#RemasterThousandYearDoor

Recently, fans of the classic 2004 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://steemit.com/gaming/@arjendesign/paper-mario-color-splash-critique-1-streamlined-yet-cumbersome), 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:

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Originally posted on my blog: https://arjenartdesign.blogspot.com/2019/08/remasterthousandyeardoor.html