Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
released on Jul 22, 2004
What sleeps behind the door? Time passes, the pages turn… and a new chapter unfolds in an unfamiliar land! Get ready for a two-dimensional role-playing adventure for the ages as Mario returns to paper form to discover a mystery that sleeps behind an ancient, legendary portal called the Thousand-Year Door. The quest is long, the dangers many, and this time, Mario will have to make full use of his papery qualities just to survive.
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I swear this had little to do with the upcoming remake. I played paper mario 64 2 years ago and then procrastinated with the sequel. ANYWAYS. About as good as the first, but for fairly different reasons?
Ttyd has a much stronger world and cast than the first game. Rogueport, the X-Nauts, the new partners, the pianta mafia, the linebeck ass dude, all have such distinct personality and flare that carries the whole experience. Ttyd is also much, much longer than the first game, which at first scared me, but then made me appreciate the journey a lot more, so that's neat.
To counterbalance all that goodwill, however, thousand year door brings a couple of stinks that weren't present in 64. The shitty backtracking is certainly one of them, but also, like, a really sloppy difficulty curve. Chapter 7 was a breeze, almost chapter 1 level difficult, and then chapter 8 woops my ass, whereas 64 was a nice, even, linear graph. Besides I just have to dock points for the 10 minute unskippable cutscene WITH DIALOGUE PROMPTS in the final boss.
But other than that, ykno, it's a perfectly fun rpg. The combat is good, the presentation is tight, and that's that. I still prefer Mario & Luigi over Paper Mario, but I guess it's easier to adopt the stance of "Both, both is good"
Ttyd has a much stronger world and cast than the first game. Rogueport, the X-Nauts, the new partners, the pianta mafia, the linebeck ass dude, all have such distinct personality and flare that carries the whole experience. Ttyd is also much, much longer than the first game, which at first scared me, but then made me appreciate the journey a lot more, so that's neat.
To counterbalance all that goodwill, however, thousand year door brings a couple of stinks that weren't present in 64. The shitty backtracking is certainly one of them, but also, like, a really sloppy difficulty curve. Chapter 7 was a breeze, almost chapter 1 level difficult, and then chapter 8 woops my ass, whereas 64 was a nice, even, linear graph. Besides I just have to dock points for the 10 minute unskippable cutscene WITH DIALOGUE PROMPTS in the final boss.
But other than that, ykno, it's a perfectly fun rpg. The combat is good, the presentation is tight, and that's that. I still prefer Mario & Luigi over Paper Mario, but I guess it's easier to adopt the stance of "Both, both is good"
perfect video game, "but muh backtrackingggg!" shut up its PEAK
Going from PM1 to this feels like passing from a frozen supermarket pizza to a full-fledged neapolitan one eaten at a quality restaurant.
I got to the Grubba fight and realized I was really bored so I stopped.
Not saying the game is bad or anything, but Paper Mario just ain't for me.
Not saying the game is bad or anything, but Paper Mario just ain't for me.
This game came out during an era where it seemed every single player Nintendo game was padded for length. TTYD is no exception. Even if we assume the designers had no desire to artificially pad the runtime, the game just doesn't feel like it used its space well. Twilight town and the train are two particularly bad examples. What's most frustrating about these are that they have really interesting setups, but most of the gameplay was walking from one place to another.
I do think that the designers had a playtime in mind they were shooting for and designed the limited content they had in a way to achieve that goal. Most of this comes down to level design and I think this game would be significantly improved if they reworked some of the levels to quicken the pace overall. Maybe this will be done in the switch remake, but I am not holding my breath.
I do think that the designers had a playtime in mind they were shooting for and designed the limited content they had in a way to achieve that goal. Most of this comes down to level design and I think this game would be significantly improved if they reworked some of the levels to quicken the pace overall. Maybe this will be done in the switch remake, but I am not holding my breath.
played thru this son of a gun every year for like 4 years.. this is a good as hell game with a fun and rewarding combat system with great scaling and some really great later game cfhallenges. the story is nonstop banter and wit and honestly some of my favorite writing in a game. the remake is going to sadly shit all over the visual charm the gamecube PNGs offer but i'll still be more than happy to play this again :)