A chance to revisitPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Dooris something many fans of the series had been dreaming about for a long time, but never expected to actually see. So when Nintendo teased the game at the end of its Nintendo Direct in September last year, it practically overshadowed everything else the company had announced throughout the year.
Still, even with a graphical face lift like the oneMetroid Primegot for its remaster,Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Dooris still a twenty-year-old RPG that’s simplistic by its very nature. Could it have held up after all this time, and if so, how much would Nintendo feel the need to touch up in order to make it a full-priced release? The answers to both, it turns out, are “yes” and “not all that much.” Even now, and especially with the new enhancements, the game is a real treat to play.
As exciting as aPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Doorremake or remaster was, there was some worry that Nintendo might go too far and end up dampening some of the original’s charm by trying too hard to make it resemble more recent games likePaper Mario: The Origami King.After all, itwasPaper Mario, but where the newer games are more about the “Paper” part of the title, the older ones focus more on the “Mario” of it all. Thankfully, these fears turned out to be unfounded. This new version looks different, but in a way that enhances rather than outright transforms.
This version of the Thousand-Year Door’s world is much more paper-like in appearance. Buildings and other constructs look like cut and folded cardboard, characters look like paper dolls, floors are made of detailed wrapping paper, and it all comes together to resemble one massive papercraft diorama. Yet it doesn’t go as far as Origami King orPaper Mario: Color Splash.It’s not made to be a point of focus or the crux of altogether too many jokes. It’s merely the art style this time and it looks fantastic.
In particular, Intelligent Systems did an excellent job of bringing the inhabitants of Rogueport and the other major locales to life this time around. Whereas all most characters could do in the original was bounce around and move their lips a little, in this newPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door,they’re quite animated.
Mario’s companions are more lively than everand even background NPCs have several poses to swap through and little motions to express whatever they’re saying and emphasize their personalities. Once one notices it, they’ll quickly find themselves watching for it with each NPC they talk to. The little voice-like effect for every character further enhances this too.
Just as nice is the attention that was paid to the sound effects and music. It’s not one-to-one; Mario’s hammer impacts and Yoshi’s running, for example, don’t sound just like they always did. They do, however, sound right. A hammerwouldsound more muted hitting cardboard than pavement and it’s actually kind of a relief that Yoshi’s shoes don’t constantly squeak anymore. As for the music, it’s excellent. All the original themes are present within the new versions, but they’ve been enhanced and reorganized in ways that often, dare I say it, sound better than the originals.
The new tracks are more lively, more distinct from each other and do a better job of enhancing their respective areas (or characters in some cases). Great examples of this include the new Glitzville themes with their distinctive Asian accents and Ms. Mowz’s much more punchy theme. The main battle themes, too, have gotten some updates, most notably changes to reflect whatever part of the world Mario is in. The originals are all still in the game and have gotten crispy re-recordings of their own too. All one has to do to hear them is go to the badge shop, grab the “Nostalgic Tunes” badge and slap it on for 0 BP. All bases are covered here.
This extra badge isn’t the only adjustment or quality of life the developer’s made here either. For starters, it wants to make sure that players know, without any doubts, how to playPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Doorby the time they make it to Chapter 1. That is, new tutorials and tutorial interactions have been added for everything from the basics of combat to how shops work.
They even went so far as to insert a new character, the Battle Master, into the game to make sure that nothing was missed. It’ll be annoying for returning players who know it all already, since only some of this stuff can be skipped, but it’s probably worth it, since even those who’ve never played an RPG before will be able to have a solid grasp by the end of the prologue. Also, itisrather nice to have proper explanations for mechanics like Stylish Moves and Superguarding in the game now, as they just weren’t even mentioned before.
Speaking of, it seems that the timing for guarding, superguarding and Stylish Moves has been just a little more forgiving. Not drastically more, but enough that one should be able to hit them most of the time with a little practice (practice that they’ll actually want to get,since combat actually has a point in this game). Superguarding, in particular, is easier to pull off. This reviewer could only land them every so often in the original Gamecube version, but in this version they’re happening at least once per battle. This makes the game easier for Timed Hits masters, but then it was never all that difficult of a game to begin with, so it’s not to its detriment.
There have been a handful of improvements outside of battle as well. Most notable is the new party member quick-select (tied to the L button on the pro controller). One small point of annoyance in the original was having to bring up the party member menu screen to swap between them. That’s still doable here and is even still done by the left d-pad shortcut, but this quick select is faster still. Hold L, rotate to the desired character, let go and boom! It’s done.
Lastly, there have been some changes to the dialogue. While it is mostly the same, some dialog deviates from the original, though usually not to any noticeable degree. The most noticeable instance of this was renaming the Shadow Sirens to just “The Three Shadows” and having Beldam go off about how it sounds cooler. It’s an odd change, but that’s about it. Otherwise, the dialog changes fit in to the point where one doesn’t notice unless they’re looking for it.
Also, Mario’s base hammer is able to reveal Star Piece panels, and his base running speed feels like it’s been increased, so locating star pieces is easier and getting around feels better. Lastly, additional shortcuts have been added to the world where appropriate. The biggest is a pipe directly to the shortcut pipes (now all in one room), but there are other smaller ones that reduce some of the backtracking within dungeons and such.
As forPaper Mario: Thousand-Year Door’score, it seems as though it does have that timeless quality all true classics seem to have. The plot is as plain as ever, but that was true even when it was new. Back then, and even more now, the vibrancy of the world, its charming characters and the obvious fun that those writing them had doing so all (still) give it some real heart.
The battle system is still simple compared to a lot of others out there, but that simplicity keeps battles short and punchy, and the badge system injects enough playstyle variety to keep it from getting boring. It’s actually kind of shocking how many different ways to play there are for those willing toexperiment with their badges.
Closing Comments:
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Dooris still, after all these years, the prime example of Paper Mario at its very best. Its writing is still funny, its characters are quirky and fun in ways that they just aren’t in other Nintendo games, its combat is simple yet deep enough to stay interesting throughout and it’s a visual and aural treat thanks to all the enhancements made by Intelligent Systems. The improvements made both in and out of combat also go a long way towards making the game shine even more than it already did. Sure, the extra tutorials can be annoying for longtime fans, but otherwise, this new version does the original justice and makes it an even more worthy addition to any Switch owner’s library.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (2024)
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch
A modern version of the classic 2004 RPG, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for the Nintendo Switch features upgraded graphics along with other changes intended to make the game as accessible as possible.
