Paper Mario: The Origami King Switch
There’s a hole in the world. In fact, there are dozens: gaps where the Mushroom Kingdom’s paper wrapping has been torn away to reveal the wire framework beneath. Sometimes these impede your progress; elsewhere, they’re merely a cosmetic concern. You’ll be keen to fill them all either way, not least for the gleeful look on Mario’s face as you press ZR and another fistful of confetti erupts from his hands, steadily covering the cavity until the messy, rainbowhued pile magically becomes one with its surroundings. On the face of it, this would be seem to be little more than an analogue to repainting Color Splash’s blank spaces, though it never feels like menial work; rather, as in Okami, you feel like you’re fixing a broken world. This single action is a reminder that Nintendo has a habit of making even the simplest things feel joyful, but it speaks volumes about the game itself, too. Here, Intelligent Systems – with the help of another outstanding Treehouse localisation – simultaneously pokes holes in the Mario universe while celebrating it in the most charming and colourful way possible.
Which, in keeping with series’ heritage, means Bowser isn’t the villain of the piece. Instead, it’s the self-proclaimed King Olly – a kind of origami supremacist, if you will – who believes the Mushroom Kingdom and its inhabitants would be much better folded into angular new shapes rather than remaining in their current 2D forms. (When you reach the splendid final area, you might well think he has a point.) Pressing Goombas, Shy Guys and various other minions into service as ‘folded soldiers’, he whisks Peach’s castle away, albeit not before wrapping it up in a series of coloured streamers. Naturally, it’s Mario’s job to unravel them, with the help of Olly’s more benevolent sister Olivia and a few other allies besides. Anyone hoping for a return to the partner system of the first two games, however, will be disappointed. They’re good company, particularly a Bob-omb called Bobby and an unlikely alliance in the latter stages, though their input in battle is limited to automatic attacks that have a seemingly random chance of landing.
Even before release, The Origami King’s radial battle system was a bone of contention. In practice, despite a long-winded introduction followed by a succession of overly simple early encounters, it works rather well. Combat takes place on a large circular arena split into rings and sections that can be rotated or pushed in or out. Each battle is effectively a singlesolution puzzle, the object being to line up groups of four enemies in either a two-by-two cluster or a line of four, in order to defeat them with a swing of your hammer or by bouncing across them respectively. In time-honoured tradition, you press A as you reach the apex of your backswing or as your boot connects with the head of a Goomba or Shy Guy to deal extra damage. But that’s less important than simply manoeuvring them into position in the first place, since that gives you a crucial 50 per cent damage boost. With the number of enemy groups determining the number of actions you get to perform, often that means (assuming you’ve followed the optimal steps, that is) finishing them all off in a single go.
In one sense, it’s overly prescriptive. When you’ve arranged the enemies appropriately, there’s little choice in how you finish them off. Sure, you’ll want more powerful (but degradable) variants of hammers and boosts, which you pick up on your journey or buy from Toad vendors. And yes, you need iron boots to leap across spiked enemies, but otherwise once you’ve lined them up there’s not much to think about – unless you fancy a change by using Ice or Fire Flowers, or a Tanooki Tail for groups. When it goes wrong, you need to block attacks, again pressing buttons at the right time to minimise damage – and that’s more concerning in wave battles, when you face up to three groups of enemies in a row. Even so, by then you should have a stock of mushrooms to recover health if needed, which flattens out the challenge somewhat. Still, it’s satisfying to nail an arrangement that requires three spins or pushes to get right within the narrow time window you’re given – even if what follows is all but a foregone conclusion.
And if you’re not especially enamoured with the new style, there are ways to make things easier for yourself. Though some encounters are enforced, and others nigh unavoidable, for large part you can simply give any wandering minions a wide berth, or else wait until their backs are turned. You can pay to extend the timer – and you’ll soon amass enough coins that you can do that for every battle and still come out with an overflowing wallet – should you find the gentle stress of repositioning those rings a little too much. Better still, you can throw coins around the edges to ask friendly Toads for help. Normally they watch from the sidelines, but a bribe will call a group of them over. They’ll throw items that do negligible damage to enemies, toss you a heart if you’re running low on HP, and even shift the rings to help you solve the puzzle.
Their role becomes more significant in the boss fights peppered throughout the adventure. These also take place on a series of rings, but the roles are reversed: Mario is on the outside looking to plot a route to the large enemy in the middle. You need to move rings to align arrows to get him there – and with more than 100 coins, you don’t need to mentally trace the path because the Toads will draw it in for you. This takes some of the pressure off, letting you focus on the other icons en route to the segment containing the attack command. You might pass a token that lets you attack twice,
It pokes holes in the Mario universe while celebrating it in the most charming and colourful way possible
a heart or two or a string of coins. And then there’s the 1000-Fold Arms ability, which gives Mario a pair of concertina-like limbs, with which he can flip or pummel opponents. These are used outside battle to peel scenery away, revealing a variety of secrets (and, yes, tearing off a perforated strip in one go is every bit as satisfying as it is in real life). But it’s here they’re implemented most effectively – assuming you turn off the wonky, and thankfully optional, motion controls – since they provide a cathartic finish to the trickiest fights.
It’s here, too, that The Origami King is at its most thrillingly strange and inventive, particularly in the later stages once Olivia has gained the ability to transform into four elemental beasts (in keeping with the game’s love of papery puns, they’re known as Vellumentals). Beating them in the first place involves navigating a route between smouldering feathers or negotiating an ice maze, with one very specific path to the finish. Then once you’ve obtained these new guises, you use them in battle against Olly’s stationery-themed lieutenants. When Mario fails to defend himself against a giant hole-punch, you need to retrieve his face from the field of play, else you’ll have to win with a depleted health bar. A tape dispenser needs to be, well, dispensed with before you can get your hands on the sticky customer encased within. And to defeat the magnificently-named Jean-Pierre Colored Pencils The 12th, you need to find a way to contain its sharp-nibbed missiles.
Much of what comes between these set-pieces is equally memorable. You engage in realtime battles with giant papier-mâché versions of familiar enemies. There’s an island-hopping treasure hunt on an open ocean that recalls The Wind Waker, where you visit locations scribbled by NPCs on your sea map, dredging up loot and key items in a submersible. The radial battles are repurposed several times during an entertaining late-in-the-day game show interlude. A visit to a trap-filled house of ninjas is followed by a stage show involving a cameo for another Mushroom Kingdom alumna, and a quick-draw shootout. You’ll even find a chain of coffee shops, where minions kick back to discuss the issues of the day – such as whether Goombas or Shy Guys are Bowser’s preferred underlings. In a series known for variety, this takes some beating, while the contiguous world ensures that, by the end, you feel like you’ve been on a long and fulfilling journey. Even the sporadic popculture references are well-judged: nods to Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Arrested Development, to name but two examples, are made to work as jokes in their own right.
There is an overabundance of riches here, and we’re not even talking about the questionable in-game economy. The Origami King is generous to a fault with ideas, introducing new wrinkles to its battle system right to the end, some of which you’ll wish had arrived sooner. And it wouldn’t be a Paper Mario game without a few patience-testing twists, though there’s nothing as infuriating as Color Splash’s steak battle, nor anything that wastes your time as much as Sticker Star’s singleuse gimmicks. Like many of its predecessors, The Origami King marches to an eccentric rhythm at times, but in a challenging year, you’ll struggle to find a game that strives so consistently to put a smile on your face. Yes, there are holes in this world. But by the time Mario and Luigi ride off into the sunset, it’s everything around them that you’ll remember.