Paper Mario was meant to be a game whose natural state is on the easier side of things. The paper cutouts feel like something a child could move around on their own, which of course is the point of the game. The game’s look naturally lends itself to the stage play format that Miyamoto had envisioned for SMB3. Paper Mario took PaRappa’s baton and ran with it. Although that game may have felt slight at the time, it offered a stylistic revolution that countered the ongoing push towards quote-unquote realism in games.

For players in the year 2000, the game’s faux-retro flat look might have felt reminiscent of the 1997 PlayStation game PaRappa The Rapper.

Paper Mario represents a moment when Nintendo was no longer the sole creative leader in video games. Paper Mario, which came out in 2000 for the N64, is available right now if you’ve subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. History has shown that they probably made the right decision here, especially considering that the would-be sequel that developed out of Super Mario RPG became a franchise of its own. Nintendo approached Square for more, but they had another project which needed their full attention: Final Fantasy VII. As the title indicates, this was a clear break from other Mario games, which is why Shigeru Miyamoto brought in Square (still just Square at this point), of Final Fantasy fame to develop the game.Ĭombining elements of the studios was enough of a success that Nintendo wanted more. In 1996, the final Mario game was released for the Super Nintendo: Super Mario RPG. In any creative history, the road not taken can loom large.

Old rpg games Super Mario Bros.