PixlBit

Number 18

I’ve played a lot of Mario games through my life. I haven’t played every single one, but I’ve yet to play a bad Mario game from the games I’ve played. When you think of a Mario game, you immediately think of a Mario platformer. Or maybe a spin-off title like Mario Kart. However, Mario has been in other types of games other than platformers and sport games. RPG’s are one of those games.Platformers are my favorite genre when it comes to games, next to rpgs. Back then Pokemon was the game that gave me my first taste of rpgs, but that’s for another time. I never really tried a console rpg till one day my dad came home from work and he bought me a game called Paper Mario. I never seen this game before but I’ve seen commercials for it. It was my first experience with a console rpg. But it certainly wasn’t the last.

It was 2006 and that year was pretty awful around mid-April. It was a tough time in my family which I’ll go into a bit more detail a bit later in this post. I only had 20 bucks and I wanted to get a new Gamecube game to escape all the bad stuff that was going on. Then I saw it. The perfect type of game to escape reality for at least an hour or 2. That game was Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.

The game starts off with Princess Peach in the town of Rogueport. Yes this is one of the few Mario games that doesn’t take place in the Mushroom Kingdom. She buys a map that leads to what locals call the legendary Thousand Year Door. What’s behind the Thousand Year Door? Well the door itself is in some ruins beneath Rogueport. But what’s in the door? Some say it’s treasure, some say it’s a terrible monsters. Others say it’s a Dried Shroom. It’s the stuff of legend. She mails it to Mario, but then *spoiler* she is kidnapped (are you honestly surprised at this point?) by a group of villains called the X-Nauts who are also looking for clue to open the door. Mario get’s the letter which contains the map and Mario sets out to Rogueport and thus Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door begins.

                        
Right from the bat, you’ll notice that the graphics have been improved. The game still retains it’s 2D Paper look in 3D environments but everything looks much more smooth and refined. It doesn’t look as pixilated as the first game, at least from the character models. With the map in hand, you find clues to open the legendary Thousand Year Door and in order to open it, you’ll need to collect the 7 Crystal Stars that are scattered in areas/worlds outside of Rogueport.

You’ll have to go to far off lands in order to find them. But you wont need to travel alone because like in the previous game, you can travel with partner characters that assist you in your quest. Each partner that joins you comes with their own set of abilities to aid you in and out of a fight. One thing I would like to mention, is that the partners you had in the first Paper Mario were designed with the levels and the obstacles in those levels/worlds in mind. Some abilities from partners like traveling through water and such wont be a skill partners have here, but I’ll explain why in a bit. The partners here are still pretty neat and have new abilities that some partners didn’t have. My favorite partner is Goombella because in a fight, she can give you info on an enemy, reveal their hp, and any possible weaknesses. Outside of battle she can give you info about the location you’re on, info on npcs, or tips about suspicious looking areas.

                        
As for the worlds, they are rather interesting as they are places you wouldn’t normally see in a Mario game. As I feel like the levels from the first Paper Mario felt like levels from a more traditional Mario platforming game, which would make sense since it takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom. The games levels still follow a linear path though. The levels here are a bit different, like you may start off in an area away from a town, then you travel to the nearest town, and from there you take the path that will lead to an enemy hideout or fortress with a boss that has a Crystal Star. Sometimes you might start out in a town when you begin a new chapter. Other times you may even start off in a town that already has a Crystal Star.

One of my favorite parts in the game is called the Glitzpit. In this area, it’s based around a wrestling theme, and the wresting champion has a championship belt with a Crystal Star as it’s crest or whatever, but in order to obtain it, you have to fight other wrestlers in order to rank up to fight the champion. It’s pretty neat and breaks the mold a bit. In another level, you have to get to a town that has a Crystal Star in a museum, but you have to get the by train and every so often, the train has to stop because of obstacles in the way. Also, the train has passengers too, and rather than fight in the chapter, you actually get to interact and there’s also a penguin detective trying to solve a mystery. It’s moments like these that break the mold in this game.

The game, and the levels also take advantage of the Paper theme that the previous game didn’t. Literally. In the first game, Mario’s partners had the ability to fly Mario over a gap, or allow him to cross hazards or a body of water. In this game, Mario get’s new abilities too, like the ability to turn into a paper airplane to glide to out of reach areas. Mario can even turn into a paper boat to cross bodies of water. You can even turn into a paper towel roll to travel faster and get through tiny gaps and Mario can even go through metal gates and thin slots in a wall if he actually turns into paper. This time around, Mario packs a pretty versatile moveset. The paper theme even carries across worlds too with stuff in the environment. Like you may see something in a wall that looks like a piece of paper is peeling off, then you can use one of your partners to remove it and so forth.

                         
The gameplay is divided into 2 different types of gameplay, in a level, the game plays like a 2D platformer, but when you attack an enemy, you go into a traditional turned based fight. What’s neat about the turned based fight is that the fight takes place in a stage with an audience. The audience actually plays a role in a fight. The audience sometimes might throw power-up items at you if you perform well in a fight. However, if you perform poorly, the audience will throw things like rocks at you. Sometimes a person from the audience will try to attack you in the background, you then have a chance to attack them before they do to you. The fights in the game are also improved too. This time around, after performing an attack, you can chain a performance stunt which gets the crowd excited. Your partner can perform this action too. Your partner even has their own HP and FP points too. After defeating an enemy or enemies, you get Star Points which are this games EXP points and you level up everytime you reach 100 of them. However, previous enemies you’ve fought will give away less Star Points the higher you level up. You can even further enhance your attacks and abilities with badges.

As for the story, not sure which I like more, but without giving too much away, it’s pretty good actually. Great even. The story does have it’s moments like in one part, someone posses as your doppelganger, and you have to get your identity back, or be lost to the shadows forever. Also, did I mention that you can play as Bowser? Yes you can. You see in this game, he isn’t the main bad guy but Mario does run into him a few times. When you take control as Bowser, you go through a level like in a traditional Mario game which is really neat, it even has the theme and everything. In these levels, Bowser can perform actions like Mario would, like jumping, breaking blocks, and eating roast or whatever to turn really bog and invulnerable for a while. This is how you proceed the story for him. At the end of the stage, you wind up in an area that Mario previously got the Crystal Star from. It’s really funny and his reactions to that are hilarious.

                      
Luigi even comes out in the game, but as an npc. However, he is own his own quest too, and every chapter, you can go and visit him in Rogueport to see what he’s up to, he even has his own partner characters too. There’s even this part where he says he’s in a play and that he played grass. It makes me wish for a Paper Luigi game to see his adventure because the stories he tells about his adventure is pretty neat. You can even play as Peach too like in the previous game. You aid Mario by sending him messages that contain info about the locations of the Crystal Stars with the aid of a computer that helps Peach. But it isn’t easy, as she is being held captive and the place is heavily guarded. There’s even this part where you make a potion to turn invisible, the thing is that you turn invisible, but your clothes are still visible. So what she does in order to sneak around invisible is to remove her clothes. I’m serious. Imagine that in a Mario game. Sure she’s invisible and you can’t see her, but she actually took off all her clothes. Heck, for all we know, that computer could actually see her, despite the computer telling her that no one will see her. Think about that for a bit and then this might actually start making sense.

Ahem…final thoughts on the game. It’s really great and it offered a lot of improvements from the original game and new features and it actually lives up to its paper theme this time. The locations are really neat and the story is really great. It has it’s moments too, and it’s probably the most funny rpg out there. It might be expensive to find a copy, but if you can find a used copy at a reasonable price, then get it. I highly recommend it.

             

As for 2006, well my mom was ill. We had to take care of her, so while she was ill I had to take care of the house and my bros while my dad went to work. I gave up alot of my money because the medicine she was taking was expensive. I gave up Minish Cap for a second time and Metroid: Zero Mission, but I didn't care, it was so she could get better. I'll tell you that I was stressed alot during that time. I had alot of responsibilities at that time, like doing all the house work, cooking, and taking care of my then 3 year old brother. It was a huge burden on my shoulders. My dad tried helping me out but he had to go to work in order to get money for medicine and all general expenses. I only had 20 bucks to myself and got Paper Mario. I knew an rpg would be the perfect escape from reality, even for a bit because it was a text heavy game. It's one of the reasons I like this game, it was fun, had some great characters and story, but it helped me get through a very dark time in my life.

                
Well that’s it for now. Have you ever played Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door? Or any game from the Paper Mario series? Thanks for reading and later.