Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door is a dream-come-true remake for fans

Fans of Mario RPG games are on cloud nine right now.

Not long after they received a dream-come-true remake of SNES masterpiece Super Mario RPG, now what’s widely regarded as the very best Paper Mario game, The Thousand Year Door, is getting its own gorgeous HD treatment on Nintendo Switch.

To understand why these releases have been so hugely anticipated – and why for the longest time, many thought they would never be revisited – we need to look back at how the Paper Mario series evolved in the 20 years since The Thousand Year Door first debuted on Nintendo GameCube.

From the very next instalment after TTYD, Wii’s Super Paper Mario, Nintendo’s spin-off series slowly started to offload its traditional RPG routes, such as experience points and classic turn-based combat, replacing them with a series of increasingly experimental – and often divisive – mechanics.

There’s plenty of theories as to why this happened, but the most likely is that Nintendo wanted to differentiate Paper Mario from its other RPG series, Mario & Luigi, and comments by the series’ producer support this.

Just as contentious among loyal fans is the feeling that, while the series has always maintained its wonderful charm and humour, its worlds and characters have become less unique and outlandish than they used to be, in the times before Nintendo developers had to worry about following brand bibles intended to blanket a new era of Hollywood movies and theme park attractions.

This, according to various interviews with developers behind the series, is due to Nintendo’s decision to intentionally include less story due to feedback from testers, and new brand restrictions around how heavily it can modify traditional character designs.

For purists then, it’s easy to understand why the older games in the Paper Mario series are so beloved, and why in 2024 they feel like the sweetest forbidden fruit.

Just like last year’s excellent Super Mario RPG remake, The Thousand Year Door marries traditional role-playing features with a story and cast of characters you really wouldn’t expect to see in a modern Mario game – and until these RPG remakes were announced last summer, it seemed like we probably wouldn’t again.

TTYD is a wonderfully weird – and often surprisingly dark – adventure, married with the comfortingly familiar mechanics of a turn-based battler. As our flat, moustached hero sets out in search of mythical treasures, he’s eventually joined by one of Mario’s most memorable casts of companions, in a story that also introduces some of its most wildly creative scenarios.

We don’t think it’s hyperbole to call The Thousand Year Door an all-time classic. It stands up in 2024 for the same reasons it did in 2004, and that’s why new fans should be just as excited to check it out as those old enough to remember it the first time around.

“The Thousand Year Door marries traditional role-playing features with a story and cast of characters you really wouldn’t expect to see in a modern Mario game – and until these RPG remakes were announced last summer, it seemed like we probably wouldn’t again.”

The Nintendo Switch version, as you can see in our footage above, looks delightful with no hint that this is a remake of a 20-year-old game (and indeed, Nintendo’s not giving many hints either in its marketing for the title). Arguably, it’s a better looking game than 2020’s The Origami King, a title built for Switch, if mostly thanks to the original’s fantastic art direction.

Sadly, it appears to run at 30fps to our eyes, but for this genre of game, that really shouldn’t matter. Like Nintendo’s previous remakes, the Switch version also seems to stick rigidly to the original game’s blueprint, which, considering this has aged far less than last year’s SNES remake, isn’t an issue.

For those who do remember the original, its opening chapters are as comforting as a hot bath. Meeting Goombella, the archaeology student Goomba with sarcastic quips, in the seedy town of Rogueport – which has a literal hangman’s noose as its centrepiece – immediately sets the tone for the twisted satire to come.

Soon, you’re competing in a comedy quiz game against a giant Thwomp, arguing with a sentient, curse-weaving treasure chest, or rummaging through Koopa bones to find a villager’s missing (and presumed dead) father. The Super Mario Bros. Movie, this is not.

Crucially, for those who’ve fallen out of love with Paper Mario series, powering the adventure are robust, no-nonsense turn-based battles, with players able to battle foes alongside their companions, and level up their stats upon defeating enough. All the good stuff.

At the time, these systems will have felt staunchly conservative. There’s little here that didn’t feature in the first two Mario RPG games, or indeed a decade of genre entries released before it. But after enduring dozens of tedious Paper Mario reinventions, it is frankly something of a relief to return to a set of balanced and engaged mechanics, with no stickers, cards, or bags of confetti in sight.

“Soon, you’re competing in a comedy quiz game against a giant Thwomp, arguing with a sentient, curse-weaving treasure chest, or rummaging through Koopa bones to find a villager’s missing (and presumed dead) father.”

Equipable badges, which add modifiers such as more powerful moves, add further depth, and there’s also a twist within the environments of the battles. Encounters take place on a stage in front of an audience of Mario NPCs, with more joining to watch as you perform crucial attacks or well-timed button presses to make moves stronger – a feature that’s appeared in other Mario RPG games.

Occasionally, moves will knock down scenery and damage opponents, or members of the audience will stand to throw protesting projectiles at Mario, which can be blocked with another well-timed button press. It’s a cute touch, even if it doesn’t happen all that often.

But across both Mario RPG, the Paper Mario series, and the sublime Mario & Luigi games, the narrative is the star of the show – and Thousand Year Door is the franchise at its comedic best, without some cumbersome gimmick spoiling the fun. For this reason, it remains an all-time favourite, and we genuinely can’t wait to spend more time with the final game.