Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

"A brilliant game, definitely worth looking into"

Paper Mario 2…. People have waited for this forever. Myself, I never played the first one. I don't know why I didn't, just never got to it. Therefore, you'll not be finding any comparisons to Paper Mario on the N64 in this review. I just picked it up because it looked like it was something I would like. It definitely was.

>Controls – 9.5/10
There's little to gripe about in the way you control this game… everything is very straightforward. Buttons used for special moves and battle actions are conveniently placed and easy to push at the right time. There's only 1 instance that I found in the game that isn't like that. It's one of the characters that joins your party; in a battle move it has you have to repeatedly press the R shoulder button. If you're familiar with trying to do that in other games…. it's hard to do, given the pressure sensitivity and the click you have to make with the button for it to register. Other battle moves require fast button taps as well, and that gets annoying after awhile if you have to keep doing it. Otherwise, excellent control scheme.

>Story - 9.5/10
The story starts out with Princess Peach out in a town called Rogueport, when she acquired some kind of treasure map. She sends it to Mario, wanting him to come help her look for the treasure. That's pretty much what the game gives you to start out the game, kinda leaves you wondering why it's worth your while to go after some treasure. It picks up, a lot. Peach ends up missing, and as it turns out, the search for “treasure” ends up quite a bit more than originally implied…. but I'm going to end up spoiling things if I get any farther. Trust me, this story gets really good as the game progresses. The characters are diverse and each add their own attributes to the whole scheme of things, it's very good.

>Sound and Music - 9.5/10
-> Game Music
While nothing special, it's all very fitting. The tunes are pleasant to listen to, and their mood and pace fit very well with the situation or area, just like every other set of music in a Mario game, ever. It's just that in this game I wasn't left with tunes from it stuck in my head all the time. However, there are some classic tunes mixed in there, which adds a nice touch here and there. This part would get a 9.

-> Sound Effects
The sound effects are great, nothing to complain about here. Things you'd expect from a Mario game like the sound a Yoshi makes when it walks are still consistent in this game. When you execute a move “superbly” (I'll get to that in Gameplay), you're rewarded with a short noise to indicate you've done it right. Hitting switches makes a notifying noise too, except in certain situations when it'd make things too easy if a sound were made. All appropriately placed, good effects. This part would get a 10.

>Graphics - 9.5/10
Great in this department too. The paper folding sequences and all the character models are perfect. Put on top of a 3D background, it makes for a really good-looking game, especially when the 3 dimensions are used to shift your perspective and use hidden passageways. The only complaints I have here are that some certain graphics are not at all nice to look at. Namely, the small sprites for the items and badges. When those get seen too close-up and zoomed, it's all blurry. The other thing was that, even though the 3D background is usually rather simple, it does get pretty jaggy in some spots. Other than that, the graphics are nice and vibrant, and a good mix of 3D and 2D.

>Gameplay - 9.5/10
-> General
Excellent. This is where the game shines the most. Movement around the different game areas is simple, just directional, and pushing up makes Mario go farther away from you, down is the opposite. You always have your partner, one character in your party, following you around. You can jump, and you have a hammer and your partner's abilities to manipulate the world around you. The fact that you are made out of paper is really emphasized. Special abilities acquired throughout the game let you access certain areas you couldn't get to before, by having Mario's shape change. Paper airplane, standing sideways, etc. The game is organized by Chapters. After each Chapter, you watch a couple movies that advance the plot, and sometimes you get control of a character that isn't Mario. This is pretty fun, depending on who you're controlling, and it's a good release from the normal flow of the gameplay. You can talk to pretty much anyone who isn't trying to attack you, and it makes things interesting. Overall, great maneuvering and overall gameplay

-> Battle System
* How it works
I love it; it works great for this game. Battles are turn-based. You battle with two fighters on your side and up to four on the other. The other fighter on your side besides Mario is by default your partner from normal gameplay, you can change who it is in-battle. The system relies heavily on your attention to the various meters you have. One for HP (Health Points, duh), one for FP (Flower Power, or attack power), and one for SP (Star Power, it fuels Special moves made by Mario). You receive various Badges in the game that alter things in battle: Attack Power, extra moves, etc. You are limited to how many you can use though. In addition to all this, there's always a crowd watching every battle. Do something they like and their cheers refill your SP meter. The more people, the better. Sometimes the audience will throw things at you, whether they be a useful item or a rock that'll hurt you. You have to look and decide if you should remove them from the crowd or not. All attacks you do yourself (i.e., not an item attack) have you interact with it somehow. You may have to hold a button or press certain ones, hold back the control stick a certain amount of time, etc. When attacking, you have the opportunity to “execute superbly.” This involves things like pressing A or releasing the control stick with the right timing. Executing superbly will make the attack hurt more, or give it an extra attribute.

* Rating
All in all, it makes battles very fun, but also makes them long. This gets incredibly annoying when you have many enemies in a small area to fight that you can't avoid. It's also annoying when you have to go through the whole battle process to fight a 2HP enemy or something like that. The fact that it's such a process holds you up, sometimes in bad spots. You may be very set on getting to the next area and seeing what happens next in the plot, only to be frustrated with too many enemies attacking you and having to go through the long battle process to get it over with. In that case, you can choose to run, but that loses you coins. So overall, the whole system is great mechanically, but gets a little on the annoying side depending on the situation.

>Concluding…
Wow, everything was 9.5/10. Overall this game is great. One of the best on Gamecube right now. It's just that when broken into categories, it suffers a few bad or annoying spots here and there. It definitely isn't major enough to warrant any second thoughts about the quality of the game, or about picking this one up. Starts out as a really easy game, and gets progressively more difficult. It took me 28 hours to beat. I'd say it's a buy, since you have plenty of sidequests to lengthen your playtime, or to do after you've beaten it.

Overall score: 9.5/10
Rounded: 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/25/04