there's something about the small numbers in paper mario that just *works*, really well
you start with 10 hp, most early-game enemies do 1 damage per attack, and mario does 1 damage per attack too. early enemies have like 3-5 hp. these numbers increase, but few if any enemies have more than 100 hp and doing more than 10 damage at once is a lot of damage even in the late game
i just like that more than the FF system where things are easily in the tens of thousands.