The history of the Paper Mario series of games is an interesting one, dating back a good twenty years ago.  Released as sort of last hurrah for the Nintendo 64, the game follows the classic Mario story mold as our heroic plumber goes to rescue Princess Peach from the clutches of his nemesis Bowser.  The game however put a spin on this and made the game an RPG rather than the more traditional 2D side-scrolling platformer while the story was told in chapters like a book (one example of how the “Paper” element was used).  Mario was traveling all over the Mushroom Kingdom, fighting alongside a bevy of diverse partners who not only assist Mario in combat but allow for more exploration in the world, taking on even more diverse enemies and overall making the whole Mario universe feel more grand and more lived in.

This extended in in the 2004 sequel Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door; the RPG elements are expanded upon allowing players the opportunity to complete the game in a multitude of different ways.  Partner characters were further fleshed out and more could be done with them, the world was even further expanded upon as Mario finds himself in exploring new lands and the stakes are raised as our hero now battles not only a shadowy organization bent on world domination but a threat that dates back a thousand years.

With the series now twenty years old and six games in total a lot fans are asking, what happened?

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