Offering a refreshing amount of depth while retaining it's classic charm, Thousand Year Door will keep you hooked
The main plot of the game is very similar to the original game, and Super Mario RPG. Princess Peach sends Mario a letter containing a treasure map telling him to meet her in a town called Rogue Port. Upon your arrival you almost immediately realize that the princess has once again been kidnapped by an unknown 3rd party who may or may not be interested in the map that you're carrying. Further details about the map reveal that it contains the locations of 7 different fabled crystal stars, which hold the key to the Thousand Year Door underneath the old streets of the city. You'll need to explore the city of Rogue Port along with the areas surrounding it to collect the crystal stars and uncover the mystery of the Thousand Year Door while recruiting the assistance of a memorable cast of supporting characters.
For those of you who played the original Paper Mario most of the game play found in this one will be very familiar to you. When you engage an enemy in the field you're taken to a theatre like stage in order to do battle with your enemy. It's turn based like most RPG's, but since it's presented in 2D format your options for attack are a little different. Mario can use a jump or hammer attack in the beginning, with abilities to follow as the game progresses. You can jump attack any enemy on the ground or in the air, but you can only attack with your hammer against the enemy that's first in line. Later on you'll get the option to use abilities that negate this stipulation which certainly helps. The first strike element makes it's return, making it possible to gain an extra attack to start the battle as long as you attack first in the field. The best part is that you actually have the opportunity for an action command during a first strike allowing for more damage. This was something that was missing from the original game. The action commands work basically the same as the previous game. Press A just as Mario lands on an enemy for extra damage with the jump attack. Hold the control stick to the left until the large circle lights up for extra damage with your hammer. Other abilities found later in the game will have different types of action commands, keeping you on your toes if you want to maximize your effectiveness. Pressing A at the right time during an enemy's attack will reduce their damage as well. There is also an addition of a counter-attack, which works the same as a defensive action command, but will do damage to the enemy as opposed to just reducing the amount they deal to you. You press B instead of A to perform a counter-attack, but it is a lot more challenging to actually pull it off.
Early on you may notice that Mario has fans in the seats below the stage watching his every fight. Every time you collect a new crystal star you'll earn a new special move which requires a certain amount of star power, measured in 8 intervals as soon as you have all of the crystal stars. Each special move requires a different amount of star power and range from healing moves to devastating attacks and status effect abilities. If you deplete your star power you can earn more by appealing to the crowd, or by simply attacking your opponents. The more you please the crowd, the more star power you will earn. You can even pull off stylish effects before, during, and right after attacking by pressing A to please the crowd more, regaining more star power. Every attack in the game has different timing for stylish moves, but there is a badge that teaches you when to press the button.
Leveling up in Thousand Year Door works the same as in the original Paper Mario with a few added tweaks. Every time you earn 100 star points (exp) from defeating enemies, you'll level up and have the option to upgrade one of 3 categories. Heart Points (HP), flower points (FP), and badge points (BP). The nice thing is that there is no level cap unlike the last Paper Mario, making for more customization of your character. You'll get 5 extra HP or FP should you decide to upgrade one of those, and 3 extra BP if you decide go with that. Each badge that you collect has different abilities for Mario's disposal such as new attacks, or FP and HP bonuses. Other badges will have more unique traits such as making you more elusive to enemies, or making it so they take damage to you if they attack directly. Personally I really appreciate that you can have as many badge points as you want as opposed to only 30 in the last game, which really REALLY helps out the depth. It also helps because some of the badges require a lot more points to be wearing, going up to 7. There are also quite a few badges that you'll collect multiples of. If you decide to equip multiples of a certain badge, that ability will be enhanced but will require more FP to use in battle. You'll also see that sometimes your enemies will have badges with them, giving them whatever ability that badge has, making for much more interesting fights. There is even an ally with the ability to steal badges and items from enemies, adding them to your collection and depriving them of that ability. It's interesting because you can potentially collect a ridiculous amount of any one badge.
The more you level up the fewer star points you'll earn from each enemy, just like in the last game. The difference is that no matter what level you are, you'll always earn at least one star point from a battle, which really makes fighting weak enemies not seem quite as pointless as in the last game. It also means that RPG nuts like myself can sit around one area and level like crazy, which is always fun and very compulsive.
Throughout the game you will also be endowed with special abilities that will help Mario reach new areas and collect certain objects. The first one you get will allow you to turn into a paper airplane when standing on a specific platform, enabling you to fly and hover downward to an unreachable structure. Other abilities include becoming small and rolled up, allowing you to go through small vents and under certain structures otherwise blocking your route. Near the end of the game you'll get the ability to become a paper boat so you can navigate the waters surrounding the area. When you use these abilities you'll certainly get the feeling of playing "Paper" Mario.
During your journey you'll come across the aide of several different characters that will join your party. Each of these characters has their own set of attacks for battle, and special abilities for Mario to use in the field to help him reach new areas and perform certain actions that he would otherwise be helpless to achieve. Some of the characters resemble a lot of the ones found in the original Paper Mario, such as the female goomba who joins you at the beginning of the game, and the Koopa who joins you during your first crystal star endeavour. A nice addition to the group is a baby yoshi that you'll come across in the middle of the game, who you can ride for faster movement, and temporarily hover to get across certain gaps that are too far for Mario to jump across. The main difference for your partners in this game is that they all have their own amount of HP which gets higher as you upgrade them during the game. This means that when you decide to have them attack first they'll stay in front of you acting as a tank for incoming melee attacks. This is a much appreciated change from the first game, where they didn't have HP and would simply get paralyzed for a certain amount of turns if they took damage. Upgrading your allies is a little different in this game as well. In the last game you had to find Super Blocks to upgrade an ally, where as in Thousand Year Door you have to collect shine sprites, an item found in Super Mario Sunshine. Every 3 shine sprites found will allow you to upgrade an ally boosting their HP and attacks, while earning them a new ability. Most of the shine sprites are easy to find, but some of them are very cleverly hidden, and can only be acquired when Mario earns certain abilities. There are also badges to collect that only work for your partner such as HP, power, and defense boosts. This allows for a lot more depth and strategy helping to make Thousand Year Door the clear favorite in the Paper Mario franchise.
Items found in the game are basically the same as the last one, ranging from mushrooms to heal HP, syrups to heal FP, and attacking items like thunder rage and sleepy sheep to deal damage and status effects during battle. They also added buffing items for you and your allies to raise power and defense for a short period. Other status effects include confusion, sleep, poison, etc. You can also drop your enemies attack and defense ratings with certain abilities from either your partners, badges, or specific items. There are also items that when used will slowly regain HP or FP over a certain amount of turns. You can also combine items together by having the cook in town fry up new dishes with the ingredients you give her to create better healing items, and more powerful attack ones. Eventually you'll be able to combine two items, allowing for more elite dishes to aide you in your quest. You can still store items with any shopkeeper in the game, and retrieve them back from any other shop. A nice addition is the point system that every shop now has. Every time you purchase an item from a shop with coins, you'll earn a frequent buyer point. Every time you earn a certain amount of points you'll be rewarded with an item. The higher points you earn, the better the item. After 300 points the system resets to 0, allowing you to earn 300 again, along with every item that you earned previously. You can still only carry 10 items at first, but there is a hidden item in the game that will allow you to carry 20 items. This helps a lot considering your partner now has HP, and will require maintenance once in a while. Another item worth mentioning is the gold bars. These are used to store coins should you be approaching the maximum amount that you are allowed to carry. You can buy a gold bar for 110 coins, then sell it back for 100. There is also a gold bar x3 which costs 350, then sells for 300.
Collecting of star pieces also makes it's return, adding for a lot more game time and replay value. Star pieces can be traded to a character under Rogue Port in exchange for a collection of badges. Near that character is a fortune teller who can tell you locations of star pieces and shine sprites for a certain amount of coins, just like in the last game. There are a total of 100 star pieces to collect, and are more well hidden this time around.
Graphically speaking Thousand Year Door re-vindicates the style of the original, while topping it in clarity, smoothness, and presentation in every way. There are many parts during the game where you'll trigger a switch in order to make things like a bridge appear. When something like this occurs, the said structure will appear in paper like intervals sort of reminding you of a pop up book. Also when you enter a room from a larger area the outline of the room will fall down so you can see where you are. Things like that happen almost every time you enter a new area, and really looks kinda cool. I also can't say enough about the animations of the game, which are incredibly smooth and never cause slow downs. This isn't a huge accomplishment considering the graphic style alone really doesn't put too much pressure on the hardware, but that is definitely a good thing especially considering the game's style is well appreciated and presented all while requiring little power to show off.
Thousand Year Door pulls off everything you liked about the original game while surpassing it in almost every way. The added amount of depth validates it as a scrutible and stand alone RPG experience that will satisfy any fan of the genre. Between all of the side quests and the main game, Thousand Year Door comes in at an astonishing 30-45 hours, depending on how powerful you care to level your character, and how many side quests you care to do. Most players will find most of the game to be somewhat of a breeze, but there is a particular side quest in the game called the pit of a 100 trials that is quite a challenge, along with certain boss fights. Aside from the fact that you don't receive coins when you defeat an enemy from a first strike in the field, this game is literally flawless.