Paper Mario

Paper Mario (also known as Mario Story in Japan) is a role-playing video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 home video game console. Paper Mario is the first game in the Paper Mario series. First released in Japan in 2000 and then internationally in 2001, Paper Mario was later re-released for Nintendo's Wii Virtual Console in July 2007 and Wii U Virtual Console in 2015. Paper Mario is set in the Mushroom Kingdom as the protagonist Mario tries to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser, who has imprisoned the seven "Star Spirits", lifted her castle into the sky and has defeated Mario after stealing the Star Rod from Star Haven and making himself invincible. To save the Mushroom Kingdom, rescue Peach, get the castle back, and defeat Bowser, Mario must locate the Star Spirits, who can negate the effects of the stolen Star Rod, by defeating Bowser's minions guarding the star spirits. The player controls Mario and a number of partners to solve puzzles in the game's overworld and defeat enemies in a turn-based battle system. The battles are unique in that the player can influence the effectiveness of attacks by performing required controller inputs known as "action commands". Although Nintendo planned to have Square, now Square Enix, develop Paper Mario, the company was occupied with developing Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation; Intelligent Systems developed the game instead. The game received acclaim, being praised for its concept, battle system, and graphics, and was rated the 63rd best game made on a Nintendo system in Nintendo Power's "Top 200 Games" list in 2006. It was followed by a series of sequels, starting with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for the GameCube in 2004.