Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo Switch)

None of those anti-woke videos are posted in good faith, they're outrage bait to farm engagement. Companies that are both pro-woke (ala Keurig, Gillette, Nike's) know this as much as the outrage baiters like The Fucking Quartering that do this.

Anyway, I'm glad that the localization didn't just get rid of her transgender trait in the English version. It's a good step towards trans representation in video games. Yeah I have issues with Vivian (I don't think she's a good trans character just because she's constrained in a very short arc in a game where partners amount to talking tools), but this is better than getting rid of her trait altogether.
 
I'm beyond happy that this exists and is on my hands right now.

I could only play a couple of minutes as I'm at work and it just arrived this morning, but I'm happy what this represents for the series moving forward.

First impressions: this looks gorgeous, super guards don't feel much easier or harder. The frame limit of 30 is, admittedly slightly jarring, but I'll get used to it.

I'm now happily carrying my Yoshi keyring wherever I go.
 
Snagged the second-to-last copy at the first store I checked, and I'm absolutely loving this so far. The music and new animations add even more flavor than I expected (although the Nostalgic Tunes badge will certainly be nice to have). I also forgot how much strategic depth was here and the pacing so far is getting me so excited to gradually dig into it. I'm already hoping I get to spend a lot of quality time with this game, soaking in the new atmosphere and getting intimately familiar with combat.

This is all true independent of ulterior series-directional motives, I really hope this game does well for both reasons lol
 
I have finished the main story of the game. I really like what they did with the soundtrack, particularly having the battle theme remixed for each chapter area as they did in Origami King, and Hooktail's battle theme also being remixed for the battles against Gloomtail and Bonetail, along with the two Magnus von Grapples. Overall gameplay was still very solid as it was in the original, though the timing of some stylish moves can be a bit tricky, and the pipes added underneath Rogueport plaza do make the troubles less tedious. If there's one thing I don't like so much, the Super/Ultra Hammer spin doesn't work if you're too close to a wall in any direction, making it a lot harder to use as a first strike as I often did in the original, and it's impossible in very tight spaces.
 
I still have yet to do the Whacka boss fight, but I'm trying to ensure it's unlocked first since I really don't want to redo the Pit of 100 Trials to find he's not there. I've hit him in Keelhaul Key enough to make him disappear for good and of course I've beaten Bonetail, and it is post-game. I'm supposed to get an e-mail notifying the figh is available but I'm still not no matter how much I wander around.
 
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@Nightwicked Bowser You might need to spoiler that post, I think the content you posted is a spoiler.
 
After the past decade it is bizarre—in the best way—to technically be collecting badges, earning Star Points, and getting TTYD partners in main-series games. (Although Super Mario Run did already have an experience system, so perhaps the SP icons are right at home)

Time to mentally file these two alongside Goomboss for this honor
 
Waluigi Time said:
SMR_Goombella_Statue.png
SMR_Koops_Statue.png

Hey look guys RPG characters made it into the main series
Click to expand...
Sadly Mario Party is still not acknowledged in the Super Mario platformers. In any case, I wonder if the tune for Super Mario Run being a main Super Mario platformer changed when those characters show up here, since some assume that since this is a mobile game, it doesn't count.

Thank you for reading.
 
I just 100%ed this game yesterday only 8 days after its release, which is the very first time in my life that I've ever 100%ed a game shortly after its release, as I'm not usually a completionist and of the few games that I've 100%ed before (including the original TTYD) I didn't do so until many years after their release. It took me over 40 hours, so that's on average 5+ hours a day, so yeah that's how much I like TTYD.

100% requirements in the below spoiler tag (it's in a spoiler tag since it mentions some secret sidequests that were added in the remake so warning if you don't wanna be spoiled on that):
  • Beat main campaign
  • Get all 42 Shine Sprites and upgrade all Partners to highest rank
  • Get all 100 Star Pieces
  • Reach Superstar Rank at Level 30
  • Get all 134 Tattles
  • Get all 86 Badges
  • Get all 58 Recipes
  • Get the Golden Whacka Bump and Prince Mush's belt
  • All Trouble Centre Sidequests completed*
*This one isn't listed as a requirement on speedrun.com's requirements for the original game (that site has yet to list the requirements for 100%ing the remake), but it felt like an odd thing to leave out so I did complete it, and also did complete it when I 100%ed the original game.

It was an utterly fantastic experience and a faithful remake of probably my favourite Mario game as of now. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the experience, and it was so refreshing to see TTYD's vast range of memorable and uniquely designed characters brought back in full glory on the Switch. It truly is an important remake, as TTYD had previously been very difficult and expensive to legitimately obtain, and is now more affordable and accessible on the latest Nintendo system, and because this now means a new generation will see what Paper Mario used to be both in terms of gameplay and in terms of characters, and I truly hope that Nintendo will follow this remake by returning Paper Mario to its former glory, the chances of which are now higher than they've been since Sticker Star.

It was especially wonderful that Vivian is now explicitly trans in the English script of this game, but unlike the original Japanese script, she is affirmed in her gender identity by everyone including the Narrator, with the sole exception of her two older sisters who are abusive transphobes. My only slight dissappointment is that it's only brought up once explicitly and once implicitly in the entire game, and I do kind of wish it was mentioned at least once or twice more than that, but hey I can hardly complain because the fact it's even in there at all is a blessing. I'm someone who really absolutely adores positive trans representation and who feels that even in 2024, it's all too rare. Vivian is exactly the kind of trans rep we need: she's trans and that's okay, and all the good people support her and affirm her gender identity, and the only people who don't are the villains who are clearly depicted as being cruel for it. Vivian's struggles with rejection from transphobic family members represent the sadly all too common experiences that many trans people in the real world face. But it's not like it completely defines her story either: Vivian would still be a cute character with a compelling story even if she were cis, and I think that's a good thing. As far as I'm aware this is basically the first time the Mario franchise has had any genuinely good LGBTQ representation (outside of the Italian localisation of the original TTYD, which at the time was the only one to handle Vivian's transness well) and I hope it doesn't end here.

Sadly, whilst the remake did so many great things, there are also a few letdowns like the fact that Rawk Hawk's reference to Smash Melee in the Spanish original was sadly not brought over to the English script. Whilst a lot of people have been complaining about the 30FPS, I really didn't mind at all, in fact I don't think I would've even noticed it if I didn't know. I do, however, find that the battle system menu isn't as snappy in the original game, like when you select one option there's a significant pause when you can't select the next, and there's also the fact that like your star power has to finish the recharging animation before the battle progresses. Also the dialogue system is a really big downgrade from the original game. You can no longer scroll back textboxes, and you can no longer instantly complete a textbox unless you've seen it before. Look, I'm the biggest fan of TTYD's story and dialogue there ever was, but even I sometimes wish I could skip it because I've played the game so many times.

I don't wanna keep rambling too much so here's a list of pros and cons in my opinion:

Pros:
+ Really faithful remake of an utterly phenomenal Mario RPG
+ More expressive sprites
+ Voice sound effects for each character
+ The new and improved blue pipe room is sooo good for quick travel
+ New OST with the option of enabling the old OST via the Nostalgic Tunes badge. I was pretty skeptical of the new OST at first because I felt like the orchestral tunes wouldn't live up to the unique quirky soundfont of the original, but the remade soundtrack really grew on me over time, to the point where I feel like I prefer most tunes in the remade version. Also, the boss themes now all have "Thinking" versions, but I gotta be honest I never actually noticed this. Also, there's lots of new music and that's very cool too.
+ The art gallery is really cool and interesting, especially as we get to see early designs for characters that had been kept in the vault for all these years.
+ The music player
+ The addition of the Battle Master. I never used him but I guess he's good for newcomers.
+ Modern and beautiful graphics (with the lighting effects being especially gorgeous) while keeping the old-style sprites (e.g. Goombas look like they did in the first three games rather than in the modern games)
+ You can skip certain cutscenes such as Zess T's cooking and the Glitz Pit intro for fights you've already done
+ Vivian is explicitly trans in the English version now, while problematic aspects of the original Japanese are absent
+ Partner swapping wheel
+ Partner hints are probably a really good addition for new players who might get stuck and don't want to backtrack to Merluvlee (which is also impossible in certain chapters), and are a little bit of fun extra dialogue for the patners
+ The pipe in Chapter 4 means you now only need to do the trip from Twilight Town to Creepy Steeples 3 times instead of 5
+ The spring in Chapter 5 also makes backtracking easier
+ Added the Hottest Dog, which is a pretty hilarious idea for a recipe
+ Added Exhibition Matches in the Glitz Pit
+ Rawk Hawk now gives 50 coins and you can skip the intro cutscene, so he's now way better for coin farming.
+ Added the Creepy Steeple Boo Quizzes
+ You can now carry up to 9,999 coins (I mean it kinda sucks that this devaules gold bars but it's still overall a good thing)
+ Glitz Pit match reserver machine now makes the GBA sound effect as well as looking like a GBA
+ The Thomp Quizzes are now called the Trivia Quiz-Off in reference to PM64
+ The photos in Mario's house which is the same photo from SPM, that was really cool
+ Cortez uses more Spanish
+ Stage hazards are slightly less unfair and now only happen to one side at a time (though I do think that fog worked better when it was for everyone)
+ Keys are now coloured
+ Notes tab in the menu
+ Map now shows Shine Sprite and Star Pieces % collected
+ "Ian Foomus the infamous info mouse" is utterly hilarious although I never really needed to use him
+
The new shower scene in X-Naut Fortress is funny
+ Retrying battles is handy, especially for the final boss

I love how at the end of the game, the storybook from the intro closes now, that's a lovely ending.

  • Added Prince Mush as a fightable boss. It's really cool to be able to fight him since he was in the original game and said to be the first Glitz Pit Champ but we never saw him fight. Honestly, Mush is much harder than the final boss and was the only thing that I genuinely struggled on during the whole playthrough, although I still beat him first try thanks to having like 10 Life Shrooms. Like his tattle mentions his stances but we never actually get told what the stances do which I feel is pretty unfair, and I actually didn't figure out on my first playthrough that one stances avoids ground attacks and the other avoids arial attacks, so I just spammed Art Attack lol. The second phase... is something else. He clones himself so you have to use a multi-target attack to avoid him getting to attack thrice (tough because his attacks also remove FP), he's immune to literally any attack unless you superguard one of his (and his attacks are fairly hard to get the right timing for), and he has insane attacks that deal like 23 damage per hit and sometimes does a wild combo on Mario that WILL kill him unless you superguard or otherwise dodge it, or have like 100+ HP
  • Added Whacka as a boss which is really darn hilarious because Whacka was always a cute, innocent vulnerable creature, so the idea of him being the ultimate superboss makes me ROFL. He's actually pretty tough too, as his Whacka Bumps deal a lot of damage, especially the red ones, and he gets a bump for every hit you land on him. I did beat him on my first try using only 1 Life Shroom though.
    • On the other hand, it's kinda sad that Whacka violence is now required for 100%, as the original PM64 and TTYD never had Whacka Bumps required for any recipes, and SPM did have a recipe that requires them, but allowed you to buy them from Flipside Arcade without hitting Whacka
  • Added the Gold Badge as a reward for "100%" (oddly its just Tattles, Recipes, and Badges, so you don't actually need to get all Star Pieces, Shine Sprites, Trouble Center quests, and you don't need to actually beat Mush you could just Tattle him and bolt out. I don't really see that as 100% myself)

Cons:
- Slower and less responsive battle system in general
- Timing for attacks feels a bit less aligned with the animation than the original, it feels like it's a bit earlier. Maybe I'm just not used to it.
- The changes to text scrolling are a straight up downgrade and that's likely gonna be very frustrating on replays
- The remake is overall easier, I feel like the original game was basically the perfect difficulty level
- In particular, Power Lift is now insanely broken when if anything it should've been nerfed, you can now routinely get +4 ATK and +4DEF
- While I love the graphics and that they kept the classic sprite designs, I do think that the look of the game leans slightly too heavily towards the paper craft look for my comfort, and it does make the game a little bit less immersive and "real" to me.
- "End of Chapter" was changed to "Cleared"
- I kinda like how in the original, Hooktail's gender was hidden from the player until the Gloomtail encounter in Ch8, whereas in the remake it's never hidden from the player that she's a she
- You can no longer name save files
- It's now way too easy to see whether the Audience are throwing helpful or harmful stuff at you and to react in time
- Rawk Hawk's reference to Smash was not brought to English
- They didn't change the 3 Goombas in Riverside Station for some reason
- Idk maybe this is just a nostalgia thing but I feel like Riverside Station not having music was iconic and added to the atmosphere
- Retrying battles really detracts from the challenge of the Pit
- Maybe I'm biased due to nostalgia but I'm really not a fan of the new Credits theme. The fact that they completely scrapped it and replaced it with a more upbeat and happy one really didn't sit well with me as the original was possibly my favourite track in the entire game, and I appreciated that rather than the more generic "upbeat tune that combines little bits of music from throughout the game" it was "sad but beautifully nostalgic and thoughtful tune that makes you reflect, but has a strong core melody" with two distinct phases that were both great. Also, I appreciate that the credits sequence where all the characters cross the stage and briefly and comically reference their part in the story is meant to match PM64 and I do like it, but also miss the iconic sillouhette sequence

All in all I do prefer the remake to the original, meaning that this is now my new FGOAT!!!
 
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I have done everything except the recipes. I guess I ought to do them but it's so dull. I even did the Troubles. This is one of the best games ever made, ever. Music (new dynamics battle themes!!), gameplay, characters, story, the battle system, everything about it is phenomenal.

EXCEPT!

- Can't skip text. WHY!?!?! I've played the original several times, it's just too slow. And weirdly I have a fear now that if EarthBound gets remade, the text won't be skippable in that either. Come on MAN!
- Can't do more than one trouble at once - nah this is fine actually, whatever.
- Weirdly reflective floors - seriously, especially in Hooktail's Castle. It's paper, why's it so shiny? Yeah it looks nice but it's style over... substance, ironically. Looks lovely but totally unrealistic, it shouldn't be shiny, it shouldn't reflect really.
- Changing "END OF CHAPTER" to "CLEARED" was a terrible change. I love shouting that out at the end, now it's gone.
- Menus are a bit weirdly laggy and slow, to select options. I press down and it doesn't work for a second a lot of the time.
- The framerate is fine, except in that it makes certain commands too easy now - superguarding is easier, so are stylish commands. This had to happen I suppose. Hopefully they'll be some kind of enhanced version on the Switch's successor that makes it 60 fps! ... Yeah I dunno 'bout that. But I can dream!
- Star Power moves are a lot easier. Is this a problem though? I'm not sure, I kind of liked the immense challenge, well, it was a bit harder before - Earth Tremor I used to get wrong fairly often even after years, but I pulled it off every time, almost without looking. The last one, you just press A pretty much every few frames to the same rhythm, no matter where they are, so it's far too easy and gives you more time. Power Lift also gives a lot more now.

Otherwise, it's amazing! Let's hope this heralds the return of the story-driven Paper Mario games!
 
ButterCashier said:
I have done everything except the recipes. I guess I ought to do them but it's so dull. I even did the Troubles. This is one of the best games ever made, ever. Music (new dynamics battle themes!!), gameplay, characters, story, the battle system, everything about it is phenomenal.

EXCEPT!

- Can't skip text. WHY!?!?! I've played the original several times, it's just too slow. And weirdly I have a fear now that if EarthBound gets remade, the text won't be skippable in that either. Come on MAN!
- Can't do more than one trouble at once - nah this is fine actually, whatever.
- Weirdly reflective floors - seriously, especially in Hooktail's Castle. It's paper, why's it so shiny? Yeah it looks nice but it's style over... substance, ironically. Looks lovely but totally unrealistic, it shouldn't be shiny, it shouldn't reflect really.
- Changing "END OF CHAPTER" to "CLEARED" was a terrible change. I love shouting that out at the end, now it's gone.
- Menus are a bit weirdly laggy and slow, to select options. I press down and it doesn't work for a second a lot of the time.
- The framerate is fine, except in that it makes certain commands too easy now - superguarding is easier, so are stylish commands. This had to happen I suppose. Hopefully they'll be some kind of enhanced version on the Switch's successor that makes it 60 fps! ... Yeah I dunno 'bout that. But I can dream!
- Star Power moves are a lot easier. Is this a problem though? I'm not sure, I kind of liked the immense challenge, well, it was a bit harder before - Earth Tremor I used to get wrong fairly often even after years, but I pulled it off every time, almost without looking. The last one, you just press A pretty much every few frames to the same rhythm, no matter where they are, so it's far too easy and gives you more time. Power Lift also gives a lot more now.

Otherwise, it's amazing! Let's hope this heralds the return of the story-driven Paper Mario games!
Click to expand...
Maybe the floors have tinfoil or something reflective on them? Or maybe someone glossed it all...
 
ButterCashier said:
I have done everything except the recipes. I guess I ought to do them but it's so dull. I even did the Troubles. This is one of the best games ever made, ever. Music (new dynamics battle themes!!), gameplay, characters, story, the battle system, everything about it is phenomenal.

EXCEPT!

- Can't skip text. WHY!?!?! I've played the original several times, it's just too slow. And weirdly I have a fear now that if EarthBound gets remade, the text won't be skippable in that either. Come on MAN!
- Can't do more than one trouble at once - nah this is fine actually, whatever.
- Weirdly reflective floors - seriously, especially in Hooktail's Castle. It's paper, why's it so shiny? Yeah it looks nice but it's style over... substance, ironically. Looks lovely but totally unrealistic, it shouldn't be shiny, it shouldn't reflect really.
- Changing "END OF CHAPTER" to "CLEARED" was a terrible change. I love shouting that out at the end, now it's gone.
- Menus are a bit weirdly laggy and slow, to select options. I press down and it doesn't work for a second a lot of the time.
- The framerate is fine, except in that it makes certain commands too easy now - superguarding is easier, so are stylish commands. This had to happen I suppose. Hopefully they'll be some kind of enhanced version on the Switch's successor that makes it 60 fps! ... Yeah I dunno 'bout that. But I can dream!
- Star Power moves are a lot easier. Is this a problem though? I'm not sure, I kind of liked the immense challenge, well, it was a bit harder before - Earth Tremor I used to get wrong fairly often even after years, but I pulled it off every time, almost without looking. The last one, you just press A pretty much every few frames to the same rhythm, no matter where they are, so it's far too easy and gives you more time. Power Lift also gives a lot more now.

Otherwise, it's amazing! Let's hope this heralds the return of the story-driven Paper Mario games!
Click to expand...
I suppose when you get an amazing game, you have to nitpick the small stuff. Nevertheless, I don't believe 'End of Chapter's being changed to 'Cleared' is a problem.
 
I have now beaten all bosses and got all Tattle log entries, and that's as far as I go. Just can't be bothered to do all recipes.
 
I've fully beaten it! Can't say that about the original, I never did all the recipes. But this time I did, all the Troubles too, the Tattle Log, all the badges, Prince Mush, the cards, belts, everything! I basically used Danger Mario so it was rather easy except in that enemies in this version can hit you outside of battle, like a Hammer Bro can kill you without even initiating a battle, so a few times I died just from that, having only 5 HP. Or wasted a life shroom.

The exact point I realised this remake was clearly amazing like the original, definitely, was when I was in my first run through of the Pit, and, battle after battle with the best badges in the world on, Multibounce and Flower Finder, I suddenly thought, I wish I could appeal and get FP. I thought that years ago! I remember having the same thought, and now again. So it's clearly the same old brilliant game. Pretty much a BP-only run, well and I had 10 FP, for most of it. Finished now at level 37. And recipes are definitely the worst thing in it, if you actually want to do them all.
 
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