Paper Mario Coming to the Nintendo Wii

According to a brand new image scan from gonintendo.com , the original Paper Mario Nintendo 64 game is headed to the Wii Virtual Console. Nintendo has not released any details regarding the release date. The release will probably occur sometime during the second half of 2007. Since this game is already finished, and it simply needs to be uploaded to the Wii Virtual Console download service, it could be released as soon as this summer.

The original Paper Mario was released on the Nintendo 64 system in the United States in February of 2001. Paper Mario was an unofficial sequel to Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars for the Super Nintendo.

According to Wikipedia, the first Mario Role Playing Game, Super Mario RPG, was released on the Super Nintendo in 1996. It was jointly produced by the Final Fantasy creator Squaresoft. This game is also confirmed for a virtual console release sometime in 2007.

Paper Mario had a much different style than many Nintendo 64 games released during its lifetime. The game did feature some 3D graphics, but all of the characters in the game were designed "paper thin", which is why the game was named Paper Mario. Squaresoft also had no involvement in this second Mario RPG game released. Instead, it was developed by Intelligent Systems.

The game takes place in the mushroom kingdom, and even though it is referred to as the sequel of Super Mario RPG, it is more of a sequel to Super Mario 64. For example, the very same castle from Super Mario 64 is featured in Paper Mario.

Like in previous Super Mario games, Mario travels to many different kinds of worlds. Mario adventures to a tropical island, a desert, frozen mountains, a haunted forest, and many different other kinds of locations. Just like Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario has a very similar battle system. The battle system is a cross between a traditional turn based RPG battle system, and specifically timed button presses known as the "Action Command" in the game.

Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to style the game for new video game players, or for players who were new to the video game world. Miyamoto compared the style of Paper Mario as being similar to the 2D characters in PaRappa the Rapper.

Paper Mario received many good reviews from critics. This game would be one of the last games to see a release for the Nintendo 64 system. Even though it was one of the last games released, it still appeared at number eight, as one of the top selling games from January to June of 2001.

Sources:
"Paper Mario heading to Virtual Console" "http://gonintendo.com/?p=18179"
"Paper Mario Wikipedia" "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Mario"