Games I Played In 2024 - Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch)

Console: Switch

Developer: Intelligent Systems

Release Date: May 23rd 2024

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a turn-based RPG with a focus on zany scenarios, gameplay customization, and strategy. A remake of the 2004 Gamecube game of the same name, Thousand-Year Door still stands as perhaps the perfect game to play as your first turn-based RPG, with charm aplenty to keep players of any skill level entertained throughout its entire playtime. 

The Paper Mario franchise is one that's very near and dear to my heart: the original Nintendo 64 Paper Mario and Thousand-Year Door itself are formative games for me (especially the former). From being my first foray into the turn-based RPG genre to helping me learn English and widen my vocabulary, I owe a lot to those first two games... which is why all the spin-offs and sequels after Thousand-Year Door have not hit the same for me, as the writing style changed, the visuals changed, the game design changed, and I have enough qualms regarding these games to potentially write for days about them. It got to the point that, following Mario & Luigi developer AlphaDream's bankruptcy, I had given up all hope for Mario RPGs: Super Mario RPG was a one-off on the SNES made by a different company, Paper Mario shifted to a more comedy adventure-based design philosophy, and now Mario & Luigi was gone. Nevertheless, my love of the original Paper Mario and Thousand-Year Door has endured as the Mario RPGs I loved fell apart in different ways: the original Paper Mario is a game I play yearly, and Thousand-Year Door is a game I replay less often, but often enough. 

It's difficult for me to express just how flabbergasted, excited, and emotional I was when Super Mario RPG got a remake last year... and then Thousand-Year Door getting a (faithful) remake put me on cloud nine. It feels silly to feel this way over a video game, but that's simply how important this game (and its predecessor) is to me. I don't think I learn English as well without it, I don't think I learn to appreciate a genre I love as early without it, and I don't think I start appreciating games as much without it. Not to mention how it created many bonding moments between me and my friends, as well as my parents.

Rest assured, though. As important as the original game is to me, and as much as I love it, I'm able to be objective about it. I'm not blind to the negatives, I just am able to look past them to the point that they don't affect my experience in the slightest.

WELCOME BACK TO ROGUEPORT

Thousand-Year Door, as a remake, carries a burden that other games don't harbor. Namely, it is quite simply impossible to not compare and contrast it with the original version. How have the graphics changed? How have the controls changed? How has the gameplay changed? Have they added new features? Did they fix bugs? Do beloved exploits still work? Any and all changes invite scrutiny with a remake, even more so when the original is old enough for online patches to not be a real thing. So that's why I'm tackling this first.

I'm overjoyed to say that Thousand-Year Door is an outstanding remake of the beloved classic. Visually, the game is gorgeous and the timeless artstyle of the Gamecube version is enhanced tenfold by the higher resolution and the new textures. Characters lack the extremely thick white outlines of the past three Paper Mario games and instead only have a thin black outline, like the back half of the sub-series' catalogue. The models are clearly flattened 3D models instead of purely 2D sprites: they have a thickness and multiple layers for limbs and the like. As a result, their animations, though very similar to the original, have more weight and fluidity to them.

Speaking of animations, what stood out to me the most was the sheer amount of new animations for all the characters, including every single NPC. The main playable characters now all have back-facing sprites instead of just Mario, every single NPC has multiple new animations to emote while speaking, and enemies all have new animations as well for the start of battles. The new NPC animations in particular greatly help the game come to life, as previously NPCs would simply speak in their default pose. Now NPCs grin, cry, and get angry as they speak. It's an incredibly welcome addition to the game, and now I find it hard to imagine the game without them. Mario can also now use his hammer straight up and straight down and it doesn't look strange. It's just a bunch of visual feedback that helps the game so much in little ways.

Gameplay feels essentially the same, though there are some key differences that may or may not be negatives depending on who's asked. First, some overworld actions feel noticeably different, such as running when riding one of the partners, and the airplane mode especially feels a lot weightier now. Running down stairs also doesn't feel quite right, like Mario's falling speed is too high. Walking into a gap in flat mode also has a new squeezing animation that feels a little slow. 

And of course, the biggest talking point: the game's framerate is capped at 30fps, unlike the original which is capped at 60fps. Thankfully, this is somewhat of a non-issue, as all action commands have been adjusted to suit this new lower framerate, and without seeing both games next to each other, I actually don't find it that noticeable. However, it's still quite clearly a downgrade, but not one that is inexcusable since the game is a turn-based RPG and not an action game that requires precision. Just a bit of a bummer. Otherwise, the game is at a rock-solid 30fps the whole way through, excluding some very brief hitches in one or two cutscenes.

Another noticeable visual change is how the game's world is now more noticeably, but subtly, made out of arts and crafts. Blocks aren't perfectly cubic, some squiggly seams are visible in corners and sides of backgrounds, and interactable objects such as bushes are now interacted with by squishing them with your hammer, crumpling them up briefly. As opposed to the more recent Paper Mario games, the use of the "paper" part of the title is used with moderation, in ways that make sense, rather than pushing it as the entire point of the game.

There are a few notable audio changes as well, barring the new soundtrack (more on that later). The first immediately noticeable one is that every single character now has sound effects associated with their speech. Toads sound like Toads, Luigi sounds like Luigi, Koopas sound like Koopas, etc. While it might seem like it'd be annoying, it's actually a great way to, again, bring more life into these kooky characters. The sounds are all very short, unlike similar cases like Banjo-Kazooie or Yooka-Laylee, which prevents them from feeling overwhelming and annoying. When paired with the new NPC animations and some pitch-shifting in some particular cases, it's a delightful way to inject more polish into the game.

The other noticeable audio change is in battles, and it's one I'm neutral on. The game's battles take place on a theater stage with the crowd being a central mechanic, yet the crowd is completely quiet in the remake, unlike the original. They would boo when you missed action commands or get hit, and cheer when you succeed at action commands or do stylish moves. They would scream when hitting a spectator as well. Now, the crowd is essentially silent, which does bring the energy levels of the battles down a bit. However, on the flipside, such constant sound effects could be seen as annoying by some.

SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE

As a turn-based RPG, Thousand-Year Door is somewhat unique in that it is very simple and easy to digest: damage and health values are low enough that dealing 10 damage is considered massive, enemies all have clear patterns, and attacks have "action commands." Taken straight from the first Mario RPG, Super Mario RPG, action commands are simple inputs executed during an attack to increase damage dealt, and a great way to prevent the game from feeling too passive and losing the interest of players as the game progresses. Action commands range from pressing a button with the right timing, to mashing, to playing tiny minigames. They aren't too hard to do for the most part, but during a difficult battle, an inexperienced player could struggle to be consistent at them. 

Action commands are also used to defend, with either guarding or superguarding. Guarding lowers damage taken by 1 and doesn't require much precision to execute, while superguarding must be executed within 2 frames of being hit, cancels all damage taken and, when possible, inflicts 1 damage back to the attacking enemy. The risk-reward of these mechanics is a little skewed towards prioritising superguarding, in my opinion, but I've also got enough experience with the original that it's not that hard for me to superguard successfully around 75% of the time on simple attacks. A helpful addition in the remake is a visual indication of when you attempt to guard or superguard, which shows how tight the timing needs to be. You simply need to be in the appropriate animation when getting hit for it to work.

The way Thousand-Year Door's combat is designed is quite simple: attacks generally fall into one of two categories as far as functionality goes, based on Mario's default abilities. An attack can either be a jump-style attack, meaning it attacks the enemy from above directly, or a hammer-style attack, meaning it attacks the closest grounded enemy indirectly. While it does get more complex, this basic design philosophy helps shape the strategic depth of the game.  There are also many items that can be used to either deal damage, heal, or inflict status effects on enemies.

Enemies can be airborne or grounded, and can have a spike on their head to prevent jumps. Some enemies have shells and get flipped onto their backs when jumped on. Other enemies have wings that disappear when jumped on, grounding them. With enemies having three main stats (health, attack, and defense), there is a lot of enemy variety in the game which, when mixed with the possible modifiers, makes each enemy type distinct to fight. Add in their unique possible attacks with different guard timings, and you've got a very dynamic and deceptively complex battle system presented in a very simple and clear way.

Furthering this complexity is the Badge system, where you can equip badges to change gameplay in some way. Whether it's a new move in battle, a passive ability, or something more unique, badges are a surefire way to allow players to customize the way they play. Whether you focus on just Jump moves, just Hammer moves, a bunch of passive bonuses, buffing your partners, or even risky low health strategies, badges are there to make everyone's playthrough different. Each badge requires a certain amount of BP to be equipped, and BP can be increased upon leveling up. All moves that stem from badges, power-ups (for partners), or upgrades cost FP, the game's mana equivalent. Some badges are also simply there to give you more or less of a challenge, and others are simply cosmetic changes.

The EXP system is also another typical turn-based RPG system that is simplified in Thousand-Year Door, namely by keeping the EXP needed to level up the same amount: 100. Enemies will drop different amounts of EXP depending on your level, ensuring a smooth level curve while keeping the EXP amounts readable and understandable even for children. Leveling up allows the player to decide whether to raise Mario's HP, FP, or BP. As a result, most playthroughs will feel unique to an extent since different players will prioritise different stats.

The other core mechanic of battles in Thousand-Year Door is the stage and the crowd. As mentioned, battles take place on a theater stage in front of a crowd. Each spectator can be one of many different kinds of NPCs, whether they're Shy Guys, Boos or Koopas, and each type of spectator behaves differently. Some may rush the stage to cause random effects, others will occasionally throw items (good or bad) at Mario, and all will give star energy for performing well, allowing Mario to use Special Moves.

As the story progresses, Mario gains access to Special Moves that require star energy to execute. These Special Moves' action commands are more involved and difficult, but generally yield greater rewards, from high damage to healing. Star energy can also be acquired by executing Stylish Moves, which is a fancy way of saying to press the A button at certain times during a move, either before, between or after action commands to show off to the crowd. It's a great little additional mechanic that makes the combat feel deeper than it perhaps actually is.

The other big part of combat is the partners. Throughout the adventure, Mario can recruit 7 partner characters that assist him in battle. Each one has different abilities and moves that make each one feel truly unique and suited for different situations and enemy configurations. There is also enough variety to have more player expression: some people will favor different partners to suit their gameplay. Partners take the form of traditional Mario enemies for the most part, and they are generally seen as one of the best parts of the first two Paper Mario games. I'm inclined to agree; the promise of getting to see what new partners a Paper Mario will have was a massive deal back when they had partners. They're a big part of what makes Paper Mario feel unique. Each partner also has an overworld ability to help solve puzzles, which is another key part of the early Paper Mario games.

A really welcome addition in this remake is the Battle Master NPC, who serves as a sort of battle guide and also gives access to what is essentially a training mode to practice action commands, as well as showing the timing for Stylish Moves. The Battle Master will even say if you were too fast or too slow when doing the action commands.

DEEPER THAN IT LOOKS

Thousand-Year Door's story is a fairly simple one, focused on discovering the mystery of the titular Thousand-Year Door and requiring the acquisition of 7 MacGuffins, in this case the Crystal Stars, to open it with the help of a mysterious treasure map sent to Mario by Peach, who is now missing. As with its predecessor, Thousand-Year Door takes place in a version of the Mushroom Kingdom where the typical Mario enemies, such as Goombas, Koopas, and Bob-Ombs, are simply species instead of being outright evil. Along with original species such as Doogans, the majority of NPCs are not simply Toads or generic characters, giving the world a sense of being lived in.

While the set-up and general structure of Thousand-Year Door is nothing new, there are some unique divergences from its rather generic synopsis almost immediately. Firstly, the game's hub, Rogueport, is a dirty town full of sneaky brigands and gruff sailors, with a gallows in the center of the town square. Rogueport is initially a hostile town, with a crime syndicate war going on in the background of the first major cutscene with the first partner you meet, Goombella, and NPCs that are generally unfriendly, to the point that you get robbed in the first 30 minutes of the game. Rogueport is, I'd argue, one of the best hub towns in an RPG due to how your perception of it changes as you play. You get to know the NPCs if you talk to them regularly, and everything is just set up in a great way, and there's even some secret nooks to find as you progress. Not to mention its sewers are just as expansive, make sense on a story perspective, and serve as a connection to most of the locations you visit throughout the game. It wouldn't be inappropriate to consider Rogueport as a key character in itself, in a way.

Thousand-Year Door's plot takes place across 8 chapters, each being mostly self-contained with its own unique locations, characters, and sub-plots. From hunting a dragon and participating in a wrestling tournament to saving a giant tree and solving mysteries on a train, each chapter is unique, stands on its own, and is memorable in its own right. Naturally, different players will prefer different ones, but that's sort of the beauty of early Paper Mario: quality and quantity are delicately balanced in a way that feels perfect in most cases. Some chapters focus more on action, and others more on the narrative.

Between each chapter, there are two intermissions: the Peach intermission and the Bowser intermission. For the Peach segments, she helps Mario from captivity, through helping a supercomputer. This is highly reminiscent of the Peach intermissions from the original Paper Mario, where she would do the same and, in a way, take an active part in the story and show bravery even while serving as the damsel in distress. For the Bowser segments, these are essentially comic relief segments showing Bowser bumbling about the game's areas and failing at every turn, while also occasionally giving the player a parody of Super Mario Bros. levels as Bowser. These levels are extremely easy, brief, and, though amusing, don't feel like they add much to the overall package.

Thousand-Year Door's biggest strength is easily the quality of its writing. No matter the NPC you talk to or the story beat that's happening, it deftly juggles the tone from serious to comedic without ever going too far one way. Characters often are sassy, quirky or silly, but the situations they are put into are treated seriously, even when it's as zany as people turning into pigs whenever the bell tolls. Even the villains, the X-Nauts, aren't very serious outside of their leader, being portrayed as bumbling idiots for the most part. It's all incredibly charming and, I would argue, the main reason Thousand-Year Door is so beloved 20 years after its original release.

Something that stands out a lot when it comes to the writing is just how much there is of it. Most NPCs' dialogue updates as the story progresses, especially those in Rogueport. Goombella's field ability, Tattle, makes her give the player info on an area, character or object. Using this ability, Goombella has dialogue for every single screen, NPC and interactable object in the game. NPCs have character traits exposed through this, and it's just a tremendous amount of optional worldbuilding and character writing that I really respect. A fun part of the game is that Luigi is also on his own adventure, and after each chapter you get to catch up with him and meet his partners, who often humorously decry his stories as false.

The narrative doesn't really pull any punches, either. When it needs to get serious, all humor vanishes from the script without feeling out of place or unnatural. And when comedy is involved, it isn't all one-note and though it rarely, if ever, is gutbustingly funny, it's always charmingly amusing and clever. The story has a few nice plot twists that never feel out of left field or like they are there merely for shock value as well. As you may be able to tell, I'm trying not to spoil anything, as I do think that this game's writing and narrative is a massive charm point and I'd argue even the main reason to play it.

There is even a post-game after a fantastic final sequence and great epilogue to allow the player to clear up any loose ends, and NPCs even have their dialogue updated to reflect the fact that the game ended. There are also two great new superbosses added to the game that, I feel, show the untapped potential of this style of Paper Mario, with both having unique mechanics that haven't been used before.

BELOVED, BUT NOT FLAWLESS

Thousand-Year Door is a beloved game, that is no surprise. But it's also far from a perfect game. From difficulty woes, to side content that isn't rewarding, to structural issues, there are multiple issues plaguing Thousand-Year Door. While they don't hamper my enjoyment of the game in the least, it would be unfair to turn a blind eye on these.

The game's difficulty is on a very uneven curve. The game starts very easy and struggles to effectively ramp up until near the end of the game where it spikes very harshly; I remember being stuck at the end of the game as a kid and not being able to defeat some of the final boss encounters. And for anyone who knows what they're doing using Badges and superguarding, the difficulty becomes essentially non-existant. Some badges feel far too strong, such as boosting attack power for comparatively little drawback, and others feel too niche, like having a chance of inflicting a status effect. Status effects, for the most part, don't feel particularly helpful because there are so many ways to increase your damage output and simply defeat enemies before they can attack more than once. Why put an enemy to sleep or freeze them when you can just spend an extra FP or two to defeat them outright? Even as a child, I never found myself using status effects very much as they seemed far less effective than other strategies. Enemies are also rarely ever difficult enough to warrant using items on them, reserving their more common uses to bosses... if they weren't generally resistant or immune to status effects.

However, Thousand-Year Door's biggest flaw lies in its structure. While there's nothing wrong with the chapters as a concept, there is a lot of backtracking that gets worse and worse as the game progresses. It's not the fun kind of backtracking either, the game really does just ask you to tediously go back and forth multiple times. It is generally carried by the charming dialogue and story, but after a while it starts to take its toll and feels more like padding and a lack of creativity, especially since it gets more prominent the deeper in the game you get. Chapter 7 even has a running joke with a certain character that requires you to backtrack throughout the entire game, and it doesn't exactly come across as funny even if it's meant to be.

To be fair, however, this remake acknowledges the issue to an extent. While it doesn't change the game's structure to stay faithful to the original, it does rework its fast travel system to be in one easily accessible room instead of spread apart, and one chapter notorious for its backtracking gets a new shortcut halfway through. Nevertheless, it's hard to ignore that the game starts to lean harder and harder on its writing rather than its gameplay after the halfway point.

Furthering the issue is Thousand-Year Door's sidequest system, the Troubles. With new ones available after every chapter, they are essentially just simple fetch quests that require you to return to previous areas to help out NPCs. While the additional world-building and character development is lovely, as slight as it is, the tedious backtracking isn't very fun. It would be fine if the rewards for doing these Troubles were worth it, but they're unfortunately not, except for one. Indeed, the reward is often just 10 to 30 coins, or a single item. It's always disappointing and as a kid I stopped doing them pretty quickly. The one thing I do like about them is that some of them will result in the NPC sending you a thank you message later in the game, for some wonderful additional character writing.

Like its predecessor, Thousand-Year Door has a cooking mechanic done with an NPC in the hub town. And like its predecessor, this, to me, feels completely unnecessary. What cooking does is that it powers up items or gives them new effects if you follow the recipes. Unfortunately, the recipes are not written anywhere (save for a handful told through in-game messages) and you need to essentially find them through trial and error. The effects of the food items are powerful, yes, but due to the game's general lack of difficulty, the high variety of items, the limited item slots available to you, the lack of information on recipes in-game and the power of Badges, it feels very superfluous. The cooking character is charming enough, and some of the items are truly useful, but there's little reason to use a large majority of them.

While I don't wish the game's difficulty was much higher, I do wish there was a way for the difficulty curve to be smoother and for items to feel more useful than they actually are. Plus, since you can change if Mario or his partners are in front (and thus getting hit more often) and the game only ends if Mario is defeated, it's actually quite difficult to get a game over for 95% of the game's playtime. Partners having health is actually not something in the original Paper Mario on Nintendo 64, and it indirectly made the game harder. It feels like Thousand-Year Door's difficulty should've been adjusted to compensate.

AN EXPERTLY REVAMPED SOUNDTRACK

Thousand-Year Door's original soundtrack was composed by Yuka Tsujiyoko, now mostly known for scoring and overviewing multiple entries in the Fire Emblem series. It was a very quirky-sounding soundtrack that, thought rightfully revered, was just a little too odd for my tastes, even though I liked it. The remake's soundtrack, done by Yoshito Sekigawa (who also worked on the original) is massively expanded, expertly revamped, and is just superior in basically every way to me.

Sekigawa is most well-known for being the lead composer for Paper Mario: The Origami King, whose soundtrack is one of the best Nintendo has ever released. Sekigawa's talents shine again on Thousand-Year Door, whether it's when reimagining Tsujiyoko's original tracks or creating new ones. The new soundtrack is far less synth-intensive and uses a full band instead, though synths are obviously still present. From gorgeous asian instruments, to jazzy ditties, to enticing ambiance, to rocking electric guitars and choirs, the remake's soundtrack is extremely varied, just like Origami King's was. 

The spirit of Tsujiyoko's original tracks is retained and expanded, and the new tracks feel like they always should've been there. Several scenes now have their own themes that didn't exist before, all the partners have their own themes (that questionably only plays once), and several bosses have new or modified themes. Most dungeons also now have multiple variations to their overworld themes to add a sense of progression. The final dungeon in particular gets what is potentially the greatest version of the Super Mario Bros. underground theme I've ever heard.

My favorite addition is the chapter-specific battle theme variations. Instead of always having the same battle theme, each chapter gets a variation of the default battle theme done in a different genre to suit the chapter. Chapter 6 gets the clear stand-out to me as far as battle themes go, with a jazz-rock feel complete with a swing beat that makes it stand out massively compared to the others. 

And if you dislike the new soundtrack for whatever reason, there is an easily obtainable badge that changes the soundtrack back to Tsujiyoko's originals, though new tracks will still play.

PROS AND CONS

PROS

• Perfect turn-based RPG for the uninitiated.

• Killer soundtrack using a full band and choir.

• Gorgeous visuals that leverage the arts and crafts aspect of the series without overdoing it.

• Masterclass in character writing and balancing serious and comedic tones.

• Robust battle system that is approachable yet deep and customizable.

• Excellent boss battles overall, especially the two new superbosses.

• Many quality of life improvements over the original.

• The crowd mechanics are unique and sort of define the game's visual identity compared to the rest of the series.

• Many quality of life improvements over the original.

• New NPC animations and sprites are absolutely delightful.

CONS

• Heavy reliance on tedious backtracking for the latter half of the game and most sidequests.

• Odd difficulty curve, but generally a pretty easy game if the player is used to turn-based RPGs in any way.

• Cooking feels superfluous and is tedious to figure out without a guide.

• Sidequest rewards are very poor and feel like a joke at the player's expense sometimes.

• Though the battle system is deep and customizable, the comparatively low difficulty makes it easy to bulldoze through most of the game without much thought.

• Status effects don't feel interesting or valuable.

• Bowser levels don't add anything to the experience.

• Random effects from the crowd mechanics can be a little annoying.

• Though far from as bad as it sounds, the 30fps cap is a little disappointing.

 WORTH PLAYING?

As mentioned up top, Thousand-Year Door is a very important game to me, and one of my favorites ever. So naturally, having a great remake so great that it feels like it makes the original more or less obsolete (to me, at least) is an amazing development. So of course, no matter your experience with turn-based RPGs, I can only give the Thousand-Year Door remake a huge stamp of approval and heartily recommend it. As far as I'm concerned, this is a must-buy for Switch owners. However, the backtracking might get on players' nerves after a while, and the disappointing sidequests will also likely irk some players. Even if the game doesn't come across as incredible as I find it, I still think the positives outweigh the negatives by a pretty large margin, as none of the negatives are truly dealbreakers. However, due to their varied nature, different chapters will appeal to different players. My favorites could easily be someone else's least favorites and vice-versa.

It's hard to describe how playing this game made me feel. After being fully resigned to a subset of RPGs not being for me anymore, the one-two punch of Super Mario RPG and Thousand-Year Door remakes over the past two years have left me incredibly hopeful for more. A new Paper Mario game in the style of this game and the N64 original with all the new bells and whistles that have been added to the Mario series since then would simply be marvelous to behold.

We're so back.