RPGs aren’t a genre for everyone.
When you consider how non-interactive the game portions of titles
like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are, it’s a wonder that the genre ever
caught on. That’s not to say that there weren’t more interactive alternatives
to the typical DQ battle system, there were. Square’s own Parasite Eve and
Super Mario RPG created inventive new battle systems that forced players to pay
attention and stay invested in even the easiest of battles. The Super Mario RPG
style of battle, which is heavily dependent on timing button presses, found its
way into its spiritual successor series, Paper Mario. Paper Mario: The Thousand
Year Door, the 2nd title in the sub-series, expands on concepts
first presented in the 1996 SNES RPG but in doing this, reveals some problems
with the interactive battle system.
Paper Mario's biggest fault is how
shallow the entire game is. At a glance, Paper Mario’s battle system looks more
complex than it actually is. Once you get everything down (which shouldn’t be
hard since the game hammers tutorials into you), it’s a breeze. It’s easy to
learn and even easier to master. It’s clearly a beginner’s RPG which is fine
but the game never makes an effort to challenge the player. That being said, it
never lets you doze off either.
The
battle system may be shallow but it never lets you stop paying attention. And
while this may sound like the game is keeping you on your toes, it’s really
not. The game is pitifully easy and enemy encounters are more of a nuisance
than an actual threat. The closest thing the game has to difficulty is when the
stage around you starts to act up. The idea that your environment can affect
the battle is an interesting one but one that loses its novelty fairly
quickly. A fog rolling in that obscures your vision or a prop light falling on
top of you is a cute quirk of the battle system for the first 10 hours but it
becomes tiresome the farther you progress.
Really,
the entire game feels like Intelligent Systems was trying to balance skill and
luck and it was not an experiment that paid off. Things like the lottery and
the randomized stage effects are entertaining at first and continued to engage
me for a little while but the novelty wore off a little under half-way through.
After the battle system’s bells and whistles stopped impressing me, I realized
that Thousand Year Door has an exceptionally shallow battle system.
This
wouldn’t be a problem if the game were shorter. In truth, the game is only 25
hours long which is pretty short for an RPG but it could absolutely be shorter
and nothing of value would be lost. Games like Parasite Eve are so good because
they’re length compliments their battle system. Thousand Year Door overstays its welcome and suffers because of it.
Since the game is obsessed with being longer than it needs to be, it adds in a
ton of backtracking and filler content which kills the pacing. Every single
chapter has at least one part where the story flatlines and everything grinds
to a halt.
It’s
unfortunate that the game has so much padding and unnecessary content because
there’s a lot to like about Paper Mario’s gameplay. The way you enter battles
is reminiscent of Earthbound’s battle system in that you can sneak up on
enemies in order to get an extra hit on them and vice versa. The whole
interactive stage gimmick is really interesting, as is the partner system. The
fact that the audience that gathers to watch your battle can either help or
hurt you is also a super cool idea. And lastly, badges are a neat customization
element that could have used some fleshing out but it is solid nonetheless.
Unfortunately, none of these elements add up to save up the game. The game is
gluttonous and pays the price for it.
It’s
not really helped that there isn’t really much to do in the game. The world is
pretty small and while there are sidequests and some things to collect like
Shine Sprites and Badges, there’s no real incentive to go out of your way for
them. There’s only one sidequest where the reward is actually notable and the
sidequest itself is incredibly bland and unmemorable. It’s disappointing that
there’s so little to do because the areas in the game are gorgeous and very
detailed.
Thousand Year Door has a vibrant,
cel-shaded aesthetic and as a result, it’s aged incredibly well graphically. Not
content to rest with throwing bright, happy environments at you for the entire
game, Intelligent Systems decides to shake up the various locales quite a bit.
A surprising number of them use dark, brooding colors like black, purple or
navy blues. One would think that they’d be wasting cel-shading on such
depressing areas but it’s the total opposite. Areas like Twilight Town
The
game also uses depth to its advantage. There are many moments within the game
in which you can take a pipe into the background in order to solve some sort of
switch puzzle or enter what was seemingly a background object. It’s a clever
way to make players realize how layered and well designed the graphics are from
both a game design and graphical design standpoint.
I
can’t say the same for the music though. There’s nothing truly terrible but
there’s really nothing standout. It’s all pretty standard stuff. It accurately
conveys the happenings of the game but that’s all it really does. It just
compliments the game and doesn’t go beyond that. The sound effects and sound
cues are all upbeat and cheery but fairly unremarkable as well. It’s a bland showing that doesn’t do as good
of a job as it could have in complementing the visual style.
The
Mario RPGs have always had a focus on comedy and weird jokes and Thousand Year
Door is no different. Thousand Year Door contains a lot of amusing puns, sight gags
and cute 4th wall jokes that make the game feel very light and
goofy. And it’s consistently funny too; the game never relies too heavily on
one gag. It knows how to pace a joke so it’ll work. Considering how many games
try and fail to inject humor into their quests, it’s nice to see a game do it
so effortlessly. It fits fairly well and despite the somewhat dark subject matter,
the two tones never clash.
Paper
Mario: The Thousand Year Door has a lot of interesting ideas but the decision
to make it longer than it should have been makes it overstay its welcome. The
game’s gimmicks are solid for a little while but the cracks start to form
quickly and by the time you’re done, you’re left with a shallow, beginner’s
RPG. As a result, it’s forced to rely on its dialogue and visual style to get
by but as impressive as they are, they can only help the game so much. Paper
Mario: The Thousand Year Door is a perfect example of a game developer not
knowing to say “Enough is enough”.
Final Score: 6.0
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