Might be the single greatest Mario RPG ever made.
Obviously I loved the story, unique and lovable characters and the wicked setting. Rogueport being this dingy dirty place is such an interesting thing to see in a mario game. The noose being one of the first things you see really sets the tone of this game. The areas are really interesting and impressive all throughout the game, got super into the Glitz Pitz in particular.
This game keept me engrossed throughout, never got tired of exploring the over world for secrets or messing around with badges and whatnot.
The combat was obviously really fun too, badges helped a lot by adding extra depth and strategy to the fights. I did not expect to like the audience mechanic as much as I did but it was REALLY cool. Love how they sometimes fuck with you or throw useful items at you. Or how certain types of audience members have different effects, like the bombs blowing up half the audience. OH AND WHEN BOSSES EAT AUDIENCE MEMBERS IS SO FUCKING COOL OH MY GOD. Pulling off stylish moves and impressing the audience feels great too.
The writing was shockingly funny, some of the stuff they got away with putting in the game is HILARIOUS.
Basically what I'm saying is that this game fucking ROCKS and I throughly enjoyed it.

Before the remaster next month, I want to log my thoughts now about this game. Thing is it's one of my favorite games ever made. Not just because it's an interesting world to explore, not just because the characters you meet are fun and interesting, and not just because the action button system basically makes critical hits into a skill rather than chance, but because this is one of the only games I can actually see and articulate its difficulty curve

Just in the first area alone we start out with Goombas that all have 2 HP. If you do an action command properly, you do 2 damage. Easy! Except the battle you encounter has 3 enemies. So you also need to learn how to defend. The next new enemy you encounter is by itself, but has 3 HP, forcing you to learn the action commands properly. The next fight you're fighting two of them (insert kittens here) and eventually you get to the tutorial boss which has a body part on the ground and in the air, both with 3 HP, which you need to attack before hitting the main body

The game continues like this in a way that lets me physically see the difficulty curve. Like I remember Boggly Woods not just for its amazing color pallet, but because that's when enemies with 4 HP become standard. I remember Keelhaul Key not just because of the shipwreck storyline, but because the Ember enemies introduced have the same 8 HP as the previous chapter but also have an elemental affinity that wasn't present up until this point.

This is also why I don't really like the newer Paper Mario games. Like, I love partners and I love the wild creativity and I hate that those were removed, but those aren't the only things that make a good game. Origami King looks like a fine game, but the battle system doesn't feel cohesive to me. Numbers feel random rather than predictable, so there's no reason for me to invest in the gameplay. Unlike TTYD where I know how much damage an enemy can do just by paying attention to what the game is telling me.

So, yeah. I like this game a lot. Both for its wild creativity but also its incredible implementation of game design that makes knowing how it works feel rewarding. I'll do a more professional (for me) log on the remaster when I've beaten it, but this is just my off-the-cuff feelings of TTYD: I like it because I am a HUGE gameplay nerd

I swear this had little to do with the upcoming remake. I played paper mario 64 2 years ago and then procrastinated with the sequel. ANYWAYS. About as good as the first, but for fairly different reasons?
Ttyd has a much stronger world and cast than the first game. Rogueport, the X-Nauts, the new partners, the pianta mafia, the linebeck ass dude, all have such distinct personality and flare that carries the whole experience. Ttyd is also much, much longer than the first game, which at first scared me, but then made me appreciate the journey a lot more, so that's neat.
To counterbalance all that goodwill, however, thousand year door brings a couple of stinks that weren't present in 64. The shitty backtracking is certainly one of them, but also, like, a really sloppy difficulty curve. Chapter 7 was a breeze, almost chapter 1 level difficult, and then chapter 8 woops my ass, whereas 64 was a nice, even, linear graph. Besides I just have to dock points for the 10 minute unskippable cutscene WITH DIALOGUE PROMPTS in the final boss.
But other than that, ykno, it's a perfectly fun rpg. The combat is good, the presentation is tight, and that's that. I still prefer Mario & Luigi over Paper Mario, but I guess it's easier to adopt the stance of "Both, both is good"

This game came out during an era where it seemed every single player Nintendo game was padded for length. TTYD is no exception. Even if we assume the designers had no desire to artificially pad the runtime, the game just doesn't feel like it used its space well. Twilight town and the train are two particularly bad examples. What's most frustrating about these are that they have really interesting setups, but most of the gameplay was walking from one place to another.

I do think that the designers had a playtime in mind they were shooting for and designed the limited content they had in a way to achieve that goal. Most of this comes down to level design and I think this game would be significantly improved if they reworked some of the levels to quicken the pace overall. Maybe this will be done in the switch remake, but I am not holding my breath.

It is baffling to me that Nintendo had found the absolute perfect balance for their Paper Mario games in character variety, fun combat, an engaging and investing story, and really unique levels and gimmicks, and they just never bothered to ever do something similar again.

There is a reason why this title is loved. It has everything you could possibly want in an RPG. It has a great sense of humor and it is fun and unique from start to finish.

I played it over 10 years ago and it is still fresh in my mind to this day. Amazing game.

Revisiting this almost 20 years later from when I first played it as a kid, and I'll be honest?

Ain't vibin' with this one, chief.

The soundtrack and visuals are top notch, and the battle system is genuinely more engaging than the first game. However, the writing feels VERY early 2000s with a lot of one-off gimmick characters who don't add much to overall plot. Also the very stale progression of going to point A to point B, backtracking to A to go to point C is pretty grating for me.

It's a neat game if you don't mind a lot of surface level style, but I prefer something with a little more meat to it or understanding that keeping things simple is sometimes just better. I'll stick to the original Paper Mario and that's perfectly fine with me.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a delightful RPG adventure bursting with humor, vibrant visuals, and a captivating story. Mario's paper-thin world unfolds with playful charm, and the turn-based battles offer surprising strategic depth and a unique audience participation system. Exploring diverse locations, discovering hidden treasures, and meeting quirky characters is simply a joy. While some chapters can feel slightly padded, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a witty, heartfelt journey and one of the GameCube's finest titles.

What are the odds that the best game Mario has ever been in is not developed by Nintendo? It is the perfect Mario RPG, perfectly demonstrating how E/E10+ games should be written. It tells a fantastic story with a stellar cast of characters, despite being a Mario game. It has one of the best OSTs ever for a video game, with some of the most fun turn based combat ever. The badge system allows for a nearly endless amount of options in battle without ever making it too overwhelming to the player. Each chapter is like a story within itself, with each of them being interesting with distinct and imaginative settings. The best being chapter 3, where Mario finds himself in a wrestling league and uncovers the secrets behind the league. The game provides the perfect amount of challenge for an entry level JRPG. Paper Mario TTYD is formerly my favorite game of all time, and was the best game in existence upon its release.