Summary
While good writing is a staple for many RPGs,Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Doorstands out as one of the best-written offerings the plumber’s adventures has seen for many reasons. From allowing players to solve a mystery on a train through character interaction as one of its sections, to serving players a lengthy story that deals with what led to the current events filled with countless plot twists,Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Dooris a unique experience that has been long overdue a second chance.
It’s for this very reason thatPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Dooris a fan favorite, but that doesn’t mean that it’s perfect, as a few bits of dialogue were lost to glitches and translation errors when it was first released in English. The recently released Switch version fixes these issues and corrects the mistranslations, with many parts of the dialogue being localized differently. One of these was in regard to Vivian, who joins the party in chapter 4 after being bullied by her sisters for being herself in a way originally censored by the first release.
Vivian is Openly Transgender in the Paper Mario: Thousand-Year Door Remake
In the original release ofPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Vivian was simply bullied for her looks by Beldam and Marylin, but only in the English translation. Every other localization of the game, including the original Japanese version, featured Vivian discussing how she had “the body of a man but the heart of a girl.” This stuck with many fans and the reason for why the dialogue was changed was debated for many years. In the remake for Switch, however,Vivian is finally said outright to be a transwomanin the English localization.
This has reasonably made a lot of fans very happy, including some of Nintendo’s LGBT fans, who thought the fact that Vivian’s gender identity was removed for English-speaking audiences was disingenuous. While it’s true that the Japanese version used outdated — if not outright wrong — words to describe who Vivian was, there was still no debate that she was meant to be trans. Regardless of the reason as to why this happened in the first place, allowing Vivian to properly be herself isa great move forPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and even Nintendo, at the end of the day.
The Good That Comes From Fixing Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door’s Previous Error
No matter what the context of the change in Vivian’s dialogue was, the game still fixes what was a localization error. There are a number ofscenes in thePaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Doorremake that have been changedto better reflect the original Japanese version in English and Vivian’s storyline just so happens to be corrected as part of it. In terms of the storyline between The Three Shadows, previously The Shadow Sirens, it most certainly reads better than Beldam hating Vivian for just being ugly. It also helps Nintendo give proper representation in a franchise where trans characters have been mistreated in the past, serving as a great change overall.
Previously, the Japanese words used to classify Vivian left room for debate if she was really trans or not, and it appears that Nintendo knew this, as even the Japanese version has been updated to feature more inclusive language. Now with the English version showcasing the same fact about the party member of shadow, there’s no more room for debate as each and every version of the game makes it clear that she’s a trans woman. It’s most certainly a victory for the people at Intelligent Systems who clearly care about portraying a trans character properly, as well as the localizers, andeven the LGBT gamerswho have waited 20 years for this mistake to be fixed.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (2024)
WHERE TO PLAY
Join Mario and friends on an epic paper adventure: A classic story unfolds on the Nintendo Switch system.Collect the Crystal Stars before the bad guys do: The X-Nauts are after the treasure behind the Thousand-Year Door! With a map from Princess Peach—and the help of a few locals—Mario must journey through a colorful world made of paper to find it first.Surprises abound in this deep and engaging tale, where everyone’s got something to say and it’s often not what you’d expect! Here are just a few of the colorful characters you’ll encounter along the way.Master your badges and timing-based attacks to impress the audience in a theatrical twist on turn-based RPG combat. Make use of all the abilities that come with being cursed—er, conveniently made of paper—like folding into a plane to cross big gaps or turning sideways to slip through narrow openings.
