Digital Foundry analyzes Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Nintendo returns to its classic library once again to revitalize a brilliant, older game with vastly superior visuals. However, a GameCube original that ran at 60 frames per second only runs at 30fps on Switch. Digital Foundry’s Tom Morgan stacks up the new version of the game up against the original in a new video - the visuals are obviously a massive improvement, but to what extent does Paper Mario need to be a 60fps game?

Here’s a breakdown of the finer points the Digital Foundry team discovered when putting Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door through its paces:

• reworked textures across almost every visible point in the world
• UI elements are reworked to suit modern TVs
• geometry is rebuilt from scratch for every level
• 2D sprites are swapped out for full 3D replacements
• two screen-space rendering techniques added
• screen space reflections (SSR) for reflective surfaces
• screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) to shade in the corners of the world
• uses much more detailed shadow maps all-round
• runs at a native 1600x900 while docked
• runs at 1138x640 in handheld
• limited anti-aliasing
• frame delivery is at least consistent at 33.3ms with almost no deviation
• lateral 2D motion while running through towns and dungeons