i’ve been playing paper mario the thousand-year door recently because i feel like playing some of my favourite childhood games again and it’s so fun! of course the music is great but almost everything about the game is amazing. the dialogues that don’t take themselves too seriously and contain jokes and break the fourth wall (although there are some dialogues that i’m not a fan of). but the best thing are the iconic (at least to me) sound effects, from menus to battle interactions, dialogue text and footsteps. i don’t think anything has sound effects as satisfying as this game. when i started playing i kept quickly cycling through the in-battle menu to hear those delicious sounds and i still do that sometimes. and in combination with the great controls and especially the in-battle action commands it feels really good to play. unless i have to backtrack through the same area 3+ times in a row, i always look forward to and enjoy battles because of how great they feel, unlike in pokémon where i was often annoyed by wild encounters. it’s just so satisfying to jump on enemies and press a at the perfect time and hear delicious sound effects while doing so, no matter what enemy it is. the only thing i’m a little disappointed in is the world levels themselves that can feel a tiny bit short and not as interesting as i had them in mind from my childhood. the levelling/badge system also feels very good, you have a lot of control over what you want to change instead of just all stats going up with each level. getting a level up feels great and impactful even if actual stats only change very slowly (or maybe they only do to me because i basically only get badge points, but that’s the great thing: i can play the game this way because that’s how i like it and it may play completely differently for others), but these small and deliberate changes make them feel more special. i also love how new areas keep opening up in rogueport, discovering new areas in old places always feels very exciting and magical to me. <minor spoiler> and also getting to play the parallel stories of peach and bowser as them is great, i had completely forgotten that until their chapters started in this playthrough, and of course i love reading about luigi’s own big adventure which is another of many great details that make the game so unique. </minor spoiler>
and apparently a switch remake is coming. it’s a coincidence that i’m playing the game now, i only found out about the remake when i looked up a badge on the wiki. it looks great visually and the music is nice too but i prefer the unique sound of the original music, especially while playing. the new soundtrack would be more like something i would listen to after playing the game in addition to the original soundtrack, like how i listen to that botw concert in addition to the ost. but most of all i don’t really like how the sound effects sound, and those are the most important thing for me. except for the new dialogue sounds, they might not be as satisfying but it’s a really cool idea to have them make a recognisable sound specific to who is talking. and playing on my pc and in 60 fps is more comfortable and convenient than playing on a console and in 30 fps (which the trailer looks like to be). so for now i’ll stick to my good old tiny gamecube disk that still holds up well (with high-resolution textures and 60 fps thanks to the emulation community) and has all the great nostalgic things i want, but it’s great that new players can soon experience this paper mario masterpiece in an easy and up-to-date way!