Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Switch improvements detailed

New details have come to light about improvements planned for the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Switch remake, including additions like the Nostalgic Tunes badge that lets players experience the music from the GameCube original.

Nintendo previously teased new features for the upcoming release, but didn’t go into detail. Thanks to hands-on previews that went live today, we have a better idea as to what’s planned.

First up is a new partner ring. With it, players can easily change party members with a button click. For the GameCube original, it was required to access a menu to change partners.

There are a couple of other things worth mentioning. There’s a gameplay hint system from Goombella you can access at any time plus new entries in the Sound and Art Galleries that you can unlock by collecting Shine Sprites and Star Pieces.

According to IGN, players will encounter new NPCs that can help you out. One such character is Rogueport’s Battle Master, “a Toad who will not only tell you battle secrets in hopes you will become a legendary fighter, but who will also let you jump into a danger-free battle to practice all your abilities and timing-based attacks.” Ian Foomus can also be found at the Trouble Center in Rogueport, and the mouse will “get you back on track if you are having a tough time with any of Paper Mario’s sidequests”.

Some of the new Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door improvements and changes were shown off in the latest trailer. You can watch that here.