LogFAQs > #967085350

#21: Paper Mario: The Origami King

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/4/6/AAA-H0AADh8G.jpg

This is not an admission I was wrong.

After all, I like to think I'm a pretty good judge of character when it comes to games. Since I made a top 50 list and all, it might look like I must have played a ton of games, but the reality is that I probably only played 80 games or so, and I'm just really good at picking out the good ones ahead of time, based on trailers, reviews, gameplay footage, recommendations, etc. I don't know if it's because my tastes have calcified with age, or if it's because I've grown wiser and more in tune with my own preferences, but I know what I like and I know how to find it. Sometimes I can be wrong!

Paper Mario: The Origami King is not one of those times where I was wrong. It just happened that the game was the best possible version of what it could have been. These things happen.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/4/7/AAA-H0AADh8H.jpg

The trailer for Origami King came out in early 2020, and I believe rumors about the upcoming game were floating around since before the pandemic, possibly as early as late 2019. At the time, the rumors were making some pretty big claims - partners are back! This one's more like TTYD! It's a return to form for the series! I was skeptical, to say the least, in that I was pretty sure this was all nonsense and I was going to be let down.

I had pretty good reason to feel that way - the series has only ever been on a downward trajectory. Quite literally, in fact; my ranking of the previous PM entries is 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5. PM and TTYD are both legendary, and are really more of a 1a and 1b; Super Paper Mario was a weird experiment that succeeded in some ways, but was sort of an awkward sidestep for the franchise as a whole; Sticker Star and Color Splash were, to put it lightly, a letdown. Sticker Star's pointless combat, dull level design, and nearly completely missing charm would have been bad enough, but Color Splash was more of the same and showed a commitment to this "New Paper Mario" style; few original characters, no RPG combat, no party members, no interconnected world, no real plot to speak of, just a boring series of chores that you have to do.

For whatever reason, it seems to have been successful, and I knew that despite fan backlash, they weren't gonna change up this formula in any major way anytime soon. I don't really like to be excessively negative, and I'm too old at this point to spend a lot of time complaining about this, so whatever; I know Nintendo's not gonna make anything as off-the-wall insane as TTYD ever again, and Bug Fables exists to fill the old-Paper Mario gap in my life, so it's fine. Zombie series, these things happen, it's whatever. At least the soundtrack will be good (incredibly, I'd rank the soundtracks 5 > 4 > 3 > 2 > 1. this is an anomaly I cannot explain).

Trailer came out, and I was well rewarded for my skepticism with that little burst of dopamine that comes from knowing that I'm right. I pretty much knew what we were gonna get here. The combat system was new, but it appeared to me as though it was going to have the same problems as the Neo Paper Marios; scant rewards for combat and a lack of RPG mechanics that make every fight feel the same. No partners. There's a Bob-omb character who follows you around, but aha, he introduces himself as... Bob-omb. So no original characters, once again; all the Mario characters have to be perfectly on-model and you can't have fun with them. There's some interesting little tidbits in the trailer; the origami theme is neat, and the plot of this game looks like it might be properly off the rails. But it's not enough to interest me. I'm gonna pass on this game. Not interested. I've been through this twice. Fool me twice, shame on me and all that.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/4/8/AAA-H0AADh8I.jpg

I wouldn't have bought the game, so I didn't. But I do live with a family who buys pretty much every tentpole Nintendo game, so I had access regardless. And I mean, as negative as I've been, I'll obviously give it a chance if it's free. My mom said I should give it a chance - she didn't dislike Sticker Star or Color Splash, but she indicated that this one was a lot different and had some interesting moments, so... okay! Why not. Surely it can't be that bad. Maybe they've learned a few things!

First, the bad. Origami King's random battles aren't very interesting, and this was a bit of a hangup for me at first. This game has a mechanic where you have to spin a board around to line up enemies for a full-power attack, and while the puzzle mechanics of it are at least a little bit fun, most normal battles are very easy and don't require much thought, there aren't really many tactical choices to make aside from just solving the puzzle, and there isn't much reason to fight. I avoided as many battles as I could because getting into a fight was just sort of a boring waste of time. Not a threat, but not really a reward, either. So that part - well, it's an improvement over stickers (although limited-use attacks still make a return here anyway, for no reason), but it's not very compelling.

But I ranked it #21 for a reason, right? Well, it turns out that everything else about this game is actually really good, against all odds and indications otherwise. All of the magic from the original games that was lost in the last two entries; it's back. I don't know how it came back, but it's back.