I have fond memories of this game; I've played it endlessly with my brother as a kid and even longer with friends as grown-ups. However, most of the mini-games are still fun, the boards themselves are exciting and unfair in the best ways possible and it's simply an amazing time with friends. I am aware that most of this is my nostalgia, but I'm fine with that. The movement on the board is slow and the button-mash mini-games are something I don't miss, however. And singleplayer? Come on, but is that really relevant to a Mario Party?

Most of my favorite RPGs are favorites for one specific reason. Maybe the RPG mechanics are interesting and complex, or maybe the story is super well-written, or maybe I just really enjoy being in the world the developers have crafted. TTYD, though, is the whole package.

TTYD's story isn't super deep or anything, but it's incredibly charming and full of character. It's got a very different tone compared to the first game, but it somehow fits Mario super well.

The world is filled with so many memorable characters and locations, most of them decidedly un-Mario-like. NPCs have tons of dialogue which changes as you progress through each chapter, there's a surprising amount of lore about the old city and Thousand-Year Door, and locations are varied and detailed. It all serves to make the world feel like a real, lived-in place. While Super Paper Mario has a more involved story, it doesn't quite nail this aspect.

The visuals are varied and gorgeous, and every single chapter brings you to completely different places. I really love the bold, saturated, outlined style they used for this and SPM. The audio design and music are super unique as well, there really isn't another soundtrack that sounds like this. Prior to Paper Mario, Yuka Tsujiyoko, Yoshito Hirano, Saki Haruyama mainly worked on the Fire Emblem series, so it really sounds like they had a field day making all sorts of bouncy electronic music with fun samples and whatnot instead of more traditionally-orchestrated pieces. It's sometimes a bit overbearing to listen to on its own, but it fits the tone of the game perfectly.

The combat is the star of the show here, I think. It expands on 64's system with new interactions with audience members and stage hazards. Not much of this is explained explicitly in-game, but you have a surprising amount of control over the stage and audience. Combined with the returning badge and leveling systems, these create a mechanically rich battle system that rewards experimentation and knowledge of your and your enemies' moves. What sets it (and most other Mario RPGs) apart from many other JRPGs is the excellent animation and sound design which gives all attacks and guards satisfying audiovisual feedback. This is something you just don't see in many other games in this genre, especially action RPGs which could really benefit from stuff like this. Despite Mario RPGs in general having a reputation of being entry-level JRPGs, the systems here has way more depth than a lot of its competition. It's just that most enemies are comparatively weak, so if you know what you're doing, you can easily steamroll most of the game. Double Pain and Unsimplifier act as impromptu hard modes, but this game could have really used some better enemy AI and more enemy designs in general. There are a lot more pallete swaps compared to 64.

It's true that the overworld design is much more linear and streamlined compared to 64, but in some ways I kind of prefer it's simplicity and straightforwardness. The quest design sometimes works against this by requiring you to backtrack, but it's not nearly as big an issue as it's made out to be. This is a 15-20ish-hour game, and the backtracking is such a small fraction of that.

My only real gripe, aside from the enemy design as mentioned earlier, is how much stuff is directly lifted from 64. TTYD does more than enough of its own thing to stand out, but it would have been nice to see some different species for partners and some new enemy types aside from Spinias, Craws, and Wizzerds. There's a quiz show minigame, Chapter 5 is set on an island, there's a mystery involving a penguin, there are three toad sisters that comment on events throughout the game, there's a puzzle involving buying two items in order, and several other similar scenarios. Almost all the badges were lifted from 64. At times, TTYD can feel like a remixed version of that game. But, like I said, it does more than enough to stand out as a unique experience, so it's not too big of an issue.

Overall, it's just a really fun, charming game with lots of room for interesting builds and experimentation.