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LTTP Paper Mario The Origami King is very very good actually

(Late to the party)
Kano

Kano

yoda gaming
I'm super late to this train, I just beat Paper Mario Origami King about a year and a half after it released (too much else to play and I kinda forgot I owned it). So I powered through it over the past two weeks while waiting for Legends Arceus and Elden Ring to release, fully aware of its reputation and after having hated the past two entries (I actually only played Sticker Star but from what I've seen CS is mostly the same).

But Origami King was very very good? Like, it has none of the issues Sticker Star had and it has tremendous qualities instead. I agree that the regular enemies battle system got repetitive by the time you hit third chapter and never evolves too much, but everything else in the game was ACED.

  • The story is really pleasing to follow. Olivia is a believable character who goes through decent development and her dynamic with Mario and Bobby was pretty endearing. The story had several interesting beats and twists that probably easily made it the best story in the series.
  • This is coupled with extremely good writing. The game never ceases to be funny, and even when a joke falls flat, they follow up so quickly with something else that it feels never forced. Every character is unique and filled with personality, both amongst enemies and allies.
  • Visually the game is a treat, one of the prettiest games on Switch for sure. It is pretty varied in its environments despite having quite big areas.
  • Every bossfight was really fun, they all have a unique twist on the Chu Chu Rocket-variation of the ring puzzle battle system. They're clearly the highlights of the game.
  • Pacing-wise the game never let me off its hook. You've got five big chapters, each going through a different biome, you meet different people and partners and there's a different theme to each chapter. You go from a ninja theme park that got tons of stupid fun attractions, to a huge, obviously Wind Waker inspired sea to roam with your boat. Seriously, the Great Sea chapter was my favourite. This shit was incredible.
  • Puzzles are fun! The game basically kept throwing at you puzzles and they were overall quite inspired, even though yes regular battles started to be a bit much in the second half (thanks god for the generous toads to bribe though).
  • Absolutely banging soundtrack, one of the best in the Switch era. Listen to this bop:



Can't believe we let people give a bad reputation to this game when it was such a fun and great experience. Definitely a return to form to Paper Mario after two lackluster entries and a Wii game that was (imo) not in the same ballpark as the first two. Origami King definitely stands up to the earlier games (tho PM64 is still my fav).
 
The game is great, especially on a first playthrough. But the normal combat is really not that good and they don't build on it either throughout the game. I'd have liked to see a couple more gimmicks like with the boss battles.

I personally found the big sea tower also to be a bit boring, just repetition of the 4 vellumentals. And the jungle could also have been a bit more in depth rather than the insta death with the chomp.

Don't get me wrong the game is great, but the combat kind of drags it down for me. I personally prefer Colour Splash.
 
Yep, pretty much just waiting for the general opinion to catch up.

I seem to be in the minority of people who loved the battle system throughout the whole game and rarely if ever skipped battles.

It's one of the games my partner also played through to the end, which says a lot.
 
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Origami King appreciation thread let's go! Really love the game, Bobby's story šŸ˜­ everything about the world visually and audio wise just made it a joy to exist and explore in. I definitely really enjoyed the battles and didnt skip although towards the end they overwhelmed me a little, I remember feeling like I needed more time to think and using the crutches a little more šŸ˜…
 
Yeah it was always a fantastic game. Insane that it wasn't nominated for best OST like anywhere.
 
I would say it's a very good game that consistently kept my attention, but I really couldn't tell you why.

The story isn't very good and the more serious parts are actually written badly, the lore isn't that interesting, the battle system doesn't change how you play from start to finish much, and I'm not even really a big fan of the score (it's certainly good, and listening to pieces outside of the game they are great, but I don't think it really clicked as a GOAT or anything).

But there's no doubt it was consistently pretty entertaining, which is a big accomplishment. Some of the best visuals on Switch, too. And I never found the battle system boring, which I know a decent chunk of people, even those who liked the game, eventually did. It ultimately ended up being one of the few very long games that I don't think dragged too much. Very good. Too bad the villain's final motivation is so stupid tho ... that put such a sour taste in my mouth for the finale.
 
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This is the part where I point out that the game played this absolute banger of a song in just a single unimportant room



Anyway yeah it is a great game. Amazing soundtrack as highlighted above, incredible boss fights and really creative locales/scenario writing
 
I liked pretty much everything about it except the battle system with normal enemies. Unfortunately that ends up making up at LEAST 1/4 of the playtime, so it kind of sours the whole experience.
 
yess, it's easily in my top 5 switch exclusives

the soundtrack may be the best of any nintendo published game
 
Itā€™s great on its own terms, but I canā€™t separate it from the series and it still has lots of my disappointments with ā€œnewā€ paper Mario. Though itā€™s by far the best of the new ones.

Definitely agree boss fights were a highlight. Also loved the overworld as opposed to world map. If they keep going the direction TOK went, we could have a pretty nice replacement for classic Zelda in a post-BotW world.
 
Can't agree. Battle system is still fundamentally flawed: get coins to use on consumables to use on battles to get coins. There's no proper experience system to justify battling at all, you're better off just running away form every encounter.

That's not getting into the massive issues with character originality, story, the death of RPG mechanics, etc. If you fixed the flawed battle system it's probably a fine game, but it's not a Paper Mario game
 
Currently playing through it actually!

Really enjoying it and all the little jokes. Like quick travel is Mario faxing himself to another area. I love it. Plus I really like the jokes. Like Toads in the ground mentioning that Mario getting them out was great, as they do not have ā€œMush roomā€.

Moooooar
 
TheDok said:
Can't agree. Battle system is still fundamentally flawed: get coins to use on consumables to use on battles to get coins. There's no proper experience system to justify battling at all, you're better off just running away form every encounter.

That's not getting into the massive issues with character originality, story, the death of RPG mechanics, etc. If you fixed the flawed battle system it's probably a fine game, but it's not a Paper Mario game
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The story and characters were very good though. The story especially was better than any game before.

It doesn't need to be a RPG to be good, that's just an aspect that can be replaced or different.
 
The world design is by far one of the strongest of the generation. It has such memorable design throughout the game that I haven't played it in years, but I can still distinctly remember each area in the game. It's miles away better than Thousand Year door in that regard, in that exploration is actually fun and engaging throughout the game.
 
TheDok said:
Most of the old Paper Mario fandom dislikes the newer games
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Comic Obsessed said:
Mostly TTYD fans.

And they dislike anything that is not TTYD (despite that the original PM was still better).
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I played TTYD as a young teenager, and consider it not just my favorite in the series, but one of my favorite games of all time.

Origami King is still fantastic and probably my overall second favorite in the series. I donā€™t think ā€œmostā€ old fans hate the newer games, at least from Color Splash onwards, just some are really, loudly vocal about it, largely bolstered by a blue muppet.

As for combat, the thing to remember is the game is basically a Zelda. Combat is there to give you resources, provides a challenge, or to be an obstacle, not to facilitate character growth. Avoiding combat is perfectly fine and acceptable if you donā€™t want to do it, but like Zelda, it is still important to the gameplay loop in a non-XP based way.
 
I agree! As a fan of TTYD and not much else from Paper Mario, I highly recommend it.

The complaints about the battle system are valid, but it wasn't bad enough to turn me off completely. Normal battles got repetitive, but I felt like the mechanic worked well with bosses. I didn't care that it wasn't more "RPG" like.

The story, graphics and environments were more than enough to keep me interested. I absolutely loved seeing new areas as they popped up. The game just made me happy to play.

The Samurai theme park will go down as one of my favorite Mario worlds to explore. So much charm there.
 
Yeah itā€™s outstanding. That crowd always tore apart any positive conversation on it before they could take off in the old place, it was infuriating.

Complaints about the battle system are fair, but itā€™s a far cry from the last two entries and was a very strong effort towards making something unique and engaging!
 
TheDok said:
Can't agree. Battle system is still fundamentally flawed: get coins to use on consumables to use on battles to get coins. There's no proper experience system to justify battling at all, you're better off just running away form every encounter.

That's not getting into the massive issues with character originality, story, the death of RPG mechanics, etc. If you fixed the flawed battle system it's probably a fine game, but it's not a Paper Mario game
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Have you actually played it? The way you talk about the story and characters, it kinda sounds like you've just read about it and maybe watched some battle clips. Apologies if I'm off-base.
 
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If it wasn't for the battle system I would have said PMTOK is a 10/10. The music, visuals, story, characters are all phenomenal.
 
Comic Obsessed said:
I mean, that's just how it is.

Only a very particular part of the fandom dislikes it.
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TheDok said:
Most of the old Paper Mario fandom dislikes the newer games
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OK was the first Paper Mario game I completed from front to end and I frankly did not enjoy the experience. I didn't hate it, but I didn't get any real joy from it either. I played it in a time where I used it more to fill the time, that's the only reason I completed it. If I had other games to play at the moment I would've dropped it in a heartbeat.

Plus the story kinda sucks in my opinion. It feels like the game was grasping at what identity it should take on. That of a storybased RPG, an action-adventure, a tactical battle puzzler..
I think its characters are not very good and there are too few or not fleshed out enough. The cities/villages/locations feel like backdrops rather than places. Vessels for the game to move on in its plot and story rather than locations that come along the players path.

The game is pretty though, but that's where it stops for me. Everything else falls apart when I look at my taste pallet.
 
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It's a pretty good game but I think if it had deeper rpg mechanics and a proper battle system it would be miles better. Great game that could have been a classic. I still enjoyed it though mostly due to the reasons named in the OP. everything about it is top notch except for the battle system and weak rpg elements.
 
It's pretty great. As you say, the battle system is the weak point, not for what it is, but for its ubiquity. If it was used for more limited encounters, it would have been great.

I also think they worked the "limitation" on character in true artistic form. The fact that Toads and bob-ombs are alike is made core to the theme of the story. It's all about overcoming feelings of insignificance. We see that in Olivia's journey. Along the way, we meet all these Toads that look alike but have different characters. We meet Bobby who despite being just another bob-omb is able to make an impact on Olivia's life. Seeing how he is just one of the bunch yet was able to matter to her personally is important to her overcoming her own insecurity. This is in contrast to her brother who dismisses all Toads as just Toads, as much copy-paste drones as he tried to make of his folded soldiers. But the message is that just because you feel you can't stand out, it doesn't mean you don't matter and you can't make a difference.

WestEgg said:
As for combat, the thing to remember is the game is basically a Zelda. Combat is there to give you resources, provides a challenge, or to be an obstacle, not to facilitate character growth. Avoiding combat is perfectly fine and acceptable if you donā€™t want to do it, but like Zelda, it is still important to the gameplay loop in a non-XP based way.
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Absolutely. Not every game needs to be centred around its combat. That being said, a setpiece battle system, one that cuts away from the main action thereby making a big deal of itself, is perhaps best used in games that do make combat the centrepiece.
 
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Vantell said:
If it wasn't for the battle system I would have said PMTOK is a 10/10. The music, visuals, story, characters are all phenomenal.
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Exactly how I feel. Loved the game, even with the not-so-good battle system and iffy motivation to actually battle things.

Even then, the battle system was at least an improvement over Color Splash, where fighting things just felt like such an active detriment that I actually did avoid it. But Color Splash was similar in the way that outside of the battle system it was actually quite good in most other ways, but unlike Origami King I wasn't able to love the game despite the issues.

I play a lot of turn-based games and I generally consider the battle system to be near the top of the list of how much I'll enjoy the game, which I guess just goes to show how damn good I find the game in most other ways that I still really loved it. It's my favorite game of 2020.
 
I'll always be a huge defender of Color Splash and Origami King mainly because I found the first three Paper Mario games tedious. With the first game, it's barely a problem, since backtracky chapters are either laid out like a maze, or have a central hub, but SPM and TTYD have a linear design that forces you to go left and right so many times, it couldn't keep me entertained.

I'm glad they finally got the pacing right in the last two games, even if some elements had to be sacrificed and systems changed.
 
I literally already have heavy nostalgia for this game.

The music, the worlds, the goofiness... I'm so happy this game happened. It's already getting some of that Wind Waker glow up too, where years later more and more people are like, "You know, this game has it's problem areas but damn it's kinda... awesome?" and you just love to see it.
 
Honestly, I think I hate it. Basically the most annoying battle system of all time that you get nothing out of for the troubles it causes you


But anyway the dev team behind it is clearly talented and I think anyone would struggle with the toxic environment surrounding this series and what itā€™s become

From the completely dumbass and arbitrary restrictions Nintendo has decided to single this series out on and force them to work around to trying to throw in a bunch of non working mechanics to help validate the series as being a ā€œrealā€ paper Mario game even if it completely clashes with whatever new ideas they want to implement

Seriously just drop it and do something else. Iā€™m sure they could make a much better game than this or the other newer paper Marioā€™s had they not had to pull a little impossible balancing act of managing series expectations and working around Nintendos Mario Brand rule book while also trying to innovate

Make a quarky RPG, or action game or what the fuck ever with original character or an older Nintendo brand they arenā€™t using and arenā€™t so protective of


How about a kid Icarus game where everyone is a vegetable, i dunno. I just want literally anything else than the current status quo of the state of this series
 
Soul Skater said:
Honestly, I think I hate it. Basically the most annoying battle system of all time that you get nothing out of for the troubles it causes you


But anyway the dev team behind it is clearly talented and I think anyone would struggle with the toxic environment surrounding this series and what itā€™s become

From the completely dumbass and arbitrary restrictions Nintendo has decided to single this series out on and force them to work around to trying to throw in a bunch of non working mechanics to help validate the series as being a ā€œrealā€ paper Mario game even if it completely clashes with whatever new ideas they want to implement

Seriously just drop it and do something else. Iā€™m sure they could make a much better game than this or the other newer paper Marioā€™s had they not had to pull a little impossible balancing act of managing series expectations and working around Nintendos Mario Brand rule book while also trying to innovate

Make a quarky RPG, or action game or what the fuck ever with original character or an older Nintendo brand they arenā€™t using and arenā€™t so protective of


How about a kid Icarus game where everyone is a vegetable, i dunno. I just want literally anything else than the current status quo of the state of this series
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Nintendo doesn't restrict them from anything beyond supervising the character designs. Everything else is designed by the team for the game they want to make.
 
TheDok said:
Can't agree. Battle system is still fundamentally flawed: get coins to use on consumables to use on battles to get coins. There's no proper experience system to justify battling at all, you're better off just running away form every encounter.

That's not getting into the massive issues with character originality, story, the death of RPG mechanics, etc. If you fixed the flawed battle system it's probably a fine game, but it's not a Paper Mario game
Click to expand...
So the only way to design a good game is to give you extrinsic rewards? Is that why you engage with battles in RPGs, just to level up? Or is it to actually engage with a game's mechanics and have fun? Now whether or not the battle system is fun, that's a fair debate, but I just hate hearing this same tired argument brought up every time the newer Paper Mario games are discussed.

Yeah the games aren't really RPGs anymore, I agree. That doesn't make them worse. RPG is not an inherently better or worse genre than puzzle adventure or whatever you want to call it now. Frankly I myself prefer the latter. But did you really play the old games just for the RPG mechanics? Personally I enjoyed them most for the creative locales and scenarios, which Origami King still has. As long as those are still there, it's got a paper aesthetic and the word Mario is in the title, it's still a Paper Mario game.
 
The game is full of memorable moments and locations. Far more so than any previous game in the series if you ask me. It's constantly surprising from beginning to end. In my opinion one of the best games of the Switch generation.
 
As someone who got into Paper Mario very recently I have to agree. I played 64, TOK and just started TTYD. I prefer the ā€œpartnersā€ in TOK because they feel more like characters than game mechanics. Also I feel the lack of incentive to do normal battles after a while is a Paper Mario series issue in general. I generally found the amount of FP gained not worth the time spent in battle (particularly places like Forever Forest in the OG where encounters are hard to avoid in general).
 
Book_Maker said:
As someone who got into Paper Mario very recently I have to agree. I played 64, TOK and just started TTYD. I prefer the ā€œpartnersā€ in TOK because they feel more like characters than game mechanics. Also I feel the lack of incentive to do normal battles after a while is a Paper Mario series issue in general. I generally found the amount of FP gained not worth the time spent in battle (particularly places like Forever Forest in the OG where encounters are hard to avoid in general).
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This is how I felt. I heard so much drama about TOK not rewarding you for combat...but the originals barely do either? I was purposefully avoiding battles almost as soon as the game started because many of them weren't worth the 2 experience points I got for completing them.

Meanwhile, I almost never avoided battles in TOK because I thought the puzzles were fun to solve and that the battles were almost always snappy.
 
Great OP, I'm about 20 hours into the game now in my first playthrough (picked it up on a holiday sale) and I'm absolutely stunned at how much fun I'm having and how good it is. The Paper Mario series never clicked for me and when it came out, it was part of what I believed to be a relatively uninteresting summer of games.

Fast forward to the present and I cannot believe this game wasn't talked about more online. All I remember hearing was that the game was too easy and long-standing fans seemed to be disappointed....about something? This has been a surprise treat of the winter and my only regret is that I didn't play it sooner.

Edit: after reading some of the comments here, I remember why I believed the game was a disappointment. A lot of the online discourse is about how the battle system sucks. Personally, I find solving the puzzle battles perfectly (in order to win without getting hit) to be fun and engaging. I don't want to invalidate the preferences of OG fans, but I think anyone who can approach the game with an open mind will probably like it.
 
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Great soundtrack, great story, and GREAT writing, with beautiful art direction. Great game but...

...It really should've either gotten rid of combat altogether or did combat in real-time with jumps and the hammer, saving the ring mechanic for boss fights. Average fights got really old really quickly and still didn't give any substantial reason to engage with it.
 
Yeah, Origami King is genuinely great. If you have not played it yet, you are missing out. One of my highlights of what has been a rather slow year for my tastes.
 
It's a fun game for sure, my only gripe was the timed battles. I know you can spend coins to increase the amount of time, but I don't like to be pressured when I am battling. I liked the real time battles a lot more and hope to see them more in (hopefully!) future games as the main style for battles.
 
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