These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
8.8: Game Informer originally gave the game a 6.5. This would have been bad enough, but the reviewer's primary complaint? The writing was bad. The ensuing fan backlash actually prompted two letters of apology. The first one claimed that the reviewer gave the score not of his opinion, but guessing how well consumers would like it. This caused more complaints about the review, so a second apology letter was written with the exact opposite message.
Anticlimax Boss: Macho Grubba from Chapter 3. Despite having a whopping 60HP, which is massive for this point, considering the last boss only had 30HP and the next one will only have 40HP, he's still incredibly easy to beat. Although only if you do it quickly, as he uses his turns to buff himself up to monstrous levels.
Breather Level: The Excess Express in Chapter 6, for the most part. It's more puzzle-oriented than battle-oriented, but it does have a "dungeon" portion with some fairly tough enemies.
Complete Monster: The Shadow Queen. She destroyed an entire city and murdered thousands who got in her way. She destroyed town after town and had her minions steal treasures to put in her palace. Furthermore, she created dungeons and torture chambers for people to be feasted on by her pet dragons, and created the Crystal Stars to keep the world in this state. Even in defeat, she trapped the four heroeswho defeated her into boxes for one thousand years.
Demonic Spiders: Amazee Dayzees. Their attacks can deal twenty points of damage, and put both of your characters to sleep. Also double as a Metal Slime.
Some of the later monsters in the Pit of 100 Trials can be BRUTAL. Namely, Wizzerds of any sort, Arantulas, and even the dreaded Amazee Dayzees can show up (sometimes not alone!).
You can find a lot of fan art of Vivian...usually with, ah, exaggerated assets.
For a character that only plays a major role for a short time, Jolene is pretty popular with the fans.
Rawk Hawk, to the point where he's one of only three Paper Mario characters to get a nod in Paper Mario Sticker Star, along with Parakarry and Goombella.
Doopliss. The Chapter 3 and 4 areas are chock full of darkhorses it seems.
Even Better Sequel: To some people who played this game after the first.
Fridge Brilliance: Defeating Bonus Boss Bonetail nets you a grand total of... one Star Point. Players will naturally rage at this... until realizing that this is the game's way of saying "You just beat the hardest enemy in the entire game. You don't need to level up anymore!"
Cortez's forms. First, a four-armed skeleton holding each of his weapons. Then, a hunched-over skeleton with some gem in the torso. And finally, his head and his weapons. Why do his forms progress like this? He's falling apart.
How come the impenetrable defenses of the Iron Cleft brothers never manage to get further than 10th place in the Glitz Pit? Because the guys directly above them are Spike Tops. Iron Cleft have unbeatable defenses, but only have an attack of 4, Spike Tops have a defense of 5.
However, one of the Iron Clefts explicitly states that their spikes can "penetrate any substance" (exact words), so it's Fridge Logic, really.
That's what he says but if you super guard you'll take no damage so it can't be true. There are attacks that can't be super guarded too(and thus, may really pierce through anything)
Also, while their spikes may certainly be capable of penetrating any substance, there's no indication that the Iron Clefs have trained enough to be able to produce the force necessary to do so.
Each time someone questions who got turned into a pig, they end up as the next victim. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
At one point you must look behind a crate. You'll see a few of Mario's new friends lying on the ground, not moving. You can say they're stunned, until you see the flies.
The situation is somewhat helped by the fact that they react to Mario talking to them (one gasps out a warning, while the other gives a wordless response), proving that they're alive. And they both show up perfectly healthy at the end of the level. On the other hand, consider that they aren't the first fighters that have had their energy drained. They're rescued and Prince Mush (the other known victim) is found, but what if there were others?
In Rougeport, there seems to be some dried reddish-brown stuff on the ground. One could easily pass this off as dirt, until you realize that it's next to the gallows, and that it's found nowhere else in town...
Fridge Logic: Glitzville is presumably in the skies of the Mushroom Kingdom, yet pretty much nobody there recognizes Mario or Bowser!
Rogueport and the areas connected to it seem to take place in an area separate from the mainland of the Mushroom Kingdom; not everyone recognizes Mario. Jury's still out on Bowser.
Hell Is That Noise: The sound the Fuzzies make when they bounce? That now belongs to the Stock Sound Effects. Good luck not worrying every time you hear it.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Years earlier in the live action parts of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, a professional wrestler took on the role of Mario. In Glitzville in this game, Mario takes on the role of a professional wrestler, the Great Gonzales.
Moral Event Horizon: Sir Grodus shutting TEC-XX down. As the player's guide says: "If you don't feel much animosity toward Sir Grodus at this point, you will by the time the event is over."
How about Grubba trapping King K and Bandy Andy under a box and leaving them to (presumably) die after draining their powers with the Crystal Star?
Or him apparently having thrown Prince Mush into his power-draining machine, causing the kid to vanish for years?
Narm/Narm Charm: The scene where everyone cheers you on in the fight with the Shadow Queen is either considered to be groan inducing, or does its job well.
Let's just say that there's a reason why the Rogueport citizens feel uneasy whenever they're near the Thousand-Year Door.
The bathroom in the glitz pit. Seriously, what the hell, Nintendo?
The tune that comes with X's e-mails (from the ice world in Super Mario Bros. 3)
The Shadow Queen is basically a nightmare incarnate. And when she actually makes an appearance in the story, the first thing that happens is the entire world is plunged into darkness. Instantly. It gets worse from there.
The 'victory' music that plays at the end of a battle and your partner has been knocked out. Ugh...
While exploring the unused rooms of Glitz Pit, finding the half-dead forms of two of your former opponents. It doesn't help that they were two of the nicest characters in the level.
Nightmare Retardant: Doopliss's abilities remain terrifying throughout Chapter 4, but that doesn't change the fact that the one responsible for the town's curse is a Bedsheet Ghost in a party hat and bowtie who is sitting in an easy chair watching TV when you first meet him.
Player-Preferred Pattern: It seems to be the general opinion that if you even think of levelling up anything but Badge Points, then you're a complete idiot who doesn't know how to play the game properly. Even if you don't use Danger Mario, this is still considered the only way to play.
Player Punch: Sir Grodus shutting TEC-XX down, if you really felt for TEC.
Seeing Doopliss possess Mario's body and running around pretending to be him, while the player is unable to do anything about it just yet or even return to Rogueport, can be a little jarring.
Spoiled by the Format: Did you really think Chapter 4 would be finished in about 15-20 minutes?
That One Boss: The Shadow Queen is quite hard, even by Final Boss standards, although Bonetail himself is harder. Despite having only 1 Defense and her Attack being outmatched by a boss from 10 minutes ago, she gets multiple attacks per round, as well as being very difficult to time for dodges, so the damage starts racking up very quickly. She also has an attack that will drain your HP, and at one point, eats the audience's SOULS to restore her health. Oh, and there's a pair of very long unskippable cutscenes before the real fight starts.Have fun.
Magnus 2.0. He's got That One Attack where he sucks up the audience in a hose and rapid-fires them at you, dealing completely massive damage unless you can block correctly.
There's also Bowser's appearance out of nowhere in the Palace of Shadow, primarily because, Mario is probably on low health from the preceding battle with Grodus, and Bowser and Kammy have quite a bit of health for this battle.
The Scrappy: Flurrie is easily the least popular partner, which can mostly be attributed to her design and attacks.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Jolene's brother and the Glitz Pit's first champion, Prince Mush. After you beat Grubba and the Crystal Star releases him, he could have been a good Bonus Boss along with Bonetail and the Atomic Boo.
He was at one point intended to be a bonus boss... but instead, after the end of Chapter 3, you never see him again.
Unfortunate Implications: Fahr Outpost features an all Bob-omb cast of townspeople. Okay. Then they start speaking with Russian accents and vehemently denying that they have a superweapon... eeesh.
Though it's only a weapon by real life standards. In the game's world, it's only treated, referred to, and ever thought of as a mode of transportation.
It's probably meant to be a Shout Out to popular-culture images of the Russian space programme and the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Jolene and Prince Mush certainly qualify too. Their family was poor, Mush disappeared as a result of Grubba's machine resulting in Jolene having to work for Grubba to find her brother and Jolene seems to be putting on a brave face the whole time. It helps that Jolene is popular with the fans.
