Paper Mario: The Origami King

[Celestia]

I think the coolest thing that surprisingly isn't in the trailers so far is Olivia transforming into the papier mâché (or, as the game apparently calls them, "macho") bosses. Makes sense since we see her brother is capable of shapeshifting as well.

I'm curious what limits there are to this in battles though. Maybe she's put on a cooldown after the attack is done, or you can only do it once per battle or something?

[mayday2592]

I wonder if they work like the thing cards/stickers with no interaction needed or like the star moves in ttyd.

[Cayenne]

Return to form or not, one thing is sure: Origami King will have an amazing soundrack. This is the best battle theme I've heard from a Paper Mario game.

 

[Wraith]

No EXP confirmed. You just get coins. Guessing they're going to be leaning hard on having the coins to buy equipment to make battles meaningful. 

[Cayenne]

Origami King has been leaked on the internet. There's already gameplay pics on /v/ (4chan's video game board), streams and some music tracks on youtube.

 

[Danj86]

I'm still unsure about this game. I don't usually bother letting reviews aid my decision, I might have to for this title. Been watching gameplay videos.

 

[Sonictrainer]

Fun little references

Spoiler

 

 

[Kuzu]

GameXplain's review.

 

[Cayenne]

Oh boy...If you are a big fan of the old Paper Mario games, you might not like to read this interview. Here's some interesting snipets...

Quote

“Nintendo’s philosophy on game creation is that we don’t ignore casual players in creating our games,” he says. “This is also true for games such as those in the Metroid Prime series; games that at first glance look like they are only aimed at core gamers.

“With that in mind, what we’ve done in the Paper Mario series is to put a lot of work particularly into the puzzle solving elements of the games, so that they can also be enjoyed by core users.

“So, for example, in Paper Mario: The Origami King, 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. This is an adventure game after all, so it wouldn’t be right if the battles didn’t also have some kind of puzzle solving element!”

 

Quote

“However, I do think it’s difficult to satisfy certain fans with the adventure game direction if they think of Paper Mario games as simply being RPGs. I hope that everyone will play this game with an open mind.”

 

Quote

The most recent Paper Mario games were criticised by some for a perceived simplification in both story and battles compared to past games. Were you aware of fan concern, and did you seek to address it with the Switch version?

Tanabe: I do look through the opinions of fans once a game is released. As there are cases where I can’t address those opinions exactly as fans want, I try to challenge myself to other new, fun ideas. What I always keep in mind though is to do as much as I can so that players can enjoy new and unique game experiences. I’m confident that if you play Paper Mario: The Origami King, you’ll understand just how many ideas we’ve managed to pack into one game.

 

Quote

How do you make sure the story appeals to a broad audience? And what challenges does existing within the Mario franchise present to your writers?

Tanabe: In Super Paper Mario, the elaborate story led the game away from the Mario universe, so since Paper Mario: Sticker Star I’ve refrained from using stories that are too complicated. Personally, though, I like games with stories. During the production of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, we made use of a system for character settings and real conversations in order to build the story, which was a first for a game in a series. (I also wrote the text for this game.)

To go back to Mario, in Paper Mario: Color Splash, I avoided having a complicated story so as not to veer too far away from the Mario universe, and instead aimed for a game with more memorable events. To create even more memorable experiences for players, in Paper Mario: The Origami King we’ve established some characters other than the partner character who will also journey with players through the game. In particular, I think that Bobby (Bob-omb) has turned out to be just as memorable a character as Olivia.

 

Quote

Mario is famous for its iconic cast of villains. Can you talk about the new villain in this game and how you design a character to stand alongside all-time greats like Bowser and Kamek?

Tanabe: Since Paper Mario: Sticker Star, it’s no longer possible to modify Mario characters or to create original characters that touch on the Mario universe. That means that if we aren’t using Mario characters for bosses, we need to create original characters with designs that don’t involve the Mario universe at all, like we’ve done with Olly and the stationery bosses.

Whether a character becomes an all-time hit or not isn’t up to us on the development side; I think it’s more the case that characters that fans truly accept naturally end up that way. I hope that the origami siblings in Paper Mario: The Origami King will stay in players’ memories, even if they do only end up appearing in this title.

 

[Sean]

It really blows my mind how frequently Nintendo talks about how much 64 and TTYD suck in these interviews (and yes I partly blame interviewers for continuously bringing them and the fan complaints up). Imagine if another game company did this.

Like what if Id decided to not make Doom 2016 and instead continued with the original pitch for Doom 4 which looked like a fucking Call of Duty clone. Id: "We don't want to make games like Doom 1 and 2 again even though people loved those old games so much, we have officially decided that Doom 3 is the future of the franchise because we need to consider the needs of the casual fanbase"

I've accepted the fact that Nintendo doesn't want to make games like old Paper Mario anymore, and if other people can enjoy the new games then by all means they should. But the fact that these interviews keep popping up, the ones that reference the old ones and how Nintendo is willfully ignorant of what people liked about them, digs up those old bitter feelings.

[Salamander]

While I sympathise, this interview doesn't actually appear to mention 64 and TTYD at all.  The oldest reference point given is Super Paper Mario, which I recall being discussed in I think the Iwata Asks for Sticker Star as a game which Japanese Club Nintendo fans rated poorly for its story.  The shift occurred there.  Still, I do hope that one of these days the voices of old-school Paper Mario fans will secure remakes or at least remasters of the earlier games in order to test the waters with a serious sales comparison (I understand that the newer games have vastly outsold the classic titles - but they were a long time ago).

Conversely, I do raise my eyebrows slightly at Tanabe's discussion of what kinds of original characters they're allowed to make, since Origami King does feature traditional Mario characters with non-standard designs or unique characterisation.  The Mario & Luigi remakes didn't crack down on the old original designs and characters, either (with a handful of exceptions which are almost certainly related to asset recycling more than mandates).  Frankly, I think part of the sense of staleness comes from the way mainline Mario seems to have considerable freedom to experiment, but very little of that ever seems to show up in the "stock", if you like, of what the spin-offs are allowed to touch.  So there's something odd going on which I'm not sure is actually what's being openly admitted; it's almost like a Classic versus Modern Sonic thing.

A curious business.  I've played basically none of the Paper Mario games (except Sticker Star, which really was a waste of time), but from my point of view it looks like the new game nails everything I'm interested in except combat.  Unfortunately, that's the bread-and-butter of the gameplay loop...

[Danj86]

1 hour ago, Cayenne said:

Tanabe: In Super Paper Mario, the elaborate story led the game away from the Mario universe, so since Paper Mario: Sticker Star I’ve refrained from using stories that are too complicated. Personally, though, I like games with stories. During the production of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, we made use of a system for character settings and real conversations in order to build the story, which was a first for a game in a series. (I also wrote the text for this game.)

To go back to Mario, in Paper Mario: Color Splash, I avoided having a complicated story so as not to veer too far away from the Mario universe, and instead aimed for a game with more memorable events. To create even more memorable experiences for players, in Paper Mario: The Origami King we’ve established some characters other than the partner character who will also journey with players through the game. In particular, I think that Bobby (Bob-omb) has turned out to be just as memorable a character as Olivia.

It's a shame. I played Sticker Star and Colour Splash and can only remember Sticker Star for silencing Bowser, which hurt the game in my opinion. Then with Colour Splash, I only remember the creepy way Shy Guy steal colour and that they used the "evil possessing a character" trope. (Bowser)

Even though it's been years and I'm an old fart, I still remember so much from PM64, TTYD and Super. Characters and stories. The Origami King could still be memorable but without battle mechanics to keep the player interested, it could still fail.

[Tornado]

Please understand. It's too hard to animate other characters. Some of them may even wear dresses, and that would be right out.

[Sean]

56 minutes ago, FFWF said:

While I sympathise, this interview doesn't actually appear to mention 64 and TTYD at all.

They explicitly refer to the RPG battles and ask fans of the old games to "keep an open mind" knowing they're critical of the new ones. Not really sure what else it's supposed to mean, especially since they never speak of them or SPM with an ounce of reverence.

[Plumbers_Helper]

52 minutes ago, Tornado said:

Please understand. It's too hard to animate other characters. Some of them may even wear dresses, and that would be right out.

Yup, that is exactly their reason why Princess Peach isn't playable in New Super Mario Bros Wii.

Quote

"Originally, I thought it would be nice if we could have Princess Peach in there as a playable character," he said through a translator, "but in fact, the Toad characters have a physical that's a little bit closer to Mario and Luigi. In particular, if we had one character out of the four that wore a dress, we would have to have special processing and programming to handle how the skirt is handled within the gameplay."

Source: https://www.destructoid.com/peach-s-dress-the-reason-for-her-not-being-playable-in-new-mario-wii-152201.phtml

[SupahBerry]

So they're content with de-RPGing this series. Then you look at what happened to M&L: reduced to mere last gen remakes, and then AlphaDream is history. As @FFWF mentioned, the characters that got modern redesigns seem more out of reusing assets than to make them "up to date". Both remakes in general reek of using assets and budget cuts. You'd think they'd put at least SSS on the Switch if they'd still have a proper budget on'em. But whoever said it wasn't Nintendo's choice to not support them and let it die?

The thing is, I say Tanabe and other old Nintendo producers have a bias against RPGs. Perhaps they never let go of their hostility towards Square for "doing 'em dirty" with the FF7 episode, they grew resentful towards letting their pre-established IPs doing anything the resembled turn based RPGs. Hence why will are still without a proper Zelda RPG after all this time.

The four exceptions are there cause not only are they RPG franchises from the start, but they differentiate from the FF and DQ stuff they despise being reminded of. Mother takes place in a modern Westernized setting while Pokemon is centered around collecting critters. Fire Emblem may be medieval fantasy, but it's a Tactical RPG instead of turn based, and Xenoblades an Action RPG with hint of sci fi. Of course, even the Mario RPGs did plenty of stuff to stand out from Sqaure's output's, but I'm afraid some higher ups couldn't see past it.

 

Intelligent Systems feel they've done all they really could with traditional RPGs after TYD, so they stray away from trying to make more of what they thought couldn't be taken higher. As for AlphaDream, they saw continued success for their M&L games, but since they were plenty of other Mario and Pokemon games being made that saw more success, the producers felt there was no more "need" for any regular Mario RPGs. Rather than telling them to stop being "RPG-ish" like PM, they slowly cut of their support as a way of laying off the AD staff, while still making feel free to move into other subsidiaries.

 

So it's unlikely Mario or any other non-RPG Nintendo franchise will ever end up in another RPG spinoff again.
But Hey: (Inset Slogan Here)

 

Spoiler

...There. MatPat's gonna hire me for sure. 

 

[Zaysho]

On 5/15/2020 at 1:55 PM, Zaysho said:

tbh if you've never played a Paper Mario game this doesn't seem like a terrible one to start out with.

lol never mind

I really wanted to at least give this the benefit of the doubt for newer players, but honestly I'm not convinced this game will really give a comparable experience to the older RPGs. I still recommend trying the first two Paper Marios and SMRPG and hopefully people get why others prefer them to the current direction. I'm sure it'll be fine for what it is, but it feels like IntSys would be better off canning the RPG elements (which are more or less tacked on in the current games) and just focusing on making a full 3D adventure game. The world design at least looks nice even if it's a bit on the empty side, but it feels like that could have been pushed more if they weren't trying to pay lip service to the series starting out as an RPG when it's obvious they don't want to make that kind of game anymore. I'd be fine with that rather than weighing the game down with something pointless and overly complicated that doesn't even reflect on where the series started.

On the plus side, if it's true the writing tones down on the "HILARIOUS XDDDD" writing from Color Splash, the game has that working in its favor. Still a pass for me, though. The new games just look boring and have none of the charm that the series had, and it's a shame because I think Mario has incredible creative potential and it's been displayed so many times that it's disheartening that the spinoff series where it can shine can't even do that.

  

11 minutes ago, Supah Berry said:

Xenoblades an Action RPG with hint of sci fi

haha "hint"

[PublicEnemy1]

29 minutes ago, Supah Berry said:

 

I feel as if your post kinda leans into "crazy conspiracy theory" and massive pessimism.

I think Alpha Dream was just a victim of unfortunate timing of the 3ds dying faster than expected and bad luck, as well as the tradition to HD sprites.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

41 minutes ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

I feel as if your post kinda leans into "crazy conspiracy theory" and massive pessimism.

I think Alpha Dream was just a victim of unfortunate timing of the 3ds dying faster than expected and bad luck, as well as the tradition to HD sprites.

In AlphaDream's defence, they more or less got the short end of the stick since this was still around the time Nintendo were insistent on supporting the 3DS (BiS DX dropped a few months after the Luigi's Mansion remake, which in of itself was made to hype up Luigi's Mansion 3). Superstar Saga DX seemingly did well enough to justify another game. Bowser's Inside Story DX was just a gigantic misfire - releasing a remake of a game that was not only still readily available on the 3DS, but one that wasn't that old in comparison, and therefore didn't require nearly as many quality of life enhancements. BiS DX wasn't so much bad, as many people just saw it as unneeded.

If Nintendo had let AlphaDream jump to the Switch, much like Paper Mario was allowed to do, I'd imagine AlphaDream would still be around.

[Salamander]

19 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

In AlphaDream's defence, they more or less got the short end of the stick since this was still around the time Nintendo were insistent on supporting the 3DS (BiS DX dropped a few months after the Luigi's Mansion remake, which in of itself was made to hype up Luigi's Mansion 3). Superstar Saga DX seemingly did well enough to justify another game. Bowser's Inside Story DX was just a gigantic misfire - releasing a remake of a game that was not only still readily available on the 3DS, but one that wasn't that old in comparison, and therefore didn't require nearly as many quality of life enhancements. BiS DX wasn't so much bad, as many people just saw it as unneeded.

If Nintendo had let AlphaDream jump to the Switch, much like Paper Mario was allowed to do, I'd imagine AlphaDream would still be around.

Maybe so.  I do think that the M&L remakes were probably Nintendo's idea to keep the 3DS going, but I do also think it probably had something to do with creating stopgap titles while AlphaDream tried to scale up to HD development.  The failure of the BiS remake in particular probably didn't rebound on AlphaDream too badly - it will have been made on commission - but the asset recycling, maybe the need to do stopgap titles at all, does point to a company that's working under serious constraints... and lo and behold, they went bankrupt.  A real shame... but if I'm honest, I don't think they ever quite managed to make anything that lived up to Superstar Saga.  People talk a big game about Bowser's Inside Story, but that's 95% nostalgia and 5% a great final boss, the rest is honestly just a mess which I think they probably rushed.

In any case, broadly in agreement with the case that Paper Mario should really drop all pretence of being an RPG at this point.  Call a spade a spade, it's an adventure game.  I remember thinking when I played Sticker Star that it seemed better-suited to being an Action RPG...

[Dr. Mechano]

Well, they finally confirmed it. No more original named characters based on existing Mario characters. No more original Goombas, Koopas, etc. ever again.

All is lost. The original, diverse, interesting Mario universe I grew up with has been officially declared gone in no uncertain terms. I was holding on to hope that someday they could give us more characters like Goombella or Bobbery again, but this quote is very explicit that it won't happen, and kinda feels like the final nail in the coffin.

I guess it's closure at least, but this really sucks.

[Natie]

Nintendo's a pretty different company these days, that explosion of creative experimentation on the late N64 - Early Wii era was a real lightning in a bottle. I'm not surprised to see that in those interviews. 

It's interesting he seems to refer to SPM as the one that went too far. I remember seeing those japanese surveys saying players did not care for that focus in SPM.

[Graystripe2000]

The game has an 81 on Metacritic.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/switch/paper-mario-the-origami-king

[Blue Blood]

I bought this game because despite not looking like the Paper Mario I know and love, it looked like it would be decent enough if I tried to go in with an open mind. I've just beaten the first boss battle in this game.

The entire battle system in this game is a mess. It's designed to waste your time with the puzzle round, and it's different for the sake of being different, rather than because it has a solid base mechanic. This is the first PM game that I've played since Super and... It's okay at best. I can't give the game any praise higher than that.

[VO.SUPER]

2 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

I bought this game because despite not looking like the Paper Mario I know and love, it looked like it would be decent enough if I tried to go in with an open mind. I've just beaten the first boss battle in this game.

The entire battle system in this game is a mess. It's designed to waste your time with the puzzle round, and it's different for the sake of being different, rather than because it has a solid base mechanic. This is the first PM game that I've played since Super and... It's okay at best. I can't give the game any praise higher than that.

I think the problem for the battle system on it's own is that it still pays lip service to the RPGs by letting you control your attacks after lining up the enemies which comes down to just using the best item you have. Its shallow as an rpg and it brings down the puzzle segment.

The puzzles seem to grow more complex as time goes on, but when the puzzle has been solved, you got through the slog of the half baked rpg. Itd be better if they just removed the rpg aspects. If they're that determined to leave them behind, then just RIP the bandage off and get it over with.