Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

[Baka]

This review is a couple years old.

As the successor to the popular Paper Mario, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door delivers what the fans wanted- action-packed levels, humorous settings, crazy battles, and -most of all- the most hilarious dialogue, I've ever seen in a game. All these topics and more, will be covered in my Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door review.




General Game Information

ESRB Rating: Everyone
Requires 17 Memory Card Blocks
1 Player
Category: Role Playing Game (RPG)
Approximate Play Time: 30-40 hours

Story:

After receiving a letter and a treasure map from Peach, Mario must once again adventure to save her after she was kidnapped while on vacation. Mario must search for the eight crystal stars, to stop Bowser, the X-nauts, and a terrible demon that is about to be awakened.
While this game's story was a simple, light-hearted tale, the way they presented the story through the humorous dialogue made it one of my favourite video game stories ever. The cutscenes were always discussions between Mario's partner and the other person, because of Mario's lack of talking. The only thing you ever hear Mario say is the occasional "Oh yeah!". During the game, you only have one partner out at a time, because the other partner can fold up into Mario's pocket due to their paper-like qualities. Every one of Mario's partners has a lively personality, ranging from the cowardly and shy Koops, to the tough and scurvy Bobbery. The cutscenes are different depending on which partner you have out, and since the dialogue is so good, you'll want to play through it again just to try different partners at each cutscene. The game's setting is very cool, as the main town you arrive in is Rogueport- a town full of suspicious characters. Everywhere you look, there's thieves, gamblers, gangsters, and all manner of criminals. This array of folk made the game so funny, considering it IS Mario, and not GTA.




Gameplay:

This is, of course, an RPG, but this isn't your usual RPG that you can just click buttons over and over, after selecting an attack, you must perform some kind of task with your controller, such as clicking "A" with perfect timing, or holding back the control stick and its time to let go. Also, it IS possible to reduce the amount of damage done to Mario with a successful dodge. To begin combat, you must touch an enemy. If the enemy hits you to initiate battle, it strikes first, but if you stomp it or smash it with Mario's hammer, you get an extra hit. At the beginning of battle, a curtain draws, and Mario and his' foes are one a stage . In the audience is a wide variety of characters, who will sometimes throw cans or rocks at Mario, but occasionally you will get treated with a mushroom or some other beneficial item. Your special attacks use up star points, or flower points. Flower points can be restored through items or health blocks, but star points must be awarded by the crowd. Depending on how awesome your moves were, the crowd may give a little or a lot of star points at the end of each turn. After the battle, Mario is rewarded with some experience points, and whenever he reaches 100, he levels up! After levels, you can chose more HP (to keep Mario alive longer), More FP (to keep using special attacks), or BP (to have more Badges [attacks] to choose from).



Outside of battle, there is some great puzzle solving, platform jumping, and all the usual things you would expect from a normal Mario side-scroller. There is some depth to the terrain, so you don't only move left and right, but closer and further as well. The game's levels each have the goal of finding another crystal star. One cool thing is the variation of level design. Some levels are the usual dungeon, filled with the foul hordes of darkness, while some have you working as professional wrestler in the Glitzville arena, while also going undercover to find out the truth behind some suspicious activity going on behind the scenes. Another level had you helping a penguin detective track down a thief while on a train ride. The various worlds in which you discover are truly incredible, and all have the usual Mario charm.






Graphics/Sound:

The Paper Mario graphics are creative, indeed. Mario is of course, paper, and so is everything else in he game. The background looks like a cardboard model, and sometimes stairs seem to "fold out" like its paper, or walls are "blown away". Sometimes during battle, part of the background will fall down on Mario and his' foes causing damage to all. The graphical style is fun, amusing, and you never know what kind of awesome stuff you'll see in this papery- world. The special effects are all perfectly done as well.

The game had some great sound effects similar to the usual little sounds found in most Mario games- nothing special, but not at all bad. The music had some awesome tracks, and each one fit the area perfectly. Some was all dark and mysterious, while some seemed exciting and fun. I didn't really notice any especially memorable tracks though, nothing in particular comes to mind, unlike Zelda and even some other Mario games. The music was good though, and helped liven up the game.





Overall:

Basically this game is awesome, and with its fun gameplay style and creative graphics, anyone who likes RPGs and Mario will definitely have to pick this up. The game isn't extremely hard, but it does have some challenging battles, and a special extremely hard "Pit of 100 trials" to keep you busy after the main game. With its diverse range of characters, levels, allies, items, and special moves, this game has tons of stuff to do, and definitely has some replay value, with trying to survive the pit, cooking new recipes, and even tracking down an extra partner for Mario- not needed to finish the game. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is a wonderful game, has a great story, awesome dialogue, exciting battles, and is definitely a great addition to the Mario series!

[Macawmoses]

Overall I thought the review, and the game, was good....so now for my breakdown  :robotsurprised:

~Grammar, overall was above average....:P there were good parts, and there were bad parts....regardless it was well used.

~Pictures were well placed and effective. Way to go!

~Repetition inside the same paragraph, even the same two lines is something you should try to avoid. The best example of this was the GRAPHICS/SOUND section...so watch out  ;D

~Scores?! Scores?! What scores? Most people use them and you didn't, nothing wrong with that...but try to be a little more direct with a rating...even if it is in words. Regardless, it doesn't take from the review.

~Great Job! Keep up the good work


~MoM~

[Baka]

Like I said, its a couple years old, so hopefully I've improved some  :P

I see what you mean about the repetition, I was probably trying to fill up space and didn't know what to say or something.

I can never decide on a score to give things and I've never been fond of number ratings in general, but I agree that I should make my overall opinion a little more clear "even if it is in words".

[bluej33]

Hey, man, pretty nice review you've got here. Anyway, I've got a few pointers.

First off is that you used too many pictures. You want the amount of pictures to be in proportion with the amount of text you've got in your review. There are several pictures, and really just not enough text. Of course, it's fine to have a short review, but if that's what you want to do, then just don't include so many images.

Also, I would have liked to see you focus on more aspects of the game. All you really covered was the story, the game play, and the graphics and sound. Sure, these arer some essential points to discuss in a review, but it's not all. What about replay value, difficulty, length of game (I know you game a number, but you could have elaborated)? All these are important factors to consider, especially when you look at it from the viewpoint of a person who's considering purchasing this game.

Other than that, though, you did a very nice job. Your review flowed exceptionally -- I think it might be a good idea for you to give essay reviewing a try, because you certainly seem to have the makings of being excellent at that. Very nice work.

Oh, and by the way, don't worry about a score. In fact, if you're just getting the hang of reviewing (forgive me if that's not the case with you -- it's just that I've never seen a review of your's before), then it's probably a good idea not to even place a score in your reviews. I see too many reviewers focus too much on a score and neglect the actual review. You're doing a very nice job, and keep up the good work!

[RedYoshi]

Nice Review. This game was really good. All aspects of the game were a thumbs up! Glitzville was probably the best part of the game.