I absolutely mean it. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is the greatest game ever made, by miles.
Between the emotionally charged story, the dynamic characters, interesting puzzles, humorous dialogue, fun battle system, challenging boss battles, the variety of beautiful worlds, suspenseful plot, intelligent game design, catchy music, and the greatest sense of adventure and accomplishment, this game takes the cake as the most charming gem in gaming history.
Get ready to be glued to your TV from the beginning. The story starts off somewhat vague and begins to unfold steadily throughout the chapters of the game. The story builds as you collect more partners, each with their own strong unique personalities and abilities, leaving you with a sense of team pride. Toward the end of the game the drama and tensions builds so high that you will be overwhelmingly emotionally involved to the point of crying BEFORE the final boss battle.
Combine that with the game's unique RPG battle system that offers the most dynamic set of options known to a Paper Mario game. The Thousand Year Door appears to steer away from where I felt that the first Paper Mario for the 64 faulted, which was the excessive amount of baddies. In addition, the special moves gained by gathering the crystal stars are extremely fun to use and offer a different way of battling.
Of course, another point to this game is the Bowser storyline. Unlike Paper Mario for the 64 where you had separate storylines for Mario and Peach, Bowser is added to that list. This time, though, he plays a hilarious comic relief character after every chapter completion, to the player's delight.
The puzzles in this game keep it intriguing through all of the handful of battles encountered at every level - most notably, the final chapter of the Thousand Year Door. This is undoubtedly the strongest chapter for the game's puzzles, as it appears the creators invested a considerable amount of effort into this particular stage.
Finally, one of the strongest points of the game is just how gorgeous the worlds are. From a mystical forest, to a battling, fighting stadium, to a dark and eerie ghost town, to a pirate island, to the moon - this game epitomizes adventure and truly represents the most essential elements to outstanding game design.