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Paper Mario Discussion Thread (Origami King and Others)

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
Mario & Luigi retained the same feel every single entry while adding new battle mechanics.

Paper Mario decided to look the other way and tossed puzzles into RPG battles, which then became phased out so the puzzle aspect was more or less the central focus of battles.

In fact, Mario & Luigi goes against the ideology Paper Mario has adopted.
But that’s the issue I have with those complaining that every Paper Mario game after 1000 Year Door is going to be terrible just because they don’t use the same exact battle mechanics. How many comments did you come across while the wait for Origami King that said, “I hope it’s like 1000 Year Door” or “I want the game to have partners like we had in 1000 Year Door”? Just because a new game in a series doesn’t closely resemble its most popular entry doesn’t mean that the game won’t be any good.
 

AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
But that’s the issue I have with those complaining that every Paper Mario game after 1000 Year Door is going to be terrible just because they don’t use the same exact battle mechanics. How many comments did you come across while the wait for Origami King that said, “I hope it’s like 1000 Year Door” or “I want the game to have partners like we had in 1000 Year Door”? Just because a new game in a series doesn’t closely resemble its most popular entry doesn’t mean that the game won’t be any good.
I guess things would be a lot easier to stomach had the latest 3 entries had been classified as a sub-series of Paper Mario. They pretty much did so with Super Paper Mario, but these three entries feel a bit too different despite having the same name.
 

KillerDraco

Well-Known Member
I don’t get why people keep expecting Paper Mario games to be exactly like 1000 Year Door. I understand it is a great game but you need to change things in any series at some point to keep things fresh and interesting and don’t keep hoping the next new game would be exactly the same. Animal Crossing changes things up with each new game. Kirby made two excellent 2.5D games that utilized the background scenery very well. Even Zelda went from a 3D game series where you could only do certain things to having a massive open world map that lets you climb and swim without requiring you to get certain items. The “bad” Sonic games suffer because they keep trying to use the same mechanics as previous games which then don’t turn out that well because the new gimmick was poorly designed. The developers of the Paper Mario series are exploring new types of paper artwork and managed to make it look so real and fully dimensional. It must have taken a long time to make Olly look like he had fold that gave a 3D illusion and yet still had to be 2D to resemble paper. Even Bowser Jr looks crumpled up yet he still give you a flat look.

There's a difference between "Wanting a Paper Mario Game to be exactly like Thousand Year Door" and "Wanting the series to return to form". If people really just wanted Thousand Year Door again, you'd see more people asking for a port/remake of Thousand Year Door (well, not that you don't already see that, but I digress).

The issue has never been that Sticker Star, Color Splash, or Origami King aren't Thousand Year Door. Super Paper Mario wasn't Thousand Year Door, and in fact is the furthest from it in terms of gameplay mechanics, but still ended up being an amazing game in its own right. Why? Because the mechanics worked, and the game was fun to play. That's the bottom line.

With Sticker Star, Color Splash, and now apparently Origami King, you keep running into the same mechanical flaw; there's no real incentive to battle. I can't speak on Origami King first hand, but I can speak on Sticker Star and Color Splash. With no EXP system and no meaningful rewards, you have no real reason to engage in battles at all. You consume Stickers/Cards to battle. Winning battles solely rewards you with coins (and in Color Splash's case, paint which you also have to consume in battle). Coins are used to buy Stickers/Cards to replace the ones you consumed in battle. So, by engaging in a battle, you literally end up right back where you started, and thus there's no difference if you skipped the battle or not. By the second world in both games I was skipping as many non-mandatory battles as I could, and was literally no worse for wear since the best Stickers/Cards were found in the worlds rather than being bought. When your gameplay mechanics actively discourage you from participating in battles, the mechanics are flawed. It's that age old RPG conundrum of "Save a consumable item for a situation where you might need it, end up never using it".

And it doesn't boil down to a simple case of no EXP = bad. It's possible to incentivize battles without EXP. Take a look at Mega Man Battle Network; it has random battles without an EXP system. MMBN made it so its Attack Chips were not permanently consumable, and most of the Chips were obtained by battling, including the rarest/best ones in the game. Thus, you're actually disadvantaged if you try to skip battles because you miss out on powerful attacks, which, again, aren't permanently consumed.

If you think that people being dissatisfied with modern Paper Mario is simply because it's not Thousand Year Door, then you're missing the point entirely. I bought both Sticker Star and Color Splash due to loving the first three Paper Mario games, and ended up disappointed. And based on all of the pre-release material, I did not see enough to make me confident enough in Origami King to want to buy it. Because at the end of the day, a game is still a purchase that costs money, so if the consumer confidence isn't there, then people have every right to not buy Origami King if it's not done enough to justify the buy.

You may find people wanting Thousand Year Door to be annoying, but the people disregarding valid gameplay criticisms by dismissing them as simple nostalgia are equally annoying.
 

R_N

Well-Known Member
Here's an actual hot take: the weird history rewrtiing around Super Paper Mario. For years it was always the lesser of the first three games by a large margin. The gameplay was dull, it did very little with its "flip" premise, it was wildly unbalanced and just about every world had a gimmick that made you think it was a game designed to make you hate games through tedium. And the aesthetics are sure....something.

To be frank I would much rather play Color Splash (& especially Origami King) again than ever touch Super Paper Mario again. TTYD has its own problems (Backtracking: The Game!), but SPM even at the time I beat it was a very "That was an interesting experience; i would rather never play it again." Just feels like people are latching onto it out of desperation because it went so far in the other direction than the modern Paper Marios & also probably tired of holding up TTYD i guess.

e: That said SPM's primary gameplay would fit the modern Paper Marios significantly better.
I think my ideal would be:
-Random battles are gone. It's just SPM styled stomping & hammering. Origami King actually has a couple "overworld" bosses and its like hey...hey this is pretty good!
-Midbosses/Bosses have the battle system. Ideally I'd like Origami King's style to be built upon; most of the time your equipment doesnt really matter, just solving the puzzle presented. Keep doing that and maybe throw in some special powers and such.
-Aesthetics of the later games. CS & Origami King in particular are very pretty and stylzied
-Snappy writing of the later games, but more of story blended in. I'm thinking SPM's story is a bit much, TTYD is probably a good base to work off of and either bleed that down or tone it just a smidge. I aprpeciate that CS & OK had very reasonably paced dialog. TTYD had the "Thousand Year Bore" moniker for a reason.
-More unique NPCs. OK finally brought back "enemies" that just populate towns, but wI'd like more designs. And names. Names would be nice.
 
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KillerDraco

Well-Known Member
-Aesthetics of the later games. CS & Origami King in particular are very pretty and stylzied

See, I'm kinda torn on this one. While I agree the aesthetics of the world look great... I utterly despise the white outline they've put around characters. I feel like it's a leftover from Sticker Star that needs to go; the worlds may be stylized, but the white-outlined characters just really don't blend well with the world, they look like they're just stickers put over an otherwise appealing world. I'd love to see the character design for your basic characters be more stylized to match.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
See, I'm kinda torn on this one. While I agree the aesthetics of the world look great... I utterly despise the white outline they've put around characters. I feel like it's a leftover from Sticker Star that needs to go; the worlds may be stylized, but the white-outlined characters just really don't blend well with the world, they look like they're just stickers put over an otherwise appealing world. I'd love to see the character design for your basic characters be more stylized to match.
I like the outline because it reminds me of a cardboard cutout that came to life and it makes it a bit easier to see said characters in places that have very little light such as caves and temples. I did find Sticker Star enjoyable and liked solving the off the page missing item placement puzzles. Plus the chalet was very memorable for me and legit gave me a jump scare which is rare for me. I just remember walking down the one hall when the window suddenly burst open and the Stapler popped out of the window with absolutely no warning. The only other time that happened was during my first time playing Mario 64 and inside the haunted house with that piano.
 

Pikasaur

Lazy Summer
Sucks about the "no Reskinned Mario Characters" thing, but i think Origami King is a good game regardless.

I think they could have done more with that Restoration Spring in Whispering woods though. You throw 3 items into it and than it's useless.
 
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GrizzlyB

Confused and Dazed
Here's an actual hot take: the weird history rewrtiing around Super Paper Mario. For years it was always the lesser of the first three games by a large margin. The gameplay was dull, it did very little with its "flip" premise, it was wildly unbalanced and just about every world had a gimmick that made you think it was a game designed to make you hate games through tedium. And the aesthetics are sure....something.

To be frank I would much rather play Color Splash (& especially Origami King) again than ever touch Super Paper Mario again. TTYD has its own problems (Backtracking: The Game!), but SPM even at the time I beat it was a very "That was an interesting experience; i would rather never play it again." Just feels like people are latching onto it out of desperation because it went so far in the other direction than the modern Paper Marios & also probably tired of holding up TTYD i guess.

I completely agree: I thought Super Paper Mario was a supremely lousy game that I've never once considered replaying, and it's baffling to me that people see it as a classic rather than the beginning of the end. Sticker Star is even worse, but that one-two punch killed my interest in the series. I still sniffed around the Color Splash and Origami King releases because I liked the first two games so much, but it's long-since stopped being an RPG series and became an overstylized, subpar platformer that integrates turn-based battles because... of some reason. Personally, I compare Super Paper Mario to Final Fantasy XII (although I actually like FFXII on the whole) where both games kept about half of what made their series great, and threw in about half new nonsense -- some that worked and some that didn't -- and since neither game was completely panned, emboldened the creators to say, "Hey, that worked out great! Next time, let's change even more!" And that's the story of how Sticker Star and Final Fantasy XIII were born, and no one can change my mind.

See, I'm kinda torn on this one. While I agree the aesthetics of the world look great... I utterly despise the white outline they've put around characters. I feel like it's a leftover from Sticker Star that needs to go; the worlds may be stylized, but the white-outlined characters just really don't blend well with the world, they look like they're just stickers put over an otherwise appealing world. I'd love to see the character design for your basic characters be more stylized to match.

It actually wasn't in Sticker Star, so I've never played a game with it, but I agree. Like, what is it supposed to be? It'd be one thing if the characters were actual cutouts with models that didn't move (like cutouts on sticks or something), but Mario changes angles, positions, moves his arms in front of his body, and so on. It's gaudy and overstylized and doesn't make any sense!
 

shoz999

Back when Tigers used to smoke.
So far I'm enjoying it. Reminds me a lot of Luigi's Mansion's gameplay where it's a point and click adventure. I am up to Shogun Studios so far and everything's just great except one part. Characters are charming, Olivia is easily the best fairy-type companion out of both Paper Mario & Mario and Luigi, she is so adorable and childishly funny. And the Bomb-omb, it's characters like him that I wish they brought back the partners feature back. Also the Toads, they have diversified them a bit but you can still tell it's mostly copy and paste, but I like the scavenger hunt for them. There's a lot of witty and dumb humor around them and the settings are some of the most beautiful the Mario series has ever seen, like the entire Mario series.

One of the few problems I have with this game is the combat system. I love the combat system but there's really no point to using it when you can runaway multiple times. There are upgrades you can use but I haven't bothered using it so far and can easily beat most of the enemies without it. The boss fights, they are hilarious and charming, I even like the elementals to an extant as generic as they are but at the same time, the boss-style combat system does feel tacked on. With that being said, this is definitely one of the better Paper Mario games in terms of level design. Color Splash easily had the best, say all you want about Color Splash's combat system but Color Splash destroys Thousand Year Door in this area and so far, I think Color Splash is better than Origimai King but I am still pretty early in the game, I'm at the second world right now, so my opinion on this isn't final.
 

Bguy7

The Dragon Lord
Okay, took my time getting there, but I finally beat the game. And oh my goodness, I loved this game so much! It was incredible!

I'll admit right off the bat that yes, it still suffers from several of the problems that plague modern Paper Mario games, but it also does so much right and is great game simply on its own merit. It's characters (for the most part) were great, it's story was great, it's dialogue was top-notch, and I personally enjoyed the puzzle-solving aspect of the battle system. For me, when it comes to Paper Mario, I care way more about the story and the dialogue than I do about the gameplay. That's why Super Paper Mario is my favorite of the series, as its story and dialogue were both utterly amazing. And this game comes so close to being as good as Super was, it's crazy. So many parts of the game just had me cracking up. And then Bobby, Kamek, and Bowser were all great partners (Professor Toad and T. Ode not so much, but oh well, 3 of 5 isn't too bad). This games just hit all the right notes for me.

As for gameplay, I would have liked a more complex battle system, but the puzzle system almost covered it up enough that it didn't matter. Then there were the boss battles, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I really felt like the bosses were challenging me to think at times. As far as the ever-controversial lack of an experience system goes, I would agree the game would be better with one, but as long as I just forbid myself from running from battles, I never felts like I missing out on anything compared to a more traditional RPG battle system. Also on the gameplay front, I loved this game's overworld battles against the Paper Macho enemies. It added a really unique flare to the game and they were fun to partake in. Also, the areas were probably some of the best designed in the entire series, being as open as they were, but not too open either. And I can't express how happy I am that they ditched the world map and level system, that limited their creative ability way too much.

There is only one thing I can say that truly bothered me about the game, and that's the way it treated its lore. We have so much lore-rich stuff in this game, and yet almost none of it is explored. There's the Vellumentals, the Ancients, T. Ode, and the Shangri Spa. All of those things seem to have some sort of interconnected lore, and yet we barely learn of any of it, and it's hardly connected to the main plot. Mainly, I want to learn more about the Vellumentals. What exactly are they? What did they look like before Olly turned them to origami? What is there connection to the Ancients? What is there connection to the Shangri Spa? What did Olly want with them? Why was one of them a polar bear instead of a tiger? So many unanswered questions, which could have made for an even more interesting story if they were answered.

All in all, I can honestly say that this is my second favorite Paper Mario game. After Sticker Star and Color Splash I had lost hope in series, but this game has done so much more than renew it.

Also, even though I'm a few months late, to all you people who were dissing Super Paper Mario, how could you?
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
I liked how even though Kamek and Bowser Jr have had their differences with Mario in the past, they could put them aside to work together to take down a common enemy. I also liked Kamek’s grumbling under his breath if you didn’t choose his suggestions in the jungle and did the whole I Told You So Thing after each danger. Kamek always had the best dialogue in the entire Mario series.
 

Pokemon Power

Well-Known Member
I just had a thought. What would you all say, if Nintendo did a Super Mario 3D All-Stars-style Paper Mario collection with the original game, The Thousand Year Door and Super Paper Mario, plus the soundtracks for each one?
 

bobandbill

Winning Smile
Staff member
Super Mod
I just had a thought. What would you all say, if Nintendo did a Super Mario 3D All-Stars-style Paper Mario collection with the original game, The Thousand Year Door and Super Paper Mario, plus the soundtracks for each one?
That's be neat. I'd get it, if not for myself then my girlfriend at least so she can try them out.

On the above discussion of SPM - I agree the gameplay itself was a step below. But the story and various plot twists, and the risks taken by IS on various story chapters with those were absolutely top notch and for me the best of the series. Still has the charm and wit of the series, and great music too. Probably too far on one extreme given the shift to toads only since that's seemingly imposed by Nintendo...

------------

I recently beat TOK (100% too!). I very much recommend the game - not the best PM in the series imo, but a very enjoyable game nonetheless and an improvement on CS. I can understand the puzzle battle system being meh, but if you don't hate that you're in for a good time (and I rather liked the boss battles).

Weaker parts of the game I attribute to the chapter (or well, 'streamer' either not having one besides Olivia, or having a rather boring/uninvolved one. The stronger parts of the game embraced the partners and really involved them, and were so much stronger for it. Plot was fine - maybe too much at the very end which could have been paced/foreshadowed better. Dialogue and jokes were constantly on point.

Also holy crap is the soundtrack good. My hot take is that this is the best soundtrack of the series. Give it a listen!
There is only one thing I can say that truly bothered me about the game, and that's the way it treated its lore. We have so much lore-rich stuff in this game, and yet almost none of it is explored. There's the Vellumentals, the Ancients, T. Ode, and the Shangri Spa. All of those things seem to have some sort of interconnected lore, and yet we barely learn of any of it, and it's hardly connected to the main plot. Mainly, I want to learn more about the Vellumentals. What exactly are they? What did they look like before Olly turned them to origami? What is there connection to the Ancients? What is there connection to the Shangri Spa? What did Olly want with them? Why was one of them a polar bear instead of a tiger? So many unanswered questions, which could have made for an even more interesting story if they were answered.
I agree here (and ties into my complaint about one of the partners who was uninvolved - there was potential in expanding lore and involving them more here!). There is much more they could have done with the lore.

I guess ice tiger didn't fit as well as a polar bear though with their more general theme of earth/fire/water/ice powers, and with the tiger having a tie to autumn rather than winter, they changed it (or went with a different inspiration altogether).
 

R_N

Well-Known Member
I got the vibe, especially towards the end*, that there was more planned for the game but had to be cut or abridged for time/dev/cost issues

We know from concept art there was an entire cut area, meant to be a facility where they made the paper machos which, judging by the surrounding area, implied to me that the segment surrounding the mine was meant to be far longer. And offer an explanation for making all those Paper Machos; not something that necessarily NEEDED to happen, but would tie into the idea that they had more "lore" and explanations planned.

iirc we also know from internal enemy listings that a number of enemies were planned. The most notable one I remember is Origami Dino Rhino; the normal Dino Rhino itself is only present in one of the cafe cutscenes.

*To expand on this, spoilers for basically the last three "chapters" of the game
Purple Streamer: It is very unusual to me that the streamer weaves in & out of the ocean and feels like, especially combined with the location of the vellumental temple, you were meant to "chase" it around. Followig it above ground, then going below and seeing where it went, then popping back up. Having a few more islands along the way, maybe? Could also have made the temple more involved, it seemed like a pretty big area but its jus the 3 trials and a mountain trail that scree ntransitions to the temple proper. It's just kind of there, ancillary to the trials.

Meanwhile, the actual finale for the area is...odd. Going from the final vellumental temple to the one that's about all four almost immediately, you know? No room to breathe. Likewise it means Green Streamer didn't have an equivalent, whereas leading with it would be kind of thematic.
But then you have Tape. It's just kind of tacked on (ho ho) to the end of the chapter, he has 0 prescence anywhere else in the Great Sea. Contrast:
-Pencils. Since its the starting area, i'm forgiving that Pencils are just located to the lookout tower but they are ALL OVER that tower. From the moment you first enter, they make their presence known and it never lets up.
-Rubber Band. While the fact its a rubber band isn't relevant until the final area here, they have completely taken over the town, kidnapped its employees and just generally wrecked havoc. And the final area is all about establishing their personality and what they're doing with the residents.
-Hole Punch. Stole the sun, then stole all the inhabitants, and stole their faces for his horrible disco. Probably the most directly involved.
-Scissors: Skipping ahead a bit, Scissors doesnt have much direct interaction outside the castle but the entire crux of the Streamer's plot is caused by them and their presence is, again, very noticable once you get into the castle.
-Stapler: Well I think this is fair. It's just a guard dog and its used to make all the origami soldiers so I think it makes sense that there's no real role here. Makes more sense than poor Roy in Color Splash whose just...there, in the castle.

Tape, though? No where in the sea, not there in the vellumental temple, is completely uninvolved with the attack on the Princess Peach cruise, nothing. No tape anywhere. And the temple itself you only see their handiwork on the last 2 outside portions of the temple, having taped up a variety of toads which.......who are these toads? They aren't part of the cruise, they arent residents of the island, no one is noting how there was a hundred sea-bound toads missing, and they dont count towards Toad Completion and they never show up literally anywhere else in the game after being freed. They dont populat the temple, the islands or even toad town.

It feels like he was meant to have a more dedicated area but it had to be scrapped so the yjust reused the temple as the finale of the streamer.

Green Streamer: So, broadly, I think this chapter is fine? Kamek's great, Bowser Jr is great, lots of good moments in the temple grounds and the jungle. & the jungle itself is pretty standard amoutn of meat for a dungeon. The castle itself is also fine but....feels pretty short huh? It's only the main hall (which is mostly just a set piece), side hall, room hallway, then a few repeated rooms for flavor, and the final hall (mostly for a cutscene) and the throne room (also the side area for the airships but thats more for "next chapter"). There could have easily been more to this planned.
It would also make sense for climbing the tower being meant as the start, since it would mean you had a normal temple for the first 4 streamers and then the 5th & fina lstream has the 5th and final temple. No tape boss at the end, probably just some other midboss, then you head straight to sangri-spa for the jungle and then wrap things up with a treck into the castle.

Finale: Just straight up the castle was very short. Mario RPGs kind of have an issue with these castles being too long, but this feels like just as it was getting started it just wraps up entirely. Like, hey, did you notice there's exactly one puzzle here that requires you using the thousand arms while on a moving platform? That screams "introduce the concept, then iterate on it". Also while I'm fine with fighting the Stapler as a midboss here it's, uh, weird that you fight it right before Olly? Midbosses work better as, well, the mid point! And imagine a stroll through the final part of the castle with unrestrained bowser!
Additionally, the volcano sequence! It's cool but it's so odd that the only volcano area in the game is limited to just being a set piece. Especially when it's a gimmicky area following ANOTHER gimmicky area (the airship battle that lead there).
 

KillerDraco

Well-Known Member
So I finally got a chance to play Origami King. I still refused to buy it, but then a loophole occurred... I was gifted it for my birthday. So that happened.

Overall I'd call the game a 7/10. It's certainly the best modern Paper Mario game (i.e., Sticker Star to present), but it still just... fell short in my opinion. There was a lot of potential but they didn't really capitalize on it as much as they could have. There was so much room for worldbuilding, most notably pertaining to the Vellumentals, but instead they're just... there. The writing could be witty at times, but other times it fell flat. I found it hard to get attached to any of the new characters like Bobby or Professor Toad when half the time they do nothing, and even sit out entire areas (Bobby is big guilty of this given he dips out on two entire areas before he leaves the party). Transitions from one area to the next felt nonexistent; it's literally "We cleared an area! Oh look, another streamer, let's follow it", but repeat until there's no more streamers.

The battles were kinda hit or miss for me. I liked the boss battles a lot more than the normal battles, because they felt more creative being puzzle battles. However... the difficulty was just not there. It felt like the game was overly easy and the difficulty didn't really scale with game progression since I didn't find the end game bosses any more difficult than the early ones. Most of the boss battles were centered around "figure out the gimmick", and it honestly was usually pretty obvious what the gimmick was since it's usually either "Vellumental you just got" or "Thousand Fold Arms". A little more challenge would've been nice, since after like, the Water Vellumental, I found myself getting the hang of everything and not needing to use much brain power for the bosses. Honestly, the hardest part sometimes felt like the puzzles for the Normal Battles, but even then, most normal battles end in one turn. I found myself skipping a lot of them (or running them over in the Desert and Sea) because I never found myself hurting for coins to buy everything, and always had more than enough Confetti given it drops from everywhere and everything.

Music was definitely top tier though, would agree that it's got the best soundtrack of any Paper Mario game, new or old. I can definitely jam out to Autumn Mountain Battle or Stapler Battle Theme.

Overall the game felt like it had a lot more potential that it just didn't capitalize on. It's certainly not a bad game, and I had more fun with it than I did with Color Splash (which I genuinely had to force myself to complete because it felt tedious), but... I still really wish there was more incentive to battle, since maybe they could've been a bit more daring with the difficulty then, and I would've loved to see more effort put into developing characters and worldbuilding.
 
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