My game of choice growing up had to be Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64. This was a classic turn-based RPG based in the origami-styled Mushroom Kingdom. Analyzing the game using Jamieson’s four elements Challenge, Choice, Change, Chance I can distinctly find examples inside this game that has kept me in love with it to this day.
Challenge: For the challenging portions of the game it would have to be the puzzles and the battles. For puzzles, you have to use the fact that you are as thin as a sheet of paper and slip through cracks in walls or gaps between bars in order to solve rooms. This is a very creative way to apply a challenge to someone when normally they would believe they are a 3D model in a 3D world. The battles are just as challenging when bosses or special enemies are involved, as they can change and affect the fields where you are fighting. My favorite example of this is one mini-boss fight in the middle of the game where you fight the enemy in a pitch-black room. The only way to successfully hit him is to attack his lantern and light up the room, but if you hit the lantern too many times you can give him the chance to hit you even harder before he snuffs the lantern to make the room dark again.
Choice: Choice comes into play when you have to decide what kind of equipment you want to have while playing. In Paper Mario this comes in the form of Badges. With badges, you can unlock certain bonuses for Mario as you play. These can include stronger attacks, cosmetics, or special effects that unlock secret additional content in the game. The number of badges you can equip is controlled by the amount of BP you have unlocked. When you level up, you have the choice to upgrade your HP, FP, or BP. There is a version of the game serious players use when they want a challenge, which is to solely upgrade BP rather than HP or FP.
Change: Change occurs as you progress in the game. The goal of the game is to save all 7 Star Spirits and defeat the final boss
Bowser. Each time you rescue a Star Spirit you unlock the next level of the world, giving you access to a new part of the map in order to find and save the Star Spirits. This also comes with a difficulty increase, as the mobs and bosses become harder with each world. Change also comes in the form of extra mobs appearing in worlds you already visited. These mobs are 100% optional and won’t hinder your main-story progress at all, however, they do end up appearing in the world, and change the story if you choose to fight them.
Chance: Chance, while part of the game, is less of an important factor in the overall gameplay, as many portions of the game’s chance aspects have some way to turn the tides in your favor. Most of the chance comes from in-game items that inflict status effects on the players. These status effects can be sleep, poison, or dizzy, and they all affect how you are able to play the game. These effects can be inflicted by pure chance depending on the items used in battles.
At the time, the Nintendo 64 was one of the first 64-bit gaming consoles available. What seems like an ancient relic now was the pinnacle of gaming technology then, and that left a great lasting impression on me as a kid just wanting to kill time on rainy days. My brothers also were instrumental in making this game fun for me, and so there are memories I share with them that can affect my perspective on the game.
