Paper Mario : The Thousand Year Door (GameCube)
So, before diving into this review, I just would like to say this. Back when I started the blog, I had said that I wanted to keep the more popular game types off of here (something i reiterated in a video on my channel), because I don't see a point in telling you if a game is worth it when it's basically universally accepted that it is worth it. Mario is one of those household gaming names. However, I feel that the Paper Mario series specifically falls into a bit of a gray area of being well known and not so well known at the same time. As many times as you hear people talk about Mario games, Paper Mario doesn't come up as often as others. And that's why it's my review for this week, so enough talking, let's dig in!
In the overworld, the joystick controls your movement, A is your button for both jumping and interacting with things and B swings your hammer. Y will activate one of your paper abilities when standing on a specific type of platform, X will use your partner's ability, R will put you into Paper Mode (you stand sideways so from the screen perspective you look almost invisible), and Z brings up and hides your Heads Up Display.
In the battle screens, the joystick scrolls through your different options, X will send you into the audience attacking a hostile attendee if one is available, and Y will let you switch who attacks first (Mario or the partner). The A button serves two purposes, allowing you to select what option you want to use in battle, and also acts as a button prompt during certain attacks to make them stronger. The joystick also has a second purpose during some attacks that require you to hold it to the left and release it when a meter reaches a certain point or fills up completely.
Overall, very fun and simple controls for this game, and it introduces them at a fair pace that you don't get overwhelmed with all your options.
As I mentioned in the controls section, there are two main areas of the game : an overworld, and the battle screen. For the most part, you'll spend your time in the overworld, as this is where every bit of the game and story plays out. You explore all of your areas, you can buy or find items, and the overworld is somewhat open for exploration, but most areas are blocked off by you not having access to certain moves and abilities to go further. So you can essentially go wherever you want as long as you have the (literal) ability to do so.
The battle screen, very obviously, is where all your fighting takes place. You meet your enemies in the overworld, and then are transported to a stage for a fight in front of an audience. The audience can effect things like how much star power you regain for your star moves, and occasionally evil members can appear that, if you don't eliminate them, they can run up on or behind stage and directly attack someone in the fight. The battles themselves are turn based, where your side attacks first, and then your opponents go, and so on until one side has been completely defeated. Going into battle, you have an opportunity to gain a first strike against your opponent which gives Mario an attack before the turn based portion of the fight begins, but this is an advantage your adversary can gain as well.
Your party members are met naturally over the course of the story. They are all characters whom request your help in one form or another, and after you assist them, they decide to stick on for the course of the adventure. You typically meet one new person per chapter, but you are able to swap them out in and out of battle however you need them. Each new person lends you a new ability which will help you progress through the story and gain access to areas which were previously inaccessible.
Another thing you gain naturally through the story are Mario's paper abilities. These are cool moves that are geared specifically towards the fact that Mario and everyone else in the game are supposed to be made of paper. These include things like folding into a plane, folding into a sailboat, rolling yourself up into a tube, and stand straight effectively "flattening" yourself so you can slip through narrow areas. These are forced upon Mario as "curses" over the course of the game, but obviously are more of an aid than anything else.
The level up system is very simplified. When you defeat enemies in battle, you gain stars. After every 100 stars, you gain a new level, and each time you level you get to upgrade one of three different areas. You can boost Mario's HP (giving you an additional five HP to your maximum health), your Flower Points (these are used during special moves in battle, and you can increase the maximum amount of points you're allowed to have), or Badge Points (these are used to equip badges which can give you different moves and benefits during battle).
Badges can either be found or purchased throughout the game. These will either give you a new, more powerful move to use during battle, or can give you permanent effects such as recovering HP at the end of a turn cycle or toughening you or your ally and giving you extra defense. Some of these are crucial during some boss fights as they'll give you a little bit of an edge over your opponent, without which the fight may be near impossible.
The main objective for the story is to located all of the Crystal Stars and save Princess Peach. You also get two mini-stories. One, from Peach's perspective, shows her in captivitiy with the X-Nauts when a computer starts asking her to teach it about emotions and the computer begins to fall in love with Peach. The other is from Bowser's perspective, who becomes infuriated when someone else kidnaps Princess Peach (he's the only one allowed!) and sets out to steal her for himself and also interfere with Mario's plans of getting the Crystal Stars.
The story is broken up where each chapter focuses on one star in particular. Mario travels to where he needs to go, and fights his way through to the location of the star, and battles a boss for it. He then takes the star back to the Thousand Year Door where it reveals to him the location of the next star, and the cycle repeats.
In the end, The Thousand Year Door is a great gameplay experience. But how difficult is it?
The puzzles are fairly easy. For the most part, they are just fetch-quest style, meaning you need to unlock a door for example. You must travel off in one direction to find the key or a piece of it, then return and either open the door or venture off in another direction. There are, though, some puzzles which more require you to know which of your partner's abilities you need in the overworld to get through it. They are not in depth, and even if you get a little stuck, cycling through your teammates can usually net you the right person you need for the job.
Your enemies can be a moderate challenge. The key to these is knowing how to attack them and with whom. Some enemies have some form of spike on their head, so if you try to use a character with a jump-move, they'll end up taking damage themselves. Also, some enemies can only attack the person you have in front, so if you put Mario in back of someone with a higher defense, you'll fare a little better.
Bosses can also be a moderate challenge. Again, it's all about finding the right person to attack with, but the bosses have a higher HP so the fights can go a bit longer. Goombella's Tattle ability comes in real handy here as she can reveal to you your opponents method of attacks allowing you to be better prepared. Another thing is that for some of the bosses, in the level leading up to the fight you can usually find an item or badge that will be a huge help to you in the final fight.
Overall, Paper Mario can be a bit of a challenge to the player. So now, let's see what was good and bad about this game before moving on to the final verdict.
- No Grinding Required. Some gamers like to play games just for the story. And the hard part about that in some RPG's is you're unable to just play the story, you have to grind through sidequests in order to level up so you can be strong enough to beat the main story quests. In Paper Mario you don't have that issue. There are sidequests available but nothing in them is required for the main game itself. So if you want to just play story, you can, and if you want to complete everything possible in the entire game, you can do that as well.
The Story
Paper Mario's story begins 1,000 years in the past when a devastating event buries an ancient city underwater. On top of this, a new city was founded by the name of Rogueport. Flash forward to the present, Mario has received a letter from Princess Peach. She's sent him a map that she obtained in Rogueport that is rumored to lead to treasure, and she requests Mario's assistance. Upon his arrival to the city, he soon learns two things. The first is that the map is rumored to be linked to a legendary Thousand Year Door. When the possessor of the map holds it up in front of the door, it will show them the way to the seven Crystal Stars which will open the door itself. The other thing he learns is that Princess Peach has gone missing. Mario believes that she's set out to find the stars herself, but unbeknownst to him she's been kidnapped. Will Mario be able to find Princess Peach and unlock The Thousand Year Door?
The Controls
There are two areas of the game that have their own control schemes in The Thousand Year Door : The overworld, and the battle screen. The overworld has a more complex scheme as this is where you spend the majority of your playtime. Meanwhile, the battle screen speaks for itself.In the overworld, the joystick controls your movement, A is your button for both jumping and interacting with things and B swings your hammer. Y will activate one of your paper abilities when standing on a specific type of platform, X will use your partner's ability, R will put you into Paper Mode (you stand sideways so from the screen perspective you look almost invisible), and Z brings up and hides your Heads Up Display.
In the battle screens, the joystick scrolls through your different options, X will send you into the audience attacking a hostile attendee if one is available, and Y will let you switch who attacks first (Mario or the partner). The A button serves two purposes, allowing you to select what option you want to use in battle, and also acts as a button prompt during certain attacks to make them stronger. The joystick also has a second purpose during some attacks that require you to hold it to the left and release it when a meter reaches a certain point or fills up completely.
Overall, very fun and simple controls for this game, and it introduces them at a fair pace that you don't get overwhelmed with all your options.
The Gameplay
Thousand Year Door is one of the few Mario games that fits under the RPG heading. While it's not a full blown one like, say, Skyrim, it includes and utilizes a lot of key elements from the RPG genre, such as party members and a level-up system.As I mentioned in the controls section, there are two main areas of the game : an overworld, and the battle screen. For the most part, you'll spend your time in the overworld, as this is where every bit of the game and story plays out. You explore all of your areas, you can buy or find items, and the overworld is somewhat open for exploration, but most areas are blocked off by you not having access to certain moves and abilities to go further. So you can essentially go wherever you want as long as you have the (literal) ability to do so.
The battle screen, very obviously, is where all your fighting takes place. You meet your enemies in the overworld, and then are transported to a stage for a fight in front of an audience. The audience can effect things like how much star power you regain for your star moves, and occasionally evil members can appear that, if you don't eliminate them, they can run up on or behind stage and directly attack someone in the fight. The battles themselves are turn based, where your side attacks first, and then your opponents go, and so on until one side has been completely defeated. Going into battle, you have an opportunity to gain a first strike against your opponent which gives Mario an attack before the turn based portion of the fight begins, but this is an advantage your adversary can gain as well.
Your party members are met naturally over the course of the story. They are all characters whom request your help in one form or another, and after you assist them, they decide to stick on for the course of the adventure. You typically meet one new person per chapter, but you are able to swap them out in and out of battle however you need them. Each new person lends you a new ability which will help you progress through the story and gain access to areas which were previously inaccessible.
Another thing you gain naturally through the story are Mario's paper abilities. These are cool moves that are geared specifically towards the fact that Mario and everyone else in the game are supposed to be made of paper. These include things like folding into a plane, folding into a sailboat, rolling yourself up into a tube, and stand straight effectively "flattening" yourself so you can slip through narrow areas. These are forced upon Mario as "curses" over the course of the game, but obviously are more of an aid than anything else.
The level up system is very simplified. When you defeat enemies in battle, you gain stars. After every 100 stars, you gain a new level, and each time you level you get to upgrade one of three different areas. You can boost Mario's HP (giving you an additional five HP to your maximum health), your Flower Points (these are used during special moves in battle, and you can increase the maximum amount of points you're allowed to have), or Badge Points (these are used to equip badges which can give you different moves and benefits during battle).
Badges can either be found or purchased throughout the game. These will either give you a new, more powerful move to use during battle, or can give you permanent effects such as recovering HP at the end of a turn cycle or toughening you or your ally and giving you extra defense. Some of these are crucial during some boss fights as they'll give you a little bit of an edge over your opponent, without which the fight may be near impossible.
The main objective for the story is to located all of the Crystal Stars and save Princess Peach. You also get two mini-stories. One, from Peach's perspective, shows her in captivitiy with the X-Nauts when a computer starts asking her to teach it about emotions and the computer begins to fall in love with Peach. The other is from Bowser's perspective, who becomes infuriated when someone else kidnaps Princess Peach (he's the only one allowed!) and sets out to steal her for himself and also interfere with Mario's plans of getting the Crystal Stars.
The story is broken up where each chapter focuses on one star in particular. Mario travels to where he needs to go, and fights his way through to the location of the star, and battles a boss for it. He then takes the star back to the Thousand Year Door where it reveals to him the location of the next star, and the cycle repeats.
In the end, The Thousand Year Door is a great gameplay experience. But how difficult is it?
The Challenge (or lack thereof?)
Paper Mario has a few different areas worth mentioning in the area of challenge. From the puzzles, to the enemies, and the bosses, this game can potentially test you a little bit along the way.The puzzles are fairly easy. For the most part, they are just fetch-quest style, meaning you need to unlock a door for example. You must travel off in one direction to find the key or a piece of it, then return and either open the door or venture off in another direction. There are, though, some puzzles which more require you to know which of your partner's abilities you need in the overworld to get through it. They are not in depth, and even if you get a little stuck, cycling through your teammates can usually net you the right person you need for the job.
Your enemies can be a moderate challenge. The key to these is knowing how to attack them and with whom. Some enemies have some form of spike on their head, so if you try to use a character with a jump-move, they'll end up taking damage themselves. Also, some enemies can only attack the person you have in front, so if you put Mario in back of someone with a higher defense, you'll fare a little better.
Bosses can also be a moderate challenge. Again, it's all about finding the right person to attack with, but the bosses have a higher HP so the fights can go a bit longer. Goombella's Tattle ability comes in real handy here as she can reveal to you your opponents method of attacks allowing you to be better prepared. Another thing is that for some of the bosses, in the level leading up to the fight you can usually find an item or badge that will be a huge help to you in the final fight.
Overall, Paper Mario can be a bit of a challenge to the player. So now, let's see what was good and bad about this game before moving on to the final verdict.
PROS
- Paper Abilities. These are my absolute favorite point of this entire game. I really loved how they put a focus into the fact that everything in this game is made of paper, and also made it work for the game instead of it just being a quirky gimmick. Folding into a plane helps you cross gaps that are otherwise impossible, and folding into a boat gets you over water that would drown Mario in his normal form. All throughout the game you get to use these abilities to solve puzzles and it works fantastically.- No Grinding Required. Some gamers like to play games just for the story. And the hard part about that in some RPG's is you're unable to just play the story, you have to grind through sidequests in order to level up so you can be strong enough to beat the main story quests. In Paper Mario you don't have that issue. There are sidequests available but nothing in them is required for the main game itself. So if you want to just play story, you can, and if you want to complete everything possible in the entire game, you can do that as well.
