Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Voices of: Charles Martinet, Jen Taylor, Scott Burns
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Directed by: Ryota Kawade
Rating: E
Genre: Role-playing
System: Nintendo Gamecube
2004

Times Completed:
Tim: 1

Summary: Mario embarks on a dangerous journey to collect all 7 Crystal Stars and open the Thousand-Year Door.

Review:
Tim: I enjoyed Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64, but I wouldn't call myself a huge fan. So, I was intrigued to see what I'd think about Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, a game I often see on "greatest" lists. It's obviously wildly popular and considered a classic. I will say that this first sequel improves on the original game in every way. It's a huge leap forward for the budding Paper Mario franchise. While I do love much about this game, there's still quite a few things that I disliked. I personally wouldn't include this among my favorite games, although I do give immense credit for a game that's clearly better than the original in every way.

What I liked best about the game is the story. It feels truly epic, as Mario travels around to very different places around the world, collecting the 7 Crystal Stars. This isn't the typical bland Mushroom Kingdom- we're introduced to Rogueport early (with its hangman's noose hanging in the square), and then we spend time in a giant tree, at a flying fighting arena city, a deserted island, a posh city, there's a whole mystery-on-a-train sequence, the moon (!) and much more. The game feels epic because each location is so unique- it feels like Mario goes on a true journey here. It's fun exploring all these different locations and their singular inhabitants. Along the way, Mario recruits a number of unique characters, including a girl Goomba, a Koopa, a busty wind spirit thing, a baby Yoshi, a bob-omb, a shadow creature, and a mouse thief. What's best about all of this is that it's all presented humorously, tongue-in-cheek. This game is clever and funny and it's engaging to see crisp writing that makes you laugh and draws you in. Now, while this is true, there's WAY, WAY, WAY too much text in this game. While some dialogue is terrific, much of it is inane and pointless. I struggled at times, reading just sloppy, unfunny writing. While the best lines are terrific, the game could have cut 65% of the text and it would have been much, much better. That is straight up crazy. Intelligent Systems must not have hired any editors. The other issue (and, for reference, I played the Gamecube version, not the remake) is traveling around to these different places is a massive, huge frustrating waste of time. I spent way too much time in the sewers, trying to remember where to go to get to a specific location. The amount of wasted time running back and forth is beyond frustrating. The remake I'm sure brought some quality-of-life improvements, but the original was badly in need of them. Orchestrating any movement between places was a slog and a chore.

This might not be so bad, but the game often encourages you to travel back-and-forth between different places. This is primarily done through the Trouble Center, a bulletin board where characters have different troubles that Mario can solve. The rewards are crap and most of the troubles are fetch quests, or other wastes of time that require Mario to go back-and-forth between difficult to get to locations. I can complain about these because I invested the time to finish all 30 Troubles. The rewards are minuscule compared to the time invested in accomplishing this. It does extend the game time, and it helps get familiar with the sewer, as you're often traveling to places repeatedly to solve the trouble. Kind of cool and pretty annoying.

One aspect of the game I loved is all the little attentions to details throughout the game. One of the funniest quirks is seeing Luigi and getting updates from him- he's basically on a parallel quest that mirrors Mario's. It's insanely funny to hear his adventures, none of which we see, because we're on our own quest. There's plenty of other examples of clever dialogue or humor that the game just gets right.

While playing, I got Mario to Level 30, the Superstar Level. My stats were- HP- 60, FP- 35, BP- 42. I collected 75/85 Badges. I wouldn't say I went too far out of my way to collect these- I grabbed them when I could and I did do a few longer runs to get some, but I never set out to 100% the badges. I didn't use 90% of the ones I collected, so it all felt a little pointless. I only collected 8/57 recipes- I had zero desire to do this, as it was totally irrelevant to anything happening in the game. I'm open to wasting my time, but I do have limits. I did play the Pit of 100 Trials a bit too early, but I did manage to make it to the 80th level before I called it. I didn't feel the desire to play again to get all 100- no thank you. I would say that since I liked this game more than the previous one, I did accomplish more throughout the game, but even without getting close to doing everything, I still played this game 39:47. That's a lot of time for a game like this.

The game once again features turn-based combat. It's fine- it's clever to see how Nintendo tackles turn-based, but the depth is fairly lacking. None of the combat is overly difficult and it gets very, very repetitive. After a short period of time, battles in locations become not worth doing. You still have to do them, as you're completing Troubles, but they become more of a chore than something fun.

Playing this game was a similar mix of immense fun and incredible frustration. I liked the game a lot, but there's so many things that just drove me crazy. Still, I acknowledge the humor (when it hits) is top notch. The game is unique, engaging, funny, and memorable. The story is truly incredible. SPOILERS for the final boss. I thought the (SPOILER ALERT, AGAIN) Shadow Queen was a worthwhile challenge. The first time I battled her, I wasn't quite prepared and got destroyed. I tried again, not making any other adjustments but equipping one badge so Mario wouldn't get confused. I played the second time, not expecting to win, but to refine my strategy. I was pretty surprised when I ran through her and beat the game. So, she's challenging, but not overly difficult. Honestly, as much as I liked much of this game, it was a relief to end.

So, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a markedly, massive improvement over the original. It has one of the funniest, most original stories in any game I've played. However, the repetitive nature of traveling and combat, the insane walls of text that say nothing and add nothing, the odd sexualization of characters at times- these things really sink the game in my mind. So, I applaud it for being a huge step forward, but I'd never put this on my favorite games list.



Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



If You Enjoyed This Game, We Recommend: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Paper Mario, Super Paper Mario