Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a video game for the GameCube, and a sequel to Paper Mario which was released three years prior to this game's release. In the game, you take the role of Mario in paper form. Like all Mario RPGs, the game is also has more of a storyline than most Mario games.

Gameplay
Mario's options when battling are jumping, using his hammer, to use special items, using special moves, etc. The partners also have their own unique abilities such as Yoshi being able to eat the opponents, Goombella's ability to give you information on every enemy, and Vivian's ability to hide Mario. You are only able to have one partner out during battle, but you can switch them.

When not battling, each partner also has special and unique abilities - Koops can use his shell to hit or acquire distant items and even hold in place while Mario gets into position, Yoshi will allow Mario to run faster and jump farther while being ridden, and Flurrie can blow a giant gust of air to reveal secret passageways.

Each chapter has a Crystal Star to find.After you finish a chapter, you are able to play as Princess Peach and then Bowser. First is the Princess's, where you travel through the mothership talking to TEC and sending messages to Mario. Bowser's is more of a platform based minigame where you go across Super Mario Bros. inspired levels as none other than Bowser himself.

Beginning
The beginning of the game takes place at Mario and Luigi's house. Luigi walks in with a letter from Princess Peach. In the letter Peach writes of a map she found in a town called Rogueport. She states that it is a treasure map and would like Mario to accompany her to find the treasure. Mario heads off to Rogueport on a boat. He wakes up on the boat and sees Rogueport off in the distance. As he gets off on the port he looks around. He eventually finds a Goomba named Goombella in trouble. She has been asking around about a treasure map(which Mario has). A suspicious character named Lord Crump asks her where the map is. She doesn't know. So Crump and his little army are about to attack her. She sees Mario and hides behind him. She says that Mario will protect her. This infuriates Crump and he attacks Mario. A battle begins and ends with Mario as the winner. Crump then orders all of his soldiers to attack Mario. Fortunately Mario and Goombella sneak away and into town. Mario and Goombella talk to each other. Goombella introduces herself as a student of the University of Goom. Mario introduces himself and says he is looking for Princess Peach. Goombella is amazed to meet Mario as he is a famous hero. Then Toadsworth greets Mario and they talk. Toadsworth states that the princess has gone missing. Mario explains to Goombella that Peach had sent him a treasure map and they were to meet in Rogueport to seek the treasure. Goombella asks to see the map, which Mario shows. She is amazed at the map as it is the map she was seeking. She asks Mario to follow her to see her old professor, Professor Frankly. As they visit him in his house Mario introduces himself and shows Frankly the treasure map. Frankly states that this an old map that leads to the Thousand Year Door at the bottom of Rogueport. He states that behind the Door is an old legendary treasure from 1,000 years ago. He also states that whoever uses the map at the Door the image of a Crystal Star will appear on the map. He also says the Crystal Stars are magical items used to open the Thousand Year Door. Each Crystal Star that is shown by putting the map to the Door and a Crystal Star will appear on the map. So they head in a pipe into Rogueport Sewers. After much travel down into the sewers and from the help from a Black Chest that gives Mario the ability to turn into a paper airplane, they reach the Thousand Year Door. Mario stands on a pedestal and takes out the treasure map. A light illuminates the pedestal and the map. The Diamond Star appears on the map in a castle in a meadow field. The party heads back to Frankly's house. There Professor Frankly states that the first Crystal Star is in a place called Petal Meadows. He says to get there they have to go through a pipe in Rogueport Sewers. Mario and Goombella go through the sewers and encounter a huge Blooper. They defeat it and head into a pipe leading to Petal Meadows. This then begins Chapter 1.

Chapter 1
Mario and Goombella arrive in Petal Meadows. Goombella compliments on how beautiful it looks. After a couple of steps they hear a loud roar and look up to see a huge, red dragon fly into a castle. Goombella is startled at the sight. Mario and Goombella walk through Petal Meadows and come into a town. A good Koopa greets them and says welcome to Petalburg. Mario and Goombella tell the Koopa of the dragon they saw. The Koopa is shocked and tells them that the dragon is a creature called Hooktail. Mario then asks the Koopa of the Crystal Star. He doesn't know anything about a Crystal Star and tells them to visit the mayor. Mario and Goombella greet the old Koopa. He tells Mario that Hooktail has something that looks like a star. The old Koopa goes on to say that the only way to get to Hooktail Castle is to get the Stone Keys from Schwonk's Fortress. Mario and Goombella head east outside of town to this fortress. They fight monsters in the ruins of it. Eventually they reach the main part of Schwonk's Fortress and sees a Thwomp statue. Immediately the statue comes alive. The Thwomp talks to Mario and welcomes him to the 37th Annual Quirk Quiz. Mario has to answer 5 out of 8 questions correct in order to proceed. Mario wins and the statue turns back to normal revealing a pipe. Mario and Goombella go down the pipe. There are two paths in the underground cavern. One left, and the other right. Both ways lead Mario to the Stone Keys and both with a battle with a Fuzzy. When Mario comes back into the room with the pipe after retrieving the Stone Keys a Yellow Fuzzy is waiting. Mario and Goombella fight him and his friends and win the victory. After Mario and Goombella leave Petalburg a Koopa encounters them. The Koopa introduces himself and says his name is Koops. Koops pleads with Mario and asks if he can go with Mario to slay Hooktail. Koops explains that his father went to slay Hooktail for its bad deeds. But his father never returns. Mario and Goombella agree and he joins the party. His girlfriend Koopie Koo thinks otherwise and attacks them briefly. Mario and the party head west. They come up to two rocks with carvings in them. They place in the Stone Keys and writing appears on the middle stone. Two switches appear on each side. The switches have to be hit at the same time. Mario uses Koops' ability to spin in his shell and keeps him spinning in one spot. Mario releases Koops which hits one switch while Mario hits the other with his hammer, both at the same time. A pipe appears. They go into the pipe and enter Hooktail's Castle. After defeating and dodging many enemies like Dry Bones, and solve puzzles Mario and party reach a dungeon room. The room contains a Black Chest like from before. After much pleading the Chest finally convinces Mario to find the key. He does and releases the curse. Which gives Mario the ability to turn sideways like paper and slip through cage bars and jail bars. After much searching they finally reach a treasure room. Mario and party are greeted by a female mouse thief named Ms. Mowz. She tells Mario and the party that a badge somewhere in the castle gives the sound of a cricket, which Hooktail is afraid of. Mario and party later reach the top of the castle roof and climb a tower. They enter the tower door and meet Hooktail. Hooktail looks at Mario and party and says he will eat them. The battle begins. Hooktail will either stomp or breathe fire at Mario and party. If Mario finds the badge he can hit Hooktail with his hammer giving off the sound of a cricket. This makes Hooktail dizzy as she does not like crickets. After a while Hooktail asks Mario to stop and gives requests which Mario rejects all. Then Hooktail eats half of the crowd and regains some of her HP. But she is defeated. After, Koops is happy that they defeated Hooktail, but is still sad because of his dad. Unexpectedly, Hooktail spits out a blue shell from her mouth, and turns out to be Koops' dad. His dad goes to say that he was fighting Hooktail and when he was going to land the last hit, Hooktail tricked him and gobbled him up. He had been in Hooktail's stomach ever since. He then reveals that he found a diamond shaped star in Hooktail's stomach and gives it to Koops. Koops then gives it to Mario saying that it was what he was looking for. Chapter 1 ends and the first Crystal Star, the Diamond Star is found.

Intermission
Peach is shown to be held captive at an unknown hideout by a group of strangers. Their leader Sir Grodus asks Peach where is the map. Peach leeps saying she doesn't know. Grodus says that we X-Nauts are not kind. An X-naut soldier appears on a computer screen. He reports to Grodus that Hooktail did have a Crystal Star and is now in the hands of a man with a moustache and wearing overalls. Peach is suprised and accidentally says Mario's name. Grodus hears this and is supprised. Grodus goes on to say that this man might have the Map and his next destination might be The Great Tree, a place where the X-nauts are looking for a Crystal Star. Grodus then calls in the three Shadow Sirens. He tells them to ambush this moustached man. Peach is then taken back to a room. There she wonders if she will be free again. She then decides to take a shower. After she gets out she notices that a door opened by itself. Intrigued she goes out of it and walks down the hall. Another door opens. She wonders what is with the crazy doors. She walks in and sees a giant computer. Much to her surprise the computer talks to her. It says that its name is Tech XX and it is the strongholds main computer. Peach then talks back saying hi in a suprised voice. The computer calls Peach by name and says she is being held here under Grodus' orders. Peach says that big dome headed thing, he's awful. The computer tells her to call him Tech for short and tells her not to worry. Tech then questions her and says he saw an image of her and an error ocurred.l Peach is startled at this and thinks Tech loves her. Tech asks what is this "love". Peach is suprised that Tech does not know about love. Peach says that love is being with someone that you think about. Peach then asks if she is able to contact anybody since she can't escape. Tech lets her use its keyboard to send a message to Mario. She does and she is asked to go back to her room. She does thinking of a new friend she just made.

Other games in the series

 * Paper Mario - Paper Mario is the first game in the series that was released on the Nintendo 64 three years prior to this game's release.
 * Super Paper Mario - Super Paper Mario is the third in the series that was released on the Wii three years after this game's release.

Trivia

 * A Toad in the game claims he loves playing Paper Mario, Paper Mario: the Thousand-Year Door (and even claims it has a cool ending), and Fire Emblem. In the end, he rumors of an upcoming game called Super Paper Mario.
 * This is one of the few instances where Yoshi actually speaks
 * During the battle with Rawk Hawk, Mario is sometimes referred to by a fan as Jumpman, his name in Donkey Kong.
 * In addition, there is also a badge known as Jumpman.
 * There are a few fourth wall breaks throughout the game.
 * The Bowser minigames are based on levels from Super Mario Bros.
 * Mario receives email on a device that resembles a Game Boy Advance SP,called a Mailbox SP
 * He also has two ringtones. One is the intro to Super Mario World and the other is the ice world from Super Mario Bros. 3.
 * The way the areas appear on the magical map, especially the first area, resembles how the scenery would change if certain levels were completed in Super Mario World.
 * The spin jump originated in Super Mario Word, but in this game is different from the original in that it is vertical instead of horizontal and also results in a butt pound whereas the original was more for breaking multiple blocks at once and also killed enemies.
 * A badge is in the game to make Mario able to wear Wario's clothes.
 * If one wears the W Emblem badge and the L Emblem badge, Mario will wear Waluigi's clothes. The L Emblem badge, respectively, will make Mario wear Luigi's clothes.
 * Many characters reference the original Paper Mario.
 * When Doopliss is battling as Mario, he refers to himself as Super Mario.
 * Upon entering the dressing room on the moon base via the ceiling grate, once you leave the dressing room, you and your partner will be in 8-bit accompanied by the original Super Mario Bros. music and sound effects. Mario, however, will be unable to use any special abilities or his hammer. You return to normal upon leaving the room.
 * A Gameboy Classic is used in the casino for displaying stats.
 * Mario is able to use the hammer from Donkey Kong. It is later upgraded to the Golden Hammer from Wrecking Crew.