One fifth of my playtime I spent sailing and exploring islands across the paper sea. Entire chapters of the game change traversal forms and introduce unique game mechanics that never return again. The shining moments of this game really come from everything else that makes up Mario’s journey. Why would I want to tediously place enemies into a row when I could be solving the mysterious puzzle of the toad towers or finding my way through a ninja themed escape room? Really from the beginning it only feels like a system made to make the game longer, especially when some of the biggest moments in the game don’t even happen within the battle system. There aren’t any experience points or levels in the game, and most enemies can be avoided aside from a few here and there. Luckily there are many times where the system can be circumnavigated. But because it is designed as a repeated disruption from the rich exploration of the world it quickly becomes a nuisance. An enemy may need to be placed in one position, or, in ChuChu Rocket! fashion, arrow tiles need to be placed in sequence for Mario to run to an attack tile. Essentially it’s a board game where you swivel and slide pieces to achieve your goals in battle. Because the world is so fun to play in, the battle system becomes a hindrance in comparison. Origami King is ambitiously entertaining, if nothing else, but this is also where I find many of the game’s flaws. And because it’s so fun, I didn’t care about the foregone RPG elements at all. There is always something unexpected in the world packed full of paper. The world of Origami King is so fun just to explore and play in. It doesn’t compare to sailing the seas and going diving in a submarine for treasure or shooting down planes out of the sky with a bob-omb cannon. Yeah, I guess one of those games is a turn-based battle system, but it really isn’t the star of the show. Origami King is what I imagine what Mario Party would be like if it took all the minigames and found a cohesive way to contextualize them in a game world. It was a small moment, but it was mundane. I bought the Un Café and listened to the shy guy and goomba jest about which of the minions is cooler. “What will you have?”, the koopa asked me. I opened up the door to find a koopa with two of Bowser’s minions relaxing and drinking coffee. I continue to think about one moment in a hidden coffee shop.Ībout halfway through my playtime I discovered a coffee shop hidden in the walls of a water temple. There is more to the world than just minute detail and moving forward-the game deliberately carves out moments for these characters to shine. Cheep-cheeps fly out of the water increasingly each time Mario hits a specific tree, and several toads pop out of a doorway when Mario unseals it. I mention these specific adventure games because there are a lot of objects to interact with in the world just for the sake of goofy interaction. Rather than an RPG, Origami King feels like a mature Pajama Sam or Putt-Putt. No matter where Mario hammers and jumps there is bound to be someone that will pop up. Due to the paper-based nature of their existence, characters are stuffed inside of holes, folded up into trees, or trapped inside boxes. These characters are amplified by their integration into the world and its puzzles. I wish more games were written like this one. It’s cute, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Origami King continues this trend as every area is littered with characters ready to tell you a funny, self-aware joke. What used to be side-scrolling and speechless, transformed into characters with communities and motivations. Thanks to the series’ beginnings in RPGs, Paper Mario has always held strength in the augmentation of its world details. These streamers take Mario on a journey filled with fun and goofy people and places. This time, five giant streamers stretch across the world and wrap the castle in a colorful imprisonment. In classic Mario fashion, the castle is lifted from the ground and into the air with a number of barriers that drive our hero across the Mushroom Kingdom for removal. A new foe reveals himself as Olly, the origami king (yup, that’s the name of the game), and he has a dream of making the entire world into origami. Peach has been made into a malformed origami version of herself. When Mario arrives at Princess Peach’s castle for a festival he is horrified. Many times it succeeds, but from this success a more somber theme emerges. Instead, it aims to create a world filled with playful variation while still maintaining a charming cohesion. It doesn’t have any traditional RPG systems and there aren’t a large cast of side characters to join Mario’s party for the journey. Paper Mario: The Origami King isn’t the Paper Mario game anybody asked for.
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