Yes I said I’d be doing this yesterday. But alas, I was sidetracked. Fortunately for me, it was by hockey. My dad took my brothers and I to one of the World Junoirs games last night. Switzerland vs. Finland. It would have been nice to see a Canada game (my cousin’s boyfriend is their starting goalie), but it was one hell of a game to be sure. I’d go into greater detail, but this is gonna be a really long post as it is, so my words must be sparse. It was disappointing that the game ended in a tie, as I would have liked to see Finland win (I’m Finnish you know), but there’s not much that can be done about it. So now that my alibi is strung together, onto the preamble!
As I was rattling on about in the last post, I read a review of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door in TV Guide. While I cannot truly disagree with the article on the whole, there are quite a few inaccuracies and the reviewer missed many important game elements. So as a site first, I shall taketh this review, and ripeth it apart paragraph by paragraph, and give my impressions on each. This also saves me from having to actually review the game myself. I would love to, but I’d have to play through again to get screenshots, and I have way too many incomplete games to start replaying one I’ve beaten. Now onto the feature!
Plumbing the depths
Heroes are a dime a dozen in gamedom, but few of them have the longevity or popularity of Nintendo’s Mario the plumber. The little man and his games are practically bulletproof.
No real problems here, except for nobody in the history of ever has ever called him “Mario the plumber”.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is the follow-up to the N64’s original Paper Mario, which stretched the corners of his side-scrolling 2D world into a 3D adventure. It was his first appearance in a role-playing game, which was about the only kind of game that he and his crew hadn’t yet starred in.
Fuck. Just fuck. SUPER MARIO RPG: THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN STARS, you twat. It’s only the most popular of the four Mario RPG games. You really shouldn’t make wild assumptions about things you clearly know nothing about. It’s not like anyone that knows better reads TV Guide anyway (except for me, apparently) but that mistake totally destroyed any credibility this guy once had. Not only that, but there was also at least one other 3D Mario game. Say, Super Mario 64. What a douche. And for the record, the Mario Party games were pretty damn 3D too.
Considering that Mario titles are usually aimed at kids, The Thousand-Year Door is long and pleasantly sophisticated. There’s plenty weird and wonderful in The Thousand-Year Door, as there is in all his trippy titles, but nothing is unfamiliar. Princess Peach reprises her role as the damsel in distress, various nefarious skills have been grafted onto his Goomba foes and the guy can’t seem to get through an adventure without wallowing in the sewers.
OK, most of this is pretty good, but there are a few things that were omitted (if only for the sake of fitting it on a single page). But before that, we’ll adress the “aimed at kids” issue. I don’t think Mario is aimed at kids. These days people label anything where intestines don’t spill as “for kids”. This is not true. Mario has always transcended age. If anything, Mario’s character is built more for adults. He’s a fat Italian plumber from Brooklyn. Come on. If there was only one specific group that could enjoy the character, it’s certainly not kids. So anyhow, there is plenty of unfamiliar in the game. From a town that could be called “a wretched hive of scum and villainy” in another time and place to his first jaunt into space in a very long time (Last time was in Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins. Mario Pary games don’t count.), there is plenty of new territory to be covered in this game. It’s even got Russian Bob-ombs. Oh, and let’s not forget the glory that is actually playing as Bowser (though it doesn’t last long, it’s awesome). Finally, Peach does reprise the whole damsel in distress role, but this time she does it right. There isn’t nearly as much boring Peach gameplay in this one.
The most novel feature here is the battle system. As with other heroes – guitar, gladiatorial or other – Mario has to perform with style is he wants to win hearts and minds. Battles in The Thousand-Year Door are literally staged events, complete with rising curtains and, at least if the battle is going his way, an audience whose enthusiasm spurs him in combat.
All true, there isn’t much else to say here. An (inter)active battle system is a good battle system. But really, the audience isn’t good for much other than filling your star power. This is a vast improvement over that wishing thing or whatever it was you had to do in the first Paper Mario. Anything else they do is usually insignificant or bothersome, like turning on fog machines to reduce accuracy or “accidentally” freezing Mario with onstage ice machines. Yes, they may throw you a Dry Shroom (Dry Shroom = worthless) every once in a blue moon, but most of the time, they just throw rocks.
Mario has been hardwired from the beginning to be heroic and doing the right thing is pathological for him. When allies ask what the next move is, there is never any choice for him to contiune doing the right thing. It’s not a bad lesson for the kids at Christmas, but it doesn’t exactly break gameplay wide open.
I smell a Fable fanboy. It’s not that impressive. With all that crazy crap you can do, the real game is probably short and boring. But I’m not really out to bash Fable. I’ve not played it, (but I will have after Christmas) so I can’t say for sure if my intuition is correct on this one. Anyhow, I guess I can’t really attack this paragraph, but you do get choices a when it comes to a lot of things. Only most of the the time they just repeat the question infinitely until you pick the answer they want to hear (But thou must!). And I’d like to see any other game where you can fold up into a plane or a boat. And if there is, I bet the method of getting those abilities isn’t anywhere as amusing as how you come across them in this game.
The Thoudand-Year Door doesn’t present any real choice and in many ways is as linear as the 2D side-scrollers from the days of the SNES.
Must… suppress… urge to kill… If he knows so much about the days of the SNES, how in the hell did he miss Super Mario RPG?! How!?!? And for the record, Mario’s NES side-scrollers were much more linear than the one (Yoshi’s Island doesn’t really count) on the SNES. You had many path choices in Super Mario World. As for this “doesn’t present any real choice” gobbledygook, I don’t think the reviewer knew anything about the badges. Being able to customize Mario’s strengths and abilities to no end is quite a big one for the “choices to make” category. Oh, and then there’s the level-up system, in which you choose how you want Mario to develop, rather than in other RPGs where they just dole out random stats each level-up. And what is this about “linear”? Of course it’s linear you ass. Pretty much all games are when you get down to it. At least this one presents plenty of amusing sidequests, puzzles and mini-games to keep things interesting.
Yeah, that’s the end. I wonder if this guy has ever written a conclusion. His intro was good, but if that whole “no choices” thing was the conclusion, he probably got a zero out of five on all his essays for whatever novice writer’s class he took. Not that I’m saying I’m a better writer than he, but at least I conclude the stuff that spews forth from my mind. It’s usually crap in itself, but it’s there. And his conclusion is nowhere to be seen.
Well, I’ve accomplished my goal (and used the word gobbledygook in the process!). I critiqued an overall positive review of a game I like, and managed to come out sounding like I was trying to protect the game from words of hate. I guess it just happens. Mostly, I just wanted to make fun of the writer and his lack of conviction. It is a pretty flip-floppy review. I’m not sure whether he liked or disliked it (due to no conclusion), but the praise was more abundant than the hate. So that’s pretty much it. Like I said, I’ve accomplished my goal. So I’m leaving.
NOTE:The comics are going to be weekly, so you’ll have to wait until Monday for the next one.