More censorship. Behead all trannylators.
You are talking about a game where you literally fly as a paper aeroplane, roll yourself up like newspaper and roll around on the ground, and make yourself completely flat, like a piece of paper, to get through cracks in the walls and tight spaces.
Nintendo leaning into the paper aesthetic isn't what killed the series. Nintendo being creatively devoid and making the most homogenised sequels possible because the first three didn't sell what they expected is what killed the series.
Hard disagree on this one.
Paper Mario 64 was called "Mario Story" in Japan, and only "Paper Mario" in the West (which then propagated to TTYD sadly). It had a grand total of... 2? 3? paper jokes in the entire game (I just remember the one where Mario floats like a piece of paper while falling). No mention of paper whatsoever. Aesthetic is mostly reminiscent of a coloring book/pop-up book with pastel colors. Some sprites are 2D, but nothing is supposed to be cut out of paper or paper craft. If you look at those textures, most of them are supposed to represent actual items rather than a paper craft item.
Same for TTYD but it traded the pastel colors for a "cleaner" style closer to a comic book. The paper transformations in that game were unnatural curses that everyone around you would point out. It didn't break immersion directly. Replace the two or three paper jokes from 64 with charming
sparse fourth wall breaks.
I think what's important in both 64 and TTYD is that the majority of the items you see are exactly what they are. The stairs behind Mario in this aren't cardboard, they're actual wood. Same for the door. This design philosophy was kept consistent until SPM (and that's why the remake misses the mark in a lot of ways visually speaking imo, just look at the sea on the right picture in the first pic of my post).
SPM was more pixel than paper.
It might sound silly to talk about not breaking immersion in games made for children, but if you think about it I'd say it's the opposite: you want to create a world where you can lose yourself for a while. This is the kind of memorable work that stays with you.
Fast forward a few years and this is the slop you get:
It really doesn't really transmit anything. The textures and materials used are now just there for the sake of being paper/cardboard. They took a single punchline ("they're paper, dude, isn't that hilarious?") and stretched it over three entire games. Not one, three (3).
The visuals are already fucked in this regard but it obviously had consequences on the writing. If your design philosophy is "make everything paper and real life objects because that's better and that's the point now", then your writing will obviously follow. That's why your average NPC (Toad) dialogue is snarky "funny" self-aware shit with lots of paper references. That's why those games can't be earnest anymore. They're afraid of taking themselves seriously and honestly, and that just means the audience can't take them seriously as well.
TLDR: "there was always paper in those games"? Sure, but the developers didn't use to remind you of that for 100% of your playthrough back then. Instead they let you appreciate these worlds and added a little of flavor with the paper-like 2D visuals. Now paper is the point and the writing followed.
Agree, bu that is also rather 
Late. They already insis that Birdo is trans, since the original description was that Birdo was a boy who thinks that he is a girl (Nintendo's words), then later a femboy, then just a cis girl.
