Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was first released when I was a stupid kid playing video games. As such, I appreciated it at the time, but I did not have the level of admiration that most of its fans do. I had a similar experience with Persona 3, though I played that for the first time much later in my life than PM: TTYD.

And much like me playing Persona 3 Reload made me understand just why people loved Persona 3 in the first place, playing through the PM: TTYD remake brought that same level of understanding.

But while Persona 3 Reload was polished and cleaned to what could be argued as a sterile sheen, the PM: TTYD remake took nearly everything that people loved about the original TTYD and made it better. And that's why, between the two, PM: TTYD is the better remake.

The art direction is the perfect balance between the original iteration of PM: TTYD and the hardcore papercraft aesthetic of Paper Mario: The Origami King. The twenty years of video game graphic advancement since the original was released have allowed the developers to create the game "as you remember it". The battle stage is especially successful here. Any time I entered a battle without a player / enemy first strike, I was completely delighted as the set pieces unfolded themselves and then the characters would run in. That alone is one of the best "surprise and delight" moments I have experienced in any video game.

The new soundtrack is also successful, though it leans more toward the jazzy tunes of recent Paper Mario entries than the original. I absolutely love it. And for those who don't, they give you a badge that plays the original GameCube soundtrack instead. Perfect.

The cast of characters remains the most diverse in any video game bearing Mario's name. It is a reminder of how criminal it was when the series pivoted to no-name characters in later entries.

My only complaint - a minor one - is that there just wasn't enough new playable content. No new Pianta Parlor games, only two (admittedly amazing) new bosses... There could have been more. But so much more effort was put into the game's art direction and presentation that it makes up for it.

I desperately hope that Nintendo and Intelligent can push the formula further. I don't want a "PM: TTYD 2" - but what I do want is a game in the series with the same core philosophy of creating a diverse, lore-heavy, but most importantly believable Mario world. Where every character has something to say, where characters of different species interact in hilarious ways... I want the next game in the series to expand the Mario lore in ways we haven't seen before.

I don't put this in my top ten, but certainly in my "S Tier". My playthrough lasted approximately 40 hours - completing the main story, one full run through the Pit of 100 Trials, and defeating two of the game's three superbosses.