The Thousand-Year Door Review – Slightly Creased Charm

It seemed like we’d never see another game like Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. While there have been plenty of Paper Mario games over the past couple of decades, Nintendo has intentionally steered the series away from the RPG mechanics, original characters, and sharp-edged humor it was initially known for. As a result, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has taken on a certain symbolic importance to some spurned fans even though it wasn’t a particularly big hit in its day. Needless to say, it came as a bit of a shock when Nintendo announced a full remake of the game last year.

Does Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door still stack up in 2024? Or should Nintendo have left this paper filed under “N” for Nostalgia? Time to see if this remake is still a cut above…

As in the original game, the events of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door are set in motion when Princess Peach’s holiday gets sidetracked in the sketchy town of Rogueport. There she’s given a map that points toward The Thousand-Year Door, which is located beneath the town and said to contain some sort of powerful and ominous “treasure.” Peach invites Mario to dig into this mystery, but by the time he arrives in Rogueport, a mysterious group known as the X-Nauts has kidnapped her. From there, the story follows Mario as he collects the Crystal Stars that power the Thousand-Year Door, with occasional check-ins with Bowser as he attempts to head off both Mario and the X-Nauts and Princess Peach as she gets dragged into a, shall we say, unique relationship with the X-Nauts’ HAL-9000-like computer.

While I’ll admit don’t have an encyclopedic memory of every line in the original version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the writing in the remake is largely unchanged, down to NPCs making now-very-dated references to hot new games like Fire Emblem on the GBA. There are a few minor tweaks, such as party member Vivian’s characterization now being truer to the original Japanese version of the game, but that clever snap you remember remains. You could argue the writing doesn’t quite stand out like it once did as the kind of self-deprecating meta humor found in The Thousand-Year Door is now a much more common ingredient in Nintendo games. That said, I still spent a good portion of my time with the new TTYD smiling and chuckling at various fun moments I’d forgotten.

In terms of gameplay, this is Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door as you remember it. If you’re afraid Nintendo may have secretly cut out all the tasty RPG bits, breathe easy. Leveling up by earning Star Points and customizing your play style with badges is still very much a thing. As before, combat combines turn-based decisions with well-timed button presses that either increase your offense or reduce the damage you take from enemies. The UI during battles is significantly cleaner and more readable now, but beyond that, not much has changed.

The game’s level design also seems largely identical, perhaps to a fault. While more recent Paper Mario titles arguably backslid in terms of story and combat, they offered undeniable improvements in level design. By contrast, most of the areas in The Thousand-Year Door consist of a series of very straightforward linear paths littered with respawning enemies and the occasional puzzle, with players frequently having to engage in repetitive tasks and backtracking.

Thankfully, a certain degree of effort has been made to tone down some of the more laborious aspects of The Thousand-Year Door. A better-designed quick-travel warp pipe room that can be accessed directly from the main plaza in Rogueport makes getting around later in the game a bit less of a hassle and some of the more repetitive chapters have had extra warp pipes added that eliminate some, but not all, the shlepping back and forth (I’m only halfway joking when I say the new Chapter 4 pipe shown above added a solid half-point to my score all on its own). That said, while developer Intelligent Systems has sanded down some of TTYD’s rough edges, there’s still a lot of repetitiveness baked into the game’s design. Part of me can’t help but dream of a more ambitious remake of TTYD where, say, the game’s great-in-concept pro-wrestling-themed chapter wasn’t such a deja-vu-inducing grind to get through.

When it comes to actual substantive changes, it seems Intelligent Systems mostly focused on The Thousand-Year Door’s visuals. While this may look like a simple remastering at first glance, the game has actually been fully rebuilt from the ground up. In addition to generally looking shaper, the paper theme is pushed harder, with almost everything in the game now looking as if it’s made of cardboard and origami. Improved lighting makes some of the moodier sections of the game, like Twilight Town, really pop, and little touches like reflective cobblestones in Rogueport or the background scenery during battles folding out like a popup book add some extra razzle-dazzle. The game is now capped at 30fps, but it doesn’t matter all that much as this isn’t exactly a hardcore action game and the various quick time button inputs during battles still feel just fine. Unlike some other recent Nintendo titles, that 30fps mostly remains solid, with only very brief hiccups during some of the flashier cutscenes.

Beyond the pretty new visuals, you have to dig into The Thousand-Year Door remake’s UI and menus to find any other new additions. A new quick-select wheel makes switching characters much less irritating and there’s now a “Notes” section where you can keep track of Trouble Center tasks, Star Pieces, Shine Sprites, and fortunes. There are also new Art and Sound Galleries, with the former being unlocked if you collect all the Star Pieces in an area.

While I may have come off somewhat critical of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door in this review, there’s still an undeniable richness and depth to its world that no other game in the series has quite managed to achieve. Rogueport, with its varied cast of ne’er-do-wells and weirdos and countless secrets, is still one of my favorite locales I’ve ever visited with Nintendo’s plumber. Even with its minor streamlining, the new TTYD still serves up a solid 25-hour story with plenty of side content to clean up, including perhaps some small new post-game treats. This papery adventure definitely isn’t a lightweight.

This review was based on a copy of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door provided by publisher Nintendo.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

While the new Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door preserves the gonzo charm that made the original game a cult classic, not a lot has been done to deal with its padding and other design quirks. If you’re a hardcore Thousand-Year Door fan, worry not, you’re going to love this spiffy new version. If you’re new to the game or weren’t entirely sold the first time around, you’re still likely to find plenty to enjoy here, but you may also notice a few tattered edges.

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