My time as a Nintendo fan, playing on the GameCube, is reminiscent of the glory days. Between Metroid Prime, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Eternal DarknessAND F-Zero GXI was always very involved in something that was going to remain my favorite thing forever.
Then I remember that those were also the years I was in high school, years of trauma that helped shape me into the mess I am today. Maybe that’s why those games shine brightly in my memory; they were backed by complete darkness.
By the way: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. A 20-year peak that the series may never return to.
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is the second part of the series and a continuation – please be patient – from the 2000s. Paper MarioThe series started out as a sort of successor Super Mario RPG. In fact, the original working title Paper Mario was Super Mario RPG 2and that’s how I saw it for the first time in an issue of Nintendo Power.
What these series have in common is a simplification of the JRPG format. Other than that, they are almost completely different approaches.
The story is pretty familiar though. Mario has to collect seven stars. Stars are usually the solution to all of Mario’s problems. At this point, the narrative framework is so familiar that it’s actually amusing to point to, as Luigi goes on a very similar quest to collect MacGuffins, which he’ll tell you about at the beginning of each chapter.
Luigi’s job actually sounds a bit more compelling. Not that Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is terrible or something. But everything is better when Luigi is involved.
The story begins (and largely takes place) in Rogueport. The characters describe it as a miserable hive of scum and bullies, which is already a amusing concept in a Mario game. Of course, the infrastructure is falling apart, the people who lurk in the obscure alleys talk about how much they love crime, and the gangs talk about ruling over a compact slice of four city blocks.
The city sits atop archaic ruins, and within these ruins lies the spooky door mentioned in the title. Supposedly, this door holds a great treasure, so Princess Peach, like all monarchs, wants it for herself. But like all monarchs, she doesn’t want to do it herself, so she mails it to Mario while she pursues her kidnapping passion.
Mario, the ever-obedient working-class hero, sets off and immediately begins solving people’s problems in exchange for Crystal Stars and things you can simply find on the ground. Really, the story doesn’t throw out any large twists that aren’t obvious from afar. In fact, one of the best bits of exposition keeps you guessing about a plot twist in the dialogue.
But it’s the journey, not the reason for it, that makes it Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door so memorable. Each of the game’s chapters could easily be its own episodic game, because while they’re connected by a central mechanic, each one is largely self-contained and completely unique. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who didn’t play the original ’04 version, but you’ll probably come away with your own classification of all the chapters.
The combat uses a unique system where everything takes place in front of a live audience. Your team consists of Mario and his partner, although this partner can be swapped out during the fight. This introduces a feature that is characteristic of all Mario RPG systems, by which I mean “timed hits” or “actions” as they are simply called. You perform these by pressing a button at the right time during an attack or by playing a miniature mini-game.
There are also stylish moves that are designed to draw in the crowd. Your ultra-special moves require Star Power to perform, which means exhilarating the crowd. The more viewers you have, the more Star Power you get when you enrage them. It’s not as complicated as it sounds, but it’s a fun extra level to the otherwise straightforward turn-based combat.
Outside of combat, it’s similarly straightforward. The dungeons aren’t too tricky, though there are plenty of secrets that tempt you to poke your finger into every nook and cranny. It uses a paper aesthetic to tear off scenery or transform into a boat to traverse watery hazards.
What I find compelling is that while Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door it lacks complexity, and it’s not as signposted as state-of-the-art games. You can get a hint from your partner, but there are times when it will stop you and make you think about what you should be doing. I don’t just mean solving puzzles. Sometimes it will ask you to remember where you met a particular character or what happened earlier. You can always ask your partner for a hint, but sometimes it will just tell you to think tough about one particular place. It strikes me that many state-of-the-art mainstream games won’t ask you to do that.
Dialogue is what makes Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door really stand out. Like most RPGs, the world is populated by NPCs, but most of them are brought to life here with a loving touch. Each one has their own priorities and obsessions, and they’re all just so mean.
You usually expect that Mario the game will continue to be cautious and to some extent, The door of a thousand years does. There is nothing drastic or explicit about it, but some of it crosses the line. It can often be quite cutting or just incredibly clever. There is a depth to it that makes even Mario the weird, mushroom world feels real. But most of all, you can tell the writers had a lot of fun with it. It’s full of personality, something that’s often lost in mainstream games these days.
For those of us who played the 2004 original, the Switch version has enough to make it worth checking out. While much of what made the original so special remains intact (though I didn’t see the scene where the robot spies on Peach taking a shower), there are a few additions that go beyond being a simply improved port.
The weirdest thing is really the graphical improvements. A lot of the little details have been redone, which is nippy. But for some reason part of the overhaul is making everything slightly reflective. It’s still paper, but for some reason it’s glossy or laminated. Honestly, it looks really good. It was really nice to see those subtle reflections on every surface. But I think the idea behind Paper Mario the aesthetic is that it’s a collection of handmade dioramas. I don’t know anyone who creates on glossy paper.
The recent soundtrack is incredibly helpful, though. There’s a badge you can earn early on that lets you change the soundtrack to the original, but I don’t think the nostalgia is worth it. The recent compositions generally stick to the original’s tracks, but they’re expanded upon considerably. This is most evident in the battle theme, which changes depending on which section of the game you’re in. It’s always the same melody, but the instrumentation is different in each area, which provides a recent twist. Considering Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door The game can take around 40 hours to complete, and not having to listen to the same music every time a fight starts is a welcome relief.
There are other gameplay tweaks, some of which I can’t really understand. It’s not a complete overhaul, but it’s a slightly more comfortable experience.
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is the series concept delivered with maximum efficiency. The games have had their ups and downs since then, and that’s partly because they had to find a recent direction. They could keep returning to the same formula, but it’s tough to improve on perfection, and even that would get stale after a while.
But the fact is that Paper Mario it spread around The door of a thousand years makes this remaster even more effective. It’s been out for 20 years, and the recent territory it’s covered since hasn’t exactly yielded the same magic. It’s a fresh opportunity to see the series at its peak. It’s a reminder that while the JRPG-lite approach has its limitations, with the right voice, it can really sing.
