The beloved GameCube classic from 2004, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, was deemed worthy of a new release on the Nintendo Switch a full 20 years later. Original developer Intelligent Systems is at the helm here, significantly reworking the visuals, revamping the soundtrack and adding a pack of extras via a new gallery section. It’s a suitably lavish upgrade for a game that still holds up today, with its charming paper-and-card aesthetic, interesting combat system, and stunning level design. Unfortunately, the visual upgrades come with a sharp reduction in frames per second, with the original goal of 60 frames per second on the GameCube dropping to 30 frames per second on the Switch. Was it the right move or is the cut too serious? We tested the introductory chapters to make an early judgment.
To cut to the chase, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is one of the most unique RPGs to hit the Switch. Its paper aesthetic is a big part of its appeal, of course, and feeds directly into the game’s design. After Mario lands in the first hub, Rogueport, each location you enter has a background that unfolds and collapses like a pop-up book. Everything is shown in full 3D, but the conceit of building the world out of board-thin material creates this beautiful diorama effect. It’s a miniature, paper-based playground that operates according to its own logic, letting you twist, bend, and bend its world—and even Mario himself. The game’s aesthetics and design blend into a beautiful cohesive whole.
This visual overhaul of the Switch Edition goes much further than I expected, though it largely retains the core gameplay loop, level layout, puzzles, and dialogue of the GameCube original. Textures on almost every visible point in the world on the Switch version have been reworked, while UI elements have been reworked to suit modern TVs. Geometry is rebuilt from scratch for each level – even 2D sprites are swapped out for full 3D replacements, often with the aim of accentuating the cardboard cut-out effect. A huge amount of extra detail has been built in. Most importantly, what’s here is still true to the spirit of the original, even if the textures and geometry have been redesigned.
Bringing the Thousand Year Door into the modern age, we have two screen space rendering techniques added to the Switch release: screen space reflections (SSR) for reflective surfaces and screen space occlusion (SSAO) for shading in the corners of the world. Neither technique was present in the GameCube version, but the Switch release puts a lot of effort into using both new visual features.
SSR is used extensively around the world to give wood, grass and stone a glossy sheen, with Mario, his allies and background elements often visible in the reflection. However, the logic where RSB is applied is unusual and not always in line with the topic of the paper. Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes it feels tight. You might not expect an imaginary varnished look over green grass, for example, but it rings true for wooden shop floors. I would suggest that the original GameCube version, without the SSR, often looks more ‘on paper’ because of this. Still, it’s a significant change, and where it works, it makes the most of the three-generation jump to Switch hardware.
SSAO, ambient shading, also has a big visual impact – especially in shots of interiors with limited light, such as Professor Frankly’s study. By comparison, the GameCube original looks much lighter, with the absence of any real shadow elements other than simple character shadow maps. For that matter, the Switch uses much more detailed shadow maps throughout. Every shadow from characters and objects has a nice diffused edge. Even objects in the environment, such as floating platforms, benefit from accurate dynamic shadows and improved lighting, and light shafts are even added to some scenes.
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To cram in all those visuals — updated textures, lighting, shadows, SSR, and more — the Switch runs at its native 1600×900 resolution while docked. In manual mode, this drops to a lower native figure of 1138×640. As we’ve often come to expect from Nintendo titles, there’s limited anti-aliasing here, so you may notice a slight shimmer over white character outlines. Despite the relatively low internal resolution numbers here, the game still looks beautiful on modern screens – it’s a proper widescreen adaptation, with a refined UI and text to boot.
Finally, let’s address that drop from 60fps on GameCube to 30fps on Switch. The visual upgrades are extensive and generous, but the performance cost is noticeable. The question is: is this too much of a sacrifice for improved visuals or a reasonable compromise to run the game at this level of visual fidelity? In the developer’s defense, frame delivery is at least consistent at 33.3ms with almost no deviation, delivering a near-locked reading of 30fps during our testing.
Looking back at the GameCube original, it’s refreshing to see the game running at 60 frames per second. The requirements of this version are much lower, of course, it runs at a native resolution of 480p, and it’s worth remembering that the GameCube was a more powerful home console than Nintendo’s handhelds at the time. It was perfectly optimized for 60fps for its day and target specs.
Moving to the Switch today, running at 30fps affects the game in two key ways. First, there’s side-to-side 2D movement as you run through towns and dungeons. Playing on the Switch’s smaller screen in portable mode, the 30fps update rate honestly doesn’t stand out that much. However, scaled up on a larger TV, there is a noticeable difference in the fluidity of movement compared to the original, running through the game’s dungeons, towns and meadows. On the other hand, the drop to 30fps isn’t as obvious in combat, given the fixed camera position, but gameplay requires some measure of timing – for example, pressing the A button while punching to add a critical hit. In general, most attacks require holding and releasing inputs at the right moment to do the most damage.
Inevitably, the 60 fps of the GameCube original gives you faster visual response to react to these time-sensitive attacks. The mitigating factor here is that Nintendo’s timeline for getting these abilities is often quite generous. I haven’t had any issues with raids so far on the Switch, but longtime fans of the game may go through an adjustment period.
Retaining the 60fps of the GameCube original would of course be ideal, but what we’re left with is still a superb adaptation – Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door has never looked better. I’m also surprised by the extent of the visual overhaul. Intelligent Systems really exceeded my expectations for a Switch update in remaking so much of the game from scratch. Even if there is a compromise in performance, it can’t be faulted for its ambition.
For context, this new Paper Mario remake has a few parallels to the Switch release of Super Mario RPG. John covered it late last year and found it to be an impressive full 3D remake of the pre-rendered SNES original, albeit with an unlocked framerate that could drop from 60fps to the mid-30s at certain times – and maybe would benefit from a similar 30fps frame rate cap. Considering this, the decision of developers Thousand Year Door Intelligent Systems to opt for a locked 30fps is understandable. Giving users choice might be best of all, but we’ll never be too upset about consistent performance.