Early Tech Analysis Suggests Paper Mario’s Thousand-Year Door Remaster Might Run At 30FPS

It seems the visual upgrades in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for Nintendo Switch may come at a cost. An early tech analysis by Nintendo World Report seemingly suggests gameplay in the new version of this turn-based RPG classic will target 30FPS.

This analysis is based on the Nintendo Direct video upload and it apparently “doesn’t appear to be an issue with the trailer simply being rendered at 30FPS, as we do in fact see a brief moment of 60FPS in the trailer for one shot, but that particular shot appears to have been doubled in speed – thus resulting in the perceived higher framerate, the rest of the trailer never exceeds 30”.

A halved framerate may come as a surprise to fans of the original GameCube classic, as the 2004 version targeted 60FPS. In saying this, it might not be so shocking if you played the newest entry Paper Mario: The Origami King, which was also capped at 30FPS.

NWR notes how a change in framerate could potentially result in latency issues when performing timed button presses during battles. As for other parts of the Switch version, the resolution is reportedly 900p in docked mode, and it’s estimated the handheld mode resolution could be about 720p.

Further into the analysis, it’s mentioned how the Thousand-Year Door for Switch appears to be utilising subtle reflections, ambient occlusion and global illumination. One thing that may be missing though is anti-aliasing. In addition to the changes that are there, there’s obviously the updated art style and textures as well.

It’s worth noting this game won’t be released until sometime in 2024, so there’s no guarantee anything Nintendo has shown in the announcement trailer for the Paper Mario Thousand-Year Door remaster is necessarily reflective of the final product. It’s subject to change prior to launch and this includes the title’s performance and resolution on Switch.