Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for all of the series' fans when I say that our jaws dropped to the floor when this remake was announced during a Nintendo Direct. A remake of what is considered to be the best title in the series? After three heavily disliked games that masqueraded as RPGs but were actually lame puzzle games? What is this, my birthday, Easter, Pentecost and Christmas at the same time? So yes, Nintendo and Intelligent Systems finally did what everybody believed to be impossible: owe up to their mistakes and finally give the fans something they actually want - and boy, was it ever worth the wait!

Truthfully speaking, they didn't even have to remake the game in the first place, just porting it to the Switch would've done the job, but they did decide to go all out, while adding a few tiny faults in the process, and we love them all the more for it!

The game opens with Mario receiving a letter from Princess Peach, mailing him a map she acquired in one of the Mushroom Kingdom's provinces, the rather unclean city of Rogueport. Said map apparently leads to an amazing treasure, and she asks Mario to accompany her in search of the loot. Unfortunately, the moment Mario arrives in the dingy town, he discovers the princess is missing, and strange, alien-like creatures in full body uniforms known as X-Nauts all about town, also after the treasure. He quickly meets up with Goombella, a university student with a connection to Professor Frankly, who helps them decipher the map and eventually pinpoint the location of the elusive Crystal Stars, ancient artifacts capable of opening the titular Thousand Year Door, with Mario going on a journey to retrieve all of them and hopefully find the princess along the way.

So yeah, the game is a typical MacGuffin plot - divided into eight chapters, with you traveling to a new location in each one. This is par the course for the series, and you shouldn't go in expecting a Final Fantasy-like story. Instead, the game makes up for this with some excellent writing, which goes a long way to add some much-needed characterization to the series' characters, especially Bowser and Peach, who also play their part in the story. The dialogue is humorous, sometimes parodic and always colorful and a joy to read. Most of it was reused from the original Gamecube version, which is perfectly fine, with only a few passages having been altered to more closely adhere to the Japanese version, mainly concerning the character of Vivian, which we will get into later. But it isn't just all funny, because hidden beneath the fluffy exterior are several genuinely heartfelt moments. Koops reuniting with his father, Admiral Bobbery making a promise to his deceased wife and even the interactions between Peach and the computer TEC can tug at the heartstrings, and the scenes are just as excellently written as the more light-hearted moments, which is great.

One of the greatest aspects is how this was pretty much the first game in the entire Mario series to show that Bowser's fun and threatening sides don't have to be mutually exclusive either - he can be just as goofy as everyone else, but also turns out to be a genuine menace when faced with his everlasting nemesis. This likewise applies to Princess Peach, who is portrayed as much more nuanced than in other games, with her parts of the story carrying a certain feeling of melancholy - a side that of her and the franchise as a whole that has rarely been seen before or since. The X-Nauts are also more or less no-nonsense villains, which stands in stark contrast to the rather cartoonish antics Bowser and his troops would engage in the previous game. Anything they involve themselves in gets nightmarish rather quickly. This is all rounded out by a great cast of additional villains, such as the Shadow Sirens, three ghostly beings who you fight several times, as well as fan-favorite Dooplis, a Duplighost who serves as a chapter boss and who shifts the narrative for the remainder of the chapter in a very unique way.

The Thousand Year Door is a role-playing game through and through, adding in the series' signature platforming elements for good measure. This means you explore an overworld, gather items and new equipment and then engage in good old turn-based fisticuffs with the varied enemies. The one thing that always stood out about the series was its usage of very small numbers and a very transparent damage formula; damage calculation works on a flat attack power minus defense power algorithm, meaning if your attack deals two damage and the enemy has one defense, it will deal one damage - easy to remember and surprisingly well-executed at the same time! Mario himself has got both his jump and hammer attacks, both of which are useful in different scenarios. Flying enemies obviously can't be hit with the normal hammer strike, while anything with defense is better off being hit with the hammer. This is further rounded out by the various partners who will accompany you throughout the game, as they all come with specialized skillsets of their own. Goombella, who is your first ally, has a headbonk attack that mimics Mario's jump and can also analyze enemies, Koops can hit enemies with his shell but cannot target any flying targets, Vivian can make you impervious to one round of enemy attacks, and so on and so forth. One ally can be present at a time, but they can be switched in-battle at the cost of the turn, and you can even switch their position with Mario's to soak up some damage - which is useful, because Mario losing all HP results in a Game Over, while partners can die, although you get a surprisingly creepy victory fanfare if it happens (actually, it doesn't happen in the remake anymore - slight research error on my end). Mario and his partner will always go first, and the enemies will go in order from left to right - this allows you, in theory, to plan the entire flow of battle from start to finish and come up with efficient strategies, which is neat.

Now, attacking isn't as simple as just selecting the command and sitting back - every single attack requires the input of a more or less elaborate action command. Jumping requires you to push A at the right moment to perform a double jump, the hammer requires you to move the joystick left and then release, and there's many more. You can also defend from enemy attacks by pushing A at the right time, or even counter them by pushing B, although the input window for the latter is much stricter.

Defeating enemies rewards you with coins, the occasional items and most importantly star points. Gather a hundred of these, and Mario levels up, allowing you to level up one of three stats: hit points, flower points (basically this game's version of MP) and badge points, which allow you to equip more badges. Badges bestow various effects, such as granting new moves to Mario, allowing him to jump on spiked enemies or gradually restoring his HP or FP, some of them even exist solely for fun, such as the badges that change your attack sounds or one that switches the music back to the original Gamecube tracks. This allows you to equip yourself for any situation, as badges can be switched while outside of battle, and they require various amounts of BP to be equipped. Your FP are shared by both Mario and his partners - meaning it's easy to blow through them quickly. Your partners never level up through star points, but each of them can be ranked up twice by expending three rare items, which increases their HP, attack power and grants a new move. 

Finally, each Crystal Star you obtain also grants you a special move that can be used by expending star power, which is awarded for doing well in battle. These skills have various effects, such as restoring your health, attacking all enemies, buffing your partner, and so on. This is supported by perhaps the biggest battle gimmick of them all: all battles take place on a stage with an audience, and they will award star power if you execute attacks well, and will leave if you do badly. The types of people in the audience also affect what they can do. Enemies might throw stones or trash at the party to damage them, while Toads may throw healing items, Shy Guys can make props fall on the party, and even your own attacks, such as hammer strikes, can make the scenery fall down and either damage you or the enemies - or both. Every ten levels, the stage is upgraded, becoming more elaborate, with more seats for audience members and also more potential for chaos - whether it's to your benefit or your detriment. Each attack you can perform also includes a hidden input known as stylish moves, which, when executed correctly, makes the audience spill even more star power.

There's also some very light elemental rock-paper-scissors. It's not to the same point as Pokémon, but it's still there - rock-based enemies are immune to fire, while ice-based ones take extra damage from it, Piranha Plants are subject to falling asleep rather easily, etc. What I especially liked is that instant death attacks, such as Flurry's Gale Force, are actually useful, especially when dealing with enemies with high defense, and they still award star points, making them far less pointless than they were in the previous game. One thing to note is that level-grinding is never necessary, and actually heavily discouraged. The higher Mario's level is, the less star points will be dropped by enemies, until you eventually only receive a paltry one per battle, which is the game's way of telling you it's time to move on.

Outside of battle, you will be explore the lush landscapes and dungeons. You will happen upon various puzzles along your way, which is another area in which the game shines - in a strict aversion to the usual RPG trope of characters only being strong in battle, all of Mario's and his partners' abilities are likewise used on the overworld. Not only can you pull a first strike on the enemies by hitting them with the hammer or Koop's shell, but the puzzles have these abilities firmly integrated into their mechanics. Need to hit two switches at the same time? Have Koops perform his shell toss and hit the other with your hammer. Need to avoid spikes periodically shooting out of the ground? Have Vivian make you invisible. Not only that, but Mario's own movesets also gets extended at various points. The earliest ability you unlock is folding into an airplane and taking off from designated platforms, or flipping yourself to fit through small cracks, neatly incorporating the whole paper gimmick. Your jump and hammer attacks also get upgraded twice each, which allows you to overcome various obstacles and uncover more secrets.

Neither the battles nor the puzzles are particularly difficult, mind you, but at the same time they're both a lot more challenging than its predecessor, and playing recklessly will get you a Game Over a whole lot quicker than you might anticipate, and some of the optional battles are rather devillish. Speaking of optional stuff, there's also oodles of side content to engage in, with Rogueport itself having both a casino where you can play various mini games, but also a bulletin board with various sidequests, which gradually unlock throughout the game. Some of these are minor fetch quests, but many of them also involve other fun things - for example, one character really wants to meet Luigi. How do you go about that, you may ask? Well, equip a badge that changes your color scheme to Mario's green bother's, of course! Not only is that a neat out-of-the-box solution, but it even results in a hilarious scene where the actual Luigi does show up and is labeled an imposter. 

Scattered around the world are also various Star Pieces, often in locations outside of the camera's view, or hidden under floor panels that can only be uncovered by performing the spin jump next to them, these can then be exchanged for various elusive badges. However, what still stands as the game's most famous sidequest is undoubtedly the Pit of 100 Trials, which can be accessed as early as the first chapter. As its name implies, it consists of 100 floors, with an enemy to fight on each level. It's still easy in the beginning, featuring monsters from the early chapters, but gradually becomes more and more difficult, eventually introducing enemies only present there. Every tenth floor awards you a valuable item, though, and the final floor contains a nasty surprise, and an even nastier one should you decide to tackle it twice. Now, you could go the entire game without ever touching any of these aspects, but they add a lot of much-needed challenge to the game, and the pit is perhaps the most beloved aspect of the game, and not unreasonably so.

The original Gamecube game was known for being a looker - putting much greater emphasis on the paper aesthetic in every area, and also providing more diverse environments. The remake somehow manages to take all of this and makes it look even better than before. All of the character sprites, special effects and environments were redone from the ground up, making everything look more modern and even more paper-y than before. A lot of small details were also added, such as Mario and his partners now having sprites for all directions they can face in, including diagonal hammer swings and many more animations for all characters, especially in the form of reactions to the various events. And yet, at the same time, the game maintains the same color tones as the original did, just adding actual lighting effects on the models to make them stand out more, and making the characters look more embellished instead of having the white outlines of the previous games. Everything looks like a giant diorama, with papier-mâché shrubbery, cardboard trees, shredded roads, dotted backgrounds and more, really taking the paper aesthetic, which was already more pronounced in the original, to its absolute logical limit, something they were clearly proud of.

It's really no over-exaggeration to call this game drop-dead gorgeous (fun fact: the game's font is, in fact, called Hey Gorgeous!), being the prettiest in the series by a long shot, with basically every location in the game, no matter how insignificant, being great material for a desktop background. The particle effects have also been improved, now looking even more impressive than before - just sit back in awe every time you expand your map at the Thousand Year Door and tell me you actually wanted to skip it - I dare you!

Similarly to the redone graphics, the music was also touched up, mainly adding instruments that were more prominent in later games, and adding other, more goofy effects to it. One of the biggest additions here is that the battle theme is now variable, changing depending on the location you're in, with each dungeon having its own variation, and even the victory fanfares change depending on who you just fought. While all of this is nice, it doesn't necessarily mean that the rearranged music is better than the original - it can be rather hit-or-miss, in fact. Some tracks, like the event battle theme for example, feel overdone while actually downplaying the original instrumentation that made them so catchy. However, this is a rather moot point, as you can get a badge close to the game's beginning which is free to equip and changes the music back to the Gamecube tracks, so whichever you prefer, the option is there.

The sound effects are a mixture of stuff being retained from the original, reused sound effects from later entries (such as the guard sound effect) and new effects altogether. While it all comes together for a nice soundscape, some of the new sounds didn't quite do it for me - for example, hitting an audience member in the original produced a hilarious high-pitched scream sound, while it's now heavily downplayed. Much like how the battle theme is variable, so are the "voices" the characters have. Basically, in the original, there was a typewriter-style sound effect used when the text was scrolling. In the remake, every character has their own voice, which is accomplished by playing a small sound byte at various pitches as they talk. It does add some more personality to the characters, and has been done in the past games, but some of these can be rather annoying, but you will get used to it sooner than later - and it's a massive effort nonetheless, which I appreciate.

Like with any good remake, the question of what is new comes to mind. Well, truthfully, not that much, beyond the upgraded graphics and sound outlined above. A few small polishing touches were put on the game, for example, you can now switch partners by holding the L button and selecting them from a ring menu, saving you a trip to the menu. Bosses now also drop coins, and beating a battle without taking any damage rewards extra cash as well. One very welcome addition is a new teleport room contained within the Rogueport sewers, which provides quick access to the various chapter locations once the respective part of the story is done with. This massively decreases the amount of backtracking required, especially when it comes to the various troubles and the search for a certain character in a later chapter. There are also two new superbosses added, but I won't spoil where. Beyond that, the game is more or less the same what it was in 2004 - which is good, because it was already awesome.

However, I cannot simply praise the game without mentioning some of the added shortcomings in this version, with some of them being truly inexplicable to me. For one, despite how nice the graphics are, they come at the cost of the original's 60fps frame rate, except running at 30. While you could argue that this isn't particularly important for a turn-based game, it can and very likely will trip up returning players, because the inputs for action commands are naturally different due to the change. Secondly, the game is a whole lot slower in general, not just because of fewer frames per second present. Dialogue cannot be sped up by pushing A or B anymore, forcing you to sit through each text box one at a time - again, not necessarily terrible for newcomers, but returning players who are familiar with the dialogue would probably prefer an option to fast-forward, which was oddly present in the original but not here. 

Furthermore, there are various small delays in battle, too. When opening a skill list, such as Mario's hammer, the game takes a second to let you scroll further down - this made me accidentally select the default attack more than once. Also, the victory screen and especially the level up sequences are a whole lot longer than they were before. Yes, it's only a few seconds, but it adds up, especially given just how frequent battles are, and I cannot fathom as to why this change was made - at least the lower frame rate can be excused as a necessary sacrifice for higher graphical fidelity, but there's no real reason to artificially slow down the game like this. Weirder still, certain cutscenes, such as new teleport pipes unlocking or partners getting upgraded can be skipped altogether with the Plus button - so basically, the game has a perfectly functional skip button, but decides to deny the player that option most of the time. It may not be a dealbreaker for some, but it makes me seriously reconsider replaying the game, simply because I don't wanna sit through all that text a second time. Nintendo, if you're reading this: please patch this.

And now to address what is possibly one of the biggest changes, or rather a reversion of a change applied to the original version: the gender identity of the character Vivian. In the Japanese version, she is a transgendered female, and her sisters Beldam and Marilyn constantly belittle her for her identity, which takes a toll on her psyche. The English translation of the Gamecube version (and most European translations derived from it) changed this to Vivian being cisgender female, and her sisters just being general jerks.

Now, as nearly twenty years have passed and cultural attitudes have changed, this change was mostly reverted. For example, the Shadow Sirens now go by the name Three Shadows, which was their original Japanese name. Vivian instead likes to refer to the trio as the Shadow Sisters, because she likes being addressed as female, confirming she is trans in the English version. However, the term itself is never used, and gendered pronouns are mostly avoided. So while it's there now, it's still heavily downplayed from the original. Yet, this is still an important step in the right direction, and I am extremely grateful the trans community has more representation in a mainstream game.

Technical shortcomings and arbitrary padding aside, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is still tons of fun, and is a decently meaty game easily lasting over 50 hours, especially with all the optional things to do and secrets to uncover. It may not replace the Gamecube version, but it's an excellent update to the game nonetheless, and it's awesome that more people can play it now than ever before. Let's just hope that Nintendo and Intelligent Systems appreciate the positive reception and move the series into its original direction beyond this remake. That said, my final verdict is:

 90% - imperfect perfection

Pros:

• Beautiful, shining graphics
• Engaging battle system
• Lots and lots of content

Cons:

• New soundtrack is hit-or-miss
• Technically inferior to its original version
• It took almost twenty years to get made!

All screenshots were taken in docked (television) mode. It runs just as fine in portable mode, however, with no notable degradation in graphics or technical performance.