Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a game I’ve always stared longingly at through the windows of CEX stores. Second-hand prices for theGameCubeexclusive are extortionate, and the game has reached a kind of mythical status in my mind because of this artificial scarcity. If it’s ‘worth’ a hundred quid, it must be good, right?
That is to say, if you’re looking for a preview ofPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Doorthat compares theSwitchremake to the original, you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m a Paper Mario novice, this is my first foray into the origami world. But what a foray it is.
For our non-British readers, CEX is a second-hand game store that blights nearly every town in our country.
The most striking thing about Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is how good it looks. Despite having not played the original, I’m sure it would hold up well after all these years anyway. Games with such distinct art direction tend to (see also:The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker). But on the OLED screen, Mario’s two-dimensional adventures look great.
Mario himself is a little sticker, peeling left and right as you move about the screen. The fractions of seconds where his paper-thin body is perpendicular to the screen immediately sell you on the premise, and it’s these details that make the game shine. Buildings like inns and shops are three-dimensional, but are origami constructs still made from the same paper as our plucky plumber.
Again, it’s in the transitions that these assets shine. The walls unfurl as you enter, peeling back to reveal the folded feng shui within. It’s a wonderful moment, and again helps sell you on this weird world we now inhabit.
Furious Fighting
There are plenty of Mario staples to be found, from power-up mushrooms to fire flowers, but none of them act quite as they do in his platforming perils. That’s because this isn’t a platformer, it’s an RPG complete with turn-based combat. This is the area where the game surprised me most, because the battles are tactical and surprisingly deep. Maybe it’s a relic of games gone by, but modern Mario games have been so achingly easy that having to engage a tiny portion of my brain was a treat.
The one thing I would say on this is that boss battles are a little underwhelming. I won’t spoil anything for anyone who hasn’t played the original, but facing off against four Koopas is a more worrying sight than a fearsome dragon. However, even the hordes of opponents never feel unfair as you have plenty of utilities in your pocket.
“The writing is brilliant, humorous, fourth-wall breaking, and even broaches darker subjects that I’m surprised Nintendo would dare go near.”
From special attacks that use Star Power (basically mana), to brutal combos involving Mario and his allies (the likes of Goombella and Koops join the party early on), and handy items (use that fire flower to deal three damage to every enemy, deleting those Koopas from existence), Mario’s got plenty of firepower in his locker. Couple this with badges, which offer a variety of buffs like teaching him new attacks or granting more HP, and you’ve got a complex combat system that offers a satisfying challenge.
Funny Fish
I have to mention how funny this game is. The writing is brilliant, humorous, fourth-wall breaking, and even broaches darker subjects that I’m surprised Nintendo would dare go near. There’s Mafia bosses shaking down the Toads of Rogueport, dogs with gambling addictions, and a serious risk of street muggings. These are obviously not funny subjects in themselves, but there’s a levity to the script that elevates the absurdity of seeing a little mushroom man fret about his “missus”..
Shout out to the localisers here, too. Despite the lack of voice work, which hurts the main characters especially, I immediately hear villainous lackeys muttering in cockney accents, the mafiosos have a definite New York twang to their dialogue, and characters ooze personality through the script alone.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door isn’t perfect. The platforming is pernickety and there’s an annoying delay after clicking your input that makes it worse. I’ve not experienced this with any other Switch games, so I don’t think it’s a problem with my OLED, and it’s resulted in more deaths due to falling than I care to admit.
The levels also include a lot of backtracking. It’s an issue I understandwas present in the original game, and it hasn’t been fixed. I’m assuming this is to preserve the intent of the original game, but simply unfurling the levels like the houses of Rogueport would have made exploring each world more fun.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a wonderfully presented RPG that offers hours of fun. From the beautiful art style resplendent on theSwitch OLED, to the hilarious script and engaging turn-based combat, I’ve quickly come to understand why this game is so beloved. The Switch remake makes it more accessible than ever, and that can only be a good thing.
