Japanese Charts: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Just About Beats Origami King

Let’s go it beat Origami King in opening week! Especially considering this is a remake and this late in Switch life cycle. Not to mention it’s 12+ in Japan, very impressive.

Good that this is selling better. Far superior game

I'm sure that people who hate Origami King will be very normal about this

PS5 sales is still good. 😊
Ooh... some little boost of PS4 sales too. 🙂

Wow something tells me that poor little girl is going to be gone from the chart by next month. Well it was nice knowing you Stellar Blade. The other poor girl (Princess Peach: Showtime!) is already gone.

Good. Hopefully selling more will provide the hint hint that Paper Mario should've remained RPG.

Hopefully this will lead to a proper sequel to "The Thousand Year Door". As much as I admire Nintendo and their ambition to try new ideas, often times that means they take out everything that made a game series great just to be "innovative".

Super Paper Mario remake when.

@PikminMarioKirby That's so odd, what has it done to get a 12+ rating?

@AnnoyingFrenzy it's been a week since this came out. So... years. Or probably never. There's a reason this got a remake and PM64 didn't.

"would have sold twice as many copies if it was 60fps!!!! Stick with your original Gamecube copy or play it on your 8K gaming rig!!!!"
Disgruntled commenter

Good results for an old game, otherwise a lil slow in the charts...time of the year methinks!

Also, Origami King was released during COVID when (presumably in Japan, too) more people were gaming.

I dunno, everything about TTYD screams to me that it's going to look jaw dropping on Switch 2. 4K, 60FPS, the lighting, reflections and shadows (maybe even ray traced?) Maybe out of the box?

Mmmm, yesss... that's what daddy likes to see. **rubs hands together maniacally, salivates a little bit**

@CactuarDavid Is that normal enough?

@Bret Never is certainly a long time, but I am nothing if not patient. War of attrition it is.

Oh, great. More incentive for TTYD fans to be obnoxious.

@RareFan same. i honestly commend how hard they tried to make the modern style work, TOK was honestly their best attempt despite the discourse it still caused

i hope this makes nintendo realize they dont have to limit themselves with arbitrary rules just for the sake of it. mixing both of TTYD and TOK's best qualities could make an incredible game

"Excellent!", as a perfectly executed action command would say.

Here's hoping for a Partners in Time remake next ...and a true follow- up to TTYD with expanded mechanics and an even grander scale after that with more crazy characters and deeper lore. Maybe bring in some more of the style from the modern Paper Mario games as well, though ...I wouldn't mind that. Just make a perfect blend. You've got all the ingredients.

These Switch sales figures are still absolutely bonkers. It's absolutely going to the top and probably stay there for years.

TTYD deserves to be played. So much better than all the other Paper Mario games that came after it.

I don't care if we don't get a direct sequel, but I'm truly hoping for at least another game that feels like a spiritual successor.

Not sure how many people are aware, but Big Fables is the best paper Mario game we've had since TTYD, so I'd strongly recommend that to lovers of the original paper Mario games.

@N00BiSH Not all TTYD fans are obnoxious, you shouldn’t generalize fans of a game. Most of ‘those’ TTYD fans are against the remake since it takes some pointers from Origami King which they hate. (I appreciate the changes personally)

However, this is definitely a W for TTYD as a whole, not specifically just the remake.

As much as I love Origami King (fantastic game!), I'm REALLY happy to see that this game is selling better. First, because it's a better game, best in the series and one of my favorite games. Second, because I honestly prefer the original battle system to the new ones, and I really want them to make a come back to the original gameplay, more RPG focused.

The next Paper Mario should have the gameplay system from TTYD, with the world setting, minigames and so from TOK. A mix of both experiences would be MAGIC.

@Riverlution Uffff... Not sure about that. Bug Fables is an ok game, but it's way worse than the Paper Mario series, imo. Like, what kind of levelling system is that...?? You can clearly see it's an indie game in all aspects. I'm happy for you if you enjoyed it (I didn't, I abandoned after about 15 hours), but I believe The Origami King is a much better Paper Mario experience, even if the battle system is quite different.

MK8D is basically a subscription service for Nintendo at this point since 2017.
Has it ever left the chart in Switch's history?

@Thomystic They were gaming doesn't necessarily mean they were buying. This chart only count physical sales and I doubt any large amount of people in Japan are going out to retail shelves to buy a physical copy of the Origami King at the time of the pandemic. Most people also lose their job or does remote work so not many would buy physical games at the time.

Why have Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Minecraft both been recorded as having the exact same 5,513,822 total sales? Clearly, either one of them is wrong or it’s one mighty coincidence!

So, this marks the end of the Tanabe's era of terror over Poer Mario. We won, indeed!

@The_Pixel_King yeah they always copy n paste from the wrong one. Heres what famitsu says (according to g-translate):

7th place (previously 5th place) Switch Minecraft 4,189 copies (total of 3,537,779 copies) / Microsoft Japan / June 21, 2018,

8th place (previously 9th place) Switch Super Smash Bros. SPECIAL 3,875 copies (total of 5,513,822 copies) / Nintendo / December 7, 2018,

@CactuarDavid The battle system sucked and there was no point as you got coins in the field. So why bother?

The King is dead, Long live the King!!! 👑

@rushiosan you do realize he was involved in the original game, right

@Not_Soos I respect the hustle

@N00BiSH Noting that he's listed as a supervisor for TTYD, rather than the producer credit he has for all the other titles. Who knows what the heck the actual difference is, but they both read like very influential roles to me.

Interestingly, there's no credit for him in the remake, just a special thanks. Supervisor is Ryota Kawade, and several other producers are listed.

@CactuarDavid honestly, i havent played it yet but i might once im done with ttyd, i love the paper mario vibes and im really dreading getting to the end of the game. i dont want it to be over and origami king sounds like it would hit the spot right now

@the_beaver
I’m so confused, Bug Fables has the exact same leveling system as TTYD.

TTYD fans have earned every right to dance on the grave of modern Paper Mario. An exceptionally charming and creative RPG tradition got gutted and replaced by 3 generations of sterile, brand-safe autopilot games.

I liked the recent Scott's Stash video "A Period of Boring Mario." The problem went well beyond Paper Mario, into the mainline New Super Mario Bros series (after the 1st one), and Mario's sports titles, even the Mario & Luigi remakes. He likened playing these games to looking at a Mario lunchbox, which I think is apt.

It's like Nintendo since the Wii were putting their character recognition above all else (perhaps building up to the Mario movie & theme parks), certainly above creativity in their games. Mario Odyssey and Wonder have corrected that, Paper Mario is hopefully to follow, and then maybe we can even get Mario sports games that don't suck.

As someone who liked but was also incredibly frustrated with Origami King, I've been loving the TTYD remake as my first time actually playing it. It's kept pretty much all of the original charm intact, added some nice features and QOL, but it's also brought in a lot of the things I did like from TOK (different battle themes for different areas! nailing the paper style!) [while keeping all the texture and aesthetics instead of flattening it all out in the name of papercraft!]

This pretty much IS approaching the best of both worlds, IMO, and I really hope they take notes going forward.

I do hope Princess Peach Showtime gets a second wind. Game is crazy good. Granted it was best seller in US in April on Switch (https://x.com/MatPiscatella/status/1795804494149660998) so the May US numbers should be interesting.

Edited for clarity and to add source.

Good numbers for TTYD. I enjoyed Origami King, so I don't mind where the series goes from here personally. Switch hardware still coming out on top after all these years is wild.

@Ryu_Niiyama I get the feeling it more than recouped its production costs easily. The big thing about this generation which I semi predicted and I’m happy came to be, was the resurgence of small-mid-tier games. Not everyone has time for a time sink. A handful of Dreamcast sized quick fixes are good medicine.

I was stuck for a minute wondering why you would compare those two games. Then I realised, technically, they are in the same series. Anyway, I really liked The Origami King. But not the same thing.

@Ryu_Niiyama "I do hope Princess Peach Showtime gets a second wind. Game is crazy good. Granted it was best seller in US in April so the May US numbers should be interesting."
What? Stellar Blade was the best seller in the US in April. Where did you get that from?
https://x.com/MatPiscatella/status/1795803862571376655
Princess Peach was 6th in March and 15th in April, far from 1st.

Of course it's digital sales are not included while other games had those included, but Nintendo doesn't share them so there's no way for you or anyone to know where it would have ranked with digital included, but definitely not 1st.

Anyways, Paper Mario did very well. Hopefully it has at least decent legs.

The price is a little bit high, hoping for a small price drop soon.

nintendo console sales down 69% year over year..i expect a price cut very soon..

@BTB20 I was talking switch games but I will update my post for clarity. Especially since I also got my numbers from Mat Piscatella.

https://x.com/MatPiscatella/status/1795804494149660998

@WiltonRoots I really hope so and agreed I have been hoping for a return for the smaller budget games for a while. And Good Feel has been busy! It’s weird, I have been pulling out older games with less of a time sink lately. I love long games, but woo I don’t have that kind of time.

@N00BiSH

We don't need an incentive.

@Uncle_Franklin I know, and THATS THE PROBLEM

@Ryu_Niiyama Thanks for clarifying.

@Riverlution "TTYD deserves to be played. So much better than all the other Paper Mario games that came after it."

I prefer Paper Mario Color Splash (as well as the original N64 game) by far. But it remains a good game in spite of its issues.

What I'd actually like to see is this:
either make Mario RPG 2, or Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass, to continue the turn based series, with Paper Mario ditching the awful battle systems of recent years and going full Zelda.

These figures are going to be skewed because a large number people buying up this game are going to be older like me and are thus more likely to prefer physical copies over digital ones.

@PikminMarioKirby @Rob3008 No explanation given, but I'm gonna assume the CERO reassessed their stance on game ratings and bumped a few of them.

Not only TTYD, Metroid Prime Remastered and Another Code: Recollection (well, the individual games) also had their Japanese rating bumped compared to their original versions. For some reason, Prime 1 was a CERO A (now a CERO B for Remastered), but Prime 2 and 3 have always been CERO B.
Meanwhile Mother 2 is still a CERO A game.

Origami King
...who?

Anyways (sarcasm aside), I'm glad to hear more good news regarding Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake. It's still my second favorite Paper Mario game behind the Nintendo 64 game, but I do hope that this remake sells further beyond to deliver the message to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems that Paper Mario needs to go back to what it does best at (and build on from there).

Just about beats - lol. So it didn't? Lol confusing

@JAGleics Was looking for this comment. "Just about beats" means it came close, but didn't quite do it. Glad someone else noticed the confusing article title lol.

@rushiosan

Origami and Color Splash are very fun with funny writing. The only Paper Mario's I haven't liked are Sticker Star and Paper Jam

@swoose I'm assuming the video is bashing new super mario bros wii? It's easy to tall big 15 years after the fact, but that was an amazing and inventive game at the time that everyone loved playing. The DS predecessor was also the first classic Mario game since super Mario world. I have nothing but love and respect for the NEW series (except 2)

Nintendo recently changed their releases to Thursdays instead of Friday though. So TTYDs 1st week had 4 days of sales to TOKs 3 though.

TOK did about 50k its 2nd week so that's about 7k per day the 2nd week. With TTYD outselling it by 5k with 1 extra day. I'd suspect it'll sell about 35k next week and fall behind TOK.

Not To say the Game Was Also Cheaper In Japan too ( 39.99$ in Japan vs 59.99$ in USA)

I don't think the difference is anything to write home about. And starting the article with 'victory' just seems like the sort of comment to stoke the flames among a divided fanbase already. Kind of sad to see, NL.

I honestly don't understand the hate for TOK. For me personally, it oozes charm. Why is it not enough to celebrate the good sales of the remake without invalidating those that enjoyed the recent entries?

The game's performance will be key on influencing the future direction of the series. Now that the new generation of Intelligent System's devs have experienced the "classic Paper Mario" knowledge, they just need the feedback.

Good to see completely balanced and fair reporting that just so happens to completely skip over the fact it had an entire extra day on the market so actually given the small difference in sales is almost certainly a weaker launch.

I'm sure there'll be a follow up when it's behind overall after week 2.

@Vegeta937 I cannot possibly fathom how you could interpret those words in that way

This is excellent news for future remakes and remasters of other forgotten gems.

@Otoemetry You mean the words "just about?" What's so hard to fathom?

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/just-about

@FirstEmperor I have never known "just about" to mean "nearly but not quite" and certainly followed by the word "beats" would imply the phrase meant it was close but still achieved, like the phrase "only just" would mean something was completed but done so very recently or by a small margin.

@FirstEmperor Thank you 😀

@Otoemetry Maybe it's a cultural thing 🤷