Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is about to turn 20, and Nintendo is celebrating by giving everyone with a Switch a chance to head to Rogueport again. After spending early hours with the game and going through a preview session for it, it still feels like a fantastic vacation spot.
For those unfamiliar with the tale, which is possible given its age, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door begins with Princess Peach summoning Mario’s aid again. When she was in the town of Rogueport, she learned about a treasure and found a map to reach it. She included it in a note to him requesting his assistance. However, when he arrives in the scruffy city, he finds she’s missing. A chance encounter with a Goomba student named Goombella and her professor gives him a chance to learn more about the Thousand Year Door below the town and the Crystal Stars that can unlock it, and off they go to start the treasure hint and hopefully reunite with Princess Peach along the way.
As The Thousand-Year Door is a classic Paper Mario tale, it is packed with the sort of personality absent in more recent releases such as Sticker Star and Color Splash. Toads and NPCs have unique identities and fun personalities. Battles are turn-based with timed input attacks. Locations are varied. There are even badges to equip to enhance or add abilities and “curses” that grant access to new areas by giving Mario the power to do things like fold himself up into a paper airplane. It’s all very cohesive and colorful, just as it was years before.
Between both early hours with the game and a preview session, there were also insights into how things have changed between the GameCube and Switch releases of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. One involved a form of unification. During the session, we were able to see a certain badge that would change the sound of Mario’s hammer to assist in a fight against a certain opponent. In the original GameCube English release, it was a cricket, but it was a frog sound in all other regions. Now for the Switch release, it is changed to frog so the badge has the same sound effect everywhere.
However, even early on quality of life adjustments came up during the Paper Mario: Thousand-Year Door preview session and my time playing the game. You can always call upon Goombella’s insights, for example. If you press the ZL trigger, she will chime in with what you are supposed to be doing, even if she isn’t your current partner. The Partner Ring lets you quickly switch between all of the characters you’ve found to work alongside Mario. There is a Practice area, to help you perfect timing for attacks and guards. Also, for people who want to recall the original release, there is a Nostalgic Tunes badge that brings back the GameCube soundtrack.
It feels like Nintendo is setting up the Switch version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for success. The experience feels so solid in its early hours. It looks and plays well on the Switch in the initial chapters. There are already hints as to how things ended up updated either to provide a sense of cohesion among versions or to add quality of life features to call back to the original release or make it more comfortable to play. I can’t wait to spend more time in Rogueport and to see what others think when they get to return too.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door will come to the Nintendo Switch on May 23, 2024.
