The Stages of Grief, Reversed
Sometimes an event comes around in your life that is transformative. It catches you by surprise and affects you deeply. That event sticks with you, and you with it, and, though the emotions and memory of it wanes with time, it lingers. It becomes a part of you, for better or worse.
Euphoria. It can be thought of as an unhealthy “high” similarly as depression is thought of as an unhealthy “low,” both due to a state of mind that is unrealistic. It can also be thought of as a natural and healthy response to events. I’ve found the feeling to involve thoughts and feelings paralleling grief and sadness; for example, I’m in awe and wonderment while trying to process whether an amazing event just occurred and how it occurred, which may be similar to denial and bargaining. What is this event? It’s the actual core of this blog post: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is getting a remake for the Nintendo Switch.
I didn’t think it would happen, I really didn’t. Sure, I wished and held onto hope. It’s been two decades since this glorious game first released, two dismal decades that saw the franchise steadily nosedive with Nintendo inexplicably holding course. But… now there’s this. It brings so many questions. I know it can be a mistake to look a gift horse in the mouth, but… that TTYD was revealed, the way it was revealed, it more or less proves Nintendo had heard fans. So then how could they have caused the franchise to fall so far for so long? Well, again, it’s probably a mistake to try and understand. I can be satisfied that they made a series of mistakes, and I can guess that maybe the series of mistakes felt like the right thing to Nintendo. Maybe they still think they’re right and this TTYD remake is just throwing a bone to the OG Paper Mario fans with the additional benefit of easy money.
BUT IT HAPPENED!
The best game in the Paper Mario franchise is getting a remake. I have to keep repeating it myself since I still can’t believe it. And it looks good. Fantastic, even. The ugly white outlines around characters in the newer games are gone! It’s beautiful. Wonderful partners, wonderful characters, wonderful designs, a wonderful world, a wonderful story… they’re all BACK! Paper Mario is BACK!
All right, I should wrangle up this euphoria. I don’t actually think the franchise is seeing a return to form. Nintendo reinvented the wheel and, as battered and broken as it is, I don’t believe for a second there’ll ever be a new good Paper Mario game. That hope died when Color Splash was announced. A remake/remaster of the original two games was the only thing I dared hope for. Could sales of this TTYD remake send a message to Nintendo to make better Paper Mario games? Maybe. Could outpouring of support for the game’s release cause Nintendo to make better Paper Mario games? Maybe. But I don’t believe it, nor do I care. Not anymore. Like I said, that hope died. (P.S. I’d love to be wrong about this years later)
But the TTYD remake is REEEEAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!!
Speculation time. The TTYD remake announcement showed a purple toad in Glitzville that appears to be a new character. If new characters are part of the game, that could mean even more juicy story and side content. My immediate thought is that the Trouble Center may get new quests that could also feature some new characters, or some old ones that played less of a part in the original game. Could this remake include entirely new areas? Maybe there are new badges as well. I’m not sure… but a TTYD remake is coming AHHHHHHHHHH!
Something else surprising is that I’ve seen a good number of people (fans of the franchise) mention how they’ve never played TTYD. I’ve no clear idea what this means for internet debates between the franchise’s fans. Paper Mario fans are often thought of as whiny and implacable, so anything could happen. Maybe once (if) newer fans play this they’ll get some perspective of what was lost. Maybe they’ll understand older fans a bit better. Who knows?
