#44: Paper Mario (2001)
Last Year: 41
Looking back, the Nintendo 64 had a heck of a final year, and Paper Mario was one of the reasons why. To be honest, besides Pokemon, the RPG genre was never one that interested me at that point in time... but since Mario was part of this new adventure (no shame!), I decided to give the game a try. What I found in my first ever console RPG was a great game with a symple yet always engaging battle system. It didn't hurt that the Paper art style was refreshingly brilliant compared to the polygonal worlds we were accustomed to at the time. Many games that were released during that generation have not aged well when it comes to graphics... or even their gameplay. Paper Mario is not one of those games. It's still as fun as ever to play, and with a tried and true gameplay system, great partners (Lady Bow and Watt are awesome), and great narritive, this game is truly a classic.
