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Original
- Blooper:
- At the start of the game, when Luigi checks the mail, there's a brief moment where the L on his cap is mirrored
. - When Grodus threatens Peach to keep Mario and his partner from attacking, you're presented with the option to "Attack" or "Don't Attack"; however, they're listed out of sequence, and so Grodus' reactions to both are swapped by mistake. Try to submit to him and he'll express outrage at your defiance, but move to attack and he'll take it as a surrender and tell you to stop your blubbering and meet your end.
- During the mid-finale Crystal Star cutscene, the Koopa in Glitzville who communicates to Mario is obviously meant to be King K, judging by his speaking mannerisms. But the sprite used is that of one of the blue-shelled Shady Koopas who make up the Shellshockers, rather than the yellow-shelled KP Koopas that King K belonged to.
- The Sky Blue Spiny's tattle will have Goombella refer to the Spiny eggs as "pipes". This is due to a translation error of the name "Paipo", another part of the same joke Lakitu's Japanese name of "Jugemu" comes from. Oddly, the regular Spiny does not have this issue.
- Rawk Hawk's tattle entry claims he has 3 attack and 1 defense. This is false, as Rawk Hawk actually has 4 attack and 0 defense. The European version fixed this.
- There's an inconsistency with one of the residents of Twilight Town's name; when he's a pig, Goombella says his name is Freddy. After the cursed is lifted, she says his name is Gloomer.
- At the start of the game, when Luigi checks the mail, there's a brief moment where the L on his cap is mirrored
- Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: The ESRB's website lists this game as Paper Mario 2: The Thousand-Year Door. The game was originally titled Paper Mario 2, but the "2" was dropped from the final title.
- Dummied Out:
- The in-game files show that Luigi's ally Screamy had two other color variants that shared the same name as the Smorg, meaning the final version of Smorg was very likely a last minute change that was made. The very first Smorg in the game is listed as a test enemy instead but has no battle stats.
- Sprites for all of the partners from the original game exist in the game's code, but go unused except for Bow and Parakarry. These sprites would end up being repurposed for the Catch Cards in Super Paper Mario.
- The title screen music for the Paper Mario 2 demo still exists in the final game, but can't be heard anywhere in the game. There's another unused music track whose file name implies it's intended for the interior of Riverside Station, which plays no music in the final game, only ambient sounds.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: By the time the remake was announced in September 2023, The Thousand-Year Door had joined the pantheon of other popular Nintendo Cult Classic RPGs from the 2000s that were never ported to next-gen consolesnote . Not only was TTYD the last game in the Paper Mario series to have bear this distinction, but is the only Mario RPG that can't officially be played on eighth or ninth generation systems. note . The last print run of the original game was in 2004 (for comparison the game was just shy of turning nineteen before the Remake's announcement), with absolutely no (official) digital release in the years between. Prices for original game discs - never mind complete or mint full copies - really began to get out of control as the 20th anniversary of the game approached. This lack of accessibility is likely why The Thousand-Year Door was chosen to be remade for the Switch, skipping over the original Nintendo 64 game.
- Market-Based Title: This game is known simply as Paper Mario RPG in Japanese. Most other languages go with something similar to the English title, such as "The Millennium Door" or "The Legend of the Eon Gate".
- No Export for You: The GameCube version was never released in South Korea or China.
- Orphaned Reference: One might notice a random white flash during the Non-Standard Game Over at the end of the game. In the Japanese version, Mario straight-up gets lobotomized by the Final Boss, with the flash hiding Mario's model getting swapped out for Doopliss-as-Mario's.
- Technology Marches On: During Chapter 4, you can see a group of crows talk about how their friend got blazing fast internet speeds at 100 Mbps. Nowadays, 100 Mbps is somewhat common and is still fast on its own, but back in 2004 when the game was launched, general internet users would not have speeds anywhere near 100 Mbps.
- Urban Legend of Zelda: A particularly nasty example crept into the fandom surrounding TTYD based on faulty information that was long present on the Super Mario Wiki, wherein a user claimed to be in possession of a supposed pre-release build of the game called "beta 9" which contained a number of differences that read like fantastic fanfiction, such as an optional fight against Prince Mush, an optional fight with Rocko Pianta accessed from the Trouble Center, made-up enemies such as Burning Bills and Rusty Koopatrols, and a rematch with the Shadow Sirens in Chapter 6 with the implication that the Sirens were responsible for summoning Smorg. Many users were skeptical of the claims, but the information was allowed to stay on the page because the user in question was a wiki bureaucrat at the time. When the user's copy of "beta 9" supposedly underwent bit rot and failed (conveniently enough, before its owner could produce any pictures to substantiate his claims), the information was unceremoniously removed from the page, but not before many saw it and mistook it for legitimate information. Because data which can be traced back to the very beginning of development can be found on the disc of the retail release of TTYD, but no leftovers from the supposed features that existed in "beta 9" exist in the retail release (besides data for two other fights with the Shadow Sirens, presumably meant for Chapters 4 and 6), the "beta 9" myth can be considered thoroughly debunked. However, the various claims the user made about supposed pre-release features of TTYD have continued to be spread around as pervasive pieces of misinformation.
- Working Title: Paper Mario 2.
- What Could Have Been:
- All of the partners from the original were going to have cameos, but were scrapped bar Parakarry's at the beginning and Lady Bow in Poshley Heights. Their sprites can still be found in the game's data files.
- Admiral Bobbery had a different design that made him look like a soldier instead of a sailor.◊
- The kiosk demo of the game once playable in GameCube displays at stores is a snapshot of What Could Have Been with the game's English localization. There are some very minor dialogue differences, the Dull Bones are referred to as "Koopa Skeletons", and the X-Nauts were originally called "Boomer Gangers".
- Luigi had a Spinia partner that was abandoned a month before the game was completed. One design was based on a hamburger, while another was based on an ice cream cone.
- Leftover dialog found in the game's code seems to indicate you were supposed to have fought Beldam and Marilyn at the Riverside Station. They were replaced at the last minute by a pair of Goombas, explaining why such low-level enemies appear on this area. There is also data suggesting that you would have had to fight them again at Twilight Town.
- X-Nauts in the audience were originally intended to throw bricks at Mario. For whatever reason, they throw rocks in the final game.
Remake Exclusive
- Milestone Celebration: The remake is releasing in May 2024, which is a few months shy of original's twentieth anniversary.
- Pre-Order Bonus: A European exclusive example. Pre-ordering the game will include keychains of Mario, Goombella, and Mini-Yoshi with a diorama of the battle stage offered as a premium pre-order bonus.
- Remade for the Export: South Korea and China never saw a release of the original version. The remake will be the first time it's ever seen a release in these countries. It will also be translated into Dutch for the first time ever.
- Sequel First: The original Paper Mario got skipped over for a remake, with this treatment going to its sequel, The Thousand-Year Door, instead. There are two likely reasons for this. First, the former is already available on the Nintendo Switch Online service and the latter is by far more popular amongst the fanbase. Second, with Super Mario RPG also getting a remake earlier in 2023 and Paper Mario being very close to the former in general plot structure due to the circumstances behind its development, the latter was likely skipped to avoid releasing a similar remake so soon after the former.
Other trivia
- The North American commercial for this game features the song "You're So Cool" from True Romance. In June 2008, almost four years after the game came out, Morgan Creek filed a lawsuit against Nintendo for allegedly not getting permission to use the song. Nintendo was able to prove they had indeed licensed to use it, and the case was soon dropped.
- Inputting XBRBYL on the title screen will enable debug mode. Holding Z will reveal the game's build date: September 9th, 2004 at 09:34:02 AM.
- The Happy Lucky Lottery isn't actually a lottery as it's rigged against you. Every night at midnight, the lottery will generate a new number, but the new number generated isn't entirely random. The number that's generated will be determined by how much time has passed since you've bought your ticket. You're guaranteed to win fourth prize within 4 to 10 days, third within 25 and 35 days, second within 85 and 115 days, and the grand prize between 335 to 395 days. Lucky won't accuse you of cheating if you move the clock forward, but he will if you move it backwards.
- The release day for the remake was announced on Mario Day 2024.
- Around a week after the remake became available for pre-order, the game had already topped Amazon's best-seller list and sold out after 5000 copies were pre-ordered.
- The clock at the Riverside Station displays the current time on the system's internal clock.
