Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

I didn't play World of Warcraft this weekend, but about 10 hours of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door on the Gamecube. I finished the epilogue and the first chapter, plus some side-quests, and am now at the start of the second chapter. Part of the fun is certainly just playing something different, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that in spite of the childish look, Paper Mario is more intellectually challenging than World of Warcraft, or other MMORPG.

In Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door you play the title hero, the world famous plumber Mario, who like the other characters in that world is basically two-dimensional in a three-dimensional world. Well, he does have a third dimension, but that one is paper-thin, thus the name. Most of the time you just see Mario and the other characters from the front, behaving like 2D sprites, but you can move in all three dimensions. And during the game Mario learns some new abilities which are based on his paperyness, like the ability to turn sideways and slip through bars, or the ability to fold himself into a paper airplane and fly.

Mario is not alone in this game, but he is gathering other party member as the game progresses. There is always only one active other party member, but you can switch between them. That is necessary, because all the other characters have different special abilities, and only by using these abilities can you overcome the challenges of the game. While the game is fairly linear with its "chapters", you can go back to places you already visited, and by using the new abilities that you gained, or which you got from a new party member, open up new areas. All very well done.

Combat is basically turn-based, although you can do extra damage, and prevent some damage done to you, by pressing the right button at exactly the right moment. Mario has two basic attacks, jumping on enemies or hitting them with a hammer. Some enemies can be hurt by either attack, but some wear a spear or some spikes, and if you jump on them you get hurt. And some enemies are immune to the hammer or other ground-based attacks, because they are flying. During the game you find "badges", some of which allow you to perform special attacks when equipped, like jumping on several enemies in a row. All simple enough, but already more complicated than the typical MMORPG combat. When did your MMORPG warrior last change his weapon from a blade to a blunt weapon, because the skeleton he was fighting took less damage from sharp weapons? WoW has very few monsters with immunities, and then it is often things like immunity to physical damage, or immunity to magical damage, which simply makes some character classes useless, instead of forcing them to attack differently.

Mario is traveling through a colorful world with many obstacles. Some minor "jump and run" is required, but Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door isn't really a platformer game. But it does have features of that sort of games, like switches to hit, keys to collect to open doors, and other simple puzzles like that. Again that is more than the typical MMORPG has. I know exactly 1 secret door in World of Warcraft, opened by clicking on a torch, and the door only leads to one extra boss mob which isn't even needed to complete the dungeon. Where are the places where several people have to stand on switches at the same time to open a door? Where are the puzzles in MMORPG? Well, WoW has Dire Maul North, which does have some puzzle elements, but even those are optional, and you can chose not to do the tribute puzzle and just kill everybody.

What MMORPG do have instead of puzzles is a world which you can learn about. I sometimes call MMORPG "knowledge-based". The longer you play, the more you know about what items can be found where, what level of monsters are in which region, or even how to solve a quest whose explications aren't too specific. The disadvantage of that is that much of this knowledge can't be achieved by logical thinking. You know the level 12 wolves are in that corner, because you passed by them earlier. If you don't know, you surf the internet for a database like Thottbot or Allakhazam, where all that knowledge is stored. And not everything is logical, for example to get wool you need to kill humanoids of a certain level in WoW, while sheep only rarely give wool, and then only if you have the skinning skill. Of course if MMORPG had puzzles, the solution for all the puzzles could probably be found in the databases as well, but nevertheless I think online role-playing games could require a bit more thinking.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:07 AM Permanent Link