Paper Mario: The Origami King

released on Jul 17, 2020

Join Mario and his new companion Olivia on a comedic adventure that will take you to the far corners of a papercraft world in Paper Mario: The Origami King on Nintendo Switch! Face off against the Origami King and his army of paper invaders, team up with some extraordinary companions and master magical powers on your quest to save the world. Unwrap an epic quest! Travel the land, repair the damage done by the Folded Soldiers and rescue Toads trapped in all manner of wacky scrapes! With the help of Olivia’s paper-folding powers, use the far-reaching 1,000 Fold Arms and other paper transformations to save those imprisoned by the Origami King’s henchmen, and help restore peace to the world. Put a stop to King Olly's plans by engaging in battles which will put both your tactical thinking and puzzle solving skills to the test – against his origami army, as well as humongous bosses under his command!


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This game was LONGER than I thought it would be. Almost every world of the 7 had like two bosses which was very challenging. The gaming mechanic was a challenge as well and often, I just paid the coins to line things up. The story is very similar to Paper Mario Color Splash, but it's a Mario game. Its rarely known to be ground-breaking storywise.

I've grown up with the original, Thousand Year Door (which was my favorite game for a while), and Super. And like this sect of people, I was really put off by this game's reveal initially.
But man, I cannot sit here and pretend like this is not the best Paper Mario game by far. Pacing is on point, world design is flawless, the writing is arguably some of the strongest in these games. The battle system might not be to everyone's tastes, but I was really into it once they started increasing in difficulty, and the enemies generally put really unique spins on it. The best advice I got was to go into this like it were an action adventure game, and that really helped me appreciate this game for what it was. With the TTYD Remake coming out, I still beg for people to give this game a chance. It's one of the best first party titles on the Switch, and I would love to see where the series goes from here.

It's been a HOT minute since I've played but I remember thoroughly enjoying the dialogue and the gameplay a decent amount. The random encounters are whatever but the bosses are where the combat truly shines and makes you feel very smart 🤓. Also my god the music is so good especially the battle themes they cooked with this one.

I genuinely dont know how people enjoy this game bro, the only redeeming quality is the sound track

God, I want to love this more than I do, but there are two main things that hold it back for me: the combat and the narrative design.

For starters, I don't think the combat is actually bad per se - in fact, I actually found it quite fun for a while. The problem is that, outside of the boss fights, very little is done to expand the system outside of what you experience within the first hour of play, and the game is nearly 30 hours long. I could feel myself actively avoiding combat at a certain point to save myself time and tedium, and that's never a good sign.

When it comes to the narrative design, I feel the need to be more specific: the issue is not in the telling of the narrative, but rather some of the decisions made in the course of that telling. Several of the levels reach points of natural conclusion only to have the game suddenly insist you go on some circuitous side-quest or complete a small dungeon within the current dungeon, and frankly these unnecessary expansions of the story do little beyond making the game feel bloated and repetitive.

To be clear, I actually loved the writing of the game and exploring the world of Paper Mario - there's a specific combination of whimsy and melancholy that feels exclusive to this series, and Origami King is a worthy successor on that front. I just wish the game itself were a bit tighter, a bit more focused than what we ended up getting.

This game has a lot of silly and random moments that I enjoyed.