'Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door' Sets the Standard for Classic Game Remakes

Limitations can, paradoxically, be a boon for artists. Such was the case with the original Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64. The system could handle only so many polygons, and it's difficult to make a collection of polygons cute, so Nintendo opted to design a world around simple, flat planes. A paper RPG brought to life, the game had a design that was so iconic that it has stood the test of time. Surely, a modern high-definition remake would undermine that, right? If it hadn't been for the 2019 remake of 1993's The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, it would've been easy to doubt that a graphical upgrade could improve an older classic.