If you own a Gamecube and are a fan of RPGs, you need Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door!
I had a ton of fun with Paper Mario. This is one of the funniest game I've played as well. My only complaints are no voice overs and the train level. The train level went on for way to long and you had to keep talking to the same people for hours. Other than that, almost a perfect RPG to play if you're sick of Final Fantasy clones or generic American RPGs.
----------Battle System----------
Mario is the only character in the game that can get experience and level up. The other characters in your team gain levels by giving a wizard in the first town some Shine Stars. The higher Mario's level is, the harder it is to get experience in the game. For example, if Mario is at level 5 and he gets 10 experience from a goomba, but if he’s at level 10 he'll just get 5 experience. You gain a level after each 100 experience points. After you gain a level you get to choose which stat you want to level up, Hit Points, Flower Points or Badge Points.
There will only be two characters in your team at a time (Mario at all times) during battles. You can switch out your other character during battle and out of battle without the help of a save point or anything similar, though you do lose a turn within battle. A battle will move in rounds, Mario will mostly get the first strike, then your partner, then the enemies. After a round is over you get a card. If you match 3 of the same cards in a row, you'll get a bonus, some are bad though.
The battles aren't random, you do see your enemy before battles always. You can strike first if you jump on their heads before a battle begins, or they can strike first if they hit you from behind. Some enemies have spikes on their heads so you have to hit them with a hammer. This gives the game a classic Super Mario sidescroller feel.
Every time you get a new star, Mario will get a new super move. Each of these super moves consume large amounts of Star Points. The way you revive these Star Points is by getting a great reaction by the audience in attendance to see your battles. The farther you get into a game, the bigger then audience gets as well. If you pull off a good combo move, the bigger the reaction and the more Star Points gained.
Mario's other abilities show up once you equip a badge. There are many badges in the game, and they are also a collectable sidequest too. When you equip a badge, it takes away from your Badge Points. The BP points tell you how many badges you can equip, the more you level up the more badge points you can possibly get. Each ability you use during a battle will consume FP. Some badges might be status upgrades and won't consume FP.
All of the characters have a special move you can use outside of battle, you'll need them to complete certain puzzles and obstacles, or to gain info on towns. In dungeons Mario can get cursed into transforming into a paper model. These models will help Mario get through an obstacle to a new location. He can turn into a boat, plane, or a roll of paper to crawl under a log or something.
----------Characters / Story----------
The characters are great, but once they get their main story over with, there's not as important as they should be within the storylines. Most of the characters pretty much resemble a character from the Mario universe, you have a koopa, a goomba, and a ba-bomb. There's only a few newish characters, like an aging actor / ghost, a witch ghost and a mouse, but she could of been inspired by Super Mario Bros. 2. There's some new enemies to deal with as well, like the X-Nauts, dragons, and a few smaller sub-enemies.
I liked the story a lot, but it followed a pattern that got tiring after a bit. You go to a town, figure out what the problem is, go through a dungeon, fight the boss, get a star, then find your new location and repeat until its over. Despite being a little repetitive in presentation, the story flowed pretty well, and I always got excited to see what the next town was.
----------Graphics----------
The graphics were amazing. Every town and dungeon looked different and had their own puzzles to solve. There was no repeating characters, other than enemies, henchmen and hordes of Mushroom people. The colors were very bright and vibrant and rarely pixilated at all. The only time I noticed the game getting pixilated was when they zoomed in or showed giant text, it wasn't distracting at all either.
----------Sound----------
There's NO voice overs at all. The sounds effects are good though, but there isn't any battle cries, or hardly any grunts made by the characters. The lack of voices is the biggest and only disappointment in the game. The music is great though, classic Super Mario stuff here.
----------World Map----------
The world map is large and varied with the locations, no towns or dungeons look alike in any way. Every time you get a star, you unlock a new part of the game to visit.
The way you move around the map is by walking there and taking warp pipes. Sometimes you need a special transportation to get a town, like a blimp, train or boat. There's no final transportation in the game. Walking can get a bit tiring if you're walking to another part of the map, but eventually you can unlock warp pipes that will take you to any town in the game.
----------Time to Complete Game (first run through, save after final boss)----------
39:55
After beating the final boss and get the ending, you can keep playing your current game and finish up any of the (many) sidequests in the game. There is a lot of sidequests I haven't finished yet including the Pit of 100 Trails, tattles, recipes, badges and The Trouble Center. So my time is just the main quest, so that concludes that this is a meaty freaking game!