Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a 2004 cult classic RPG for the Nintendo GameCube. Many consider it the peak of the Paper Mario series, which stopped focusing on RPG mechanics and then discarded plot in its entirety after its release. After a long time, it seems Nintendo finally heard the fans' cries and announced a remake of this beloved classic, to the delight of many a fan.
I've finally had the chance to play and finish the remake myself, and I'd like to share some thoughts about it with you. There will be some spoilers. Rather than a traditional review, I'll be discussing how this game holds up as a remake.
Gameplay
Paper Mario 2 is a turn-based RPG, and its gameplay is mostly unchanged. The major differences between this game and the original come down to framerate and quality of life additions.
The framerate is in the original's favor, as this game - surprisingly - runs at 30 FPS and even chugs when some events occur (a paper boat rotating caused the frames to dip on my end). The GameCube original ran at 60FPS.
The remake does introduce a lot of smart quality of life additions: Fast travel has been streamlined by putting the important warp pipes in a single room, some backtracking has been cut down on due to a new warp pipe in Twilight Town (though bafflingly, you have to backtrack a few times before you get to use it) and many other small conveniences have been added. The changes are very welcome, although they feel a little noncommittal. The game still suffers slow periods and drags on here and there due to the still-present backtracking and sheer amount of small cutscenes.
source: NintendoEverything
Arguably, a remake lives or dies by what it can add to the original. If that is the standard to go by, then the remake is more dead than alive; aside from the quality of life changes, there is one new boss and a NPC that adds tutorialization for various battle mechanics. It's slim pickings compared to the multiple bosses added in Super Mario RPG's remake.
Conversely, one might say a remake lives or dies by how faithful it is to the original. If that is the standard, then the remake is alive and well. Aside from the quality of life additions, it plays just about the same as the original with some helpful changes.
All in all, it's a tossup on which is better in this regard. If you're indifferent to the 30FPS downgrade, then the remake is easily the superior choice for a first experience thanks to its better fast travel and other conveniences. But considering the lack of meaningful additions, the $60 price tag might be a tough sell for anyone but the most passionate fans.
Presentation
Gameplay is the core of any game, but one might argue presentation is the core of a remake - it's about giving a new coat of paint to a beloved game after all. And presentation is where the Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door really shines. All the visuals have been polished up, and each character has even been provided with additional sprites, allowing for much greater expression.
There's really no argument: The remake is beautiful and clearly improves over the already stylish looking original.
I'm a little more mixed on the music. Not to go off on a huge tangent - there will have to be a separate article for that - but I find that rearrangements and remixes can often lose the appeal of the original. Classic Japanese videogame music often lets the melody reign supreme with complete clarity. Comparatively, some of the new arrangements let the melody fall into the background a little.
Compare the original battle theme:
With the new:
And let me know what you think!
I think this is a very subjective point, however; and the fact that they added a ton of music means it's a net gain. Each partner has a new theme song, each chapter has at least one unique battle theme - some of which are real bangers - so I can't be too upset about the tracks I personally didn't like. Especially so since the game lets you switch to the GameCube original soundtrack with a badge!
Some cutscenes have also been expanded upon with more animation or different camera angles - and sometimes the music has been adjusted to match. For example, in the final dungeon, the battle theme will not play when you enter combat in the first few areas, instead sticking with the ominous background music. This helps preserve the atmosphere.
The remake really shines here due to the sheer amount of added sprites, details, effects and music. Even if you prefer the original's music, you can simply wear a badge to switch to that. This is clearly a point in the remake's favor.
Story
You might be thinking, how does story come into this? Isn't this a beat-for-beat remake of the original game? Well, kind of.
Those of you who know me might be rolling your eyes already, because it's about my personal pet issue: Censorship. I believe no art or writing should ever be altered because it may be offensive or because we disagree with it, because art is the artist's self expression. To me, this seems like a common sense position.
So why am I bringing that up? Because the localization staff at Nintendo went through the script with a fine-tooth comb and removed anything and everything that could possibly be considered offensive. This isn't one or two instances, it's dozens. Here are a few side by side examples found by a Twitter user:
source: Liddle_Lefty on Twitter
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Any mention of the words "loon" or "nut"? Those might be seen as ableist, so they're gone. "Airhead"? Well, that's offensive to say to a woman, that might be considered sexist, so it's gone. I don't like to play at politics, nor do I care about any kind of label people want to attach to this sort of thing. I just wanted the script to be as fun, irreverent and witty as it was. And it's still part of that, but the changes are common enough to be noticeable.
Take the interaction between Goombella and the Goomba hoodlums, who more or less catcall her. This scene established Rogueport, and the setting of Paper Mario 2, as a lot more gritty and real. But nope, we can't have that, let's put some weird Twitter writing in there about sunlight or something.
On the other side of the conversation is Vivian.
In the original game's Japanese script, Vivian presents herself as female, but is described as male. Some people interpret this as her being transgender, while others say this makes her a "femboy." Due to the flexibility of Japanese first person pronouns, it's hard to come to a conclusion. This left localizers unsure what to do, which is why each localization in 2004 handled it differently. The English version removed all references to her being male or trans, while some versions like the Spanish made her explicitly male instead.
The remake fully accepts the interpretation of Vivian as trans (and as far as I can tell, all localizations are following suit this time). This is lauded by some as a restoration and decried by some as more censorship. I don't feel comfortable drawing a final conclusion on that one, so I won't hold it against the game. It may be worth its own article also.
The unnecessary scrubbing of dozens of lines in the game's script is undeniably a mark against the remake. I'd say 95% of the script is still untouched, though, so whether or not this is a big issue to you will come down to your values.
Conclusion
The Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake represents a willingness from Nintendo to give the fans the Paper Mario they wanted, with beautifully updated visuals and music as well as quality of life additions. Even though the remake is faithful in terms of gameplay and visuals, there are marks against it:the lower framerate, the lack of additions and the extensive script censorship. I think it's worth experiencing, but consider getting it on sale and modding the game. People are working on script restorations as we speak!
_
So, that was another article, finally! Sorry it devolved into a lot of complaining about censorship, but I have to say I am a little bummed they felt the need to treat a 2004 classic like this. I hope to write more articles in the nearby future, but we'll see. It might be another year or something; life has a way of getting busy.