head to head

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door cover artvsPerfect World cover art

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year DoorvsPerfect World

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door leans Optimization (Pure Optimization); Perfect World leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).

EXECUTION3 /10READS2 /10VARIANCE3 /10OPTIMIZATION7 /10
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year DoorPerfect World

Axis by axis

Execution3 vs 2

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door leans harder on execution: Action commands and stylish moves

Reads2 vs 2

Even - both lean on reads about the same.

Variance3 vs 2

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door leans harder on variance: Audience and badge effects

Optimization7 vs 7

Even - both lean on optimization about the same.

Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.

full breakdown

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

full breakdown

Perfect World