LogFAQs > #967085358

First of all, this game has great characters, somehow, which is amazing because the entire game it feels like the writers are fighting back against the higher-ups' demands to not make any original characters. It almost feels like a running joke that the game is leaning on, and it's better for it. In addition to making better use of the unique members of the Mario cast, like Kamek and Bowser Jr, the game is intent on even the generic Mario baddies having a lot of personality here, and it shows. "Bob-omb" was eventually given the name "Bobby" in localization, and despite being a generic Bob-omb, he's great! They make the most of him. But the best character is the obligatory partner character, Olivia. The obligatory partner characters in the past couple of games were kind of bland, in my opinion, but Olivia's fucking adorable and I love her. The game is great every time she gets to talk, and that's most of the game, so the game is great. She's probably one of my favorite characters in anything ever.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/4/9/AAA-H0AADh8J.jpg

Origami King FINALLY ditches the stage-based world design that they've been using since Super Paper Mario, and I think this really makes the game feel more like an adventure, rather than a series of tasks. Sticker Star and Color Splash both had this terrible idea of having a Super Mario-style stage select screen, which artificially breaks up the world into chunks, and the feeling of playing 'levels' isn't something I want out of the series. This is one way in which Origami King DOES harken back to the days of PM/TTYD, instead opting for their style of having a hub town that organically connects to a bunch of different areas, with no world map. It's a subtle difference, but it matters! This makes the world a lot more interesting to traverse and explore. This contributes a lot to the plot being more interesting and the scenario-writing being a lot more entertaining as well, I think, as well as making the game's obligatory Toad-hunting a lot more fun.

The regular combat in this game is boring, but the boss fights are surprisingly fun! They're not really hard, but instead of lining up enemies, you instead have to rearrange a path of arrows for Mario to follow where he collects powerups a lot the way, and there's a lot more room for fun tactical choices here, as well as generally giving a much more open-ended puzzle to solve. The boss fights each have a lot of personality; all of the bosses being a bunch of office supplies sounds like a shitpost, and it is, but they're also somehow the funniest and most original part of the game. Go figure.

All of this adds up to a game that I... actually gave a shit about! Huh. That's an interesting feeling. I've been spinning my damn wheels with this franchise for so long that it kinda came out of left field that I enjoyed a Paper Mario game again. I don't know what it is about this one; it just has some actual animating essence behind it. The writing and characters are all hilarious, the scenarios are fun, the world's fun to explore and has a lot of really clever areas, the boss fights are actually rewarding to get to, and at the end, I felt like it was an adventure worth my time! Imagine that!

Honestly, this game's great. Sure, if it was a return to form like PM64/TTYD, it'd be like, in my top 3. But this list is really competitive and my top 20 is pretty much only games I absolutely loved. Anyway, bring on Bug Fables 2, that's gonna be the real shit if it's anything like TTYD somehow.

Oh fuck I forgot to talk about Origami King's soundtrack. It's FUCKING INSANE, in a good way. Probably my favorite soundtrack of any game on this list. Okay that's it.

Next up: This game is my only negative review on Steam!