I think Paper Mario might be my Sonic the
Hedgehog. Every time they bring out another
one I go "Maybe THIS time it'll be good again"
and dutifully jam my dick in the beehive,
and I'm beginning to think that the one time
I didn't get stung on the pisshole might've
been the outlier. The first three Paper Marios
was like there was this one really cool teacher
at Nintendo High school, then one time he
showed up a little the worse for drink and
after that he mysteriously vanished and his
classes have been taught by one poorly informed
substitute after another. OK, apparently you
were working on this thing where everyone's
made of paper, I guess you were doing stationery?
No! We were doing a party-based RPG based
around fun interesting characters! Er. I don't
have any notes about that. Let's just do stationery.
So once again we're basing the game around
one of the fundamentals of papercraft. Sticker
Star was glue, Color Splash was paint, now
Origami King is about paper folding. And I
seem to remember calling this in my Color
Splash review. I also made a silly joke about
fighting a boss fight against a hole punch.
Well guess what? In Origami King, there's
a boss fight against a hole punch. No really,
there actually is.
And if the games industry is taking ideas
from my sarcastic exaggerated examples of
things that would be stupid, that would fucking
explain a few things. Anyway, might as well
recount the plot, he said, with the air of
a bored local newsreader who once had bigger
dreams: evil origami comes to the paper mushroom
kingdom, people get folded into evil brainwashed
origami versions of themselves with an actually
kind of disturbing Invasion of the Body Snatchers
vibe, Princess Peach gets done over, Mario
has to go on an epic journey to save her,
teaming up of course with the usual glorified
mouse pointer support character who does all
the talking, which has been a particular creativity
vacuum zone of every Mario game for some time.
They take an object related in some way to
the game's theme, stick eyes on it, have it
float next to Mario's head and knock off for
lunch. Mario Odyssey had a hat, Color Splash
had a paint bucket, Origami King has an origami
thing. So far you're probably picking up on
a negative tone to this review - oh perish
the thought, Yahtzee, I just assumed you'd
eaten the wrong end of last night's kebab
for breakfast - BUT I actually liked Origami
King a bit more than the last few Paper Marios.
Original Paper Mario's still not showing up
to class and was probably walled up alive
in the school basement but he managed to dictate
a few more notes through the brickwork this
time. So again ninety percent of the characters
are generic toads and monsters and whatever
else hasn't yet been deleted from the art
asset dropbox to make room for more Bowsette
lewds, but oh it looks like you were doing
sidekick characters with your old teacher,
so let's have some of those. In the second
chapter for example you partner with a Bob-omb.
Not a unique quirky Bob-omb, just a Bob-omb.
And you don't control them in combat and they
don't have special abilities that open new
areas and they just sort of drop out of the
game the moment the chapter's over, but it
does superficially resemble the old partner
system enough that the trailers might sucker
some old fans out of their money. Still, it's
a step in the right direction. There's something
nasty on the step but it's a step. Also, there's
generally a bit more energy and vitality in
the design of the world and the set pieces,
it's not just grasslands desert ocean jungle
etc. There's also shogunate Japan land in
there to completely fuck up the rhythm.
Speaking of rhythm the game has an odd habit
of breaking into energetic musical dance numbers
every now and again which I find it impossible
to be grumpy about, it'd be like going to
an orgy and worrying about the state of the
carpet. Frankly though I don't know if Paper
Mario is good again or if it just finally
wore me down. It did at least ditch the godawful
combat from the last two games based around
disposable single use items which was both
annoying and probably bad for the environment.
Now there's a rather odd combat system in
which Mario sets up a giant dartboard cum
lazy Susan, gets the enemies to arrange themselves
on it - rather obliging of them actually especially
in the heat of the moment - and then has to
rearrange the board in a set number of moves
to line the enemies into rows or blocks so
you can then attack them all at once. It's
more of a puzzle game than an action or tactics
thing, in which case, I wish it had gone the
whole hog. When I line up four gems in Bejeweled
they all very swiftly and politely fuck off
and let me get on with things, I don't have
to go through the rigmarole of select the
jump attack, select the row, press A in time
with each bounce as we go along the factory
production line.
I guess they felt it wouldn't be Paper Mario
without the timed button presses, but it's
clear to me now. Cool teacher Paper Mario
wasn't fired or immured in the basement - he's
being imprisoned in the biology lab to be
the subject of Nintendo's cruel gameplay experiments.
That would explain the way the game's generally
a dog's breakfast of ideas. One chapter turns
into full on open world ocean exploration
out of nowhere 'cos hey, Wind Waker was good.
Feels like something like that could have
been running through the whole game connecting
all the locations but whatever, I don't dislike
it. It's the combat that continues to overseason
my ringpiece. 'Cos it doesn't fix the main
issue with the sticker system - no character
levelling means there's no benefit to getting
in combat. Yes, our attacks aren't single
use items anymore, but after a while the monsters
have more health from all their paper crossfit
and you pretty much have to use the stronger
versions of your attacks, which are equippables
that degrade with use, so yeah, getting into
random fights is still a net loss. I don't
know why Nintendo's gotten so sniffy about
character levelling, feels like "fight more
get stronger" is pretty much perfect as formulas
go.
It means even random fights progress us forward
in some way and if you ever need to unwind
you can go back to the starting area and laughingly
cut a swathe through once difficult enemies
with a single swing of your titanic trouser
turnip. It's not exactly pioneering but some
things don't need further experimentation.
Cheerios has been using the same recipe for
decades because it's fine. It works. They
don't need to see if it works better with
the oats taken out or mixed with push pins.
Actually you do get coins from getting into
combat. But coins are everywhere, it's the
fucking mushroom kingdom, people insulate
their fucking houses with the things. You
can spend them on equippable accessories that
improve your character in some way. Oh, I
see you were doing a nuanced and interesting
badge system with your old teacher, let's
have some token accessories. Like, five or
six of the buggers. So yeah. It's an improvement
on the last two but still the clueless substitute
teacher. My main takeaway is that they used
my idea for a hole punch boss monster, 'cos
I didn't realize I had that kind of power.
I think the next Paper Mario game should have
a boss fight against a giant battery powered
dildo. That can only be defeated with the
legendary special move "send Yahtzee Croshaw
the password to your checking account."
