I want to start this off with a plot twist, I had a GameCube growing up, yes like most obvious answer to any Gen Z person who likes video games. One of the games I had growing up was Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. My parents bought it for me because all I ever played on my Indigo GBA was the NES Mario remakes they had on there, and they just saw Mario on the title, so they got me that and Mario Kart Double Dash, and I have fond memories with this game, even though I didn’t know what an RPG was at that stage in my life made it to the first boss kept dying over and over again, gave up and went back to Double Dash. Twenty years have passed, and the Switch is nearing the end of its lifespan, so Nintendo is just making fan-requested items at this point, and one of them is a remake of Thousand Year Door, so this was my chance to finally play through it, and see why it is viewed as the peak of Mario storytelling and why people don’t enjoy the modern-day Paper Mario’s as much. After playing I came to two conclusions, the first one being if this is the first time you have heard of this game you will enjoy it, the second one was for a game from 2004 it holds up insanely well, and that shocked me.
The game starts up with Mario receiving a letter from Princess Peach telling him about a magical map she found that is supposed to lead to some grand treasure hidden under the port city of Rogueport, so Mario sets off to find the treasure and the Princess. Along the way, meeting colorful characters and got involved with some out-of-character moments. The first thing you would notice when starting the game is how good it looks, the remake takes the papercraft style that the modern-day Paper Mario aim for and place that style in “reality” setting. What I mean by that is in the newer games, everyone knows that everything is made out of paper, but here, the world is like a fantasy reality that just happens to be made out of paper.
So, once you arrive in this new town, you come into contact with the battle system, which has become a trademark for this game as it has been re-used in other games with similar gameplay styles, like South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Bug Fables. Everything is based on button timing and special attacks, the better your timing is the more damage you will give or receive. It’s easy to get the hang of if you know what you are doing and you have the badge system, which can offer some additional battle moves for you to use, or they can break the game like a twig like a bump badge, which skips every battle that you come into contact with if you are a higher level, something that once I found sped up the game for me. You also have a GameCube badge which changes the music to the 2004 soundtrack, I thought was a nice addition that they didn’t need to add but added anyway for the fans of the 2004 version.
Then you have the story, the aspect of Thousand-Year Door that most people remember, and after playing it, the hype was real; this is easily the best Mario story in the whole series; I know that isn’t saying much because its Mario, but it being this good here showcases that series when needed can tell engaging stories. Because Mario games have been known to stick to basics, and here they decide to go against tradition. That’s why you have sections of the game where Mario is a part of the WWE or has to turn into Hercule Poirot and solve a murder mystery or fight a dragon. That’s just some of the crazy moments I had with the game without going into spoilers, but if you know next to nothing before starting, I would keep it that way.
So should you get this game, yes because it’s a fun simple RPG with Mario, in fact I liked this better than the remake of Super Mario RPG that came out last fall. Since this was my first time beating the game, I can see why so many people hold it in high regards. Because this is the most imaginative nonplatform Mario game I have played in a long time, proof that there was a time when Nintendo was letting Mario get weird to figure out what worked. It also showcases how the character has changed over the years and what Nintendo is allowing Mario to appear in, hence why we have sanitation products like the Mario movie from last year. But this game is a diamond in the rough in the pantheon of Mario games and is easily one of the best games of the year, regardless of whether being a remake or not.
Score: 9 out of 10
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch