Hands on with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on Switch

Paper Mario and Mario RPGs have been many different things over the years. The GameCube’s Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door has been long overdue for some kind of re-release. Not only is Nintendo bringing this (nearly) 20-year-old classic back, but they’ve also remade it! 

Initially approaching this preview I wondered “What can I even say about a long awaited game?!” Then remembering that being a 20 year old game, on the GameCube means a fair few people haven’t actually played it. The good news is that very soon The Thousand Year Door (TTYD) will be much more easily available.

If you haven’t played one of the Paper Mario’s, Mario and Luigi Superstars, or the more recent Super Mario RPG Remake, then you’re missing out! Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is a turn based RPG where you get to play as Mario. The game kicks off with an old tale about a lost city and the titular Thousand Year Door. The story begins with Princess Peach vanishing, but not before she can send Mario a map related to the Thousand Year Door. Early on, you discover that seven Crystal Stars are needed, and Mario will be the hero to do it. He isn’t the only one looking for the Stars, with a mysterious new character called Grodus and his X-Nauts also seeking the Door and Stars. Mario won’t be doing this alone, he has companions he meets along the way that join the team and help out in and out of battle. As with the original game there’s also parts where you get to play as Princess Peach and Bowser, while Luigi is around to regale you with his own adventures. 

Without even getting out my original GC copy of the game, it’s apparent that the visuals have been given a boost. Not in any way that takes away from the original’s charm, the more immediately noticeable are reflective surfaces, where appropriate. Some areas feel like they’ve been covered in a layer of contact paper, which felt like a neat touch. The game looks really nice, it was already such a cool art style and across the games it’s always worked well. While there is loading and transition animations between locations, they feel pretty quick, although I could definitely do without the world to battle transition animation when working through multiple enemies in an area. Overall the game looks great, part because it always did and part because the remake work spruces up the visuals even more. 

One gripe that I have long held with the Paper Mario series since TTYD is that the series overall veered away from having more individualised characters and started to stick with the more plain designs. I fondly remembered TTYD (and the Mario & Luigi Superstar series) as having more fun with the dialogue and humour that began with the original Super Mario RPG. It was good to see that it is still all here – I can’t speak for every single line, I am sure there will be reasons why some might be changed. The fun spirit of TTYD is still very much present with the remake, and so far it has been a joy to re-experience it all again.   

One mechanic TTYD introduced and abandoned afterwards is the audience that spectates the battles. The battles take place in a theatre/stage show backdrop, with rows of seats out in front. As the fight continues on Toads and other Mushroom Kingdom creatures will continue to fill in the seats and cheer on then. Impressing the crowd nets extra points to fill up the star meter. The audience can also attempt to interfere with the fight, throwing either helpful or harmful items at the stage. It’s up to you to make the call if you want to boot them out or take your chances on where the items will go. 

The stage show backdrop also isn’t all for show. When you’re out there dealing damage, if there is a prop scenery behind the enemy it can potentially be jostled loose to land on them for some extra damage. Just be mindful that this cuts both ways and the enemy can do the exact same should you have some scenery behind Mario and co. 

Given that it has been a good 19 or so years since I played the original, I’m not going to be able to pick every subtle change that has occurred; some are a bit more noticeable. Early on, I purchased a badge to toggle between the new, fancy-sounding remade music and the GameCube original tunes. I dipped into the tunes just to see how different they were, it was a nice walk down memory lane to hear some of that original music. The new updated music is good in its own right. Initially, I thought that they added in the “Superguard”, an additional parry with a tighter timing window with the opportunity to reduce damage even further and to deal damage back. It turns out it was there in the original and I had just forgotten. It was good to rediscover it, weighing up whether you want to reduce a little damage, or take the chance and risk the Superguard for greater reward. 

The first very helpful change I noticed was once I got two companions. Selecting between them is now handled with a Companion wheel, hit the R trigger and you can quickly switch between. This is especially handy if you want to have Goombella with you when jumping into battles for her Tattle ability (giving you the HP and other information for any new enemies), and of course for later when you have a larger team to swap between for their out of battle abilities. 

There also appears to be a music and art gallery available from a menu, however it’s not immediately accessible. The music is accessible by completing the chapters, however the art gallery seems to require getting all the star pieces too. 

 Another addition is also a Battle Master Toad that appears throughout the areas I’ve been through so far, they offer a pretty comprehensive list of information about battle mechanics and give you the opportunity to practise your timing. 

I’m going to be honest with you here, with Paper Mario TTYD being such a story driven game I don’t want to delve into that too much. There will be plenty of players who haven’t gotten to enjoy this game yet, but also there’s only so much I can say at this point. If you have played the original or have even heard the praise for what the original did, then know that this is still that game. I will be back with the full review, but for now know that Paper Mario TTYD is still a great Paper Mario game.  

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is out on Thursday, May 23rd, 2024, note that new day instead of Friday. We’ve got a bargain guide for the game here.