"There are many problems in the world, many sorrows. Do you like such a world?"
--TEC, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
A highly creative series, Paper Mario is a spiritual successor to Super Mario RPG, which itself was brought to the Switch in 2023 as a remake. The platform has accumulated quite the number of remasters and remakes in its console generation that branched out to include Paper Mario. Like how the 2002 GameCube masterpiece Metroid Prime was brought to the Switch in 2023, the often fondly remembered 2004 GameCube title Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door was brought to the Switch in 2024. The Switch had already seen the largely incredible Paper Mario: The Origami King debut in 2020 [1]; now, a much earlier release has been resurrected--and I happened to have the freedom to review it far sooner after its release than has tended to be the case in the last two years. While the thematic approach to the story does sometimes hint at its origins in a very overtly sexist (against women and men) gaming industry of the past, with frequent (at least all but) promotion of gender stereotypes, the gameplay is crafted very well.
Production Values
The graphical style of the GameCube release is maintained in this remaster for a system that exceeds the GameCube in its capacity. Yes, the hub of Rogueport is intentionally a visually disorganized and unsanitary place. It is, after all, a place falling into disarray between prevalent criminal/gang activity and its perpetuated reputation as a haven for people who do not necessarily want to be found. Between traveling to various regions, the player often comes back to Rogueport, so the location is one that gets a lot of screentime in the game. As aesthetically chaotic as the town is, the game's graphics are not at fault. The other parts of the world, like Twilight Town, have a very distinct look and environmental setup, so there is variety, and some areas are even quite colorful and organized in contrast to Rogueport. Paper character models and objects are used to great visual and thematic effect, with clear animations.
Gameplay
The up to 30+ hours of The Thousand Year Door will see many bouts of combat and exchanges of dialogue, but there is far more to the game than what is mandatory. Between completing the increasingly challenging Pit of 100 Trials, helping characters with their Trouble Board postings (which involve miscellaneous tasks), and finding hidden or sometimes openly displayed items like Star Pieces, a great deal of content is optional. Anyone introduced to the series with The Origami King can see that you actually do gain XP from fights and level up here, which incentivizes entering otherwise entirely optional fights up to a point. Hammer and jump enhancements are found with story advancement and provide boosts to attack power in a more typical RPG fashion. You even play as Peach and Bowser after acquiring each star, something different from the 2020 entry. Peach and Bowser never join the party, though, as they are only playable in between chapters of Mario's progression. Only Mario is directly controllable in the free exploration of the overworld; other party members are controlled during fights.
Each partner nonetheless has an ability that is vital to progressing in the story or required to obtain certain collectible/secret items. Koops can be kicked out by Mario to retrieve floating or distant objects or strike otherwise inaccessible switches or blocks; Madam Flurrie can blow away removable stickers blocking pathways; Vivian can pull Mario into another dimension to avoid enemy attacks in the walkable world. As Mario advances, he will acquire more than partners. He gains special paper-related abilities like that of folding into a paper airplane to reach high or distant ledges from certain vantage points. Eventually, a roll (a literal roll of paper that allows him to go under specific structures) and boat form are added. As with partners, these powers are utilized in a mandatory way for the story, but they can also be used to find optional items.
As for combat, the range of moves is initially very limiting. With more party members, more consumable items, and more optional badges (to be explained below) come broader choices for attack and defense. Each 100 Star Points earned from finishing enemy encounters levels up Mario, eventually granting him a larger and larger audience. Yes, fights take the characters to a stage where the onlookers can fill a special ability meter, such as when players press buttons at just the right time, that Mario can use to steer the confrontation in his favor. You can even use a turn to appeal to the audience and fill more of this meter. The XP earned from fighting the same types of enemies in a given location does drop over time as one levels up, however, so infinite XP farming is not feasible to reach these higher audience capacities.
Upon leveling up, a choice is presented: Mario's health can be increased by five units, his flower points (required for special offensive or defensive measures in fights) by five units, or his badge points by three units. Equipping badges for either Mario or a partner uses up a particular amount of available badge points and allows additional moves or passive effects, with different badges requiring different values, so not all of them can be utilized at once. They can be of immense assistance inside and outside of combat. One of them, for example, electrifies enemies that directly contact the wearer. Another boosts Mario's HP by five as if he was a level higher. Beyond having their own badges equipped from the same pool of badge points, partners can be leveled up as well, but not by Star Points. This comes from exchanging special items found throughout the game to a Rogueport sorcerer so that a partner receives more HP and an additional FP-based move. Far enough into the game, a second tier of upgrades becomes available for them.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
Peach finds herself kidnapped from Rogueport and in the custody of a mysterious group bent on obtaining the seven Crystal Stars, but before this had occured, she had sent Mario a map for a grand treasure. A city had its glory destroyed on this site many years before, and a legendary treasure is supposedly still underneath Rogueport. Arriving upon prompting from Peach, Mario comes to the town only to find her missing. One by one, he meets new companions and hunts for the Crystal Stars connected with an enormous door under the town.
Intellectual Content
There are some puzzles and collectibles that can be found by exploration and careful observation, as well as well-implemented breaks of the fourth wall showcasing the meta potential of gaming, but, in contrast to other Mario games I have played, The Thousand Year Door at least presents sexist stereotypes as if they were humorous or admirable. There are many outright sexist claims by characters, especially concerning male characters as to how "manly" or supposedly not they are, though gender stereotypes are inherently false. Having certain genitals and secondary sex characteristics pertains to the body alone; nothing at all about one's mind is necessitated by this. What one person is like psychologically, man or woman, does not in any way require that another person, man or woman, has the same personality traits. Moreover, if a man and woman can both do something, it is morally good, bad, or neutral for all of them as applicable, social constructs and subjective preferences being wholly irrelevant.
The Thousand Year Door treats men, however, as if they have additional, burdensome obligations to be bold and accomplished, and women do not, and as if male romantic/sexual consent does not matter. Mario is both erroneously regarded as "manly" by many female characters, though masculinity and feminity are logically impossible as opposed to gender-specific anatomy and physiology (Mario is a man because of his body no matter his personality or behaviors), and told frequently by them that he is some variation of gorgeous. Female characters adoring his appearance is not sexist or otherwise problematic at all on its own, and in fact is contrary to the sexism that regards only or mostly women as beautiful. It is just that he is even kissed against his will by Madame Flurrie, who joins the playable party: he literally gestures that he does not want it. I played The Thousand Year Door on the GameCube many years ago, well before I became a rationalist. I did not remember such things being present upon the release of the remaster. It is not the portrayal of irrational characters, however, that is itself irrational. It is the way these things are included, as if they are valid or trivial or both.
Conclusion
The Thousand Year Door provides a more conventional RPG experience than The Origami King, which did not feature XP. With The Origami King being the most recent novel game of the series to be released, the Switch version of The Thousand Year Door provides contemporary players a way to directly experience a high point for the acclaim of the series. As far as the gameplay is concerned, it is indeed a high quality game, and Nintendo continues to successfully revive games 20 years old or even older on its hybrid platform. The Switch's time is coming to an end, but the system is not without its excellent titles. Not for the first time with an impactful but aged Mario game, the Switch has established itself as a portal to classic games.
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