hence the name Paper Mario), you don't have to worry about camera angles. Characters are given facial expressions which fit well with their emotions, and the overall quality of the game is very high. (At the time of this review there are a few unfixed graphical errors that are common, but these issues do not reflect the quality of the game itself. Still, to not include the possibility of graphics issues, mainly blacked out character during scenes or a flashing battle menu, seems dishonest.)

Sound: 8/10
There are a lot of catchy tunes in Paper Mario. Most tunes are short and looped, but the sound quality is good and each sound effect and musical background fits well with the story. In summary, the music is a great supplement for the story but on it's own does not stand out as amazing.

Addictiveness: 10/10
I can't get enough of this game! I have the N64 version, but it's also fun to play on Vizzed! The first chapter is a little bit boring to start over (it's a good idea to make a copy of your save file about 1 chapter in so you can skip some of the intro), but after that it's a trip down memory lane with all sorts of fun things to remember. Once you've found this game, it will stick with you forever.

Difficulty: 5/10
There are some button timing challenges and the story requires a bit of puzzle solving, but overall the game is not too difficult. If you choose to challenge yourself by, say, putting all of your level up points into only on category (badge points, health, flower points) you can likely bring the difficulty level up significantly. If you're looking for a game that's accessible to just about any skill level, Paper Mario fits the bill. It is just challenging enough to stay interesting and fun, but is not so difficult that you're left screaming at the game and pulling your hair out.

Well, it really depends on what kind of games you like.

If you grew up with Pokémon, you probably grew up with game boy/N64 games. So while SEGA or SNES games may or may not be familiar, once you start moving back to older games you may be unimpressed with the graphics. Then again, you can always look up the older games just to remind yourself how much we've improved our capabilities (though not always our stories - some of those old games have incredible story lines despite their limited resources).

I really enjoyed finding the English translations of many of the Fire Emblem games for game boy advance. The translations certainly aren't perfect, but you get enough of the story to be able to play through with a general understanding. Mario has a lot of games up on vizzed, some of them may have a few graphics glitches though (it seems to be an N64 game issue, I think Vizzed started out focused on games with less graphics). If you don't mind occasional missing faces or having a difficult time reading your menu from time to time, then search away through the N64 games! You're bound to find one you love. Zelda is also a great suggestion, and harvest moon even has some games up (if you like that sort of game). Another thing that's fun to do is to select a platform in the retro game room and just scroll down through games - with most popular coming first. Almost all of the popular games are up there because they're genuinely good. You'll see titles you haven't thought in forever about but you remember wanting to play when you were younger - now's your chance to play them!

Hopefully you find games you like enough to expand out from Pokémon, but even if you don't it's really nice to have vizzed here as a resource for playing old games. It brings back memories.

I've been looking through this thread, and I see that it has already been mentioned, but Paper Mario 64 has some graphical issues on both emulators. On Mupen the battle attack menu flashes in and out, and some scenes have shadow characters instead of the colored characters.

The 1964 emulator worked far better, but I couldn't get a save file to stay! Also, the graphics were still a little bit off - such as more blacked out characters and the chapter change screen looking very off and blurred together.


I played Mario Party 3 with my sister yesterday, and during mini games the characters tended to end up with patches of off colors (this was on the emulator where you can set your control settings). Otherwise it was still fully enjoyable - until it crashed. Probably the fault lies with my computer, and I forgot to try saving state. I also couldn't make the r-trigger correctly set to a button so that I could use it, but I think that's also user error.


A while back Bomberman 64 was having a lot of issues, but I will admit that I have not checked on it in a long time and the last time I played it I believe it was working alright. So unless that is a commonly listed game with errors, it's likely still playable and enjoyable.

Davideo7 : It seems like a valid idea. If the thread cannot be posted on, it is likely not what people wish to see on the first page of threads. And yet any closed threads with useful information will be harder to find. Perhaps an option to create thread bookmarks within vizzed would be helpful? Forgive me if this already exists and I am simply out of the loop, that may well be the case.

-edit- it looks like I am well behind the times here, need to remember to check the last page of the thread first. Anyway, I checked around and it looks like the board is pretty easy to navigate - I don't have any trouble with closed threads filling up the list of threads. Am I correct in assuming closed threads have an "off" label? If so I'm a little surprised that they are all on different pages, but it looks like a chronological deal. I like it.

Agreed. And it appears that 1964 can't save files. . . so I guess not playing at all is the best option for now.

Playing Paper Mario 64, I have found that the Mupen64 emulator flashes the battle menu in and out and sometimes blacks out characters.

1964 does not flash, but blacks out more characters and the chapter transition is practically illegible.

That being said, I currently believe 1964 to be the better emulator of the two, as it is less likely to induce headaches. I'm happy to see this game on Vizzed, it is a favorite N64 game of mine.

Following the common theme, I was here for the retro games. I really wanted to play fire emblem, but buying the now retro fire emblem was not going to be an easy feat. I have since had a lot of fun finding other games that can be played, and the forum is certainly agreeable.

totaldramaman2 : Firefox. but that's really interesting to hear. Other N64 games have worked on Firefox, so I'm hesitant to think that is my problem, but I'll certainly check with another browser tomorrow. Tonight I need to sleep.


-edit- It turns out I was being impatient. I had given the game about a minute to load most times and, when I had all the text but no images, decided it was done loading and wouldn't work. I let it sit for much longer today on accident and it was working just fine, haha.

totaldramaman2 : Thanks for wishing me good luck. From what I can see the bomberman game does not work correctly on either emulator (on my computer at least). The intro will run, but if I try to select either adventure or battle I get a black screen with a strip of color at the edge. So further experimentation will probably have to wait until something changes a little.

Unrelated as it may be, I think your Twilight Sparkle background is pretty rocking.

I can see that 1964 is the older emulator, and my assumption would be that if the site adopted a newer emulator it is probably better. However, I am curious if the abilities of the emulators vary from game to game, as well as which emulator everyone has found to work best for bomberman64.

Thanks for your input, I plan on testing the two emulators for a bit and letting people know what I find!




Things found so far:
-on my computer, I need to wait for the game to load
-on the newer emulator, Mupen 64, you cannot set your own keys. The keys that have been preset for the emulator are what you are stuck with. If this is a problem for anyone, they may want to use 1964 instead.