Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Review
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is an RPG game with many action adventure elements. It is the second installment in the Paper Mario franchise, the first being the one for N64. In all honesty I really enjoyed this game although it does kind of drag on towards the end and is a bit lengthy. I didn't do all the side quests but I did about half of them including the pit of 100 trials after the final boss. The game is full of great tongue in cheek humor that'll keep you laughing the whole way and it's definitely got enough content to keep you entertained for a solid week.
The thousand year door has a lot of really old RPG elements; a lot of back tracking, a lot of puzzles and even a few areas in the game where what you have to do is almost completely open ended. Like go to a town and look for someone with no direction as to where in the town he is. Despite it being a Mario game I would have to say it wouldn't be too kid friendly, especially if the kid is used to newer games like Call of Duty with non stop action.
However, if you are a fan of the Paper Mario franchise I strongly suggest you check this game out. If you have never played a Paper Mario game before but are looking for an RPG to play for the Gamecube then this may be the game for you too.
Story 8/10
Soundtrack 9/10
Graphics 8/10
Gameplay 9/10
Controls 10/10
Overall 8.5/10
Story 8/10
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door has a pretty entertaining story. The story is given to you in multiple parts; primarily through the view of Mario who you control the entire game. But also through the view of Princess Peach who is kidnapped and through the view of Bowser who is always one step behind Mario and finally through the eyes of the main villan, Grodus. The scenes with Peach, Bowser and Grodus are like palette cleansers between each of the chapters of the game.
The scenes with Peach give you more backstory of the game as well as the scenes with Grodus. The ones with Bowser are almost purely entertainment - they even do a throwback to the older Marios and let you control Bowser on one of the courses, as seen in my screenshot. It's a lot of fun but nothing really comes from doing good as far as I could tell.
Soundtrack 9/10
The Soundtrack to the thousand year door is quite impressive if I must say so myself. You'll notice the playtime is really long on my completion screenshot and that's because I left the game unpaused a lot while doing other tasks because I enjoyed the music. Rogueport has a really catchy theme and is one of the main places I left Mario snoring away to hear the tunes!
Graphics 8/10
Honestly I am not really sure what to say for this section. The game isn't even designed to be really graphically stunning considering it's Paper Mario. That said though the graphics aren't bad. They are done in such a way that this game will be able to last forever and no one will ever look back at it and say "wow look how far gaming has come, those graphics suck!" if that makes any sense. I honestly really enjoy the graphics on Paper Mario and even if your computer totally blows this game will run pretty solid for you.
Gameplay 9/10
As aforementioned this game is a pretty solid mix of RPG and action adventure. The combat system is a turn based system as you commonly see with RPGs. It however has a ton of action commands that allow you to increase the damage you deal with each attack (or decrease if you fail) during combat. This makes combat much more involved than your typical RPG game. Outside of combat each dungeon has usually quite a few puzzles for you to solve, some of them are optional and others are required to progress.
There are also many different companions you get in the game each of them with their own combat abilities and outside of combat abilities. You'll have to use your companion's abilities as well as the ones you learn with Mario in order to solve every puzzle you come across. Most of the puzzles are fairly easy but some of them had me stuck for quite a bit.
Controls 10/10
The controls work really well with this game. There is nothing that stands out as horrible and I can't think of any controls I would change so I would have to honestly give it a 10/10
Overall 8.5/10
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year door is a fantastic installment to the Paper Mario franchise. It's an extremely fun action adventure RPG experience that has around 80 hours of content for players (that includes side quests). Even if you skip the sidequests and focus on the main story you're looking at least a 50 hour adventure! The story is full of witty humor that'll have you chuckling and shaking your head with a half smile. Not only is there a lot of humor but you'll also find quite a few easter eggs that the developers left for players.
Honestly, this is a must play game if you're an RPG fan. I personally am not to much of a Mario fan as I dislike platformers but I am a huge RPG fan and this game definitely was a blast for me to play. I strongly recommend it to anyone looking to satisfy their RPG craving.