The (almost) Perfect Sequel - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Retrospective 

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If he hated the backtracking in this game, he’s going to rage in Sticker Star

How often I have to go rewatch the remake trailer while watching these types of retrospectives to make sure the remake is actually real blows my mind lol

Vivian was already the best partner imo and now learning about her original depiction gives her even more depth. Eggcelent analysis.

I didn't mind the Chapter 7 backtracking all that much because it gave me a chance to wrap up some Trouble Center tasks without going out of my way for extra trips.

FINALLY someone talks about the lack of cohesion in TTYD's world, compared the Toad Town connecting to 6/7 worlds sans warp pipe. imo, using warp pipes was meant to be a clever reward to fast travel, after you earned your way by paving the road to get somewhere. PM64 remains more of a darling cult classic in my mind because I was the age to grow up with that one, but they are both 10/10 games to me. Awesome video, Z.

One very big thing in TTYD that 64 did not have was Partners have dialog. How many times does your partner talk in 64, not counting when they join VS how many times do they talk in TTYD.

You honest in your opening "i never played and i dont think ill enjoy it with adult eyes." - ttyd fandom shotguns loading sounds are heard.

Congrats on acquiring the orange paper heart!! Enjoy your rest & take your time! But you can bet every coin in your pocket I’ll be SUPER happy when the next Paper Mario retrospective drops! 😁

34:59 had me dying 💀 you’ve earned a sub my friend!

Now that we getting a remake a thousand year door sequel may be possible

So, as a fan of this game, here’s why MOST of the backtracking didn’t bug me that much: This is a game that encourages you to interact with as much stuff as possible. Be they NPC’s, enemies, oddities that you can later access with new abilities… there is a lot of lore & additional story in the creative world the devs gave this game. And while it can get tedious, the fact you’re always moving the story forward or finding new things if you go out if your way to get them makes it worth it 8/10 times. I end up getting lost into the world and personally want to keep the narrative moving at a fair pace, so if something does start to annoy me, I’m usually rewarded with a decent enough payoff because of the games charm. The one thing I wish for with the remake looming is better placements for the quick warp pipes in regards to where they were placed on the map (Keelhaul Key especially) & hopefully a slightly faster walk & Yoshi speed. This would cut down on the tediousness quite easily, as well as things like faster load times in between segments of the area you’re in.

They're "Cross-naughts" not "X-naughts." In Japan, "X" is "cross." That's why the X-naught's computer is TEC-XX as in "TEC Double-Cross"...because he double-crosses the X-naughts.

I'd suggest some additional consideration on who the chapter overviews are for. As someone who has 100%'d the game three times, they're naturally going to be redundant to me. But at the same time, they gloss over so much detail that I wouldn't want them to be my first exposure to the story either. When something is brought up like Cortez's boss fight or TEC's death without any elaboration on why or how these events happen, they would only be new information to new players. But without the surrounding context, what is gained from learning them in this video as opposed to discovering them through the game? I think the overview of chapter 4 is your best attempt at bridging the gap between explaining the plot while focusing on what you personally find relevant. It touches on the main story beats of the chapter (Villagers turning into pigs, finding Doopliss as the culprit, getting your body snatched, getting help from Vivian, breaking the curse, and defeating Doopliss for real), but then it skips over some of the finer details that might deprive non-players of the needed context. Why do we need to find Doopliss's name? Why do we need the letter 'P'? You could have mentioned that any attempts to fight Doopliss before getting his name result in a stalemate battle you have to flee from, or that the curse requires the perpetrator's real name to break, Rumpelstiltskin-style. You could even mention that by going back to the Twilight Town mayor's house you can find Doopliss taking credit for saving the town and your partners commenting on how unusual Mario is acting. If you're looking to have the whole video appeal to both sides of the audience, a good balance of "here's what happened" and "here's what I found interesting" would probably help most with engagement. The way I see it, if it's worth explaining the story to the viewers, it's probably worth making sure they get the full picture, at least to the point where everything makes sense. Otherwise, it'd probably be better to skip the summaries and focus more on what you got out of each chapter. Considering it's a retrospective, I'm sure you could get away with just having a "story" section of your critique and touching only on what you find relevant.

Been getting into retrospectives, and I’m really excited to see the next parts of this series! I’m really happy that I still get to experience theee games through longplays which has really helped me see how much better these games are!

Also, I think there's no real fault to anyone regarding/interpreting Vivianne as either a trans-girl or a cis-girl. For people who were aware of the Japanese (or other) translation at the time of playing the game, I think it makes sense to see the "transness" of her arc. But, as you pointed out, for most people who played the game back in 2004, the concept barely existed in public conscience plus that it was practically wiped from the English versions; so the take-away that Vivianne is "just a girl" makes perfect sense too.

Genuine applause for the Italian localization team. Fucking awesome to see!

I played TTYD in Japanese and my interpretation of Vivian is basically the same as yours. It's really so simple and yet people get caught up on the game calling her a "boy" and ignore everything else. =w= Umm anyway I'm glad you've come to appreciate TTYD after having a rough start with it! I think the game has its flaws but I simply can't care about them because I love it so much. Backtracking is a problem? Well, I love the game's battle system and enjoy perfecting my action commands, as well as taking in the gorgeous setpieces, so it breezes by. Too many fights in the Glitzpit? I enjoyed the immersion of the grind. I understand how people don't like them but I just really can't hate the game, I just love playing it... no thoughts only TTYD.

Ooh nice! This will be fun to watch

Bro what a well made video, great job!

I finally got to play this thanks to the Switch remake. I definitely think it's better than the first one, overall, but the first game absolutely has strengths that this one doesn't. The remake also solves (or very nearly solves) the chapter 7 backtracking issue. Still a little top much backtracking in a lot of other chapters, but it's not a deal breaker.

I got my hands on a copy a few years back when I was in middle school and bad at rpgs lol. I never actually managed to beat the shadow queen and just sort of gave up. I put all my level ups into health which it turns out wasn't great. I recently tried to replay it and had a lot of fun with my new knowledge but didn't get too far because I got pulled away from it. I did recently play through 64 prior to that replay attempt on the switch online service and had a ton of fun with it, and it sort of showed me what I was missing out on with my bad strategy. I really do hope to get back to it at some point, but my jrpg backlog is eating me alive :P

"Nintendo needs to rerelease this game!" Yeah about that

26:54 I've replayed this game so many times, and had no idea that the yoshis color depended on how long it took to hatch. I just thought it was random selection. I think i had a black yoshi once, and maybe red...but every other time I played the game he was always green. I thought it was just random

Thousand Year Door is my favorite of the series, and it isn't even close for me. A lot of people rag on the backtracking, but I honestly don't think it's that bad. TTYD is pretty good about recontextualizing the return trip for most backtracking. Like in Chapter 4, where the return from the steeple leaves you without partners, then the trip back is with Vivian. Chapter 7 is probably the most egregious, but it's played for laughs, and you can fast travel through the whole sequence anyway, so I never minded. TTYD also has my favorite set of party members in any Mario RPG, bar none. Vivian is my all-time fav for sure. The way she overcomes the abuse from her sisters is still one of the most satisfying arcs in the series IMO. I think it's a shame they chose to hide her trans identity in the US release. I had to learn about it on the gamefaqs forums back in the day lol. But, given the political climate even today, I can understand why the localization team felt it best. Either way, this is where the series peaked for me. While Super Paper Mario is still good, and even the modern games have some charms, TTYD still sets the bar that every other Paper Mario game is measured against for me.

5:07 Literally me when I see Sticker Star

You forgot to mention something in Vivians part at the end where she goes back to her sisters which Imo I didn't like She should have left them tbh Aleast Beldam

Love the video! Referencing to Vivivan being trans, in the Spanish version is pretty similar to the Italian translation! At the first Vivian's apparences everyone refers to her as "him", but more later in chapter 4 everyone treats her as HER, except for her sisters. Is really cool, I played this game as a teenager and I was really surprised about Vivivan's character. Also my favorite one!

1:01:33 That aged better than expected.

I like the Bowser bits for the same reason I like fishing minigames: it's a little nugget of Different to help break things up.

I honestly think the TTYD HD Texture Pack (that is faithful to the vanilla style) is a better option than the one that makes the sprites look like CS and TOK. Those games I guess work for what they were going for, but I think TTYD's art style is perfect as is, and only needs to be faithfully adapted in HD, gradients, vibrant colors, colored outlines and all. I also wish a texture pack for PM64 that aims for a TTYD-like look would take off the way the one that aims for a modern PM look did. Modern PM relies on the advanced lighting engine that the older games don't have (and also most enemy redesigns are just straight downgrades from their TTYD iterations imo). I strongly dislike flat, duller colors especially when it's not even compensating for a more advanced lighting engine like it is in CS and TOK.

started watching this yesterday and had to finish when the remake was announced this morning! (you called it) great work and super excited to get this game on modern consoles!!!

great videos, subscribed frfr

1:01:35 hopefully this ages well

I’ve never understood the complaints of backtracking in video games. It makes a world feel more lived in, and more open. Having no backtracking is having linearity masking as open gameplay…and yet people love to rip into outwardly linear games like FFXIII. Seems to me people want linearity without realizing its linearity. For my tastes, I say “bring on the backtracking”. Make me feel like a world is real and lived in. Make me feel the differences of an environment with changes to plot or character growth, or even just familiarity of pathways. To each their own, but I love backtracking in RPG’s and I love it in this game.

We finally have a way to play it on the switch!!! Yahoo!!!!!

Second? Idk found you thru some fucky wucky search gone wrong. Won't watch the vid now but I'll be sure to do so when I have time!

I never was that much into TTYD. I still to this day prefer Paper Mario and Super Paper Mario.

Y'know, all the issues with backtracking and having to go through the sewers so much could be fixed with a simple fast travel option; something that could be in a remake. Just gonna leave that idea out there for you; Nintendo. . . please do it.

Commenting for the algorithm since content about this game is probably going to get some more attention for a while :) What a time to be a Paper Mario fan :)

Such a great game , I was consistently cracking up with laughter at the dialogue. I never did finish it though I guess I should dust off the ol' GameCube.

I've been watching a lot of retrospective videos recently, especially about the paper mario series, and I have to say, yours is really turning out to be one of the best, and my personal favorite. You're doing an amazing job of really diving into the history, culture, and gameplay of it all in a serious, yet lighthearted way that really resonates with me! I really feel you in regards to not playing the Paper Mario series in "order" per se, or in time with everyone else. I personally didn't even like the RPG mechanics (especially in the first one) when I was younger, but LOVED the aesthetic, and ended up beating Super Paper Mario first before any of the other games. Then I went backwards and did TTYD, and THEN finally PM64. It's wild how we all experience this series, yet still love it, faults and all

First! Probably one of the best retrospectives I ever seen in awhile.

Eh, it's still a perfect sequel to me!

Wonderful video about a great game, though seeing this right after I've started regularly listening to the entire playlist of SiIvagunner rips means I'm way too distracted during the battle mechanics section because I'm listening for the lyrics to Black Betty and the Cha Cha Slide Not a complaint, it genuinely improves the experience and I love hearing SiIvagunner rips used as unironic background music

Man, your videos are great, i'm surprised by how many subs and views you have, you truly deserve a lot more Me acabo de dar cuenta que eres de México, ahora me siento muy tonto por hablarte en inglés xd Ojalá tu canal crezca mucho, estaré atento a tus próximos videos!

RIP Spinny, pouring one out for a real one. What will I do with my cute skirts now?

I agree with the back tracking statement. And I hope that gets fixed or mitigated in the remake. Which it is hilarious I just found this video after said remake was announced.😂 (Also PS: I like get Ms. Mowz after chapter 4 just to make the party feel complete and I also make to get every shinesprite to make them fully powered.)

I'm glad the Vivian stuff was lost in translation, personally.

First, Thank You Nintendo for doing a remake of this game. Second, one thing that stood out to me about this game is how a lot of the partners feel the same in this one. Would have loved some new ones like a Spikey or a Shy Guy. Instead, we get another Goomba that gives us information or a Bombob that explodes and so on.

Ms. Mowz is a very fun partner because she can steal items... I strongly recommend watching some Challenge Runs and 100% speedruns of this game.

Oh ho ho ho. Looking back on the part of the discussion about the game not having a release on more modern hardware is delicious after the Switch re…make? Remaster? …The Switch version was announced. Nobody could have predicted it, least of all me, since I figured Nintendo was just gonna ignore classic Paper Mario and press on with their own thing. And while there’s nothing wrong with that… I’m just happy the game is getting a second lease on life. This is one of my favorite games of all time, and I can’t say enough how much I enjoy it. Naturally, it’s not above critique, and yeah, the backtracking is present to a degree the first game didn’t have nearly as much problem with. But the game is just so fun I can easily acknowledge it and not be bothered by it at all. Though, the part of backtracking that I dislike the most is revisiting old areas, since Paper Mario 64 had a lot more direct and close together Warp Pipes to the older areas in the Toad Town Tunnels. Here, Glitzville alone has no warp and JUST the blimp, and the rest feel a bit more inconvenient to get to. Also, with regard to the topic of Vivian, she’s great. Trans, not trans, she is a she, and she’s a great character. …And she is, for the record, I’m not here to say she’s not, just that she’s a great character from her character alone, and her being trans is just more good on top of that. This game is one of my favorite games ever and stands the test of time in my eyes alongside 64, as I have mentioned in that video’s comments. These two games and Super are a great trio of games that I hold all three in high regard. And these videos have a lot of great work put into them and I’m looking forward to watching the next ones in this retrospective.

On the topic of Chapter 4 I see it as a bit of a shout-out to Spirited Away. Think about it, characters being turned into pigs, Mario gets his name taken from him, etc

Also, only a couple months after this video, Nintendo announced a TTYD remake.

This video captured all of my feelings towards PPTTYD. I love the game, and I want to replay it some time, but it’s think the backtracking kills replay value, I don’t like the random fog in battles that makes attacks hitting random, I don’t like the side quests, the movements completely butchered, the worlds are way to linear and hallway like, I don’t like how the cliffs and ground surrounding the world kind of just drop off into a void, everything feels unconnected, the side content is literally horrible… yet the main combat, story, writing, characters, interesting worlds (that despite being hallway like are very fun to go through the first time), and charm carry it to be one of my favorite GameCube games, and one that I’m hoping I love even more when I replay it.

So, coming back to the 1:01:00 ish are how are we feeling about this now?

49:15 totally understand how this section feels like a slog, but Glitzville is my favorite chapter of the game because of the environment. Replayed the game a couple years ago and I'm replaying it again bc your video made me want to, so if I end up agreeing with you I'll probably comment on it, but I still feel like the environment of the chapter makes up for it (especially that OUT OF NOWHERE Bowser fight with a stadium audience). Chapter 4 tho, god I've never once liked it. The Crazee Dayzee's are maybe the most disgusting enemy in any Mario game and I have gone into utterly horrendous detail into the inhumane acts I'd subject them to to my friends because god they are a despicable enemy that I feel are even worse in Super Paper Mario because they just regularly reset your progress in the tree level if you get hit while jumping between platforms

16 mins in, and youre talking about the Goomba partners. One way i started playing years ago that i stumbled on by accident and now its hard to use any other partner, is the ol' Charge and Multibonk combo. Charge up for 3 to 5 turns, then razzle dazzle the shit out of any enemy repeatedly! If you haven't tried it out yet, i implore you to do so

16:34 he doesn't know about rally wink lol

That Luigi side story has too many oRIgiNaL CHarAcTErS for current Nintendo to put effort into. Cookie bloopers? Nah, this is 2023 Nintendo, we don’t believe in that.

im thinking about dat

I really like these videos, and I think they deserve way more views than they currently have!! Great work, really! If I can make one suggestion though, although it might just be a "me-thing"; don't use songs with lyrics in them, as background music, because it muddles what you're saying a bit or just makes it a bit harder to listen to.

Glad to finally hear someone go in depth about Vivian's gender, I haven't heard anyone else point out how problematic the original text was. Great video!

Hey we get a remake now!

In defense of backtracking: The one and only alternative is what people criticize as "hallway simulator" games, and rightly so. Only platformers can get away with such an extreme lack of content and meaningful gameplay beyond moving in the only direction you're allowed to go. Reasonably, when people complain about backtracking, they aren't actually complaining about backtracking, they're complaining about the lack of any meaningful gameplay occurring along the way. The problem is not that you're going places you've already been, it's that you don't do anything, either on the way or once you get there.

I find it kinda funny how the last video in the retrospective as of writing this is Super. You might still be working on it, but I like to imagine that Sticker Star is so garbage that the retrospective just ended there. Because it’s funnier.

Great video, man Paper Mario TTYD will always be one of my favorites. Vivian is one of my fav partners, but I also saw her as a cisgender chick, so that’s what I’m sticking with. Partners like Ms. Mowz or even your little Borkus kinda disappointed me, they feel too weak, not only that, as a disabled guy, making me have to mash the buttons to use certain attacks is not cool. I do really want a game about Luigi’s journey in the Waffle Kingdom. There’s so much to say about this game, it’s insane, great video (again)!

This game is a Chad for committing to the expanded world of Mario and including Piantas and Beanfolk, tying in with Sunshine and Mario & Luigi to create a cohesive brand. That Miyamoto, Kimishima, Furukawa, or even Iwata decided all this had to go and massively genericized Paper Mario and Mario as a whole for over a decade is baffling, but I hope the remake of TTYD will move things back in this direction.

I love TTYD a lot but Grodus is soooo boring and I don’t find the Shadow Queen to be that interesting. Personally I vastly prefer how BIS handled the “villain awakens an ancient evil” because it made both villains better for it

The backtracking was madness

29:18 Whats the name of that song?

#RemasterThousandYearDoor

People complain about backtracking way too much. I'll give you Chapter 4 being a little annoying, and I can see the hunt for General White frustrating people, but when I was a kid I barely noticed it all. I liked going back to see the old towns again. I'm not going to say I like backtracking, but I really don't think it's as much an issue as people make it out to be.

So how are you feeling about the remake that was announced?

idk the critique part was a little drawn out, like was opening doors really worth mentioning?

Fun retrospective I had never thought of the Vivian stuff like this... it's true that the game misgender her. I played the French version of the game the most often and it does do that too. I guess standards have changed in 20 years, which is good

Vivian gave me gender envy before I knew what it was

Yeahhhh the backtracking can get pretty annoying, if not downright *absurd*, especially in chapters 4 and 7. I grew up with the game and it remains my favorite in the series, but I'll be the first to admit that it's halted a couple of my repeat playthroughs. And I say this as someone whose favorite game of all time is METROID PRIME, a game that's also notorious for having a lot of backtracking, soooo that kinda says it all right there. Maybe if we're lucky, they'll touch up on some of that stuff in the remake.

Out of context comment here just to lure the juicy algortithm in 😅 Are you from Monterrey, México by any means? That "OXXO" sign and the suspicious background from where it rises seems oddly familiar... And, judging from the narrative you try to incorporate with this retrospective series as a whole, would the creation of the character from your avatar really be such a "sinister" event? Because I think it would be kind of the opposite if your ask me 😉I really appreciate the amount of work you put into the production of these videos and hope your channel can become as big as you wish in the near future. Best regards! P.S.: If Mario doesn't get into touch with Vivian again then I would gladly try to find her and give her a big hug!

I think all those edgy, mature and darker themes in this one is why I ultimately liked the first one better and have a much better feeling playing the game overall. I even like the partners and environments better in the first one they seem like they belong in the Mario universe more. This game just has the advancements in gameplay and mechanics that made it a better experience.

As a trans person I really appreciate you talking about the whole thing with Vivian's gender! I've watched so many videos about TTYD and this is the only one who even mentions that, it's just so nice to see someone talking about it, thank you! We love Vivian our trans gal icon!

I can understand some of the complaints you have about the game but im sorry but i dont I I'll _ever_ understand people that complain about the backtracking in this game. It's not underplayed by fans its incredibly OVERplayed critics. Besides the General White quest and _maybe_ chapter 4 it's hardly there at all. Again sorry for the rant but the backtracking complaints drive me crazy.

I bet your really happy that Nintendo released TTYD for the switch huh?

I was too fond or a big fan of The Thousand Year Door to begin with due to it being a massive departure from Paper Mario 64 and featuring too many rehashed ideas from it.

Vivian being trans is even thematically appropriate for the chapter! Mario has been stripped of his identity, and Vivian is the only one who can see him for who he truly is and she helps him regain that portion of his life! Whenever someone tells me that she's cis I remove their kneecaps.

1:01:34 !!!!!!!

im blind so it was hard to get through the stupid sections

Almoay perfect? I just finished Paper Mario 64, and by chapter 2, you notice ALL the wrong changes Nintendo put into this one.. making it definitely worse

With the remake coming, the main thing I can't help but wonder is how they're going to handle Vivian's identity. Will they have it be where she identifies as female but thr game frames her as male? Will she be completely cis-gendered the whole time? Or will she be transgender? And this is not even getting into the localization factor. I do hope that she will be written as transgender as that gives her story more depth. (Besides, her form is much more easily malleable as it's not completely solid, so even from a conservative perspective, it's not hard to accept that she can change herself)

There's a cultural aspect to the whole trans thing in Japan that's different from how we in the west see it. Japan is a traditionally collectivist society, compared to the west being traditionally individualist. To oversimplify it... in both cases, traditionalist ideologies hate "different from the norm", and that's actually the source of Japan's different mindset toward trans people specifically. In the west, gays are hated by traditionalists for being different, and trans people are hated even more for being "more" different, because the individualist culture of the west sees people as individuals first rather than for their place in society. However, the collectivist Japanese see people as part of a greater whole rather than an individual. From this perspective, it's seen as more acceptable to be trans than it is to be gay, because being trans comes with an inherent attempt to "fall in line", to be exactly as society expects you to; someone who acts traditionally feminine and presents themselves as traditionally feminine but is physically a man would be more accepted by their society after going through a sex change operation, because the new version of themselves now falls more closely into the traditional gender roles they value.

i’m here from the future to deliver a message… vivian’s transness is restored in the remake!!!

Vivian is not trans hope this helps!

Can’t believe a paper Mario series reminded me that Celeste is a trans allegory and a goddamn good one

Fuck yeah trans rights!! I'm so glad they restored Vivian's trans identity in the remake!

Ok, I get an appreciate the trans stuff with Vivian, but I feel the bit about Mario is a bit of a stretch. Doopliss steals Mario's appearance and makes Mario look like Doopliss. That's like you fighting Hitler and then after the fight, you look like Hitler and Hitler looks like you. I'd say that's a bit different than being trans or queer because it was something that was forced onto him by someone else. I don't think identity theft really fits into the narrative you're trying to spin there. If you're best friend is standing next to you and your school bully comes up to you claiming to be your best friend and he just looks like the school bully, you wouldn't believe him even if your best friend has been acting a bit strange.

Does the gender of a fictional character in a game almost 20 years old really matter

Lets make vivians hat a trans icon. It'll be great.

vivian is a trans icon ❤

overrated game

Japan based transphobe???????