The Reasons Why "Paper Mario: The Origami King" is Doomed to Mediocrity Or Worse
Proving Why “Paper Mario: The Origami King” Will Fail to Impress
7/10/20
DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion. When The Origami King comes out, I could be proven completely wrong and it could be an undeniable masterpiece. Then again, my reasons are still pretty good, and here's why that's probably not going to happen.
As a series, Paper Mario has seen an arc of quality. In the year 2000, we were given the first entry; a unique game with a storybook pop-up style which helped it tell a story of its own. This game was known for being the only Mario RPG at the time aside from the much less well-known “Super Mario RPG”. The game sold pretty modest; pushing about 1.4 million units in the lifespan of the N64. Like a lot of Nintendo’s more ambitious IPs, Paper Mario gained a cult following and was widely accepted by its fanbase. After it, though, came what many Paper Mario fans consider their favorite game of all time: “Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door”. This game expanded the Mario universe by portraying an elegant story within its overall simplicity. The gameplay and objective were both easy enough that anyone could pick up and fall in love with. Yet it was amazing enough to set its own standards of mere perfection for Nintendo. The Thousand Year Door is a masterpiece no one in their right mind can deny. Alas, all good things must come to an end, but the good things about Paper Mario fell somewhat gradually. This began with “Super Paper Mario” for the Wii; a game that blended in so much it’s hard to remember. Super Paper Mario wasn’t bad by any means, but many fans thought that it still wasn’t nearly as good as the original two. Though, it wasn’t bad enough to lead fans to predicting the series’ decline that followed.
In November of 2012, we got “Paper Mario: Sticker Star” for the 3DS; a money-hungry game lacking in any sort of passion or creativity. It was a game so bland, uninteresting, and devoid of sustenance, it might as well be called “Paper Mario: The Karakum Desert”. One of the ways the game was brought down was its title. You see a title as exquisite and intriguing like “The Thousand Year Door”, and see that only two entries later comes “Sticker Star”. The games title and the box art clearly reflect that it’s a game about paper, and almost nothing else. The game was directed by two relative newcomers to the series: Naohiko Aoyama and Taro Kudo. I imagine them walking into the studio being given only the name of the series, and assumed that it was exclusively about paper. Then, they directed their team into making a several hour elementary school arts and crafts video. Afterwards, Intelligent Systems and Nintendo missed even mediocre reviews. So, they rounded up some people from the team of Super Paper Mario and Taro Kudo of Sticker Star and made “Paper Mario: Color Splash”. I think Nintendo YouTuber Arlo sums it up the best: “Paper Mario: Color Splash is a dumb garbage game for stupid jerks. It features a new mechanic that’s the worst, and I hate its dumb stupid face because yhiahg!” More rationally put by me, this game was simply another bad game in the Paper Mario series. Perhaps it wasn’t just as bad as Sticker Star, but personally, it could only move about half a point up my rating scale from its predecessor. One of the main problems people had with this game was its paper gimmicks, just like Sticker Star. The game was stripped of any sort of role-playing elements that could possibly be interesting to the dumbest of viewers. Along with this, it carried the atrocious battle system of Sticker Star, which brought the gameplay down significantly. Yet through all of this, it still gets an 85% on Google’s rating system (I think that’s saying something).
Luckily, fans were very vocal about the mistakes of Color Splash. Or perhaps it was the 186,000 units that spoke to Nintendo more than we did. Nevertheless, nearly four years later, we received a surprise announcement trailer for “Paper Mario: The Origami King”. Personally, I thought it looked promising. I truly thought that it was a change for the series; perhaps not a return to the form of the first two beloved games, but at least a return to the quality of Super Paper Mario or better. Sadly, two months later, the game looks to be a bit better than Color Splash at its best. The reasons are riddled throughout the games’ trailers and the Treehouse presentation that took place today. After the announcement trailer and the closer look came a 30-second trailer called “Paper Mario: The Origami King - Arriving to Nintendo Switch July 17”. At first glance, this would seem like a very normal TV trailer, but the way that it’s marketed is greatly concerning. They call the game “a hilarious new adventure” and “Mario’s funniest adventure yet”. This trailer almost gave me more rage than Trump’s recent tweets about the Black Lives Matter movement. Yesterday, I wrote about half an essay on this single video. I then realized the fact that comments and the mini player were disabled for kids meant that this was exclusively to get kids interested in the game.
After this mini-trailer, we were given the Treehouse presentation which enraged me for a different handful of reasons. Primarily because of these said paper gimmicks. It’s one thing for a world to be made out of paper-like products to add to the aesthetic, like in the last two Yoshi games. Though, it’s entirely different to be gimmicky with it and make mechanics be exclusively based around the aesthetic. The last huge thing the Treehouse presentation comically proved was that battle, like in the past two games, was still something to avoid. After the people playing showcased and explained how battle worked, you could see them literally running away from two goombas who wanted to battle. He was then forced into battle because they literally ambushed and cornered the player into the side of a fence. If battle is so bad that it ruins the explorative aspects of this game by making you literally run from enemies you never want to fight, then something is obviously off. Honestly, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with battle if it weren’t tampering with the fun of exploring these unique and debatably creative worlds. In conclusion, Paper Mario: The Origami King isn’t doomed to complete abhorrence. Parts of it seem like a genuinely fun open-world adventure, but most of it feels dull and filled with fake creativity. As stated, the exploration seems fun, but if it turns out like Yooka-Laylee, to be an uninteresting and boring game despite some fun worlds, then it’s not worth sixty dollars. Playtonic at least had the decency to not charge full-price for Yooka-Laylee, but Nintendo never will. The name Nintendo carries with it a certain reputation of quality and legacies that don’t deserve to be tampered with. If this game doesn't live up to said name, it will continue to feed a chain of sorrow that ends up damaging the astounding old games which did nothing wrong.
Image sources (in order):
https://www.polygon.com/2020/7/10/21319908/nintendo-treehouse-july-2020-how-to-watch-paper-mario-wayforward
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