Oh, that's right, you're making a Mario game. I completely forgot about that. I hope it's going along well.
I'd prefer the types of battles in Paper Mario. So in other words, classic RPG battle system.
You should put up some beta version or something so that we can see what you have so far. And, you know, maybe to test it for bugs or whatever.
As a little tip, I think it's best if you map out the room things that instantly pop up into your mind without bothering to link them together. Then as your game nears completion, you can decide how to link these together. Otherwise, it might be tough getting a suitable path for it.
I'm going to be making a game thing as well, although it will be based off of my RPG Ideas thingy at my website. It's going to be a ZZT game (check TMK if you don't know what that is), and it might even turn out to be a story thing.
Of course, I could just make a regular RPG with RPG Maker, but I'm not too good with moderation of skills, enemies, etc. So since ZZT is generally easier since it doesn't have RPG elements, I decided to program with that. Now to understand the ZZT-OOP programming language...
You might also consider making a duplicate of the char set and somehow showing it to us to see what you have for it so far. It's easy when you make it as an attachment for e-mails. Who knows, I might even help out the char set.
Or better yet, maybe be some sort of second helper with the game, helping out in some way (I don't know how yet), and testing out the game, etc. I think that would be fun. Just constantly sending the new files as they come in, and so forth.
If Bowser wanted to destroy Mario, he wouldn''t have made Goombas his first line of defense.