Paper Mario: Beyond the Mushroom Kingdom

So, as a child, one of the first games I ever played was Super Paper Mario for the Nintendo Wii, and at the time, I loved it. Still do, in fact, I will always treasure the amazing story, and endless charm of the game. So when I heard of its predecessor, Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door, and its prestige within the Paper Mario fanbase, I made it a personal goal of mine to one day play the game for myself. And thanks to the new remake released for the Nintendo Switch, I was finally able to. And playing the game was certainly a refreshing experience, getting to experience the same charming, entertaining character writing and worldbuilding that made me fall in love with the world of Mario in the first place as a child, really reinvigorated the love I have for the Mario universe, and especially what lies beyond the Mushroom Kingdom. To start with, one of the things I love most about the Mario RPG’s is how they expand upon the world of Mario that the mainline games rarely did I felt. For example, you can see common Mario enemies like Goomba’s and Koopa’s have their own lives, helping them feel more like a species with individual agency rather than a common mook in Bowser’s army. In the RPG’s you can see them hold their own jobs, establish entire villages, and some even fear Bowser funnily enough. I also really like the various new worlds that these games would establish, such as establishing the Mario universes own version of heaven and hell in Super Paper Mario, and exactly how getting to the afterlife would work in that universe. I also really like how instead of saying that someones life is over, they refer to it as someones game is over, which is a really clever and charming way of getting around using the word “death” in a rated E game too much

Additionally, Mario is known for having a very simple story, but in both Super Paper Mario and Thousand Year Door, there are plenty of aspects that I genuinely think are really well written, especially with itc characters. For example, Admiral Bobbery is a retired sea voyager who lost his wife while he was at sea. He blames himself and swore to never sail again until Mario gives him a letter from his late wife that tells him to continue sailing in spite of her death, because she doesn’t want him to lose both of his loves. Vivian is one of the three shadows, antagonists throughout the game who, after encountering Mario who had his identity stolen, decides to help him. Even after she realizes Mario’s true identity, she still decides to help him with his mission to rescue Princess Peach, because Mario was the only one throughout the game who ever showed her kindness. It’s also a known fact that Vivian is meant to be a trans woman, and struggled with her identity in the past, and I think that adds so much to her decision to help Mario, helping someone who also is struggling with their identity (though here in a literal sense) because she can relate on some level.

The Paper Mario games also have some of my favorite villains in the franchise. Lord Krump, the Shadows, O’Chunks, Dimentio, Mimi, Francis, all having unique personalities and quirks that range from creepy to downright hilarious. The biggest stand out is Count Bleck, a broken man suffering from a Romeo and Juliet situation with his love, Timpani. After his tribe disposes of Timpani, Bleck decides to end all of existence, because to him, no world is worth living in without Timpani. A broken man decides to end all of existence as an act of multiversal suicide because the only women he truly cared about was taken away from him, is an antagonist in a Mario game. Just goes to show that while Nintendo keeps the story light in Mario games, they can absolutely write some fantastic stories if they wanted to Even the mainline cast get varied, entertaining personalities. Luigi is established as a clumsy dork who is relentlessly loyal to his brother and friends, despite (depending on who you ask) harboring some feelings of resentment over his brothers popularity. Bowser, while still very much a threat, tends to lean more into the comedic side of him. I love the relationship he has with his son, his dedication to kidnapping Peach, so much so that he’ll get actively upset if anyone else dares to kidnap her, and the fact that despite his status as a childish man baby posing as a tyrant, his minions still adore and worship him. It honestly made it a little hard for me to see Bowser from Super Paper Mario and Bowser from Mario Galaxy as the same character when I was a child The Mario franchise has played it safe for the past few years I feel, with there even being controversy with how formulaic the world in the Mario RPG’s became, the generic feeling of the sports games, etc. Thankfully the remake of Thousand Year Door, the recently released Mario Wonder, and the upcoming Mario and Luigi Brothership sparked some hope in me that the Mario world that I adored as a child could be making a resurgence