Mario, but Flat

I’m pretty much hooked on this Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door right now. I played the first one on Nintendo 64 and enjoyed it, but the Gamecube version is so much better. The style of art is very unique. Since it’s called Paper Mario, Mario is two dimensional. When you turn around, it’s like flipping a sheet of paper. The game is an RPG with side-scroller worlds and with some three dimensional elements. The overall mood of the game is somewhat silly. The music definitely adds to this tone by staying rather simple. The dialogue is incredibly funny while the storyline is simple. Princess Peach seems to have gone missing while searching for a treasure. While finding this treasure, you also search for the princess, but to open the door to the treasure, you need to recover the seven star crystals. It is a pretty linear storyline that has you searching for these crystals one by one. However, each world that houses a crystal has a different story.

The graphics are very smooth. While the overall graphics are flat, the characters and worlds are very well designed. Entering buildings is also unique; the buildings unfold to reveal what’s inside after entering.

The characters of the games all have their unique abilities. You have to use these abilities to uncover hidden secrets and even to advance through the game. This game is really unique in that it melds together many different aspects of different game genres. It even tries to make the typical turn based RPG battle system more interesting by adding certain tasks to attack. If completed successfully, your attack hits harder.

This game is also incredibly long and has a lot of secrets to unlock. So far I have spent around twelve to thirteen hours and I am still not even halfway through. Nintendo seems to have found the perfect blend of simplicity and fun while also maintaining some depth in gameplay with Paper Mario.