Chapter 5 is, somehow, a bit of a more "traditional" chapter in a sea of creative ideas. That still has its own interesting concepts of its own. And then kinda squanders most of them.
Let's start with the setting, since that's the big one. Chapters 3 and 4 were massive differences from the norm: 8-bit land and space, respectively. Chapters 6 and 7, likewise, have some very unique choices in land, especially for the time. Even Chapter 2 is pretty original, with the mansion setpiece usually being "haunted house" and not "trick house". Chapter 5 uses a relatively routine mountain biome as its home, with the original elements being the cavemen vs flower people conflict and the incongruent technology both sides possess. Chapter 5 comes the closest to feeling like "same old Mario", which is arguably why the parts that are still SPM's weak platforming design stand out so much more.
The plot of the story is simple: The Floro Sapiens are kidnapping Cragnons, go stop them. One thing about RPGs that allows them to write more involved stories is the fact that you are not only able to return to villages after the first time you visit them, but you are often expected to. Super Paper Mario's more linear approach doesn't facilitate that- and it even shows that off with the existence of Jasperoid to give you gameplay hints for a simple block puzzle that doesn't have anything to do with anything. There is no reason to go back to the Cragnon Village after receiving your mission, so the whole "polluting the water" element of the plot doesn't go anywhere because you can't even look at it. Even if you wanted to put some polluted streams on the path, it's hard to justify seeing Cragnons outside the village during this kidnapping crisis.
Inside the caves, we are introduced, almost out of nowhere, to Flint Cragley. Much like the pollution, returning to the Cragnon village after reloading the map does give you a foreshadowing dialogue, but even knowing the man exists doesn't quite prepare you for... him. Cragley follows in the footsteps of Kolorado and Flavio, almost blatantly so, and in doing so carves his niche as being... the most competent of the trio? OK, Flavio is far more successful in his chosen career and deservedly so, but Flint clearly has some grasp of how to use the footage he gets to parlay fame among the Cragnons, even if he cluelessly bumbles his way into acquiring it (and may or may not exaggerate elements of what he finds). I think he's not a clear downgrade from Flavio, but I do prefer Flavio's cohesion as a character in a story in comparison.
The Floro Sapiens, and their King Croacus IV, are the dictionary definition of missed potential. Or, arguably, ignored potential. Ignoring them brainwashing and enslaving the Cragnons, they're kinda "in the right" here, and the fact they possess the Pure Heart suggests that the inverse story- where we spawn in the Floro Caverns and fight our way to the Cragnons- may have been an equally valid way to tell the story. A daring story may still have kept the unsavoury elements of Croacus's character, having us challenge him about how far his revenge on the Cragnons should extend. I find the idea of us having entered a conflict, chosen a side and selected wrongly interesting- and fitting SPM's overall tone of challenging the nature of the RPG Hero- but like many of its narratives, it's all concept and no execution. Admittedly, the big problem here was brainwashing the Cragnons and making the Floro Sapiens bad guys.
Ah, the brainwashing. The Floro Sprouts, likewise, seem more useful to Dimentio than they do the Floro Sapiens. Croacus has brainwashed the Cragnons into mining beautiful gemstones- overall, this does less for his goals directly and mostly just gets Cragnons out of dumping trash in the river by having them not actually being there. Dimentio, meanwhile, is experimenting with what O'Chunks can and can't do while brainwashed, and rather explicitly has more in his back pocket. We are very definitely setting up a plot point in which Dimentio pulls one out whenever it is least convenient for us, and all we really thought about it here was putting a dead one on to fool a scanner. I don't think we're meant to walk away thinking that the dead one had any psychological impact, but it was still a highly risky idea.
Mechanically, Chapter 5 is a bit of a lull. The combination of the lack of exciting setpieces and narrative means we read this as a purely gameplay chapter. Playing Super Paper Mario as pure platforming exposes a lot of the game's weaknesses, not helped by the backtracking in 5-1, if you need to check the passwords with Jasperoid, all the puzzles to find the tablets in 5-2, and then digging through to find Hornfels and Monzo in 5-3, and going through all the puzzles of 5-4. Huh, that's a lot of puzzles this time around. Considering narratively, we're not asking enough of our circumstances, I find the fact that the gameplay is asking us to explore these samey environments and learn our way around to be both ironic and ill-fitting. I feel like the gameplay should be straight-forward, with a nagging sense of there being something we're missing- lots of 3D secret opportunities that aren't capitalised on, for example. I guess that explains why our brain has been turned off when the cutscenes start.
