20 years later, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year door is calling Switch players out for cheating in the RPG's lottery, just like the original GameCube version

All these years later, players tempted to cheat the Happy Lucky Lottery in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door by changing their system’s clock are still being met with an explosive end.

Despite plenty of new content and a visual overhaul, the recent Paper Mario remake stays true to the original 2D RPG in some of the best (and silliest) ways possible. For example, the Happy Lucky Lottery functions just as it did in the 2004 GameCube release – for better or worse. This means players are still at the mercy of bulky bob-omb Lucky and his taxing time-based prize system. Unfortunately, it also means that the old clock change trick we Animal Crossing stans may attempt doesn’t quite work to cheese badges and shrooms early.

If you try and set your Nintendo Switch system’s clock ahead to snag prizes that otherwise require days, months, and even years of waiting, Lucky will immediately call you out. You’ll read that the lottery “has been suspended” and hear from the bob-omb that this is due to “foul play.” He’ll then question you, asking if you tampered with the clock. You can either succumb to Lucky’s guilt-tripping dialogue and admit to changing the time or you can refuse to tell the truth. The former option will leave you with a scene straight out of one of those anti-piracy screen creepypastas.

Here’s what happens if you change the clock to cheat the lottery in Paper Mario: TTYD pic.twitter.com/iCg4viUFaVMay 28, 2024

The bob-omb begins to mentally unravel, repeating his words in disbelief and frantically exclaiming that he’ll never trust another person again. Following his brief descent into madness, Lucky’s body glows red as though he’ll explode – and then he does, sort of. After blacking your screen out and convincing you that he’s crashed the RPG for good, Lucky returns to say that he didn’t end the game but will if you cheat again. You’ll then have to pay a 500 coin fine to continue the lottery. If you choose to lie to Lucky rather than admit to any tampering, this fine will sadly still apply.

Lucky’s sequence would probably leave me sobbing as a child, but it’s an undeniably creative ode to the RPG’s past. It’s reminiscent of an earlier Nintendo era overall that I look back on fondly – one that saw Animal Crossing’s cranky mole Resetti scare me into never changing my system’s clock again. I’m happy to see the Paper Mario remake remain faithful to its quirky original with features like the Happy Lucky Lottery and its unstable host, even if it means waiting hundreds of days to hit the jackpot.

Do you love Nintendo? Check out these upcoming Switch games for more to play.

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