Paper Mario: The Origami King

The Origami Sting (Paper Mario: The Origami King Impressions)

“Somehow… Palpatine returned.”

And somehow… Nintendo made something as wonderful as Paper Mario not fun anymore.

Yes, I hate to admit it, but Paper Mario: The Origami King is little more than validation for my (and everyone else’s) skepticisms. Just like Sticker Star, just like Color Splash, Origami King is a gimmicky endeavor that continues the series’ awkward mixture of being utterly shallow and overly thought out at the same time.

Yes, there are good moments, but those are found solely in the exploratory elements (finding lost Toads, combing for all the secret items in an area, etc.). But once you begin the battle system, it all goes to hell.

Nintendo and Intelligent Systems once again decided the original Paper Mario formula – a simplified RPG system that retained depth and strategy based on individual enemies and Mario’s moves – is too complex. So instead of an RPG battle system with action commands, they went the much “simpler” route of starting battles off with a bizarre ring system, where you have to solve the puzzle that is the enemy layout in order to align them in such a way as to make your moves more effective, all within a short time limit.

Thankfully, your moves are no longer completely consumable like in Sticker Star or Color Splash, but aside from Mario’s standard boots and hammer, you do have to keep buying weapons repeatedly since they break after a while (because weapons breaking is all the rage in games these days for some reason). The fights themselves are already tedious, made all the more so because you don’t even gain experience points or anything of the sort after a battle, so there’s no leveling up. All you get for completing battles are coins (with more rewarded for how well you line up enemies, taking no damage, and so on). And what do you need coins for? To buy more weapons!

Good lord, what incentive is the player supposed to have in regards to these battles? Fight battles to get coins to buy weapons to use in battles to get coins to buy weapons… Geez! What’s the point?!

As purposeless as the regular battles are, they pale, pale in comparison to the boss fights. Good heavens, the boss battles of Origami King are bad. Just straight-up bad. How bad? Bad enough that – every time the game starts to win me over with it’s exploration and adventure elements – the boss fights make me not even want bother with that, because I know it will all culminate with a tedious, obnoxious, boring as all hell boss fight. They make me not care.

“Bosses will repeatedly change up the formula of battles, without letting the player know how that change effects things until they make a mistake. Yay, that’s always fun, right?”

What makes the boss fights so bad? Well, on top of following the general format of the already pointless battles, the bosses will add additional puzzle elements to the fights that are more cumbersome than clever. More often than not, figuring out how to solve these puzzles requires blatant trial-and-error, as opposed to problem solving skills. The game leaves the boss strategies unexplained until you try the obvious and fail while doing it. And if you don’t follow these fights exactly as the game wants you, the bosses will just heal and the whole thing starts over.

I hate this. I flat-out hate this. It’s not fun. Not at all. I thought Color Splash’s boss fights were annoying with how they were literally unbeatable unless you used specific items at specific times, but I’ll take Color Splash’s boss fights over Origami King’s any day.

Of course, another downward spiral that Origami King obnoxiously indulges in is its lack of character (both figuratively and literally). Though the game has its charms, it follows the bizarre trait the series has been cursed with from Sticker Star onwards of not having any original characters. Every Toad is simply named “X-Toad” (that is, when they even have “names.”). And the first “partner” character who joins Mario is a Bob-omb named (wait for it)… Bob-omb!

Does this Bob-omb have any defining character traits or features? No, it’s a Bob-omb, plain and simple. And he jokes about once having a friend who was also named Bob-omb (Haha! Get it? They’re all named Bob-omb!). Well, at least you actually get partners in this one, which is more than you can say for Sticker Star and Color Splash, right?

But wait, do you even get partners here? The Bob-omb joins you in battle very infrequently (he conveniently chooses to stay outside dungeons to take naps), and when he can be bothered to help Mario out, he automatically attacks with a single move (which is simply bumping into an enemy), and half the time he trips while doing it, making it a complete waste.

“Get it? His name is Bob-omb, and he IS a Bob-omb! It’s totally a clever gag and not a side effect of creative limitation or anything.”

I actually found this to be kind of passive-aggressive on Nintendo/Intelligent System’s part. It’s like they’re saying “Oh, fans liked the old Paper Marios and want partners back? Okay, we’ll give them partners, but there’ll be nothing that stands out about them, they’ll automatically attack with the most basic move, which won’t even work half the time, and they’ll only join Mario in battle on occasion! Lol!” It’s like the game is literally making fun of the classic Paper Marios.

I have to ask: who is this game made for? It presents itself as being more approachable to kids than past entries, but its battle system is more convoluted than ever. I can’t imagine kids would have very much patience for it. It wants to be a puzzle adventure game, but felt the need to incorporate a turn-based battle system that slows the puzzle/adventure down considerably. It includes said RPG-style battle system, despite its utter disdain for anything resembling an RPG. And it certainly isn’t made for Paper Mario fans, as it continues to gut everything that once made the series so great.

I know I probably sound like an entitled fan. And I’m sorry for that. But Paper Mario is a bizarre, unique case where it seems like its developers actively refuse to listen to criticisms, and blatantly ignore fans’ wishes. They continue to work on a series by making games that feel like they want nothing to do with that series. It is a baffling disconnect if ever there were one in gaming.

I’m about halfway through Paper Mario: The Origami King, and I would love to review it. Normally, I like to beat a game before reviewing it, but to be honest, I’m not sure I want to push myself through the whole game. Would it be wrong to review a game without defeating its final boss? That might be the only way I can review it, because honestly getting through the game’s story is feeling more like a chore as I go on.

I know some people would balk at me to have an open mind. But I did go into Origami King with an open mind, the same way I did Sticker Star and Color Splash. In the case of Color Splash, I actually ended up having some fun and being charmed by it, despite its many flaws. But Origami King is feeling more Sticker Star than Color Splash to me. It’s tedious, monotonous, gimmicky, the battle system is pointless, the characters lack personality and charm, and those boss fights are just… NOPE!

I want to review Origami King properly, I really do. But do I have to beat it? Do I really have to? I feel like I’m deep enough in the game already to give a more detailed analysis of it (not that it would require delving very deep in this case). I feel like beating the final boss would just be a formality at this point.

You know what the worst part of all this is? I am not only a fan of Super Mario, but I have a particular fondness for Mario RPGs. That’s why – no matter how far previous Paper Marios may have fallen – I still gave subsequent entries their fair shot, simply because Paper Mario is part of that Mario RPG lineage. I felt obligated to give any game with Paper Mario in the title a go. Not even Sticker Star derailed that hope in me for the next entry. But Origami King has been such a disheartening experience, that I don’t even want to get my hopes up that the next Paper Mario will even be good, let alone go back to what made the series so special to begin with. Origami King has crushed my enthusiasm for the series, and that’s not something that happens to me lightly.

At least we have Bug Fables now…

First Thoughts on Paper Mario: The Origami King

Yesterday, we celebrated the twenty-fourth anniversary of Super Mario RPG (in the US). A mere day later, Nintendo announced a title that further sullies Super Mario RPG’s legacy!

Okay, that’s a bit harsh. But the first trailer of the newest installment of Paper Mario, The Origami King, raises more concerns than it does build hype for the game.

Here is Nintendo’s announcement trailer.

Okay, so the game doesn’t look terrible: Bowser being folded into a square and Peach being brainwashed and joining a cult by means of origami look like they can make for a fun plot, there’s actually variety with the NPC characters (not everyone is the basic, red-spotted, blue-vested Toad this time! Yay!), and the paper aesthetic looks as charming as ever.

But that last one is also kind of the problem… Why does Nintendo insist on making the Paper Mario series about the paper aesthetics instead of using it as a backdrop for unique RPG adventures?

Granted, we only get an ever-so brief glimpse of the battle system here, and from what I can tell, they’ve exorcised the demons of stickers and cards from the proceedings. But it still looks like it’s following a similar path as Sticker Star and Color Splash. Which is something that no one wanted.

I hate to sound like an entitled fan, but when we’re talking about Paper Mario, you always hear the same thing from everyone: “can we get a new Paper Mario that’s an RPG like the first two?” And every time a new one is announced, Nintendo seems completely ignorant to what people want.

While I don’t mind Nintendo putting more emphasis on the paper aesthetics of the series, the problem is that’s what the series has become all about. No one fell in love with the original Paper Mario or its sequel because Mario was made out of paper, they loved it because it was a damn good RPG that – while maybe not quite Super Mario RPG – did a great job at keeping its predecessor’s spirit alive.

After the first two acclaimed Paper Mario titles, the third entry, Super Paper Mario, was a steep departure. It abandoned turn-based battles and partner characters for a platformer with RPG elements. It was different and not as good, but at least it was – at the time – a one-off thing. We could understand and appreciate that it was experimental and trying something different for the series. It may not have always worked, but hey, Nintendo learned their lessons from Zelda II and Super Mario Sunshine, so maybe that meant the series would get back to the RPG style gameplay we were all craving.

And that was the plan… at first. Early screenshots and materials of a 3DS Paper Mario title gave fans glimpses of partner characters, and a return to the turn-based battle system. But then, somewhere in development, Nintendo decided to change course, and instead we got the stinker that was Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Sure, turn-based battles were back, but with the glaring caveat that every last one of Mario’s abilities used consumable “sticker” items, and your only rewards for battles were either A) more stickers, or B) coins… for buying more stickers… This made this new battle system not only a tedious chore, but also inexcusably pointless.

Fast forward to the Wii U, and when Paper Mario: Color Splash was announced, and served as a direct follow-up to Sticker Star’s gameplay, it was close to insulting. Although Color Splash was an improvement over Sticker Star, it was still a pretty shallow experience that suffered many of its predecessor’s drawbacks (namely the aforementioned pointlessness of its battle system). By this point, it was pretty clear that Nintendo had no intention on giving people the Paper Mario they actually want.

But times have changed in the Switch generation for the Big N. Breath of the Wild did what Zelda should have done a long time ago and said “screw you” to Ocarina of Time’s shackling influence on the series. Super Mario Odyssey brought back the more open style of Super Mario 64 back into the 3D Mario canon (not that there was any problem with the more linear Super Mario 3D World, but hey, they still listened to what people wanted). Perhaps most notably, the Switch finally brought back the third-party support Nintendo had been lacking ever since the Nintendo 64.

Point being, Nintendo seemed to be listening in recent years. And earlier this year, amid reports that Nintendo wanted to celebrate Super Mario Bros’ 35th anniversary in a big way in 2020 that supposedly includes an HD compilation of the previous 3D Mario titles, rumors also circulated about a Paper Mario title that would return to the style of the N64 original and The Thousand-Year Door.

Admittedly, while I could imagine the compilation being a reality, I took the rumor of a new, traditional Paper Mario as a “I’ll believe it when I see it” kind of thing. I would have loved if my skepticisms were proven wrong. Sadly, this trailer for Paper Mario: The Origami King has only made me let out those skepticisms in a sigh of disappointment.

I mean, I just don’t get it. It’s not like Nintendo’s fanbase keeps quiet about these things. And while fans can of course go overboard at times, I don’t think wanting a beloved series to go back to its roots, which we haven’t seen in sixteen years now – especially when general consensus points that said series has only gone downhill ever since it changed things up – is asking too much.

People want a new Mario RPG. An actual RPG. With a proper battle system, level-progression, teammates with different abilities, a story, the whole Mario RPG shebang. Why does Nintendo seem incapable of grasping this concept? Because it’s not just Paper Mario, but the Mario & Luigi series, the “other half” of Super Mario RPG’s branching legacy, has also stripped away the depth of its mechanics and battle system with its 3DS entries.

I seriously, honestly, sincerely just don’t get it. Super Mario RPG remains one of the most acclaimed and beloved Mario games of all time, and the first two Paper Mario titles have had a similar appeal. None of the Paper Mario games since Thousand-Year Door have received the same level of reception and devotion than the earlier Mario RPGs (the ones that actually were RPGs) had. So what the hell is possessing Nintendo to go down the “hey! Look at all the papery stuff!” well at the expense of making a deep Mario RPG? It’s a “creative” decision that outright boggles the mind.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the only time Nintendo completely ignored what people actually wanted and instead delivered something absolutely no one asked for.

At the very least, if this is the direction Nintendo is going to insist on traveling in regards to Paper Mario (and Mario & Luigi), can we get a brand-new Mario RPG game as well? Just…something!

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars remains one of Nintendo’s best games. It has been starved of a direct sequel for twenty-four years now. But at least in years past, we had Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi to play a similar role. Now, we don’t even have that.

Nintendo has acknowledged Super Mario RPG’s beloved status by giving it notable re-releases on the Wii Virtual Console (where they made a point of it being the 250th game added to the service), the Wii U Virtual Console (where it was the last SNES game added), and including it as one of the games on the SNES Classic Edition. But when it comes to continuing that great game’s legacy, Nintendo seems to have a bizarre aversion to it. And don’t tell me that it’s Square-Enix’s fault, because while they may be holding Mallow and Geno hostage, Nintendo used to make great Mario RPGs of their own as proven with Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi.

But now, those days seem like a distant memory. It’s all the stranger when you think of where Nintendo is right now. Not just commercially, but creatively. The Mario series, in particular, has been in something of a second (and extended) golden age ever since Galaxy was released in 2007. Between Galaxy, its sequel, 3D World, the Super Mario Maker titles, Mario Kart 8 and Super Mario Odyssey, the overall Super Mario series has arguably never been more consistent, or more acclaimed.

Yet it’s the Mario RPGs that have been left out of this renaissance. The last truly great Mario RPG was Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story in 2009. Since then, the sub-genre of Marios has become increasingly more shallow, has removed most of their identity (no more original characters allowed! Only basic Toads!), and have even become obnoxiously wordy (the Mario RPGs of old were genuinely hilarious. The newer Paper Mario titles desperately want us to think they’re hilarious).

Again, I’m not trying to write off Paper Mario: The Origami King completely as a game itself. It could end up being really good when taken by its own merits (and we don’t have to wait very long to find out, as the game is being released quite suddenly on July 17th of this year). But why does it seem like Nintendo is incapable of hearing what fans want from this series? No one loved Paper Mario “because Paper,” but that seems to be what Nintendo believes, despite the never-ending requests and criticisms that claim otherwise.

Why does Paper Mario always have to be a sacrificial lamb for experimentations? Why isn’t Mario & Luigi allowed to have its own identity anymore? Why can’t Super Mario RPG’s legacy be allowed to continue?