Where Does Paper Mario Go From Here?
I find Paper Mario fans to be some of the more interesting fans within the Nintendo community. There is often valid and fruitful discussion regarding what the best iteration of the series’ art style is. Fans will also rank the individual chapters within the series, and highlight certain iconic plot beats. But at their core, Paper Mario fans just want a game with charming characters, a cute world, and fun story. They aren’t really playing these games for deep role-playing elements, as there really aren’t many to be found in the series. These fans have a lot of heart, just like the games they (and I) hold dearly.
It’s well known that the Paper Mario series has had a very slow deterioration after 2004’s The Thousand Year Door. 2007’s Super Paper Mario is beloved for it’s story and writing, but not much else. Sticker Star is often credited as the worst in the series. Color Splash is complimented for being a slightly better Sticker Star, but nothing too noteworthy. The Origami King continued the improvements, with fans saying it was far better than the previous two games, but still not close to the heights of the original duology. The series was sadly being continuously ripped of its role-playing elements, sometimes leaving us with something more akin to a puzzle-platformer, like Super Paper Mario. Another sad issue that plagues the series nowadays, is an apparent “rule” by Nintendo, that forbids Intelligent Systems (the longtime developers of the Paper Mario series) from making original characters. In the first three games, you’d often see a Toad with a specific look to him. Yes there were the generic red colored Toads, but they were a little rare. Even little alterations like an eyepatch, mustache or a specific outfit, could make a Toad feel unique. Hell, they often aren’t even given names anymore! They’re all just called “Toad” now. I won’t act like I know a lot about the situation, as nobody really does. It’s left to speculation.
But of course, there’s only one language that every company speaks- money. The series has had a sharp decline in sales since 2007. It bounced back with The Origami King, but we can most likely attribute that to the Switch having an install base well over 100 million. Just look at Metroid, a series that’s almost 40 years old. 2021’s Metroid Dread is the best selling in the series. That’s the power of the Switch.
So what does Nintendo do?
Well, in a move surprising to anybody who doesn’t follow leaks and rumors- they greenlit a remake of the series’ most beloved game: The Thousand Year Door.
As somebody who played the original last year, I was debating on skipping the remake. But I decided to put my money where my mouth is, and I bought two copies of the game, a move I almost never do. After two fairly close playthroughs, I can safely say that TTYD is a truly excellent video game, and one of the best RPGs within any Nintendo IP. But instead of reviewing the game, I’d like to ask “Why?” and “What now?”
Was this remake simply made to celebrate the games 20th anniversary? Was it to continue Nintendo’s clever profiting off of GameCube nostalgia (look at the Metroid Prime remaster or Super Mario Sunshine in the 3D All Stars bundle)? If so, why not just remaster it? Why remake it?
Of course none of us have any idea what they’re thinking. They may go back goofy non-RPG ideas with generic characters for the next Paper Mario. Or maybe, hopefully, they look at the sales and critical response, (which is the highest for the series since the original TTYD in 2004) and see the writing on the wall.
The first two games are begging for more iterations and gameplay improvements. For example, in the first Paper Mario, partner characters were almost like talking items, and nothing else. But in TTYD, partner characters become true party members with their own HP and upgrades available. My favorite aspect of the series is the badge system, which allows the player to greatly modify what Mario is proficient at. You can even make the game much harder by refusing to use the badges, or by equipping certain badges that make you take more damage. You can truly build your Mario. But what about a game that improves upon the gameplay of TTYD? What if partner characters could now use badges and get stat boosts from leveling up? What if you could have two partners in battle for a total party of three? Maybe experiment with the idea of FP and give the characters greater magical abilities.
Paper Mario was born out of necessity. The NES and SNES were no stranger to RPGs. But when the original PlayStation and N64 released, only one of those consoles had RPGs actively being developed for it.
So it’s easy to see why Nintendo made the original Paper Mario game an RPG, and why they decided to abandon those core concepts after improving them once.
They also had the Mario & Luigi series coming out concurrently starting in 2003. They probably didn’t want the two series to cannibalize each other. But look at Super Mario Wonder; there were clearly some people at Nintendo who fundamentally understood that the New Super Mario Bros games, were nothing compared to the games they were trying to pay homage to (Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World). So there is hope that there are some people who understand that Paper Mario needs to return to the glory of its first two entries.
This is a series that has come to mean a lot to me in the past few years. So I truly do hope to get a respectable follow up to The Thousand Year Door one day.
