Review: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (TTYD)

System: Gamecube (played on the Wii)
Score: 3/5

Mario (pronounced mar-ee-o to me Kappa) is one of the best known characters in all of video gameland, he has been a plumber, a ref, a tennis star, a soccer star, and many other things.  In this game, Mario once again dons that hat of paper super hero, out to save his princess and the world from a brand new threat!

Instead of taking place in the Mushroom Kingdom, the main hub in the game is a place called Rogueport.  The princess went off on a search for treasure, and (surprise surprise) has managed to get herself kidnapped! The twist here is that it's not Bowser that has done the kidnapping, it's the X-nauts, a brand new threat.  After receiving the treasure map, Mario is off to collect the 7 stars to save the princess and the world!!!

Rogueport is the main hub in TTYD, you'll get to know the inhabitants well

TTYD is an RPG in the style of Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario (N64).  You will join forces with a variety of partners throughout the game, each having a special skill you will need to solve puzzles and defeat your enemies.  For example Flurrie (or boobs as we called her) can blow away certain portions of walls to reveal passages, or Mario can ride on baby Yoshi (Mourny) to cross large gaps.  Each partner also has a specialty in battle, some are able to hit airborne enemies, while other specialize in ground enemies. .

You can see why we called her boobs

One of the really neat parts of the game, is you not only control Mario, but Peach and Bowser become playable characters, with their own side stories.  You control Peach as she wanders around the enemy base, and teaches a perveted computer what true love is (what, he watches her shower!).  Bowser's levels were my favourite; desperate to stop Mario and kidnap Peach for himself, he follows Mario throughout the world.  The neat part is that Bowser's levels are like the original super mario levels, complete with flag and castle at the end, but with a definite Bowser touch.

Bowser levels are my favourite, Super Mario with a Bowser touch.

Overall I really enjoyed this game, it has a very light feeling to it, and it is fairly easy to complete.  I did not grind or do any sidequests at all, and was still able to defeat the final boss (not without some trouble, more on that later).  Some of the dialogue is incredibly repetitive, and I found myself, mashing A to get through it all.  The characters tend to tell you multiple times what to do, and it can get boring having to hear you have to go to Petalburg for the 4th time.  The combat system is incredibly innovative for an RPG.  On top of the standard interface you would expect for an RPG, you fight on a stage, with the audience and the stage itself having a major impact on the outcome of the battle.  Should Mario perform well, and complete "stylish" moves, the audience will cheer, filling up Mario's star power, allowing him to perform special actions.  The audience can be bad as well though, as they can throw items at you that do damage.  The stage proved to be the worst part of the game for me, especially at the final boss.  Here's a highlight of the final boss fight, where the stage freezes me three times in a row, causing me to lose the final boss fight!  Thanks Erl181 for the highlight.

Overall, this was a fun game, and I truly enjoyed that playthrough.  It was actually quite long, especially since I didn't do any of the sidequests, which would have added even more time to the game.  It's a fun game to play, but the lack of any voice work, and the repetitive dialogue did get to me.  Also, the runup to the last boss has two incredibly long (and frankly sort of uninteresting) cutscenes, with no skip cutscene button.  This means if you die on the last boss, you have a looooong wait to get back in the fight.  (I actually had ppl leaving because they just couldn't watch the cutscene again).

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door gets 3 busty ghosts out of 5

PS Toadette is now my favourite Mario character!