Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Written by: Ixistant

Over the past couple of years, one of the most popular games for the Nintendo Gamecube has been Paper Mario. Now, the sequel, "Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door" has been released. However, it's not your ordinary Mario game. Yes, Princess Peach has been kidnapped, yet again. Yes, Mario is off to rescue her, once again. But unlike previous games, it's not Bowser who's kidnapped her! Instead, it's a group of strange, little bandits called the X-Naught's.

Anyway, here we go. One day, Mario receives a letter from Princess Peach, saying she has discovered a treasure map and that she wants to go hunt for the treasure. But she doesn't want to go alone, so Mario has to go with her (by royal order). She sends Mario the map with the letter and asks him to meet her in the town of Rougueport.

So Mario sets off, leaving behind his brother Luigi, to meet Princess Peach. But when he arrives in Rougueport, she's nowhere to be found! Mario meets a little Goomba girl called Goombella, who tells him that her Professor may be able to help out with the treasure. Mario discovers that, to get to the treasure, he will have to find the 7 legendary Crystal Stars to get to it. So he sets off with Goombella to find the Crystal Stars and to save Princess Peach.

Like the previous games in the series, you are able to take control of Princess Peach and help Mario out at certain points by finding out information, then sending it to Mario via e-mail. You are able to play as Peach at the end of every chapter in the game. In Peach's section, she meets the X-Naughts' lab computer, TEC, who discovers it is in love with Princess Peach. But it doesn't even know what love means! So, it's up to Peach to perform random tasks like tutor TEC on what love is and dance with a hologram of herself. After she has done what she is asked to do, she is allowed to send Mario e-mails to update him on random information and her well-being.

As I mentioned earlier, Princess Peach was NOT kidnapped by Bowser this time. When Bowser finds this out, he is absolutely furious, as "No-one is allowed to kidnap her without [his] permission!" So he sets out on a quest of his own, aided by the ever faithful witch Kamy Koopa, to rescue Princess Peach and kidnap her for himself. After you play as Princess Peach, you are transferred to Bowser, where quite a few of his levels are in the format of the old Mario games from the 1990's (World 1-2, World 7-2 etc.). If you power Bowser up enough, you can get him the size of the screen, to stomp his way through the level and squash anything in his way. Of course, being a villain, he always manages to muck things up, whether it's falling from his helicopter or not being able to talk to anyone useful due to the fire breath and destructive feet.

The format of the game is the typical RPG; you attack, then they attack. But in battle you are aided by your friends, some of whom are a young koopa called Koops, a famous actress (who's a bit on the dead side) called Madame Flurrie and a newly hatched Yoshi (who you get to name yourself). They each have their own special abilities (like Koops can throw his shell at enemies and Yoshi can swallow enemies) but to increase the attacks power you can do the Action Command, where the game tells you to do something and you do it. These can range from simply tapping the "A" button at the right time, to drawing an outline of your enemy.

Within the game you shall meet many people, ranging from a large dragon, to meeting your brother Luigi on a quest of his own. According to him, he received a letter from the "Pudding Kingdom" to find their beloved "Princess Éclair". But first he has to find the pieces of the "Magnificent Compass" of which the final piece is embedded in Princess Éclair's tiara. You are able to hear of his tale at the end of each chapter once you begin to play as Mario. He shall tell you tales of Race-Kart driving and Volcanoes, but one of the people always follows him for a reason (whether it is getting money for a crashed race kart or from stopping others from seeing Luigi in a wedding dress), it all makes up to one of the funniest things ever in a computer game.

This game is one of the best things I have played in all of my eleven years of gaming, and I bet that everyone who has played it will agree with me. Whether it's the often comical characters, or Luigi's sometimes disturbing tales, this game is pure gold!

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is out now for the Nintendo Gamecube in America for about $50