Paper Mario: The Thousand YearDoor (GCN)

A fun adventure albeit a bit "thin"... hehe

So not finishing my cravings for the Gamecube I put in a more lighthearted RPG, Paper Mario. The first Paper Mario game I ever played since we skipped the one for the N64 for some reason. So it starts out with Princess Peach being on holiday (?) in Rougeport, a place of scum and villainy built upon the ruins of an old city that was destroyed 1000-years ago. There she gets a box that only she can open which reveals a treasure map she sends to Mario so he can help her find the treasure. So when he arrives the Princess have been kidnapped so together with new friends he must find the seven crystal stars and find Princess Peach.

All the worlds a stage and all the men and women merely players

It's basically go to a new place, find some upgrade and/or a new companion, defeat the boss, get the crystal star. Then it shifts to Princess Peach in the villains lair, the so called X-Nauts, befriending the AI computer TEC that for some reason falls in love with Peach so he helps her as well as uncovering a lot of the plot. And then it shifts to Bowser trying to find Peach and Mario and trying to get the crystal stars before everyone else. All in all it turns out the old city was destroyed by a demon and it was locked up  behind the door by the crystals star by four heroes (which is hinted at being trapped in the black chest that gives you powers like turning at the side, becoming a roll and turning into boat and a plane) and the X-Nauts are going to use Princess Peach as a vessel for the demon. So with your friends, the seven crystal stars and the prayers from the people all around the world you defeat the Shadow Queen and everything works out fine. 

Let's go Bastille day on this queen

Framing story is simple, but it's the moments that are the most fun. For example the arena Glitzpit where you climb to the top in a tournament fighting the RAWK HAWK, or taking the train to Poshley Heights and it is filled with murder mystery cliches. Certain chapters are more fun than others. The Boogley Woods I recall put me to sleep the first time I played it back when I got the game. Funny enough I still got my old save so I looked through it. I finished the game 2 hours earlier (at 43 hours this time) with 3 less levels and less Hearts and Flower Points in this new run, but I also finished all the troubles and found the secret companion and every shine sprite and 99 star pieces. The only thing I actually did in the old save I would like to do is finishing the 100 pit trail and defeat Bonetail, but I guess I would need some more resources since I can't have played the game as good like this time. Looking at the badges I just used more Hearts and Flowers with are rather useless compared to the right combination of badges so I learned something this time around.

It's a fun game (Bowser getting owned by Gonzales, Mario and Luigi in finding the crystal stars gave me a chuckle), a pity it was the last of it's kind... although Super Paper Mario is inbetween the old and current style of the game, but it changed a lot compared to the first two games. I can see why though, they probably had no new ideas to take the series forward in the same direction. The companions would probably have been repeats and the goomba and koopa show sign of this since they are just the same characters once again. Replaying it was rather fun and having played the original game as well since then I noted several call backs that I missed the first time, both to characters and locations. First obvious one is Kolorado who was an archeologist in the first game that was the father to the koopa of that game and his father showed up here... as a dead body after a fight with Hooktail the dragon, but it was fun knowing who he referred to. Also it's rather fun to see all the times the developers cramed in several hundred characters in the scene to show off the power of the Gamecube compared to the N64.