7 beginners tips before starting Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year-Door

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has been remade for the Nintendo Switch, and while there are a few changes, it’s mostly the same game, with a beautiful new coat of paint.

If you’re new to the world of Mario RPGs or maybe you remember playing the original game 20 years ago (yeesh!), then we have a handful of tips that are helpful for starting the remake.

Below, we list a few tips to make sure you have an easy time starting out in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

Don’t forget to pick up enemy drops

After you beat an enemy, you don’t automatically collect the items from the enemy. Rather, the items will just explode onto the floor where the enemy was. Make sure to actually pick up the coins and items before you skitter off to your next fight.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Investigate everything

Since the game is made of, well, paper, that means most of the décor and environment is flat. There might be a Star Piece or badge behind those paper-thin barrels or that bush in the foreground. You should also smush every bush with your hammer to find items, coins, and other useful things.

Don’t dwell too much on seemingly secret paths

See a dog-eared paper covering something but you can’t grab it? Or maybe you see a huge crack in the wall but you hammer isn’t strong enough to smash it down? Don’t dwell on these and come back later. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock more party members and more abilities that will take care of these things easy-peasy, so don’t bother trying to grab that loose paper now.

Take advantage of letting your partner go first

While you can control which enemy Mario and his friends jump on, some attacks (like Mario’s hammer or Koops’ shell) can only attack the first monster on the left. That being said, you’ll want to strategize who gets to attack first when you’re against a variety of enemies. Maybe Koops can kill the first enemy with his shell, but he won’t be able to reach the second enemy, who flies and thus dodges his shell — it’s in cases like this where you’ll want to do a little switcheroo.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Watch your item count

You can only hold a few items at a time and if you try to pick up an extra item, you’ll need to drop or use one of your items to get it. You can deposit extra items in storage via shopkeepers, so make sure to drop off any extra mushrooms or inn tickets that are cluttering your inventory.

Pay attention to that dialogue — or don’t and hear out Goombella

If you caught yourself dozing off and spamming the A button during one of Professor Frankly’s spiels, don’t worry. Goombella will provide hints on who to talk to or where to go next, if you press ZL.

While Professor Frankly will typically give you an assist on how to get to the next areas, sometimes impatience gets the best of us. It happens.

Try everything everywhere

If you’re stuck in a dungeon in what seems to be a dead end, try everything. Use Flurrie’s wind on everything, try pushing objects around, and hammer everything in the room. Some things, like the aforementioned peeling paper walls and huge Xs on the floor, are more obvious hints as to what to do, but not everything is as simple as it may seem.

For more Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door guides, see how to get Ms. Mowz, learn all Thwomp quiz answers, and check out Great Boggly Tree walkthrough. You can also see where to find all Star Pieces and all Shine Sprites.