A new social media campaign spurred by an impassioned YouTube video hopes to convince Nintendo to revisit Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. The video has had enough of an impact to get the 15-year-old game trending on Twitter.
The Paper Mario franchise used to represent the pinnacle of Mario-Based RPGs. Folks who remember that time probably owned a Gamecube in 2004, and on it, they most likely played Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Many fans consider it the strongest example of JRPG-style storytelling in a Mario game, a title that has of late been attributed to the excellent Mario and Luigi series.
But now, thanks to YouTube puppet Arlo, Paper Mario fans have decided to rally on Twitter using the hashtag #RemasterThousandYearDoor. The goal of the hashtag is to convince Nintendo to bring the beloved RPG to the Switch in high-definition.
Those who haven’t played the game, or have only played the more recent entries in the franchise, might not understand the fuss over a series whose latest offerings have suffered middling reviews. They might not remember that, originally, Paper Mario evolved from the Super Nintendo classic Super Mario RPG, a game that Nintendo developed alongside Squaresoft (now Square Enix) with the goal of imbuing the Mario Universe with Final Fantasy-style storytelling and turn-based combat.
When it came time for Nintendo to make a new Mario RPG for the Nintendo 64, it no longer enjoyed a strong relationship with Square. So it developed the Paper concept and released the first Paper Mario game, which continued the JRPG trend. Then, in 2004, Nintendo released a sequel on the GameCube called Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
Like many game sequels, The Thousand-Year Door took what worked about the first Paper Mario and expanded upon it. It made the combat more fun and it made the story bigger and weirder, and fans loved it. However, subsequent Paper Mario games couldn’t keep the momentum. Nintendo changed the formula too much, and the fans lost interest.
Now, those same fans, motivated by Arlo, have taken to Twitter to show their support for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and to petition Nintendo for a remake. And there is precedent. As Arlo points out, Paper Mario: Color Splash producer Risa Tabata once said in an interview that they would consider a remaster of The Thousand-Year Door if enough fans asked for it.
While there is no way to quantify Nintendo’s definition of “enough fans,” it’s safe to say that some kind of statement has been made. Not only has the hashtag been trending on Twitter, but at the time of publication, the corresponding change.org petition has reached over 7,000 signatures.
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is available on GameCube (if you can find it).