Highlights

  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has been entirely remade for Nintendo Switch, making it more accessible and visually stunning.
  • Fans of the original game will be delighted by the new details, music, and surprises in the remastered version.
  • The Switch remake of TTYD brings back the original combat system and design tricks, but it offers an even more immersive experience due to all the little touches.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has a new home on Nintendo Switch. Not only does this title make the beloved Mario RPG much more accessible, but the game has been entirely remade to take advantage of the newer hardware. Players have been revisiting the detailed story and world of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, taking in the gorgeous visuals, listening to the intricately detailed new music, and being surprised by what parts of the dialogue have been changed with the updated English localization.

Though the Paper Mario series hasn't gone anywhere, it's changed over the years, leading to multiple different experiences. Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64 and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door are the only two experiences that are consistent with each other, as TTYD is a direct sequel to the original Paper Mario game. It brings back the original's combat system and even borrows a few of its design tricks, using them to its benefit to deliver on more detailed concepts all across the board. The Thousand-Year Door has been a fan-favorite game for two decades now, and the Switch remake only makes this game even more deserving of love.

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Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Takes Extra Details Up to Eleven

The World of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is More Alive Than Ever Before

After the Switch remake, it's hard to go back to the original game due to the sheer amount of new details found in the latest version. During initial previews of the game, Nintendo had stated that Paper Mario: TTYD fans with a keen eye for detail would have quite a lot to see, and it's astounding how true that statement ended up being. From small but appreciated details like back sprites for the partners to cut dialogue completely restored 20 years later, the entire game from back to front is full of surprises that elevate the experience.

For those who have played the game before, there's not much they could ask for when it comes to further adjustments to Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door's Switch version, as it's filled with so many extra goodies that finding them is an easy scavenger hunt in itself. Iconic pieces to the RPG adventure, such as giving a Crystal Star to the Thousand-Year Door, are made all the better through music tracks that highlight the progress made with each Star gained - and other new musical pieces make familiar moments and battles all the sweeter like a real song being made for Favio's Skull Gem tune. These are only a few things that gamers will notice along the way.

What Fans Should Keep an Eye and Ear Out For While Playing Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

While Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door isn't exactly the biggest RPG experience out there, it still has so much to offer that trying to list what was changed or even what wasn't would be hard to do. One of the smallest changes, yet also the biggest in terms of how often it can be spotted, is the way tons of characters have been given new expressions to make emotional moments stand out. Mario is the one with the least number of new expressions, but he's allowed to use what he's always had, complete with using Charles Martinet's voice clips from the original to make him just a bit more vocal than usual.

When it was first announced, it was hard to tell if the Switch version of TTYD was a remake or a remaster, as most of the changes shown early on felt simply cosmetic, but as trailers showed more changes and with the game in players' hands, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door isn't what it seemed at first glance and has been entirely remade. Battles may feel a little different to those returning to the game after playing the original for so long, but it won't take long to adjust and enjoy the ride, especially with the visual improvements to the iconic locations and all the surprises longtime fans can find.