[This review contains spoilers!]

Recently I was discussing with some friends what was the best remake ever made, and I genuinely struggled to think of an answer as to what would be my pick. However, that has now become the easiest question in the world for me: the best remake ever made is Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for the Nintendo Switch. It’s hard to understate how hyped I was for this game ever since its first announcement, having watched its reveal trailer for over 200 times in the span of a month. It was one of my top 3 favorite games of all time, finally being brought back seemingly in the most faithful way possible.

And after finishing it 100% I can confirm that it was indeed brought back in the most faithful way possible. Even more so than the recent Super Mario RPG remake! It didn’t change a single character design, any gameplay element, any story beat, NOTHING! Everything was kept intact, just like it was in the original, even characters that had their designs altered in the years that followed. Not only did they keep everything intact, but they also managed the unthinkable feat of enhancing the charm of a game that already overflowed with charm, thanks to the improved presentation, with every single character (be it main or NPCs) having new animations when they speak and the cutscenes having a much more robust camerawork.

Speaking of presentation, the game looks stunningly gorgeous! The new dynamic lighting brings all the areas of the game to life in a way that’s a real treat to the eyes, be it the vibrant areas such as Petal Meadows or Glitzville, or the more moody locations, such as the predominantly pale Boggly Woods or the frigid Fahr Outpost. I always wondered how TTYD would look with the papercraft aesthetic of recent games in the series and, as expected, they’ve realized it flawlessly here. Some people complained about how every ground is overly shiny and reflective, but it doesn’t bother me at all.

As for the new quality of life changes, they remedied the biggest issue most people had with this game: the backtracking. While I myself never found it egregious, the changes they made surely make the game even more enjoyable, such as the new fast travel pipes in Rogueport to help with the side quests and the infamous General White hunt, and the pipe from Twilight Town to Creepy Steeple to alleviate the back and forth between both areas. There are other smaller tweaks scattered across the whole game that help to trim down the fat to improve the pace of the game even further.

The new UI looks CLEAN, too! It feels surreal to see a modernized version of the badge inventory in 2024, how I missed it so much... The badges are what truly make the battle system of the first two games so special, since you can make your own playstyle with them, offering huge variety for repeated playthroughs. And speaking of battles and UI, that’s one of the few complaints I have about this remake: navigating the menus during battles does feel a tad clunkier than in the original game. The battles themselves also play out slower, with more waiting time between each turn and changes like everything coming to a stop when the audience wants to throw something. I feel they also tweaked the stage hazards to disrupt the enemies much more often than Mario, which makes the game a bit easier.

That sluggish feeling is also present with the textboxes, since you can no longer speed through dialogue by mashing a button, unless it’s a dialogue you’ve read already, which, like, what’s the point then? That does impact a bit on the replayability of the game, but it’s such a minor blemish on a remake that I can say with 100% confidence makes the original nearly obsolete. It pains my heart to write that sentence given how TTYD is one of my favorite games ever, but that’s how phenomenal this remake is.

The other big new addition is the brand new soundtrack. While the recent Mario RPG remake opted to re-record its songs as faithfully as possible to the original game, the Paper Mario TTYD rearranged the entire soundtrack in the style of Origami King, with a bigger emphasis on live instruments and a more rock-oriented sound. Not only that, but they basically TRIPLED the length of the soundtrack, with a bunch of new songs added to each chapter to further enhance the impact of many scenes or areas, like variations of the main battle theme, new themes for bosses that used to share the same theme as another, each partner now having their own theme, new songs for several cutscenes in the game, etc.

Since the game’s release, the reception to that soundtrack has been sorta positive, but I’ve seen a bunch of mixed comments as well. As for me, I love it. Yeah, as someone who has played the original countless times there’s some songs I feel the OG versions are better, but there’s many that I feel are on par or even an improvement. They all feature additional sections at the point they’d originally loop, so it’s evident the arrangers put a lot of care and effort into injecting more life into all these songs. That can be said about the whole game, really: it’s a beautiful labor of love of the developers for this game that’s clearly as treasured by fans as it is by themselves.

My favorite new arrangement is the one for Fahr Outpost. The original song is this very experimental synth track, kinda alien, kinda erratic, but the new arrangement transforms that weirdness into this moody and atmospheric piece, almost foreboding in a way, with a new section added at 0:44 that gives me chills everytime I listen to it, which fits perfectly thematically with this small isolated village covered by snow for socially recluse Bob-ombs that want to bury their war past. Fahr Outpost was never a particularly memorable area from the game, but this new arrangement for its theme transformed it into one of my favorite areas. When I first got there in the remake I just stood motionless for some minutes, mesmerized by this song, contemplating it.

My only small complaints regarding the soundtrack are related to the new compositions they made for this remake. They’re all solid songs, but some can feel a bit out of place in the segments they play, and they mostly go for new melodies instead of taking inspiration from songs from the original game, so they give this “Origami King scrapped track” vibe. A big example would be the new theme they made for the Atomic Boo fight, which is a banger yeah, but it just feels like a Origami King boss battle track, without any TTYD-ness injected into it. This game is also chock-full of references to Paper Mario 64 and I gotta admit I was expecting some remixes from it after seeing the main title theme get a new arrangement, but no, that’s literally the only remix from that game in this remake.

Now something new that was clearly inspired by the N64 game are the credits. In the original TTYD they were honestly kinda bland, being simply some screenshots accompanied by the silhouette of the characters walking around in the background. Not even the song stood out. I kinda wish they’d make a new credits sequence like the parade from Paper Mario 64, but knew it was unlikely... BUT! Turns out I was wrong! Because they did EXACTLY THAT! It was a treat to see a bunch of fun interactions between the lovely cast of this game, to the sound of a new medley inspired by the songs of each chapter. That got more than a few tears of happiness from my eyes, gotta admit :’)

There’s very little brand new content in the remake, but what is there is INCREDIBLE, such as the two new bosses. Both of them feel like the devs trying to explore new grounds with the combat system of the game, introducing fun and unique mechanics like attacks that drain your FP, having to alternate between jump and hammer attacks based on the stance of the enemy, using stage hazards to their advantage... It almost feels like a tease of what we can expect from a next game in the series that’ll finally bring it back to its roots, which has been a dream of mine for some years. And on that end...

Paper Mario TTYD being remade means much more than simply that, because the Paper Mario series became something completely different after the release of this game, with several interviews confirming that it wouldn’t return to the RPG format, how they couldn’t create unique characters or modify pre-existing ones anymore, and yet, here we are! The game that is the complete antithesis of everything the Mario brand stood for for over a decade now got a remake that didn’t sanitize a single thing about it, with an intense marketing campaign focusing on those aspects that make it such an unique game in the Mario canon and that were completely absent from recent games.

One could say “but it’s just because it’s a remake! that doesn’t mean the mandates are over!”, but you gotta remember even the Mario & Luigi remakes for the 3DS had some elements sanitized, even though they’re considerably less bolder than TTYD, so I do believe there has been a change of mindset inside Nintendo when it comes to allowing the Mario brand to be more creative once again. Mario Wonder and the Peach game are also proof of that, with both of them trying a bunch of new things, especially when it comes to character designs.

The credits of this remake even say “...AND YOU!” in the Special Thanks section, so they’re listening. They know what the fans have been yearning for all these years. The fact they chose this game to be the final announcement of a Nintendo Direct shows how much they’re aware how important this game is, not just to fans, but to the Mario franchise as a whole. And more than ever it fills me with hope to see a brand new Paper Mario game in the same vein as the first two, with the same marvelous combat system and no more restraints when it comes to creative characters, locales and dialogue.

I imagine if Paper Mario indeed follows that route, it won’t have the technical limitations of the first two games, such as the segmented areas with loading zones between each screen, it’ll probably be a more expansive world like in The Origami King, which is completely fine by me, since the exploration of that game is a blast. That will make this remake feel even more special, because we got to see the classic Paper Mario format modernized in 2024. Yes I know this is a weird tangent that might not even make sense for some people, but it is extremely fascinating to me.

With all that said, the Paper Mario TTYD remake is a dream come true that not even the most optimistic side of me could have ever dreamed of. I genuinely felt emotional many times playing this game, in awe that I was playing a modern version of one of the games that’s most dear to my heart. I know they thanked us in the credits of the game, but if there’s anyone who should say thank you it's me. Thank you SO MUCH for remaking a masterpiece into a new masterpiece, Intelligent Systems <3

I genuinely cant imagine a better remake for ttyd, from the tiniest of QOL changes like the partner wheel to all the knew graphics, character faces, and remastered sound track. i still have my orginal ttyd disc from when i was a kid, and i feel like a kid again. I know the game is a bit slower, but to be honest unless your a brain rotted ipad kid who cant sit still for 5 seconds it really doesn't matter. Hopefully the (so far) amazing reviews and feedback will keep paper mario afloat for future games, and praying we just go back to normal turned based combat (looking at you origami king)

Nintendo seems to love surprising me with Metroid at the most unexpected times! Similarly to when I cried when Dread was announced, I was probably the loudest I’ve ever been during a direct when this got shown off, and even more so when the announcer just came out and said “Later Today”. Metroid is thriving and I could not be happier. With this and Dread coming out within the past 2 years, and with a version of every single 2D Metroid soon to be playable on the Switch and the other 2 Prime games and Zero Mission likely to come, I’ve never been more excited for the future of a series. Anyway, about Prime, every time I play this game it keeps getting better and better, especially this time thanks in no small part to the amazing work that was done for this remaster. The remastered visuals are gorgeous, while keeping the original feeling of the gamecube original, and the new control choices (ESPECIALLY Dual Stick) bring a convenience with controlling Samus that makes this already extremely good-feeling game to play feel better than ever before. Shoutout to the color assist and other accessibility options, as a colorblind person it makes me so happy to feel that I’m being cared about thru these options. I’m so so ecstatic that Metroid is back, and it really does feel like it’s here to stay this time!!

Balan Wonderworld, if it was
• made competently
• for the girlies
• had unique levels

It is VERY short

What happens when you remake a middling game? A really wonderful second chance at a story.

Although they're not all apparent until the final act of Journey Into Lost Memories, the parallels between the characters and stories in both halves of this pair of stories are fascinating, and I encourage people to play this game just to get these characters and their experiences into their heads.

While the actual gameplay in this collection is just serviceable, the writing can feel awkward at times, and the voice acting wavers in quality, I loved my time with these games. To borrow common parlance, the vibes were on-point. I loved all of the character descriptions and their gradual updates throughout each story, I enjoyed the newly-developed puzzles, and I liked most of the character redesigns (although I kind of wish Ashley's dad hadn't received such a drastic change). Really just a great experience with plenty of likable characters and decent production value (at least outside of grassy fields). I pray for Hotel Dusk and Last Window to get similar treatment, and I also hope they'll do a great job of preserving those games' rotoscoped art style.

In 2005, we got a Nintendo DS. Shortly after we picked up a game called Another Code: Two Memories because we like puzzling adventure titles and needed something to play while going on the bus or train. It became our favourite Nintendo DS game of all time and Ashley Mizuki Robins became one of our favourite video game leads ever.

Four years later we picked up Another Code: R - A Journey Into Lost Memories on Wii, and while it didn't impress us as much as the first game, we left it happy to have played it. We could never have imagined that Arc System Works would end up developing a remake of both games from the ground up for Switch, but here we are in 2024 with Another Code: Recollection.

The best Another Code game to date.

Retelling both of the previous two games, Recollection makes the interesting creative choice of mostly keeping the first game narratively intact while greatly changing up the sequel. This could have easily harmed the game, but ends up strengthening its writing immensely in the end as it ties the two stories together as one in a way that feels so perfectly cohesive that it took us a considerable amount of time to realize how much had actually been changed.

The plot has a nice blend of expected developments and clever twists and despite the often absurd fantastical aspects of the story it pulls through thanks to sheer sincerity about its subject matter. It's so easy to be immersed in Ashley and her co-stars' story of coping with loss and PTSD through a deeply emotional scenario focused on rewriting memories, especially thanks to the excellent voice acting at hand.

The the DS and Wii games made heavy use of unique hardware gimmicks for its puzzle design, resulting in the Switch requiring to change things up quite a lot. But the puzzles created for the game are fun and feel like classic adventure game material. If there's anything we felt was lacking, it's that the first game, Two Memories, felt somewhat rushed compared to its sequel. But by the time we reached the credits it didn't matter at all.

This is a game tailor made for us, and we loved every moment of it.

Note: I have not played the original titles and I do plan on playing them in the future.

I don't think this game will land for everyone, especially on the gameplay department. But what really got me to absolutely love this game was the art style, atmosphere, story, and especially its characters. This is such a tightly knit story about memories and being able to connect with others, with a lot of sincerity behind it. The game also just has such a cozy feel to it, where a lot of I would just walk around and take in the music as I was playing because of how much I was taken in by the music.

I loved this game a lot and I especially got teary eyed by the end. Maybe this review will change once I play the originals, but at this time I will remember this game fondly.

I really enjoyed revisiting these two somewhat forgotten classics in the remastered Switch version. I particularly enjoyed the first part. The atmosphere in the old manor house came across very well and I found the two parallel stories about Ashley and D very exciting and well written. There were some very heartfelt moments that really got to me. I also liked the second part. It had a completely different vibe, a summer camp by the lake instead of a gloomy villa. Of course, I was a little skeptical at first. The story also took a while to get going but then it got really interesting. By the end, I really realized that I had grown fond of the characters and especially Ashley. The credits made me really emotional. What beautiful games. Yes, they're not the most perfect and interesting games of all time in terms of storytelling and game mechanics, but I had a really good time with them and I'm glad to have caught up with them. Reminded me a bit of Life is Strange :)