Paper Mario 64 stands as the product of two competing sets of expectations. In its time, it was the follow-up to Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Square Enix's interpretation of the Mario world. Now, it is the progenitor of Thousand Year Door and Super Paper Mario, and in turn the modern Paper Mario games following.
Let's start with the basics- the plot. Of the four grand RPG stories named above, Paper Mario is the only one to be a classic "Bowser kidnapped the princess" plot with an RPG twist. The stakes of the story are higher than usual, and the game's attempts to communicate such almost feel at odds with the familiarity of the story and the goofiness of its villain. Bowser's strengths as a villain are in his hamminess, his courage in the face of the adversity of losing all the time, and the fact that he'd actually be a pretty reasonable king if he didn't keep trying to kidnap Peach. An epic story where Bowser is the one responsible for large-scale destruction and misery does not match his skills, and this is something all the other Mario RPGs, from SMRPG to Paper Mario to Mario & Luigi, recognise- including the ones that use Bowser as the ultimate villain. Paper Mario's weaknesses buckle most strongly when it is trying to ignore this and present Bowser as a monster equal in ferocity to Smithy and the villains we'll meet in TTYD and SPM.
As for the world, this is the Mushroom Kingdom in a way that almost feels unique to this game. There's a mixture of Mario's casual playfulness and the intrigue found in TTYD. Each Chapter, except 4, has its own functional community, with some interconnections for fun, and while they don't always have their own Town Story, they are directly impacted by the events of their Chapters and have opinions to share nonetheless. Mario platformers almost never have towns (in fact, I think the only example of such is Isle Delfino in Mario's next outing), and NPCs almost always give direct gameplay clues rather than world development- that is, bold assuming the worlds are anything more than vehicles for gameplay. This serves Mario well, but it does mean RPGs have to do a lot more heavy lifting to create the environments its needs to do its job. But hey, normal RPGs have to build worlds from scratch all the time, why would Mario's worlds being so underbaked be an obstacle?
Mechanically, Paper Mario took Timed Hits from Super Mario RPG and defined the game around them. In SMRPG? They were brief button prompts that often had nothing to do with the attack being performed. Paper Mario made it so that not only was it clear why Action Commands are working, but made you think about how to win a fight by considering what your attacks do. Spiky? Don't jump on it. Flying? You're not getting your hammer up there. Shelled? Flip him like a pancake. Stuck on the ceiling? Earthquake. You have a limited selection of options, and you can always tell how effective your options are simply by thinking through the logical consequences of trying them. This is Mario's platforming design at its most effective, and it is matched by the low numbers of damage meaning that a player can be reasonably expected to know exactly how much damage they need to do, how much they have done, and what attacks they need to perform to do that damage. This game is made by the guys that made Fire Emblem, and both games use the same philosophy for opposite ends. Sadly, this element of the combat system is arguably the thing the modern games fail at. While Sticker Star and Colour Splash look like the combat system of old, that intuitive attack system and reliable damage feedback is missing, leaving the game as a conventional RPG masquerading as a simplified one. Origami King takes things a step further, turning battles into puzzles in and of itself and minimising the importance of math while maintaining the importance of gear. Then again, I suppose Fire Emblem has been going wild with skills, unpredictable damage, and number inflation, hasn't it...?
Ultimately, I think Paper Mario 64 is my favourite game in the classic trilogy to play, and while its story is simple and sloppy in some places, it is also the game with the most pleasant way to skip dialogue: Just hold B. This feels the most like a game that is fun to replay, refine and explore the depth available- and the game's robust randomiser brings that element to the forefront. Paper Mario 64 will always be held in the same breath as TTYD and SPM by those seeking the return of the latter, but it is clear that although it gestures at concepts that TTYD would seize upon and refine to their true potential narratively, the parts it values more highly are different. It is not a grandiose epic like TTYD, but a fun comfort game that combines the length and world structure of TTYD with the depth-with-simplicity and general Mario whimsy of the platformers. This is a game that wants to be more than it is, but is amazing where it started.
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