Paper Mario  Paper Mario is a role-playing video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 home video game console. The first game in the "Paper Mario" series of "Mario" role-playing games, it was first released in Japan in 2000 and then internationally in 2001. "Paper Mario" was re-released for Nintendo's Wii Virtual Console in July 2007 as well as Wii U Virtual Console in 2015. "Paper Mario" is set in the Mushroom Kingdom as the protagonist Mario tries to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser, who has imprisoned the seven "Star Spirits", lifted her castle into the sky and has defeated his foe after stealing the Star Rod from Star Haven and making himself invincible. To save Mushroom Kingdom, rescue Peach, get the castle back, and defeat Bowser, Mario must locate the Star Spirits, who can negate the effects of the stolen Star Rod, by defeating Bowser's minions guarding the star spirits. The player controls Mario and a number of partners to solve puzzles in the game's overworld and defeat enemies in a turn-based battle system. The battles are unique in that the player can influence the effectiveness of attacks by performing required controller inputs known as "action commands". "Paper Mario" received critical acclaim upon release, attaining an aggregate score of 88% from GameRankings and 93% from Metacritic, and was rated the 63rd best game made on a Nintendo system in "Nintendo Power"s "Top 200 Games" list in 2006. It was followed by a series of sequels, starting with "", which was released for the GameCube in 2004. "Paper Mario" combines traditional role-playing game (RPG) elements with concepts and features from the "Mario" series. For the majority of the game, the player controls Mario, who can jump and use his hammer to overcome physical obstacles placed in the game's overworld. Many of the game's puzzles and boundaries are based upon the abilities of Mario's partners, who each have a specialized skill required for progression in the game. The player accumulates partners as they advance into different locations; only one partner can accompany Mario in the overworld, although the player can interchange them at any time. These characters also assist Mario in the game's turn-based battles, where damage inflicted against them results in temporary paralysis as the characters do not have individual HP statistics. Attacks in the game are similar to those in traditional RPGs, although the player can influence the power of a move when attacking or defending by timing a button-press accurately or performing some other action command as required.