Paper Mario: The Origami King Review
Hey everyone, Max Lang-Orsini here, today I thought I’d give my review on Paper Mario: The Origami King since it has been out for almost a week and I’m comfortable enough to see if it’s worth it for you to buy!
Trivia
For those who aren’t the most up to date with the Paper Mario game series, here is a little bit of trivia for you. Released on the 17th July 2020, Nintendo made the decision to produce another Paper Mario game in the series with extra elements to keep it fresh. ‘Kensuke Tanabe’ (titled as the Producer of this game) has helped develop many in the past, spanning back to 1987 and working on the way over 50+ games for Nintendo.
This is the sixth instalment in the Paper Mario series.
Plot (Spoilers!)
There isn’t a plot for Paper Mario that connects all of the games together, to some degree, so here is an overview of Paper Mario: The Origami King. Mario & Luigi both receive an invitation by Princess Peach to travel to the Origami Festival in the Mushroom Kingdom, Toad Town. However, when they arrive Mario stands in shock as he witnesses Peach and many of Bowser’s minions have been turned into the Origami by the Origami King, King Olly. Oh, and Bowser has now been folded into a square.
The Origami King wraps the castle in multi-coloured streamers to rip parts of it down. The characters; Mario, Luigi, Olivia (King Olly’s sister) and Bowser bare escape with the help of Shy Guy. Mario proceeds to follow the multi-coloured streamers to various areas in the world and defeat boss fights of the guards guarding the ‘stationary’.
When Mario confronts King Olly, the King reveals his plan to fold the entire world with 1000 paper cranes. After the boss battle, his sister apologises for his actions and everything returns to normal.
My 2 Cents
After playing through this game, I can comfortably say that I enjoyed this game a lot. I would argue that it was not the best Paper Mario video game in the series, but that does not mean it is not good.
There has been a lot of debate whether the role-playing game element was good, and personally, I thought it was one of the best parts of the game. I think this because it was unique, something different from the others. After all, this is the sixth instalment, so I’d hope there would be differences implemented.
I also agree with what Kensuke Tanabe stated:
“Players need to guess the weak points of bosses based on their characteristics and search for the solution to defeat them, otherwise they won’t be able to win these battles.”
I couldn’t agree more on what he is pointing out here. It makes a lot of sense for an adventure game to have these aspects during boss fights, it makes them interesting. It also stands out to different combat systems, this one is more puzzle-based.
I do think this game is for anyone, as long as they have an open-mind whilst playing. Since there are a lot of things that differentiate this from other Paper Mario games, you have to make the changes on the chin and see the good in it. As a gamer myself, I’d highly recommend this game, easily by far one of my favourites (if not, favourite) games of this year.
Written By: Max Lang-Orsini