So, Princess Peach has joined a cult . . .
Most of us like to see fully formed three-dimensional characters in our stories, but if you see one in Paper Mario: The Origami King you’d better get ready to do battle.
The latest entry in Nintendo’s peculiar Paper Mario series sees the Mushroom Kingdom’s wafer thin denizens being folded into elaborate origami zombies. The added dimension somehow brainwashes them, turning them into obedient puppets under the control of the game’s titular self-proclaimed monarch. This includes the realm’s beloved pink-clad princess, who becomes one of the Origami King’s first recruits.
So, yeah. Peach has joined a cult.
No need to worry, though. Mario has shown up and is ready to do his thing. But first he needs to figure out what exactly needs doing, which takes a while.
If you’ve never played a Paper Mario game before, here’s the lowdown. They take place in a sort of parallel universe to other games starring the mustachioed plumber. It’s all pretty familiar – same personalities, same grudges – except for one detail: Everything is made of paper. This makes for some delightfully clever world and character design, and even more interesting mechanics that play on the paper theme.
This remains true in The Origami King. For example, as we explore Peach’s kingdom
we encounter parts of the world that have been ripped away, exposing gaping holes that reveal the underlying wire lattice across which paper lawns and mountains are meant to be constructed. To fix them, Mario needs to collect confetti, which can be thrown onto the ground and walls to patch up these chasms and allow him to keep moving forward.
We also need to be on the lookout for shrewdly hidden items and characters, including paper Toads who have hidden from the Origami King by sliding themselves into narrow cracks or rolling themselves into thin cylinders stuffed into little holes. Some of them are so scrunched up that Mario needs to use his hammer to iron (by which I mean bash) out their crinkles.
Unfortunately, the paper theme hasn’t been leveraged quite as well in combat. The Paper Mario games are essentially turn-based role-playing games, but The Origami King adds a puzzle element to battles. When a fight begins, enemies appear on rings surrounding Mario. Your first task is to spin and shift these rings as efficiently as possible to line up enemies in patterns that make them easier to attack. Do it well and you’ll earn an attack power bonus for the next phase – jumping on or hammering foes – that can be crucial to eliminating enemies before they can counter attack.
It’s an interesting concept – and surprisingly tricky, especially later in the game – but it doesn’t really have much to do with the paper premise. And it has some play problems, too.
For starters, the puzzles have a countdown timer, which adds a kind of stress not normally present (and, for some players, likely unwanted) in a turn-based RPG. Plus, it tends to draw out some battles and interfere with the game’s pacing. Nintendo’s gamesmiths counteract this by letting Mario, as he grows stronger, defeat weaker enemies in the field without entering combat, but I found that sometimes I’d try to avoid battles just so I could remain focused on what I was doing. I didn’t hate the combat, but I didn’t love it, either.
Happily, Nintendo’s localization team hasn’t messed too much with the series’ famous sense of humour. It shifts between broad all-ages gags – many of which come from Olivia, a new character who accompanies Mario on his quest and is socially awkward in all sorts of endearing ways – to riskier jokes bound to make some older players do double takes. Exhibit A: At one point, a pile of sentient firewood tells Mario not to worry about it being used for fuel since their ashes will return to the Earth and eventually become new trees. Yeah, they go there.