10 Best RPGs Of 2024
8. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Good news: Nintendo released the best Paper Mario game in twenty years!
Bad news: It's the same game they released twenty years ago!
Nintendo's mismanagement of the Paper Mario franchise is worthy of its own article, but for now let's just celebrate the fact that the best game in the series is finally liberated from its GameCube prison after serving a 20 year sentence.
Actually, the idea of The Thousand Year Door being the felonious, black-faced sheep of the Mario franchise isn't without merit. Right from the off, TTYD feels thrillingly subversive from the usual Mario fare. One of the first sights you see is a hangman's noose, and the game's hub of Rogueport is an unashamedly sleazy hive of criminals and extortionists. It's a shocking start for a Mario game, and that sense of surprise never lets up throughout the refreshingly brisk 20 hour adventure.
From dancing with your own hologram to briefly engaging in a career as a professional wrestler, Thousand Year Door is bristling with the kind of invention Nintendo usually reserve for the plumber's best platforming escapades. The fact that each caper is backed up by a series-peaking cast of characters and the best combat system of any Paper Mario game is simply the file in this delightfully constructed prison cake.