Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Beginner’s Guide

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is one of the most interesting titles to ever be released on the Nintendo GameCube. This title added to its predecessor, Paper Mario, and upped the antics. Along with new partners, the game introduced a never-before-seen location in the Mario world. There were more bosses, many of them with new challenges, and more party members. Mario also made use of the paper elements by learning special abilities. This sees him turn into everything from a boat to a plane to traverse dungeons. Our Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Beginner’s Guide sets you on the path for greatness by giving you all the inside tips to excel at the game.

Grinding Out Levels

One of the first things you will notice is this isn’t your traditional platformer. It’s a turn-based JRPG. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door pits Mario and his partners into battles against legions of enemies. You will start at level one with only a single partner and upgraded abilities. The game has a level cap of 100, and you will need to grind in order to survive. Along the way to dungeons, and while inside of them, you will encounter enemies. By leaving an area and then returning to it, you can respawn the enemies for infinite grinding. Be aware that once you are at a high enough level, lower-level enemies will only give you a single star point or experience point.

Each time you level up, you choose which stat you want to raise. You have health, flower power, and badge points. Health is important, but you will need to balance the other two as well. Badges give you special abilities like being able to see an enemy’s health and having a high chance of an attack missing. Flower Points allow you to use your special abilities that deal more damage. It’s best to rotate through each option as you level to keep a fair balance. From time to time, though, you may find yourself investing a bit more into BP for an extra edge.

Using The Badge System

The badge system is undeniably one of the most important parts of the game. This is due to the lack of equipable armor and weapons; badges are what give you special abilities. As mentioned above, you have badge points or BP. The more you level up, the more you can increase the amount of badges you have equipped. Each badge has a BP requirement that determines whether it can be equipped or not. In addition, some badges won’t be useful during some fights. For example, Ice Power makes Mario immune to damage from jumping on fire enemies. This badge is one of the best in the game, as long as there’s an enemy that is on fire around.

On the other side, some badges will work all the time. Peek-a-Boo allows you to see enemies’ health. While you may want to forgo it once you fight an enemy or boss for the first time, it can help you make critical decisions at the end of a battle. Some badges can help you win crowd appeal or give you a chance of attacks missing. You will always want to collect badges, whether it be finding them or buying them. This way, you can always have access to the strategy that you need for upcoming battles.

Inventory Management

Inventory management is always a pain, but Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door will truly test your patience. The game only gives you ten slots of inventory space, and for most players, that’s all they have to work with. You can get an additional 10 slots for a total of 20 if you can get the Strange Sack. The Strange Sack is on floor 50 of the Pit of 100 Trials, and it’s quite a bit of effort to reach. For most players, their inventory will be filled up in Chapter 1, and it can be hard to know what items to keep.

It’s best to keep an assortment of health and FP-boosting items and switch them out for a better version throughout the game. To save even more space, you should invest in cooking. There are many cooked items like the Choco Cake that restore both. This will help you utilize more of your inventory space and keep a few WOW Blocks for those pesky turtle enemies.

Partner Up

One of the other major parts of the battle system is knowing what partner to use. For the most part, the partner you get in each chapter will be a huge help. Outside of the main dungeons and their bosses, you may find yourself at a loss for which partners are best. Each one has their own special moves and with that perks. For instance, Flurrie has the ability to blow enemies away, while Vivian can hide you in shadows. Both of these moves are useful in just about any regular battle, but when it comes to a boss, Flurrie won’t be able to send them away.

Likewise, Vivian is great for helping you avoid damage, but this move won’t win the battle for you. You will want to think about which partner you are carrying with you, and if they are going to be helpful against the enemy types that you are seeing.

Know Your Enemy

Every enemy in the game is a bit different, and will take different tactics to beat. You will need to flip turtles to make them vulnerable, but jumping on spike enemies will only damage Mario. It’s up to you to learn what each enemy does and how to best avoid it. While some attacks are similar, others can be annoying, especially if it has status effects. When status effects pop up, they are serious and can drastically change the tide of battle in the enemy’s favor.

Knowing who you are going to be fighting and learning their moves is crucial. Later in the game, many enemies will have a stronger version with a different coloring. By remembering what attacks they have, you will have a much easier time getting through the last challenges of the game.