So it turns out that Ryota Kawade, director of the first three Paper Mario games, directed Dragon Hopper. Not only was this the first game that he directed but also the ONLY game he directed outside of the Paper Mario series.
I've been playing it a little more and... This actually kinda gives me Paper Mario vibes. Considering this was developed by Intelligent Systems and was scrapped one year before PM64 started development, I wouldn't be surprised if some of this game's ideas were carried over.