Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Review – A Flawless Return to Form

Rediscovering a Classic

After many years of completely losing any identity the franchise had once had, Nintendo surprising us with a remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, now regarded as one of the best games of the sixth generation, was not on my bingo card.

While this generation’s Origami King was a step in the right direction, it was still yet another divisive entry that was clearly not what longtime fans truly wanted from the series. What they wanted was a true successor to this particular entry, and so – twenty years and five games since its original release – it’s easy to see this full remake of The Thousand-Year Door as a water-tester.

The Impact of the Original Game

And, full disclosure, despite my frequent…skepticism of Nintendo’s consumer-facing business practices, the original GameCube version of this title is tied with Final Fantasy IX as my favorite game of all time. It wasn’t perfect, and we’ll certainly get to the flaws that version had, but it was an important and formative game in my childhood that taught me that even massive RPGs can have a boatload of charm and humor to carry their narrative along. And also, it made me cry no matter how many times I replayed it.

Knowing the game and its problems front to back, in order to really maximize the potential of a beloved classic, parts of this game need to be updated to modernize it properly, and one pretty major instance of localization censorship needs to be fixed. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and this game came out in 2004, so let’s start from the top.

Revisiting the Story of Rogueport

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a sequel to the 2000 N64 title, simply called Paper Mario, which took the platforming plumber and his world and translated it into a strategic, turn-based RPG. The aesthetic was utterly different from any other Mario game on the console, adopting a 2.5D style inspired by PaRappa the Rapper. And while it began life as a sequel to the recently-remade Super Mario RPG, it developed a totally different and much more humorous personality.

The Thousand-Year Door is both a sequel and somewhat of a stealth remake of the N64 game, with a ton of parallels to the original that are significantly refined and mastered and placed into a brand-new setting. Rogueport and its surroundings are unique to this game, and that gave the creators a lot of freedom in depicting whatever kind of locales they wanted, wholly divorced from either the Mushroom Kingdom of the previous game or the version of that setting in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, which had released the year before.

Beneath all the well-thought-out changes is one of the most well-constructed turn-based RPGs of all time and probably the single most well-told and emotional story in any Mario title.

The player is instantly introduced to Rogueport through a prologue wherein Princess Peach, on vacation in this strange hive of scum and villainy, comes across a box being sold by a street vendor. She opens it, the game cuts to black, and we cut to Mario being invited to join her on her vacation via letter, in which she also encloses the map inside the box.

Upon arriving at Rogueport, he finds no Princess but is instead attacked by a strangely garbed man and a squadron of minuscule grunts. With the help of the similarly-put-upon Goombella, he escapes, meets her former teacher, and the three of them discover that the map is the key to opening the titular door and will point the way to the seven Crystal Stars that will be used in its unsealing.

Each of the stars is in a different area in Rogueport’s surroundings, and the diversity of its locales is easily one of the best parts of the game, with the caveat in the original that there would be a lot of backtracking involved at various points. Not only does the game have Metroidvania-esque powers that allow you to reach new areas, but one section nearing the end of the game is infamous for sending the player all over the explored map in confusing directions. The game’s final chapters are worth the hassle, but it was a heavily dreaded speed bump.

Thankfully, this remake has updated the game with many new quality-of-life features, both large and small.

Thankfully, this remake has updated the game with many new quality-of-life features, both large and small. The most noticeable are a more convenient on-demand hint system, wherein a single button press will nudge the player in the direction of the next event, and a fast-travel shortcut system that will allow you to much more easily revisit areas, significantly cutting down on the pain of backtracking for extra goodies and missing generals.

Exploration itself is also easier now with the help of the Partner Ring, replacing the limited d-pad shortcut from the Gamecube release and allowing you to quickly switch between Mario’s allies in order to take advantage of their abilities, and telegraphs that make it much easier to tell where those powers will land once used.

For example, Chapter 1’s new party member, Koops, can be boomeranged out to grab distant objects or hit faraway switches, or he can be held in place to trip switches at a delay. A ring on the ground will now appear when Koops is being held to make it more obvious what he’ll hit when released from his delay.

The Importance of Uncensoring Vivian’s Story

These changes are excellent, but the best difference from the original release is the un-censoring of Vivian, a character who was canonically transgender in the original Japanese script of  Thousand-Year Door and was the target of bullying by her eldest sister, Beldam. That specific bullying is wisely not shown on-screen but is implied to be the reason her sisters treat her poorly, and in the original English release, that part of her story was erased entirely.

While picking on a younger sibling for no reason is certainly not unheard of, this was an instance of explicit erasure in a time when this depiction could have been ground-breaking, and it has been entirely fixed with this updated re-release. Being trans is not Vivian’s entire character. Still, the way she comes to empower herself could have been an inspiring and meaningful story for queer gamers, and it’s excellent that people picking up this game for the first time on Switch will get to see the intended experience.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a sequel to the 2000 N64 title, simply called Paper Mario, which took the platforming plumber and his world and translated it into a strategic, turn-based RPG.

I also can’t stress enough how good the new musical orchestrations are. The entire soundtrack feels much grander than the quirky arrangements of the original, and given how I could probably hum almost any tune from this game from memory, it speaks highly of the new sound that I did not take up the option of switching back to the original score, though the option is thankfully available.

Beneath all the well-thought-out changes is one of the most well-constructed turn-based RPGs of all time and probably the single most well-told and emotional story in any Mario title. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is absolutely bursting at the seams with charm and character, memorable allies, insane humor that hasn’t aged a day in two decades, and dramatic beats unmatched by any other game in the series.

A Worthy Remake and Future Hopes

If you’ve never played the GameCube original, you’ve probably spent the last twenty years or so hearing the series’ vocal fanbase glorify The Thousand-Year Door to no end, and this remake has reminded me that it really is just that worthy. Every nitpick I’ve ever had with the older release has been addressed, and along with that came a whole bunch of cool additions I never even knew I wanted. Given that we’ve now gotten two Mario RPG remakes in the last year, I can only hope that’s a sign that Nintendo will finally take this series in the direction fans have always wanted because the only thing I could ask for now is to finally get a sequel.