The sequel to prolly the last great Nintendo 64 game. And its just as good, if not better, than its predecessor.
The Thousand Year Door is set up almost the same as the original Paper Mario was. You travel around as Mario, accompanied by a group of companions who agree to help you along the way. And your goal is of course to save the world and rescue Princess Peach, like any other Mario title and like the original Paper Mario. This time, while Peach was visiting the town of Rogueport, she gets a magical map which is your guide to finding the Crystal Stars, which are connected to the Thousand Year Door. As usual, events transpire where you learn whose behind everything, why Peach was kidnapped again, and how to save her while exploring and collecting the Crystal Stars. The game is divided up into Chapters as you progress, coninciding with the number of Crystal Stars you have/are after.
The majority of the gameplay takes place in exploration and battle phases. Exploration is pretty self explanatory. But your enemies do appear on screen, like Grandia or Star Ocean, and you can jump on them or hammer them to trigger a battle. From there, its just simple turn based battles until the battle ends. Plus the turns are easy, Mario->Mario's partner->enemies. No initiative stats, no movement grid, no ATB. You attack they attack, doesn't get any easier. And that's why its so much fun. It's an easy system to get accustomed to and it never gets overly complicated. At your disposal are standard attacks (Jump or Hammer), use of items and Specials. The specials you earn thru finding the Crystal Stars, and these use an SP meter that fills up based on your performance in battles and increases when you find Crystal Stars. Special jump or hammer abilities unlock and can be used by equipping Badges, which help augment Mario. Some badges can increase health, or restore health after an attack, or unlock a hammer ability, etc. And since this is an RPG, you do earn experience after each battle, for every 100 points, you gain one level. At each level up, you can decide to increase either your hit points, flower points (basically mana for your jump/hammer abilities), or badge points (which allow to wear more badges increasing Mario's strength in battle). It's the same system that was in place for the original, but for the Thousand Year Door, something new was added. Battles now take place on a stage with an audience. It doesn't effect the game that much, but it does matter for a couple boss fights. Battles are fun and easy, and that is all that matters.
For as simple as the graphics are, they are real good. The best comparison would prolly be to the Viewtiful Joe games, as its a 2D world, but you move around in the 2D/3D vein. Added to the sequel was more 'paper' elements. That is the world now sports a few more designs that help flesh out the 'Paper Mario' concept. Plus you sometimes even interact with the background which wasn't possible on the N64. Not to mention that at certain times, there are lots of things on screen. It only happens a few times, but when it does, it doesn't hinder the game's performance at all.
Like most Nintendo games, the music is incredible. Naturally you have some classic Mario tones intermixed during the game as well as new ones for the various towns and areas you explore. There is no voice acting, like alot of Nintendo's titles, but considering its a Mario game, were you expecting it. Besides, the writing is fantastic.
It's amazing. Nintendo just seems to keep getting overlooked, tho for the last 2 generations (N64 & GC), its been their 3rd party support that hurt them, but they have seemingly never made a bad 1st party title. And Paper Mario Thousand Year Door is another in that line. Its predecessor was one of the last great N64 titles, and its sequel improves upon it, even surpasses it in parts, to create another classic Mario/Nintendo title.