Chapter 5 takes Chapter 4, removes the safety net of the Star Storm ultimatum, and throws in some status ailments and unusual enemy conditions to make sure you know how to play the game. It also feels the most like a chapter where there's no going home.
After arriving on the whale's back with Kolorado in tow, it's a brief introduction to the Yoshi Village and setting the stage for our ultimate goal before the Yoshis go on walkabout. The Yoshi Kids getting up to mischief seems largely to be an excuse to recruit Sushie, to keep up this "one partner a chapter" thing, and also to give the Yoshis an excuse to hand over the key to progressing into the volcano. A bit of a return to Chapter 1 and the Fuzzies in terms of some "we really need a peril to advance the plot", although a lot less jarring because said peril is driven from within rather than without. Of course the Yoshi Kids ran into Jade Jungle on their own, the only contrivance is when.
After saving the Yoshi Kids, we get an incredibly short trek to Raphael the Raven. He is guarded by three bare-minimum puzzles (the block-pushing one being the most fitting of such a description), a single regular fight with no dialogue, and a needlessly long climb up a tree. I'm not asking for Raphael to attack us, or to test our merits, but considering he gives us the Ultra Stone for no real reason other than "he had it", maybe put a little more weight on making it to him? Maybe you could tie the Yoshi Kids running around to the Ravens in some way, making the connection between the Yoshi Kids and Raphael more concrete. Or maybe you could bring in Kammy Koopa for a trick- to tie in to Yoshi's Island with Kamek constantly hampering Yoshi's progress, as well as giving Kammy something to do in the story- she's barely done anything active since throwing a single block at us in Goomba Village. She did also catch Peach learning about Lavalava Island from Gourmet Guy...
The volcano itself was time for Kolorado to shine, and to his credit, he is active the whole way through. Kolorado is the first in a series tradition across the trilogy of having a bumbling fool accompany the player through Chapter 5, and one of Kolorado's strengths is that he actually plays an active role in the narrative. His TTYD and SPM counterparts take a back seat and trust Mario to do all the hard work. With that said, however, both of the latter men demonstrate an inner strength of character in the aftermath of the Chapter 5 story, stepping up and performing a truly heroic deed Mario could not have performed alone. Kolorado has no such moment, remaining the same buffoonish fool with no sense of self-presevation he began the story as, and the closest thing he has to a heroic moment- stepping up and fighting Lava Piranha- is compromised by his hilarious failure to accomplish anything other than setting his own keister on fire. Kolorado is a bit of a microcosm of Paper Mario 64 as a whole when compared to his sequels- perfectly fun to be around, but nowhere near as deep.
Mechanically, Lavalava Island is a fairly unremarkable chapter. While the enemies are sturdier than the Shy Guys, they are not enough so to meaningfully change your strategy, outside Putrid Piranhas. Getting the Ultra Hammer returns your Hammer option to being higher power than your Boots, but in addition to 6 vs 4 base damage being less favourable than 4 vs 2, the sheer amount of ways to increase our Atk power we have access to means that Boots may just have the edge over Hammer anyway. If my math is correct, you only need +2 Atk over base (after enemy Defence) to make Super Boots and Ultra Hammer tie in power. At any rate, once you've found what you're comfortable with, this is the chapter to tell you if you're doing it right. More importantly, this chapter also, briefly, reintroduces choices into Partner upgrades- although with three Super Blocks waiting for us back in Toad Town, that's just for dealing with the Mt. Lavalava enemies, Lava Piranha and Jr. Troopa. They tried.
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