Nintendo scores yet another home-run with their high-quality, superbly crafted Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Old Door. Both RPG fans and lovers of the Mario series are not likely to be disappointed. Following in the original Paper Mario's footsteps, you'll control a paper-cutout version of the Mario we all know and love. Except unlike the first Paper Mario game, the concept of paper as an interactive gaming force is taken much further. Overall, most people will find Paper Mario 2 to be a funny, clever, and even self-depreciating experience that is accessible to everyone.
The game begins when Princess Peach, stopping by at the colorful but crime-ridden town of Rogueport, discovers a special map that is said to lead to a mysterious treasure. Not trusting herself with such a valuable artifact alone, she mails Mario for help, but when he arrives, the Princess is nowhere to be found. Has she been kidnapped? Yeah, it’s happened so many times before, and the game relentlessly mocks itself about the never-ending Mario concept about always having to rescue the Princess. Of course, the plot will prove to be significantly more complicated than just rescuing a Princess (assuming that that is what you are supposed to be doing in the first place), yet its similarities in plot-structure to Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine (collecting stars and shine spites to open up new areas) also elicit self-mockery from the script-writers.
In fact, the writing happens to be one of Paper Mario 2’s first noticeable charms. It manages to be funny, clever and accessible to audiences of all ages, yet does this without the player feeling like they are being pandered to. It has the hallmark of a great family game—something which Nintendo is always striving for, in that both parent and child can play—and enjoy—it at the same time. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a young child with adult supervision to enjoy the funny bits of dialogue. Everyone should get the humour and sharp-writing that the localisation team was able to produce, as it is both funny yet also strangely deep for a Mario game when it needs to be. To reveal anymore might spoil the game, but one particularly humourous tidbit is when you meet Luigi who bores Mario silly about his own parallel adventure to rescue a princess in another land by gathering magic compass shards from said Princess’s tiara to access new areas.
The graphics make the game resemble the set of a play, with curtains and the works. The game’s characters are all 2-D paper cutouts in a pseudo 3-D plane, which admittedly can get confusing at times when trying to face off against an enemy or jump a certain gap. The graphical style actually serves as an integral part of the gameplay. Mario will be able to acquire many different paper forms such as the paper airplane, boat and tube. When in these transformations, he can engage his surrounding environment in new and innovative ways. For example, certain hidden areas can only be accessed if Mario flattens himself like a plain sheet of paper in order to slip through a crack in the set—i.e. background. Other hidden areas are only accessible when Mario recruits Flurrie, a jovial wind spirit. When she’s in your party, she can blow hastily taped portions of the set away to reveal a newly ripped or cut-out area. It’s definitely a clever design.
The tunes and music of the game have that upbeat “Marioesque” feel Mario-veterans will have come to expect. In fact, some of the outdoor areas that are filled with enemy Goombas and Koopa Troopas have music that resemble the original SMB, yet diverges from the path enough to be its own succinct brand.
This gets into the subject of the innovative battle and play mechanics. As is the trend in many RPGs of late, all enemies are visible on the screen. Mario can try to avoid the enemies (which can be tricky at times) or engage them in battle. The way in which he engages them can significantly affect the outcome. For example, if Mario whacks a goomba with a hammer, he gets first strike, which is in essence a free turn. Conversely, if an enemy piranha plant sneaks up from the ground and bites Mario, it gets a free turn. Both these incidents can turn out to be a fairly big deal, especially when the enemies get more challenging. In cases like that you’ll want to clear out all the enemies before they even have a chance to strike, and a well-delivered first-hit might just be the key to your success. As for the actual combat itself, Mario and one partner each have heart points (HP), which is their health. If a partner loses his/her health, they can be swapped for another partner in the party, but it’s an instant game-over if Mario gets KO’d. Flower points (FP) are the special moves that Mario and the partner can use, and they share it as a pool, so they’ll generally have to be used sparingly at first. Finally, there is the issue of the party’s star power—which allows Mario to use special techniques based on how popular the audience that is watching him thinks he is. Yes, combat takes place on a stage in front of an engrossed audience. Perform special moves with the right timing and button presses and the crowd may shower Mario with coins, items, and increase his star power. Then Mario can use his star power to perform a technique like “sweet treat”, which, if executed and timed correctly, will restore a portion of the party’s HP, FP, and cure all status ailments. However, certain hecklers may throw rocks or try to sabotage the set no matter how well you perform, which can damage your party. In such cases, pressing the X button can boot them out of the theatre. When Mario gains 100 star points (not to be confused with star power) at the end of a battle, he can choose to increase his max. HP (which is probably essential at first), FP, or BP (badge points). Badge points are a unique statistic — the more of them Mario has the more special badges he can wear, which perform tasks such as increasing his defense or attack, increasing his inventory of special moves, or just changing his appearance (costume badges). Choosing how you want to level up Mario makes for some interesting customization opportunities.
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The different battle partners Mario will incur in his party prove to be both unique and distinguishable from each other, each with their own special set of moves. Goombella is a female goomba that can read enemy statistics, while Koops is a nervous koopa who has extra defense with his shell. Each party member also serves a unique purpose outside of battle. Goombella can tell you more about the area you are in and sometimes will be able to give you tips on how to proceed past a certain puzzle. Koops can reach keys and other items when you kick his shell towards them, and Flurrie can stun enemies outside of battle with her wind attack. While all the party members have their own unique personalities, you unfortunately can only display one of your partners at a time. What this means is that when dialogue bits occur, you would need to replay the game each time to hear each different partner express his/her two cents, as they all have different things to say about the situation at hand. This obviously is a very minor complaint, as only the most hard-core of players will replay the game solely for that purpose, but it’s worth noting as a point of interest.
If there’s one relatively major gripe some players may have with Paper Mario 2, it’s that the game won’t necessarily grab you right away like some other RPGs can. It can take about 10 hours to get into, as it can seem monotonous and repetitive at first. For one thing, there is a lot of backtracking, which includes bothersome fetch-quests, in only a limited number of areas. However, as the game progresses, the world really opens up, and with all the side-quests available, players might not even be able to decide what they should do and where they should go first, which is a good thing.
All-in-all, most gamers will probably find Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Old Door to be a fleshed out, elaborate Mario-adventure sometimes reminiscent of his old nostalgia-filled 2-D days. The story is very rich by Mario standards, and the game can be surprisingly challenging, yet accessible, making it a truly great game for gamers of all ages. A purchase is definitely worth considering.
