#RemasterThousandYearDoor

Recently, fans of the classic GameCube RPG 'Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door' have been part of a hashtag campaign to convince Nintendo to remaster or possibly even remake the game to bring it to a new audience. I want to give you some insight on the movement and explain my own reasons for wanting a remaster of this beloved cult classic.

Puppet with a Plan

On July 27th 2019, Arlo - a family friendly gaming YouTuber - made a video starting the hashtag and an associated petition. Arlo's been making content about the Paper Mario franchise for a long time and like myself, he believes that the Paper Mario franchise has lost much of what made it great - whereas the Thousand-Year Door represents everything that made the series great in the first place. His video is well worth checking out, both for context and because he's a downright entertaining content creator:

Not long after Arlo posted his video officially starting the campaign, the hashtag quickly became populated with thousands of Tweets explaining why the Thousand-Year Door deserves a remaster, as well as mountains of fan art. It's well worth browsing through the hashtag to see just how much the fans care: https://twitter.com/hashtag/RemasterThousandYearDoor

Looks good on paper

So now you're up to speed about what's going on - people want a remaster of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. But why? I'm going to divide this segment into three subsections - Content, Context and Improvements.

Content

The most straightforward reason why Thousand-Year Door deserves a remaster is that it is an excellent videogame. It takes the formula of classic JRPGs and distills it down to something more simple, quick and involved thanks to the timed Action Commands. There are no ridiculously high numbers or overly complicated hierarchies of weaknesses and strengths - everything explains itself intuitively. Flying enemies need to be jumped on, spiked enemies need to be hit with the hammer and so on. Battles have many solutions for you to discover and you never have to grind. And instead of a complex system of equipment with many minor statistical differences and percentages, there are just badges that allow you to shape the way you play by adding all new abilities or other game changing additions to your arsenal.

Rock solid gameplay aside, the game's presentation is timeless. The game has a focus on simple, colorful and immediately recognizable characters that stick out from the simple 3D backgrounds. The clear, simple speech bubbles and easily readable font are reminiscent of comic books and make sure you'll never get tired of reading.

The game's soundtrack is also amazing, featuring catchy tunes, emotional pieces and a lot of downright weird stuff as well. One of my favorites will always be the battle theme:

But one of the most unexpected virtues of the Paper Mario series are the games' stories and the way they expand the world that Mario and his friends inhabit. Mario games are famous for being lighthearted and joyful, but the Paper Mario games have moments of deep sadness or even fear that you'd never see in the mainline series. Thousand-Year Door is not afraid to add some darker depths to the world of Mario. I won't go in-depth to prevent spoilers, but let's just talk about how the game starts. Mario walks into Rogueport, and the first thing that happens is a Goomba girl gets attacked by a suspicious figure and no one lifts a finger to help; Mario and the girl escape into town and the first visual that greets you is a gallows with a noose. In a Mario game.

The intro segment continues to lay it on thick, showing you two mafioso beating a few people up in the background and having you get robbed moments after. The message is clear: You've left the Mushroom Kingdom - this is a new place in Mario's world, with a good deal more crime and cynicism.

But that's not to say that Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is an entirely grim game. The game has a fantastically goofy sense of humour and its tone is still optimistic. It's just not afraid to show you the seedy side of Mario's world, a side that we've never really seen again.

There's so much more I want to say about the story and incredible characters, but the purpose of this article is to argue for a rerelease or remake of the game, so I really don't want to spoil any more than I already have.

So, we've got an amazingly fun RPG with beautiful visuals, catchy music and a story that - while charming and humorous - is not afraid to tread dark and scary ground. It's one-of-a-kind, and more people ought to be able to try it for that reason alone.

Context

On a more meta level, a major reason why we need a remaster or remake of Thousand-Year Door is because the game is stuck in a forgotten generation. With the Wii U and Switch leaving GameCube backwards compatability behind, you can only officially play the game with a GameCube and GameCube disc. This means you'll have to either own or buy a GameCube, and then get the game, which might not be cheap depending on where you live.

And even if you did have the financial stability to buy a GameCube with all the bells and whistles, the game is also just fairly unknown. The GameCube was a difficult time for Nintendo, as we all know, and only a handful of games on the system could really be called major successes. A new release wouldn't just make the game more accessible, it'd also just make more people aware of it. With Nintendo's marketing team backing it, the game could enjoy a much greater success on the Switch than it ever did on the GameCube.

Another matter is the current state of the series. The two latest installments, Paper Mario: Sticker Star and Paper Mario: Color Splash did not sell very well and were disliked by critics and fans alike (you can read an article I wrote about it here: https://arjenartdesign.blogspot.com/2017/06/paper-mario-color-splash-critique-1.html), and it's easy to see why: The games aren't bad, but they've completely abandoned what people enjoyed about the series to begin with - namely, the exciting combat and amazing story. Remaking The Thousand-Year Door would be an opportunity for Nintendo to show they understand what the fans want, and would potentially allow them to continue the series in a way that the fans would love. 

In conclusion, remastering the game just makes sense; it makes the game more accessible, it allows Nintendo to market the game as new - which they've been doing quite effectively with Wii U ports on Switch - and thus it'll be seen and played by many new people as well as the fans. It would also be exactly what the fans want after the series changed its focus away from what made fans fall in love with it to begin with.

Improvements

A game doesn't need to be perfect to get a remaster or remake - on the contrary, a rerelease is the perfect opportunity to iron out a few of the problems. Assuming the hypothetical remaster is just that and not a remake, this is a moot point, but if the game gets the full HD treatment like Wind Waker - another GameCube classic - there are things they could do to make the game even better. This segment will feature some very minor gameplay spoilers.

Just like Wind Waker's Triforce chart/piece quest was considered just a bit too tedious, so too does The Thousand-Year Door have its padded segments. Chapter 4 and 5 in particular ask you to run back and forth through the same area more times than is really necessary. Simply adding a pipe that warps you between the two extreme ends of the area would fix this problem. A faster way to switch partners and use items would also be a big plus.

The game also has a few gags that are pretty funny, but drag on for too long - one, for example, involves you having to follow a character through many previously visited areas. This could be fixed by shortening the quest a lot or allowing you to warp from any location once you've opened an area's fast travel pipe. 

These are just a few minor improvements that would make an already great game even more amazing, and a remaster/remake is the perfect opportunity to make it happen.

The Final Page

To summarize, the game deserves a remaster for its exciting combat, great presentation and compelling story. It needs a remaster to reach a new audience and become more accessible for fans and newcomers alike. A remaster would be a great opportunity for Nintendo to score points with the fans and improve upon a beloved classic. All in all, there's nothing to lose and everything to gain. That's why I and so many fans want Nintendo to #RemasterThousandYearDoor.

Please let me know what you think in the comments. Did I make a good case, or are you not convinced? Are there other games you think need to be remastered?

Thousand-Year Door screenshots captured from this video. It's a longplay, so it has spoilers- beware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKh5LKS6LJ8

Paper Mario: Color Splash Critique #1 - Streamlined, Yet Cumbersome

I recently finally got a chance to try Paper Mario: Color Splash. I've been a fan of the series from the very beginning, so I was interested to see the changes and how informed they are (or aren't) by proper game design. I want to make it clear that Color Splash is a fun game with a beautiful presentation, and this critique isn't intended to condemn all the work that went into it. In this first article, I'll examine my main problem with the game, the battle system, and how it tries and fails to streamline the series' formula.

Paper Mario: Color Splash's battle system is, in a word, odd. Rather than allowing the character a set amount of moves to strategize with, the player instead relies on a finite set of cards acquired or bought in the overworld. In that sense this is very much an evolution of the battle system present in Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

source: Mario Party Legacy on YouTube

There really is no in game justification for why Mario requires cards to use the jump and hammer he is naturally armed with, but the lack of an in-world explanation doesn't necessarily condemn the battle system - only the degree to which it meets its intended goal does.

So what is its intended goal? It seems to me that Intelligent Systems attempted to streamline and simplify battles. Your average battle in Paper Mario: Color Splash takes one or two turns at most, for a few reasons: All attacks do a lot of damage (and that includes the enemies') and Mario can perform many actions in a one go. To name an extreme example: If you were two play 2 'worn-out hammer x 5' cards, you would be doing 10 hammer attacks in a single turn. You wouldn't be interrupted by any menus, everything would simply come down to your timing until your cards have run out of paint.

source: Mario Wiki

I understand and respect the basic idea of this system. You could potentially face down a tough group of enemies, and by choosing just the right cards in just the right order, defeat them before they land a hit on you. You can pack the strategy of what prior games would do in multiple turns, in just one. To further support this, the game always takes special note if you get through a battle without taking any damage and rewards you for it with a 'perfect bonus.'

source: BeardBear on YouTube

That doesn't sound so bad, does it? But that's just the concept. Let's talk about the execution.

To choose your cards in Paper Mario: Color Splash, you are required to look down at the Wii U Gamepad. From there, you can choose your cards from a list. Unfortunately, however, the UI for selecting cards was obviously not designed with the sheer number of cards in mind. You might find yourself awkwardly dragging past a dozen of the same kind of card before finally finding what you want, even if you use the game's 'organize' button. Next, you have to drag said card - and later, cards - up to its spot to confirm you want to use it. Sounds pretty cumbersome, right? But it only gets worse.

Once you have selected your cards and confirmed your selection as a separate action, the game then requires you to paint in the cards. Even if all cards you selected were pre-filled, which they thankfully can be, the game still shows this screen and requires you to confirm that you are done painting the cards. If they weren't, you are expected to hold down on each card for a while to paint it. It's slow and feels extremely unnecessary. Why have a step deciding the strength of your cards when the cards themselves already do this? You have worn-out hammers, ordinary hammers and even big and giant hammers; and you can find and buy them at will. Other cards, like the jump, are much the same. Was the extra variable and the extra time it costs to fill in the cards really necessary or useful? Most of the time, you'll want to fill the entire card, since you're unlikely to ever run out of paint anyway. On top of that, Mario's attacks don't do a clear number of damage, so it's impossible to use an "informed" amount of paint.

So after making you find, select, drag, confirm, color and confirm your cards again, the game decides to waste your time just once more by forcing you to drag the cards up. After that, you're finally in business, and can perform Mario's attacks with their Action Commands as you would in any other Paper Mario.*

The underlying thought of the dragging is cute - you're sliding the cards from your Wii U screen up to your television - but the sheer amount of dragging and selecting actions the game asks you to take every turn makes me think they never tested it for extended periods of time.

Compare this to Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, where it'll never take more than three button presses to start an attack - and it lets you actually select the enemy you want to attack, whereas Color Splash simply attacks the enemies in order, with the first card attacking the first enemy, and so on. Regardless of how many cards are at your disposal, it ends up limiting the player's choices in the end. In the end, the vast majority of them are simple variations of the hammer and jump attack.

source: SullyPwnz on YouTube

In conclusion, Paper Mario: Color Splash had a good idea to streamline battles into intricately planned out turns, but the poor implementation of the Wii U Screen, cards and paint make it so cumbersome that each battle ends up taking an unnecessary amount of effort. The system absolutely does not lend itself for the amount of battles and how repetitive they are. Paper Mario: Color Splash, like its predecessor, tries and fails to streamline the perfectly convenient battle system of Paper Mario 1 and 2.

In the next article, 'Overworld Joys and Overworld Woes,' I'll discuss the overworld you navigate in Color Splash outside of battles. Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to your feedback.

* Update: On Reddit, I received a reaction about something I glossed over because I was too focused on the interface itself. In Paper Mario Color Splash, the Action Commands are almost exclusively timed button presses. In the first and second game, the Hammer Action Command worked by tilting the control stick, and there were a variation of Action Commands and stylish moves on top of that. This is another simplification that ends up making the battle system more tedious and monotonous than it could have been. Thanks for pointing this out, /u/rendumguy!