Nintendo has finally revealed the release dates for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door And Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, both dates were revealed in yesterday’s Mario Day presentation, which was, of course, on March 10, 2024.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was originally released on the GameCube in 2004. As the second Paper Mario title, it still retained the turn based RPG gameplay of the first game. This game allows you to play Peach and Bowser for brief sections aside from Mario, as the gang faces a new antagonist unique to the Paper Mario universe.
This game has obviously aged better than the Nintendo 64 original, but even in its original release, reviewers had some criticism for what they perceived to be the GameCube’s shortcomings in graphics and performance. This remake will be the first time that the game sees a rerelease of any kind, and given that many fans consider it the best Paper Mario game ever, and some call it the best Mario RPG ever, Nintendo needs to do this remake right on all fronts.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is releasing on May 23, 2024.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 was originally released in North America under the title Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, on 2013. While this is a considerably newer release than Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the impetus for an HD remake is just as clear given that this game originally came out on the 3DS.
This is itself a late sequel, as the first Luigi’s Mansion came out on the original GameCube all the way back in 2001. The reason this came out on the 3DS and not the Wii U is a curious quirk of its game design: Shigeru Miyamoto, who was directly involved in this title as a producer, wanted to make the game playable in 3D from the start.
For the first game, they simply chose not to implement it because 3D televisions were not widely adopted. For this title, they could implement the 3D on the 3DS’ own screens. This game was actually developed in collaboration with Next Level Games, who also worked on 2019’s Luigi’s Mansion 3, an original title for the Nintendo Switch. So we can fairly expect that this should be a decent port, even if they won’t be able to carry over some features from the 3DS version.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is releasing on June 27, 2024.
For both games, Nintendo could and likely will make changes for QOL improvements, and to accommodate the new controller options. It would be great if Nintendo had other surprises in store for their releases, but both titles look to be a great way to bring back these classic games for new gamers to try out, and older players to relive old times.
