While not as successful as some other games on Nintendo 64 such as Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time and Super Mario 64, Paper Mario has later gained something of a cult following and it's easy to see why. The game has really anarchistic andstrange sense of humor that's really needed in games even nowadays, and one of the best leveling-, and battle systems in any RPGs I've played. Let's look at
the game piece by piece to see what makes it so great.

Graphics: 10

The idea to make Mario in paper form might seem rather silly, but it was really smart decision from Nintendo. Early polygons at N64 were rather awkward-looking, so this kind of merging between 2D and 3D makes the world seem seamless even by modern standards. Besides this works to the games advantage as there's quite a lot of visual humor based on the world composed of paper. Overall when it comes to graphics I think creative ideas work better in the long run. Even the most realistic graphics may seem dated in a couple of years, but simple visual styles like those seen in Okami, Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Paper Mario remain timeless.

Sound: 9

The sounds in the game are top notch. Most of the tunes will stick in your head, and every song matches it's environment perfectly. The sound effects are also great. When Mario hit’s or jumps on an enemy it leaves a delightful hitting effect (and if that doesn’t suit your tastes there are even badges that change them). Still the sequel Paper Mario: The thousand year door has in my opinion even better music,so I can’t in good conscience give the perfect 10 this game.

Addictiveness: 9

In my opinion this game contains one of the best leveling systems invented. You get a level after gaining 100 star points, at which point you can choose to get either Health points, Flower points or Badge points. The system is easy to grasp yet remain interesting for a long time. There’s multiple different ways to level your character, and the game never really punishes you from experimenting with different effects. The different enemies also mean that you’re never just sticking to one strategy that kills everyone like in some other games of the same genre. Simply put, this is the kind of game you want to play over and over again, just to see how many ways you can win. With that said there is a major problem within the leveling system later on. You quickly see that equipping as much badges as possibly is the way to go, but after you’ve reached 30 BP:s you can’t get any more of them. That happened to me after the 4th world and after that point I was mostly just running through the game to see the plot to the end. Thankfully that is also mostly fixed in the sequel.

Story: 9

Although I’ve praised the sound and game play of this game, it’s really the story that truly sells it. The story begins in the traditional Mario way of Villain B kidnapping Princess C, who plumber A has to rescue, but it only uses it as a starting point and from there ventures to abstract heights. Without trying to spoil the game completely it includes:
* A Giant whale used as a method of transport
* Agatha Christie-styled murder mystery.
* A world within a toy box where a spark of light assists you
* A mission where you need to bake a cake to a ridiculously overweight Shy guy.
I’d say if you haven’t chuckled at least once by the time you’ve gotten your first star this game just isn’t for you.

Depth: 8

As seems to be a staple with most RPGs there’s a ridiculous amount of things to do and find. There’s sidemissions including optional boss battles, delivering letters, making recipes, scanning enemies etc. Also there’s a huge amount of badges and star pieces to find. The biggest problem is that most of that just seems to be in vain. Although finding those things is somewhat its own reward and there’s much of aforementioned humor within the missions, the prize just isn’t very big. As I said, there’s a very limited amount of badges you can equip so even if you find something that seems rather neat it most likely just won’t be good enough to replace the ones you’ve already got equipped. When most of the rewards don’t actually help you in any way, you just don’t feel like finding them all that much. Thankfully for completionists they aren’t really complete grinding either.

Difficulty: 4
I’m usually not fond of judging the quality of the game based on its difficulty but for this once I must say it. Paper Mario is too simple. Sure the first castles might give you some trouble as multiple enemies may take ridiculous amount of health from you (especially if they get the first attack) but you’ll most likely reach something close to your peak damage after 3rd or 4th world. I actually beat the strongest enemy of the game (the champion in Toad town) after the third world without even knowing that he actually was the strongest enemy in the game (although it took me three life shrooms). The level bosses may still kill you once, but after you know how they fight you’ll likely have little trouble beating them.

Overall:

The biggest problem of the game definitely is that after first half the games difficulty curve completely halts and you’re left just running through the stages,but if you’re willing to overlook that it’s definitely a shining gem. I still think that there are way too few games where humor is dictating the story and in this case Nintendo absolutely delivers. If possible try to get your hands to the sequel as well. It fixes most of the problems in this game and contains an even better story.