Score
Gameplay:	9
Graphics:	9
Sound:	10
FunFactor:	10
PlasmaFactor:	9
Overall:	9.4

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Review
October 31, 2004 by Brian Callam

by Brian - October 31, 2004

To put it simply, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is one of the best RPGs to come out this year. With its unique visual style, well rounded characters, inventive battle system, and dozens laugh out loud moments, this game is a must have for any GameCube owner.

The Princess has been captured... again.

The game begins with Mario receiving a letter from the Princess along with a magical treasure map. The Princess� letter instructs Mario to join her in Rogueport so that they can look for the treasure together, and wouldn�t you know it, when you arrive, she is nowhere to be found. After teaming up with a spunky young goomba named Goombella, and meeting with her University Professor about the map, you learn that the map is for the treasure behind the thousand-year door that lies below Rogueport, and in order to open the door you must collect the seven crystal stars (surprise!) located all over the world. Assuming that the Princess had went ahead to find the crystal stars herself, Mario and Goombella set off to find the first crystal star in hopes of catching up with her. Of course, this is futile because she has already been captured by the X-Nauts, an evil organization led by the wizard Grodus, who also happens to be looking for the crystal stars, but for an entirely different reason. Of course, where would Mario be without the evil King Bowser? When he learns of the crystal stars, he also sets out to find them, but as usual Mario is always one step ahead of him.

The game is separated into chapters, and each crystal star is in a different one. One of the great things about the game is that each chapter is vastly different from the previous one, and they all have their own side stories to keep the game interesting. For example, in one chapter you will become a dragon slayer, another a detective, you will work for the mob and even a wrestling champion. Because the chapters are so varied, you will never get bored.

If you have played the original Paper Mario on the N64, than the core gameplay elements will be familiar to you. The game combines a lot of classic Mario gameplay with the RPG aspect and puzzle solving to create a wholly enjoyable package. You will travel through pipes, punish enemies with a quick jump on the head or smack with a hammer, jump over pits, and solve a variety of puzzles using your partner�s special abilities as well as your own. There are even a few parts in the game where you will play through a classic Mario level as Bowser, which to any Mario fan, will be quite hilarious.

In almost every chapter, a new character will join Mario�s party, each with their own personality, speach patterns, and special abilities. The characters are all very well designed, and you will begin to care for them by the end of the game. Partners range from a timid turtle named Koops, a newborn Yoshi that you can ride, a sea faring Bob-omb named Bobbery, as well as a few others. By the end of the game you will have at least six partners, but it is possible to get another one by doing a secret side quest. Many of the game�s puzzles require your partner�s special abilities in order to solve them, but you can only have member out at a time (although they can all travel with you, you must switch them in and out). Mario also has his own special abilities that he gains in some of the funniest moments in the game, and they all involve Mario�s paper attributes. He will be able to turn into a paper airplane to fly over large areas, turn into a paper boat to cross water, roll up into a tube to slide under crawlspaces, and even turn sideways to fit through tight spaces. The last one really highlights the fact that Mario is in fact flat.

Then there�s the battle system. You still can only have one partner at a time and it uses one of your turn to switch them unless you have the badge that lets you switch without a penalty. Badges are basically power-ups that you can equip Mario with that give him new attacks, more of a certain attribute, or change the sound effects or Mario�s costume just to name a few. Each badge requires a certain amount of Badge Points (BP) to equip which you can gain more of by leveling. Now, the battle system is fairly unique in that it requires you to have good reflexes and you use actual techniques to attack or defend rather than choosing an attack from a menu and watching some long cinematic sequence. Instead, you will select an attack from a menu and have to press buttons with perfect timing in order to pump out more damage for the attack. The same goes for when your enemies are attacking. By pressing the �A� button at the point of impact you are able to avoid some of the damage, and by pressing �B� you are able to avoid the attack all together and actually damage the attacker instead. Did I mention that the battles take place on a stage as well? You will even have spectators watching you battle, and they have an important role. You have to impress them by doing stylish and powerful moves. If you don�t, you may get stuff thrown at you and your partner, while if you do good, the enemies might be the ones taking the hits. They also help you fill up your star power. With each crystal star you acquire, you gain one star power and one star power move. Star power moves are like your super attacks because they can sometimes kill the entire opposing team in one hit, or save you from a dire situation by regenerating your stamina. All of this combined makes Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door a very innovative and different game than your typical RPG and it works very well because it keeps you active during the battles rather than just picking something from a menu and watching.

After every battle you will gain star points. These are not the same as star power, but rather they serve as your experience. For every 100 star power you acquire, you gain a level. When you gain a level you can upgrade one of your three attributes, health points (HP), flower points (FP), and badge points (BP), to the next level. This allows you to customize your character to your play style. For example, if you like using a lot of badges, you are going to need to upgrade your BP pretty high. If you like using a lot of special moves, you are going to need a lot of FP. You are also going to have to upgrade your HP regardless of your play style if you intend to get anywhere at all, but luckily if you mess up your character really bad, there is a place you can go to change your attributes for a price.

2D Characters in a 3D World

Despite the characters in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door being paper thin, essentially two dimensional, the game�s world is actually 3D, and even so, it still has paper like qualities. For example, pages will be ripped off the world to reveal hidden stairways and passages, or flap in the wind when you use Flurrie�s special ability. The game certainly does have a 2D look though. All of the characters are drawn to look kind of like cartoon or storybook characters, and they are all extremely well designed. If you are one of those folks who doesn�t like the cartoon style graphics, or think they look too �cute,� you won�t appreciate the graphics very much. However, for everyone else, they graphics are spot on. The storybook feel also aids the gameplay mechanics as I explained above with Mario�s special abilities.

The game also has practically no load times, which just adds to the technical prowess of the game. There is no slow down, animation is perfect, you just couldn�t ask for more. Simply put, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is one of the best looking games to come out this year, which proves that you don�t need to have flashy special effects and life-like graphics to be a beautiful looking game.

Incredible Audio

Audio is another aspect of this game that is done extremely well. The music is excellent. It fits the theme of every chapter fantastically, and also has a wide range of sounds. The music ranges from the spooky theme of Twilight Town, to the upbeat tune of Petalburg, and the exciting melody of the Glitz Pit. Some characters even have their own theme music which is cool. There�s really something for everyone in the music department and it all wraps up into a complete package.

The sound effects are also top notch in Paper Mario 2. They are extremely varied and fit the cartoon feel perfectly. Oh yeah, and there are badges you can wear that change the sound effects of Mario�s attacks to bizarre things like crickets chirping.

Although there isn�t any real voice acting in this game, that is actually a good thing. Aside from the occasional �Woohoo!� and mumbling, Mario never speaks, but the other characters talking is all handled by speech bubbles. They use text effects such as shaking text, italics, giant letters, etc, to great effect in getting the character�s speech to sound correct, and it can also be quite humorous at times.

Addicting++

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is one of the funniest games I have ever played. There are plenty of references to classic Nintendo games, and it isn�t afraid to make fun of itself either (at one point, an enemy in a poorly designed disguise talks directly to the player telling them not to blow their cover). One segment is very much like Pikmin, and another seems like a spoof on Pirates of the Carribean. You will actually want to speak to every single person in the game, because, no matter how ordinary a thing they may be talking about, it will make you laugh at how absurd it is. Each character is actually interesting to talk to which is a very welcome change of pace from the latest RPGs. I was just giddy playing this game. I constantly had a smile on my face, and that is not something I have had a game do for me ever. Just wait till you hear about Luigi�s adventures whenever you return to Rogueport. I was literally laughing out loud.

Another thing, because the battle system requires a bit of skill, its actually really fun, and because there aren�t any random battles, you won�t get tired of it either. The game can be quite addicting as well. Because it immerses you in the world so well, I played for 8 hours straight on more than one occasion.

But wait! There�s more!

If I haven�t convinced you to go out and buy this game yet, I have a few more things to say about it. First of all, the game racks up to a whopping 30-40 hours of gameplay (it took me about 38), and that�s without doing all of the side quests, or the Pit of 100 Trials. The length does not disappoint, but even so, I found myself not wanting it to end because this is such an incredible game. There was only one thing that slightly annoyed me about the game, and that is that it relies a bit too much on back tracking in some parts of your journey. This is only a minor problem though, because the game is just so good in every other aspect that it can be overlooked.

 

A Must Own

I had a pretty hard time writing this review, because there is just so much in this game to write about, and I didn�t want to spoil the game too much, so I didn't know where to start. To put it simply, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is easily one of the top five GameCube games there is. In fact, its easily one of the best games to come out this year, period. If you have ever played a Mario game, enjoy RPGs, or are a gamer, you need to own this game. It will provide hours upon hours of enjoyment. I honestly cannot fathom anyone playing this game and not having a great time doing so.