A fantastic game that will have you begging for more after the credits roll.
While it is certainly not the most challenging Mario games, the story and the graphics will forever blow me away. The graphics were innovative at the time of the game's release, and it is still something that sets Paper Mario apart from other games, especially other Mario games.
The story is distinguished, especially when compared to earlier Mario games. The main goal of those older games were, of course, to save Princess Peach. While the goal of our hero in Paper Mario is to save Princess Peach once again, there is much more to the story than that. Without going into too much detail or spoiling anything, Mario must also rescue the seven star spirits Bowser imprisoned in his quest to steal the Star Rod. This allows Mario to traverse to different areas with very different climates and characters. In saving the spirits, Mario meets up with many new allies and, one by one, they all join him in the quest to free the spirits, save the princess, and save the Mushroom Kingdom.
One of the best aspects of the game was having a partner. The partners all have varying abilities and fans of the Mario series will readily recognize all of the partners as different species from older games. Mario is joined by anything from a Goomba to a Boo, all with unique abilities that allow the player to complete his/her quest. With the partners in mind, I would be persuaded to give the gameplay a 10, but I cannot because the game is simply so easy.
While I am sure the game posed a bigger challenge when I was younger, as such the game is probably of medium difficulty to a ten year old, I found in completing that it was pretty easy. Even the final boss was not difficult, just a little bit tedious. However, the game is still long. It's probably ~24 hours playing through the story and nothing else, and the excess of side quests to be completed allow the game to be played again and again.
I cannot say enough about the characters. Roughly all of the characters are lovable, even the villains. Following my completion of the game, as I watched the credits roll, I felt a pang of sadness simply because all of the characters are endearing. The characters alone qualify this game as a ten.
The graphics, characters, and story make Paper Mario stand out in the Mario series and video games as a whole. It offers a unique experience, and it is still very playable and not at all outdated eleven years after its release date. I would highly recommend the game to anyone, especially a hardcore Mario fan.