The double-edged-ness of TTYD runs throughout its very being. A bizarrely crunchy and engaging turn-based/action combat system hybrid, but very little in the main story is going to truly challenge the seasoned player without interfacing with the various methods the game gives the player to create their own challenge mode (and even then you might not ever see a game over screen). A 50/50 gender ratio in the main cast, further bolstered by each of those women being really fun designs with strong personalities, which is then doused by the swamp water that is the tendency for RPG writers to feel the need to make every woman in the main cast be horny for the main protagonist in a really awkward way (like, it's just little old Mario, and he never seems to really welcome any of this affection, literally kissed or accosted with physical affection against his will more times than you count on two hands I'd wager). A strong sense of humor that crumbles under the weight of its desire to constantly be punching down (Vivian is not the great trans representation you've been told she is in the original Japanese script, it's so much worse than you realize). A story that could summed up as a quirky DnD campaign with strong variety both visually and conceptually, it really does transcend what you'd expect from a Mario game... but then it really has nothing cohesive to say in the end, not even an overarching theme or some sort of broad feeling to impart to the player beyond just expecting the player to appreciate the adventure for what it was.

But despite all that it does manage to work, and it's hard to fault Intelligent Systems for really trying to form this into an experience that was probably pushing at the boundaries of what Nintendo was allowing them to get away with, and even the parts I dislike just end up adding to the game's overall sense of character. How many other Mario games portray the issue of casual misogyny within the workplace? How many other Mario games have you participating in organized crime? Much of the experience is cobbled together out of novelty, but it manages to come together in a way that elevates what it even means to be a Mario game.

A lot of people complain about the backtracking, and really, they're not that wrong. Each screen in the game is its own carefully constructed diorama of sorts both in terms of gameplay and visuals, and because of that every chapter is composed of maybe 4 to 6 "major" screens with a varying amount of "minor" screens (that are mostly made up of smaller rooms or houses within towns or villages) and maybe a dungeon that's composer of a handful of screens itself. Some chapters you're basically just gonna be going back and forth through the same screens ad nauseum, and while somebody who has played the game more times than she can count like me is able to see why the game is the way it is, I wouldn't blame anybody if that broke the camel for them.

Anyways, before I wrap this up I'm gonna talk about Vivian, especially because I feel a wave of discourse potentially bubbling up whenever the remake releases. I could probably write a whole detailed essay on Vivian's portrayal, but I'll give the rundown, and if you wanna look into it more yourself, MarioWiki's article on Vivian has probably the most comprehensive set of sources I've seen (I'm sorry I'm lazy about properly formatting sources within my reviews). In the Japanese version she's characterized as a crossdresser (specifically referred to as "otoko no ko"), and it feels mostly played as a joke at Vivian's expense, with that being pretty much the same in the French and Spanish localizations. There's a particularly nasty scene in the second chapter of the Japanese script where Vivian is visibly gutted, unable to defend herself after her sister denies her gender identity; this was replaced for a less extreme, but still clearly abusive conversation about how she's ugly in the English version (with her gender never being called into question). Interestingly, the Italian version's portrayal of Vivian is the bravest with it not only acknowledging her womanhood and retaining her transness (which was effectively just dropped in the English and German scripts), but also reworking the entire scenario where her sister denies her gender identity into one where Vivian stands up for herself and proclaims her pride for " having become a woman". As well in the Italian version, the Tattle Log and in-menu text ostensibly refer to her as a woman or with feminine terminology (whereas even the in-menu text in the Japanese version seemingly mocks her by referring to her with masculine terminology).

The upcoming remake's English script will probably retain the "ambiguity" of the original localization (I say ambiguity because tbh that's a bias a lot of people still have, where they assume the lack of explicitly textual queerness implies the the character is cishet, but that's a discussion for another time), though there are explicit changes to the script that have already been shown, so there's some hope that the English script could even adapt aspects of the original's Italian script within the framework of modern sensibilities.

Either way, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is beloved for a reason, and even among its own ilk it stands out both in gameplay and aesthetic. I still don't find myself really longing for another one like it, the older I get the more I just appreciate experiences for what they are. Sure, games like Sticker Star or Color Splash are vapid simulacrums of their predecessors, but I don't really feel personally attacked by their mere existence. TTYD still exists, and regardless of whether we get the mythical True TTYD Sequel, TTYD's existence is immutable. Our lives are short, and the love we're able to extract from our experiences is ephemeral; it's better to just enjoy what we have while we have it than chase after a high that would never be able to live up to nostalgia-soaked memories anyways.