Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Reviews
The charm and top-notch comedic writing shine bright despite the hollow combat and repetition.
While Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has much to recommend it, especially for newcomers, in many ways it is a literal downgrade of a twenty-year-old classic.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door looks great on Switch, making it exciting to move from one location to the next, each interesting in its own way. Its writing is brilliant, too, with some genuinely funny jokes that will have you grinning as you play. It's just a shame that its turn-based combat gets old quite fast, and is devoid of challenge.
I have no doubt that if you loved Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door the first time around there’s nothing here that will detract from your memories – and if you’re looking to check the game out for the first time, it’s probably aged better than most of its contemporaries, the occasionally slow pacing aside.
Nintendo offers us, once again, to remember one of its most legendary games from previous generations, recently the Game Boy Advance with Mario vs. Donkey Kong and even more recently from Super Nintendo with Super Mario RPG, only this time for the Gamecube. Paper Mario: The Millennial Door is a great game that every fan of the big N should enjoy, and now is a great opportunity to do so thanks to the great facelift it has in addition to the subtle, but interesting additions it brings. An adventure that, let's be honest, will not pose any challenge for an average gamer, but it can easily take 30 hours to finish, a few extra hours if we want to do it 100%, but little more.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Nintendo’s new 'Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door' remake is unique in that it has a nearly unlimited capacity to make you smile, but it’ll similarly bum you the hell out. Nintendo has tastefully and respectfully resurrected a beloved Mario RPG, with gorgeous HD visuals, a revamped toe-tapping soundtrack, the same humor and wit that captivated fans 20 years ago, and deceptively simple turn-based combat.
In true Mario fashion, this title has some great audio from the dinging when you select certain options in the menu, to the fast-paced arcade-style music you get in the main menu. You load into this title in a positive mind space with the happy fast fast-paced arcade-style retro music which was a great throwback, but completely different from the original if you ever played it, as that has been overhauled.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a game that offers a unique and engaging experience with its beautiful graphics, action-adventure gameplay, and variety of features. However, it does have some drawbacks such as a slow start and lack of guidance. But it is very easy to get past these and it is a game that will just take over as you will fall in love with the combat, the world, and will always want to see what is next.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a classic Mario role-playing game that every fan of the chubby plumber should play. If you've already played the original, it's worth taking another trip into this paper world thanks to the completely revamped graphics and soundtrack. The simplified role-playing mechanics and the interactivity of the turn-based battles make the game accessible even to beginners and players who don't usually like RPGs. The numerous environments impress with their quirky humor, excellently written characters and a beautiful paper look. What I didn't like were the annoying backtracking passages and some tedious mechanics. They unnecessarily slow down the pace as the game progresses.
Review in German | Read full review
The Nintendo Switch remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a fantastic Mario RPG that's every bit as good now as it was on the GameCube.
It is sure to delight fans of the license and will greatly please the old hands who have already played the original game 20 years ago on Gamecube.
Review in French | Read full review
While I wasn’t there for the original, I now completely get just why Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is so revered among Mario fans, and why demands for a remaster were practically ceaseless. It’s the absolute pinnacle of Mario RPGs, and if it was a bit more focused as an overall narrative experience, in the discussion as one of the plumber’s best-ever games.
While the new Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door preserves the gonzo charm that made the original game a cult classic, not a lot has been done to deal with its padding and other design quirks. If you’re a hardcore Thousand-Year Door fan, worry not, you’re going to love this spiffy new version. If you’re new to the game or weren’t entirely sold the first time around, you’re still likely to find plenty to enjoy here, but you may also notice a few tattered edges.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a very good remake on a visual level, although not so much on a gameplay level, as it remains almost intact compared to the GameCube title.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door will probably be the last Mario game to release (solely) on the Switch. While Wonder will take the plaudits, porting this cult classic means that a new generation of players can experience it. New fans will have a ball, laughing along with Mario & co., even if their experience will be slightly marred by the backtracking and pacing. Old fans will enjoy the quality of life improvements and some new additions. Whether you’re a Paper Mario veteran or this is your first time entering his origami world, this is the definitive way to experience The Thousand-Year Door.
The Switch version of Paper Mario and the Thousand-year door is a rare delight, just like the GameCube one before it: it's a funny and clever mix between a turn based RPG and a platform game, full of jokes and memorable characters. The price might be a little bit steep and the frame rate is halved if compared to the original, but it's still worth to dip your toes into it even twenty years later.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Thousand-Year Door is now a series highlight. It marks the first instance of where I didn’t want a Mario RPG to go (I generally prefer the Mario & Luigi direction), but the constant fourth-wall breaking, myriad colorful and unique characters, and its willingness to just be weird all lead to a joyful journey.
Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Portal is just what we needed: a fine remake that brings back one of the best games of Mario's RPG drift, perhaps the best. As we've been saying for some time, honour to Nintendo for these valuable preservation operations: the title in question is rejuvenated thanks to the brand new visual compartment, and hasn't aged a day in the brilliant mechanics and widespread humour that runs throughout the production. 2024 confirms itself as the year of memories for Nintendo fans.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Nintendo continues to provide the opportunity for many players to experience its retro masterpieces in its library, and to make them more playable than ever before, and choosing The Thousand-Year Door among the entries of Paper Mario series was appropriate; Being one of the coolest spin-offs of the series, with its interesting story, creative and innovative art direction, it has made itself an unmissable experience for Super Mario fans.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
It is not a full-blown remake with overhauled graphics or new episodes. But deep within lies truly one of the best parts of the series to be enjoyed even 20 years later with excellent gameplay, sharp-wit writing and funny dialogues for long evenings or short bursts.
Review in Slovak | Read full review