TTYD superfan here, I played through The Origami King twice. Did I like it? Yes and no. My first play-through I was doing my best to be open minded. On my second play-through I was just appreciating the art and design of the world (and using as reference for my Art)
Perhaps what we all can agree on is that Origami King’s art style is it’s best quality. The music was enjoyable, I actually liked the instense rock/guitar segments. Although some may find that its not very fitting for the series, nevertheless, I had no qualms with it.
Where the game starts to fall and where most people agree, is the combat system. They decided to make a tedious ring puzzle every time you engaged in combat. Is it easy? Most of the time, but difficulty isnt the problem with the combat in TOK, it’s the pacing. Battling enemies is such a waste of time and makes me question myself of why I am putting myself through this.
Engaging in combat merits nothing in TOK because confetti and coins can be obtained in the over-world and there is no short supply of both. This game suffers from the same problem sticker star did “why engage in combat? to lose battle items and gain nothing?”
This is where I say I’d actually prefer if they got rid of the turn based combat (gasp!). If they are keeping turn based combat for the last 3 games to appeal to the classic Paper Mario fans then they should stop and do away with it because you’re hurting both sides of the spectrum. Classic Paper Mario fans are certainly not winning from it and the rest of the audience are certainly not praising and playing the game for its combat.
Which brings me to another topic…the paper macho battles are fantastic. If the whole game was like this it would actually be tied for my top 3 paper marios. The macho enemy fights do away with the turn based combat and let you have engaging over-world battles. This is what was missing from like 80% of the game, engaging combat.
I liked Super Paper Mario because it wasn't trying to be something its not. It wanted to be its own weird thing and executed it with style. Is it the most innovative thing? No. But it wasnt trying to pander to classic paper mario fans and it certainly did not lack creativity and originality in story telling, character design, and world building. Even though I actually prefer the classic RPG format way more, Super was still fun because in a game design aspect it was still enjoyable in it own weird way.
Origami King and the 2 games before it suffer and fall short because they are trying to please both agendas which will end up leaving both sides of the spectrum dissatisfied. If you don’t care for the turned based combat well then you’re getting cheated on a game that could’ve been made better. If you’re a fan of the classics, you’re getting a watered down version of what you loved.
Also I posted it here before but shameless plug in for that Art I stated I used TOK for reference!
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. Though if Nintendo does release/remaster it, I’ll give it a cautious go.
