By the way, minor spoilers. Fair warning.
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Story:
VS
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has a more elaborate story, however. The basic set-up of Mario rescuing Peach is there, but while stopping a 1000 year-old curse from ruining Rogueport by collecting the 7 Crystal Stars has way too many contrivances, including the anniversary of said curse being that day, plenty of world-building is also present. There’s a side-story involving Captain Cortez that weaves into the main story. Rogueport also has a side-plot involving Don Pianta and his daughter that has two pay-offs. Even Peach and Bowser have individual side-stories, with Peach’s story feeling more intimate than in Paper Mario. And while both games have fun party members with quirks, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door’s party members are a lot more interesting.
So yes, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has the better story.
Winner:
Controls and Gameplay:
Both Paper Mario games have similar controls, mapped out to their console’s controllers, so I won’t delve too much into that outside of how the combat takes full-advantage of them. Conversely, the gameplay in their over-worlds is pretty similar: you traverse them and travel through different areas in a side-scrolling manner. The only differences come in the over-world power-ups and battle mechanics.
In Paper Mario, being more technologically restricted because it’s cartridge-based, Mario’s power-ups are really basic. You get the boots and hammer abilities early on, as well as some upgrades, but most of the puzzles are basic: break this. Hit this switch. Blow this up. It’s simple, but it gets the job done.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door expands on this. Everything I mentioned before is here, but you can also activate cursed chests that make you into a plane and a sailboat, amongst others. These “curses” are useful for unlocking over-world treasures, and you can’t complete the game without them. Even when Mario gets his hammer and boots upgrades, you’re still greeted to Toadette, who explains how to use them.
The battling systems are also really similar, but with slight differences. In Paper Mario, you fight enemies via a “live film projector”, complete with Mario’s attacks/items and your partner’s fighting techniques. You can also equip badges in the over-world to help in battle, which use FP, or Flower Points. Assuming your HP, or Health Points, don’t diminish entirely in a fight, you collect SP, or Star Points, when you win, 100 of which allows you to upgrade HP, FP, or BP (Badge Points). My only complaint, aside from partners having no defence, is that you can’t collect SP from places you’ve beaten, limiting level grinding.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door expands on combat by turning it into live theatre. This includes audience members, who you interact with at various points in battle. While I appreciate that party members now have HP, and that you can somewhat collect SP from beaten worlds, keeping your audience happy in battles can often be incredibly distracting. You not only have to eject dangerous audience members, you have to worry about the roulette feature working in your favour. It’s really tedious.
I don’t like some of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door’s backtracking, either. Toward the end, in World 7, you’re forced to travel all around Rogueport to find someone via a wild goose chase. The wrestling matches in World 3, while fun, feel repetitive with the stipulations required to progress in ranks. Paper Mario might’ve had that tedious seed side-quest to access World 6, but it was mostly secondary irritation. The only hinderance with backtracking there came with World 4, and even then it was solvable without much repetition.
Speaking of nuisances, I despise the Bowser levels in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. They’re few, far-between and not hard, but they break the flow of gameplay and the side-scrolling is awful! I groaned whenever they showed up on replay, and I loved them as a teenager! It’s stuff like that that holds the game back ever-so-slightly, and this is despite having a better final boss and more post-game content. Paper Mario wins.
Winner:
VS
In Paper Mario, being more technologically restricted because it’s cartridge-based, Mario’s power-ups are really basic. You get the boots and hammer abilities early on, as well as some upgrades, but most of the puzzles are basic: break this. Hit this switch. Blow this up. It’s simple, but it gets the job done.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door expands on this. Everything I mentioned before is here, but you can also activate cursed chests that make you into a plane and a sailboat, amongst others. These “curses” are useful for unlocking over-world treasures, and you can’t complete the game without them. Even when Mario gets his hammer and boots upgrades, you’re still greeted to Toadette, who explains how to use them.
The battling systems are also really similar, but with slight differences. In Paper Mario, you fight enemies via a “live film projector”, complete with Mario’s attacks/items and your partner’s fighting techniques. You can also equip badges in the over-world to help in battle, which use FP, or Flower Points. Assuming your HP, or Health Points, don’t diminish entirely in a fight, you collect SP, or Star Points, when you win, 100 of which allows you to upgrade HP, FP, or BP (Badge Points). My only complaint, aside from partners having no defence, is that you can’t collect SP from places you’ve beaten, limiting level grinding.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door expands on combat by turning it into live theatre. This includes audience members, who you interact with at various points in battle. While I appreciate that party members now have HP, and that you can somewhat collect SP from beaten worlds, keeping your audience happy in battles can often be incredibly distracting. You not only have to eject dangerous audience members, you have to worry about the roulette feature working in your favour. It’s really tedious.
I don’t like some of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door’s backtracking, either. Toward the end, in World 7, you’re forced to travel all around Rogueport to find someone via a wild goose chase. The wrestling matches in World 3, while fun, feel repetitive with the stipulations required to progress in ranks. Paper Mario might’ve had that tedious seed side-quest to access World 6, but it was mostly secondary irritation. The only hinderance with backtracking there came with World 4, and even then it was solvable without much repetition.
Speaking of nuisances, I despise the Bowser levels in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. They’re few, far-between and not hard, but they break the flow of gameplay and the side-scrolling is awful! I groaned whenever they showed up on replay, and I loved them as a teenager! It’s stuff like that that holds the game back ever-so-slightly, and this is despite having a better final boss and more post-game content. Paper Mario wins.
Winner:
Aesthetic:
VS
Still, I have to give it to Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Why? Because as much as Paper Mario looks amazing, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door looks better. Plus, the game looks grimy and broken-down visually, adding a lived-in quality. There are also plenty more areas filled with secrets, encouraging exploration. Paper Mario, while still looking really good, lacks that.
Winner:
Sound:
One area the two games appear evenly-matched in is their scores. Both boast incredible music, be it their battle tunes, over-world tunes, or boss fights. They also revamp jingles from Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, reminding the player why these jingles resonated to begin with. It’s a hard choice.
All-the-more reason why I’m impressed with Paper Mario’s OST. The N64 was already technically obsolete by the early-2000’s, thanks to the Dreamcast and the PS2. You’d think a 5th-Gen console had already given up most of its musical secrets, but this game still managed to milk a few more. For that reason alone, I’m inclined to lean in its favour.
That’s not to say Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door lacks good tunes. It doesn’t. I’m impressed with Rogueport’s over-world and sewer themes, both of which constitute most of the game. But while the OST’s great, it’s pretty standard for the GameCube. It’s simply not as impressive to hear what it has to offer compared to its predecessor.
Winner:
VS
All-the-more reason why I’m impressed with Paper Mario’s OST. The N64 was already technically obsolete by the early-2000’s, thanks to the Dreamcast and the PS2. You’d think a 5th-Gen console had already given up most of its musical secrets, but this game still managed to milk a few more. For that reason alone, I’m inclined to lean in its favour.
That’s not to say Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door lacks good tunes. It doesn’t. I’m impressed with Rogueport’s over-world and sewer themes, both of which constitute most of the game. But while the OST’s great, it’s pretty standard for the GameCube. It’s simply not as impressive to hear what it has to offer compared to its predecessor.
Winner:
Overall Appeal:
This has been a tough comparison. Picking which game I like more is like picking which child of mine is more loved, weird as that sounds. I love both games, and that’s never changing. But I have to, so I’m going with Paper Mario. Why?
Because of its accessibility. Paper Mario, aside from the Pokémon franchise, remains the most-accessible RPG I’ve ever played. Its learning curve is simple, its premise is easy to pick-up-and-play, and its puzzles aren’t complicated. It’s one of the easiest RPGs to play as well, which is great because I struggle with RPGs more than any other genre (and I already struggle a lot with video games!) That I can replay it all these years later with minimal help from guides or tutorials is welcomed considering how I’m frequently chained to them.
That doesn’t mean Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, save the final boss, is taxing. It’s not, and I could easily see myself coming back to it. But while it has more side and post-game content, I don’t think it’s as fun. The game, as I said before, has lots of backtracking and is hampered by the Bowser levels, and while it improves in many ways over its predecessor, it also doesn’t do enough new. It feels like a 2.0 of Paper Mario, except more-refined. Some of you might prefer that, but I don’t. I much prefer what Paper Mario brought to the table. Paper Mario, therefore, is the better game.
And there you have it, another video game comparison! Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it, and I’ll see you all next time!
VS
Because of its accessibility. Paper Mario, aside from the Pokémon franchise, remains the most-accessible RPG I’ve ever played. Its learning curve is simple, its premise is easy to pick-up-and-play, and its puzzles aren’t complicated. It’s one of the easiest RPGs to play as well, which is great because I struggle with RPGs more than any other genre (and I already struggle a lot with video games!) That I can replay it all these years later with minimal help from guides or tutorials is welcomed considering how I’m frequently chained to them.
That doesn’t mean Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, save the final boss, is taxing. It’s not, and I could easily see myself coming back to it. But while it has more side and post-game content, I don’t think it’s as fun. The game, as I said before, has lots of backtracking and is hampered by the Bowser levels, and while it improves in many ways over its predecessor, it also doesn’t do enough new. It feels like a 2.0 of Paper Mario, except more-refined. Some of you might prefer that, but I don’t. I much prefer what Paper Mario brought to the table. Paper Mario, therefore, is the better game.
Winner:
Overall Winner:
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