A quarter century ago, Paper Mario was released on the N64. A quasi-sequel to Super Mario RPG , it refines the kid-friendly Nintendo take on the RPG genre, leaving behind some elements Square borrowed from Final Fantasy in favor of a uniquely "Mario-ish" implementation. Like Mario RPG, Paper Mario is very fun. As the name suggests, Paper Mario uses a cartoon style: all the characters are paper cut-outs. It's reminiscent of Yoshi's Story : the whole game is a story with paper puppets. The characters being made of paper mostly doesn't matter. There's an occasional graphical flourish, like when Mario wafts under the covers of the bed in a Toad House or curls into a tube when going down a pipe. Paper Mario uses a 2.5D world. There is usually a foreground and background, with different elevations, similar to beat-'em-up games like Double Dragon. In a few cases, there are curved paths, and the camera rotates automatically as Mario walks around. One of the bigges...