Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is getting the remaster it deserves

thesixthaxis.com:

Nintendo has announced that Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is being remastered for Nintendo Switch, the classic GameCube RPG coming out in 2024.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is generally held up as the best game in the Paper Mario series. Originally released for the GameCube in 2004, it retained the same battle system as the original game, while later games incorporated more platformer elements or had totally different battle systems. From a narrative perspective, later games started to use Toads more and more heavily to fill out the world with NPCs, while earlier games were more creative in that regard.

The game remaster will bring with it graphical enhancements, likely following in similar footsteps to the Pikmin 1+2 remaster from earlier this year by shifting the game to wide screen, increasing the game resolution, and perhaps some minor effects work. We’re will to be surprised by greater enhancements than that, but whatever they do, it’s great to see Nintendo giving the GameCube library some love in the Switch’s twilight years. The original Paper Mario is playable via Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack.

The most recent game in the Paper Mario series was Paper Mario: The Origami King, which launched back in 2020. In our review, I said, “Paper Mario: The Origami King is a solid, but unremarkable sequel. It’s like a table of snack food at a party, where you’ll happily nibble away just because you’re stood next to it or feeling a bit peckish, but it’s not exactly going to fill you up. The new battle puzzles and the boss fights in particular stand out, but the world and endless Toads fail to spark the same delight. This feels like a missed opportunity.”