The success of Super Mario RPG during the final years of the Super NES naturally inspired Nintendo to produce more titles featuring their iconic plumber, although none of them would truly capture the spirit of the first roleplaying game outing of the character, with Paper Mario, for instance, sporting a vastly-different feel, but it would fare well enough for the Big N to release more titles with its style with help from developer Intelligent Systems. The subseries would eventually find its way onto the Nintendo Switch in the form of Paper Mario: The Origami King, which continues to evolve the concept of the Mario RPG.
The latest Paper Mario opens with Princess Peach inviting Mario and Luigi to an Origami Festival near her fortress in Toad Town, its populace mysteriously missing. Upon entering Peach's castle, the brothers discover that King Olly, a sentient origami figure, has transformed the Princess into origami and brainwashed her, with Mario rescuing Olly's sister Olivia, imprisoned for betraying her brother. Afterward, Olly wraps the Princess's castle with five multicolored streamers, Mario and Olivia seeking to liberate Peach’s home whilst Luigi separates to find the key to the fortress proper, and Bowser, folded and stapled into a square, for once siding with his typical plumber nemesis.
The plot of The Origami King nicely touches upon themes such as sibling rivalry, with eventual backstory revealed for King Olly and Olivia, along with some reasonably-endearing characters such as a colored pencil case hippie serving as one of the villains, and paper puns aplenty. However, the narrative does fall into tried tropes such as a royal palace held hostage similar to the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty" and much later Dragon Quest VIII, along with a damsel in distress and visiting elemental spirits to help fight the main villain. The translation definitely works, although there are some typical stylistic choices characteristic of Nintendo such as using "OK" instead of "okay".
The gameplay shares many characteristics with Mario RPGs within and without the Paper Mario subseries, origami incarnations of Bowser's minions (the koopa king's flat paper cronies being helpful to the protagonist plumber in this particular entry) serving as the main adversaries, individual models populating dungeons and areas in between that Mario can strike with his hammer or leap upon to deal premature damage to one of the enemies represented within the subsequent battle. Unlike in prior Paper Mario games, Mario does not gain experience to level up, although he does have a fixed amount of HP that can increase with special heart containers acquired, doubling to increase his preemptive damage without battle with the potential to kill visible foes instantly without triggering combat.
Battles themselves contain a significant puzzle element, with Mario occupying the center of a circle bordered by four rings subdivided into tiles that many origami opponents occupy. During Mario's turn, he has a limited time to move the rings to organize foes so that he can more easily strike them with his weapons, consisting mainly of either jumping across four-paneled radial sections or striking four adjacent panels with a hammer, each of which require timed button presses to assure maximum damage, although the most-organized arrangement of foes increases the damage the plumber does even more.
After the player has expended Mario's attack commands, the enemies take their turn, with timed button presses potentially reducing damage received, and in cases when his health runs low, mushrooms can restore his HP, and a having a 1UP mushroom on hand can automatically revive him when his hit points reach zero. Boss battles, on the other hand, tend to be vastly different, with Mario starting each of his turns outside the circular battlefield, the player having two or three chances to manipulate the rings and radii of the battlefield to arrange arrows dictating how he moves across the circle grid, along with tiles that can "turn on" the symbols of Vellumentals he meets throughout the game to execute their abilities or cells allowing him to use jump or hammer attacks.
Standard and boss battles, furthermore, have audiences of Toads Mario can rescue throughout the game, whom he can bribe with coins (of which there are ample supply) to receive benefits such as additional minor damage to foes, more time to move rings and radii, health recovery, and, in the case of the former form of combat, battlefield tile movements that can allow players more easily to organize foes for efficient attacking, although fights against major foes in the case of Toad bribery tend to just show the path Mario travels depending upon the current position of movement arrows.
There are shops throughout the game from which Mario can purchase accessories for benefits such as increased hit points in battle and more damage reduced from guarding, along with consumables such as mushrooms and various attack items, although the latter tend not to make much different especially against boss battles, of which there are plenty that can really annoy the player with things such as bosses totally confounding the battlefield grid. The endgame gameplay portions can be especially heinous, although luckily in their case, the player can repeat portions without having to go through prior phases. Regardless, The Origami King is another of those titles where the mechanics start promisingly, but lose their appeal as the game drags on.
Control doesn't fare any better, with the absence of conveniences such as the ability to speed up dialogue universally and in-game measure of total playtime, along with irritating level design and inconveniently-place save opportunities, in some cases not before a few story-centric battles, although the game does autosave a few times. Granted, there are some positives such as Mario being able to get advice from Olivia on where to go next in order to advance the storyline, although there were some instances where I had to reference the internet, particularly due to certain puzzles, and in the end the game doesn't interact as well with players as it could have.
One of the major saving graces of The Origami King, however, is its audio presentation, beginning with a superb title screen theme, not to mention plenty of jazzy tracks that play during battle, with a good variety of combat themes that averts the typical JRPG problem of repetitive music during one of the most common portions of such games. The sound effects are also good, and there are occasional vocals within and without the soundtrack itself, although there are some areas without music and silent cutscenes. Regardless, the game sounds great overall.
The Origami King also shines graphically, with a refined version of the colorful style present in prior Paper Mario games, with the character sprites of the "good" characters containing a flat paper style that has clear revolution during movement, not to mention lip movement during cutscenes, the antagonistic luminaries being strictly origami. Granted, there are some reskinned enemies and many points with jaggies and blurry, pixilated texturing, but otherwise, the visuals are very pretty.
Finally, given the lack of in-game measure of playtime, how long one needs to take to reach the ending is indeterminate, and while there is theoretical lasting appeal in the form of percentage completions for things such as finding all Toads and acquiring all treasures, the game isn't enjoyable enough to invest any supplemental time.
Ultimately, Paper Mario: The Origami King definitely does have a few things going for it such as the general solid audiovisual presentation, and while other aspects such as the gameplay and narrative have their positive aspects, there are serious flaws that prevent the game from truly shining such as the general frustration of the hybrid RPG and puzzle mechanics within and without combat, especially as the game drags on, not to mention the derivative nature of some of the story elements. It's definitely better than quite a few entries of the overall Mario franchise, but is by no means the best, even within the Paper Mario subseries, and recommendation of the game is at best hesitant.
This review is based on a playthrough of a copy borrowed by the reviewer.
The Bottom Line:
Starts innocently, but loses its quality towards the end.
Score Breakdown:
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Game Mechanics: 6.5/10
Controls: 6.5/10
Story: 6.5/10
Localization: 6.5/10
Music/Sound: 8.5/10
Graphics: 8.0/10
Lasting Appeal: 3.0/10
Difficulty: Annoying
Playing Time: No in-game clock.