Paper Mario has such a rough reputation. With fans practically calling Paper Mario 64 and Thousand Year Door masterpieces, Super Paper Mario being very divided, Sticker Star being trashed and hated on 24/7, and Color Splash being a hidden gem that was dismissed simply because of it being seen as a Sticker Star 2, fans are dying for a return to form, classic, back to its roots Paper Mario game. Now, in 2020, Nintendo released Paper Mario: The Origami King for the Nintendo Switch. Is this the game that fans will see as a major improvement in modern Paper Mario games (those games being Sticker Star and Color Splash), or another heap of garbage that fans will constantly disrespect?

First off, as like most other Mario games, the game starts off with a festival, this time the Origami festival (who would have figured). Mario and Luigi head to Toad Town for the festival, only to find the place being completely empty. They head into Peach’s castle, in hopes they can find someone or something, only to find Princess Peach has been turned into Origami! Mario gets thrown into the dungeon by the brainwashed Peach, only to find Bowser and his minions getting recked by the folded soldiers. As Mario looks for a way out, he meets Olivia, a newly born origami girl. With Olivia by Mario’s side, they find the king and mastermind behind this mess, Olivia’s brother Olly. Olly abducts Peach’s castle with five colored streamers, and throws Mario, Olivia, and Bowser all out of the castle (Luigi already left because he needed to park the kart). Mario now has a new goal: to stop Olly’s plan of dominating the world with an origami kingdom he’s making, as well as to rescue Princess Peach.

While Mario games typically never had that big of stories, Paper Mario can be seen as more story driven Mario games, with great story examples such as Thousand Year Door and more so Super Paper Mario. Origami King I would consider having a great story as well. You would not expect the themes and events that occur in this game to be in a Mario game. The story can get pretty heavy sometimes, with characters dealing with loss, regret, and legit growth and change. Now that doesn’t mean the story and writing can’t get silly here and there. I recall seeing a commercial saying how this is Mario’s “funniest adventure yet.” I simply scoffed and thought “there’s no way they can top Color Splash’s humor. That was practically what made the game!” Boy I was wrong. This is, without a doubt, Mario’s funniest adventure yet. Characters are so well written, that even the NPCs can get a chuckle out of me. I should really give a shout out to Olivia’s writing though. Her bubbly attitude and happy-go-lucky nature easily makes her my favorite main companion in a Paper Mario game. The way she can go from cracking jokes and sarcastic quips, to feeling complete despair and hopelessness on occasion, makes her feel so real. And she’s a piece of folded paper! That’s what gets me the most!

Aside from the extremely well written dialogue and simple yet compelling story, what gets every Paper Mario fan’s blood level to boiling is the combat. Combat has ruined games in the past, so Origami King had a lot of expectations on their backs. Personally, I would say they succeeded. Origami’s King battle system plays more like a puzzle game. Enemies are scattered out on four rings that surround Mario. To fight with his usual boots and hammer, he can rotate, and slide pieces from one layer to another. If Mario can move enemies around in a straight line, or in a two by two area up close, he will gain bonus attack power. I really dig how the battle system switched from a normal turned based RPG, into a *puzzle* turned based RPG. Battling can be very fun, trying to figure out certain patterns, and seeing if you can get line-up bonuses in the time limit is a nice change in the series.

To add on to the great battle system, boss fights are amazing. Instead of Mario being in the center of the arena, the boss is, and Mario has to maneuver his way around the rings, grabbing coins, hearts, and power ups, to defeat the boss. Typically, each boss has a trick up their sleeve to alter the arena, and make things much trickier to rotate and slide the arena pieces around. Whether it be washing away panels, or freezing the arena into a maze, boss fights never get stale and always offer something new to the table. However, I don’t think the battle system is perfect. I found that after the third streamer, I was tired to doing battles. Having to deal with figuring out line-up bonuses, durability on your gear, health, the timer, can get very tiresome, and makes battles feel like they last forever. Luckily, like I said, the boss fights make up for the stale and stagnant enemy battles, so it can help motivate the player, if they aren’t finding battling fun.

Even with the battle system that gets stale to quickly, there are so many redeeming factors that outweigh the flawed battle system. For example, the music in Origami King is great. It does take calls from Color Splash, but Color Splash had a bopping soundtrack too, so I’m glad they aren’t fixing what isn’t broke. Another redeeming factor are the visuals. From up close and personal to the far away backgrounds, this game is stunning. While it does look similar to Color Splash, I would say the backgrounds alone make it a much cleaner game. Color Splash had very generic backgrounds, while in Origami King, you can visibly see other worlds in the backgrounds, which really builds the interconnected world that Origami King has going. Speaking of, the interconnected world feels so great. After having a world map in Sticker Star and Color Splash, going back to the interconnected worlds, ala Paper Mario 64 and Thousand Year Door, is definitely the right step towards that direction.

Overall, I think Paper Mario: The Origami King delivered on something brand new and fresh, and prove that the developers don’t need to rely on old gimmicks to make a new Paper Mario game great. With the rich story and characters, vast interconnected worlds, banging music, amazing visuals, and fresh but albeit tiresome battle system, Paper Mario: The Origami King does not fall flat (heh) on being a great Paper Mario game. I genuinely think this is a great step in the right direction for the series, and cannot wait for more from Intelligent Systems and the smart approach towards the Paper Mario series.