Paper Mario (series)

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Template:Series-infobox The Paper Mario series is a Mario sub-series that has spanned over Nintendo's latest three consoles. It began in 2001, and has continued up to the present.

Paper Mario

The series began with the aptly-named Paper Mario, a Role Playing Game for the Nintendo 64. It is named Paper Mario because of the characters' two-dimensional appearance.

The story of the game was that Bowser had kidnapped Princess Peach by lifting her castle into the sky (specifically, his castle was buried underneath the Princess's and flew into the air to lift it up). Mario could not defeat him, because the evil king used a weapon known as the Star Rod to become invincible. However, with the power of Princess Peach's wishes and great Star beings known as the Star Spirits, Mario was able to make the Star Rod ineffective, and promptly defeated Bowser.

While Mario progressed through the quest, short missions featuring Princess Peach were featured at the end of each chapter. In these missions, she is helped by a Star Kid named Twink to sneak around her castle in any way possible and find information that could help Mario. Twink would then fly down to Mario and inform him of the news.

The game also introduces partners, eight of which are available in this game. Each partner has four attacks, and they have all of the same tactics as Mario except for running away and using Items. The partners (in order) are Goombario, Kooper, Bombette, Parakarry, Bow, Watt, Sushie, and Lakilester.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Main article: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (known as Paper Mario RPG in Japan), is the second installment in the Paper Mario series; it was released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2004. Peach writes Mario a letter telling Mario of a map she found in Rougeport and asking if he can help with her. The map reveals that one must collect [[Crystal Stars] to open [[The Thousand-Year Door] After hearing that Princess Peach has gone missing, Mario must also set out on a mission to rescue her from the fiends that have kidnapped her. Grodus is the main antagonist and is commander of the X-Nauts as he sets out to collect the Stars as well as destroy any barricade in his way.

The game is very similar to its predecessor, however the battle sequences has been improved on, with advanced techniques, stage effects with an audience, and a stackable-badge system. Mario also gains new paper abilites such as turning into an airplane or a boat when the situation calls for it.

Peach cutscenes return, with Peach trying to handle her situation of where she is and interacts with the main computer of her prison, TEC-XX. Along with Peach events, Bowser also has playable intermissions, in which he is also traveling to find the Crystal Stars, including side-scrolling stages very similar to Super Mario Bros.

Super Paper Mario

Main article: Super Paper Mario

The third, and most recent installment of the Paper Mario series is Super Paper Mario, released on April 9, 2007 in USA and April 19, 2007 in Japan. The story takes place in the 2-D world of Flipside, where Mario, Peach, Bowser, and Luigi have been warped to by Count Bleck. This time, the 4 must collect the Pure Hearts to stop Bleck's plan of destroying all the worlds.

This installment, unlike it's predecessors, is an Action/Adventure genre, similar to Super Mario Bros.. However, it does retain some of Paper Mario's RPG elements, such as leveling up and using partners. The game also fuses elements of 2D and 3D gameplay together, shifting back and forth between dimensions.

Trivia

• Paper Mario for the N64 was originally intended as a sequel for Super Mario RPG. As such, many elements from the predecessor are noticeable.
• In all the Paper Mario games, Mario can transform into an 8-Bit version of himself, along with some type of Super Mario Bros. music accompanied with it.
• For the USA and Europe, the Paper Mario games gave been released every 3 years, 2001, 2004 and 2007, which may indicate that a 'fourth' Paper Mario will be released in 2010.