Topic: Paper Mario: The Origami King

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What I’m about to say does not mean I don’t like this game. On the contrary, I’ve been enjoying it so far (though, not as much as I expected, the reasons for which are multi-faceted and maybe something I’ll get into in a later post). Nonetheless...

The Paper Mario director is a buffoon.

Taking and refusing to challenge Miyamoto‘s advice is the worst decision he ever made. Miamoto convinced him to destroy everything about the series that made it superior to Miamoto’s own creation. Whether it was done out of a secret jealousy and envy, or just poor judgement, I cannot say. But I do find it curious that Miyamoto convinced him to ditch original characters (even just designs) and story and RPG mechanics, everything that made fans love Thousand Year Door. And ever since taking that advice the series has been swimming in mediocrity. And Miamoto seems content with that, but the real question is why the director seems content with that.

Doing something new just for the sake of doing some thing new is the absolute worst design ethos a developer could possibly have. That’s why Miamoto’s recent games, like StarFox, have bombed with mass rejection from gamers. And yet that same design philosophy is put on a pedestal by the director of thIs series? Ever wonder why the MC scores have consistently floundered in the 70s ever since he took Miamoto’s life altering advice? Guess not.

And, you can still do something new WITHOUT changing the core constructs people love. There are plenty of things in paper Mario that have not changed. He’s still Paper. He still uses a hammer. He still uses boots. There are still turn based battles. CLEARLY there are things that haven’t changed. And all people want or for a few more things to be added to that list that don’t change. Namely, unique characters/designs, story, turn based RPG battle system. Everything else, go wild, change it up, have at it. But those particular things seem to be taboo for this director. He refuses to utilize those aspects people want, all because Miyamoto convinced him he shouldn’t use them. What a clown.

It would be one thing if the game he makes rivals the previous games. If that was the case I think an argument could be made for his choices being the right decision, or at least justified. But when you fail to live up to the previous critical acclaim after 3 games spanning an entire decade, maybe it’s time to start questioning that advice. Maybe it’s time to start challenging your beliefs. Maybe it’s time to consider that Miyamoto doesn’t know what the **** he’s talking about.

That all being said, I’m enjoying the game so far. But it’s not quite reaching the highs I expected. And that’s not because it doesn’t follow a specific formula. I’m down with whatever they want to create just so long as it’s good. I just... don’t think this game is as good as I’d hoped. It feels like a solid 7.5/10 to me. Granted I haven’t played all that much, but that’s my thoughts on the matter so far.

edit
And let me clarify a few of the issues I have with this game to help communicate exactly why I feel it’s not as good as it should be.

Coin Inflation
I’m barely an hour into the game and I’ve already got over 12,000 coins. Imagine how many coins you’ll get in a full playthrough. This is a problem for two reasons. The first is that it devalues the worth of a single coin. Tell me, Why should I bother plotting a path to the boss that traces out an extra coin when I‘m gettin tens of thousands of coins per hour? It makes single coins absolutely worthless, and that in turn erodes the allure of single coins scattered throughout the world, even the allure of 10-coins. Even the allure of 100-coins (which is like, 1 coin out of getting 120 in an hour). I’m not going to care about a single coin unless I’m only getting like 10 coins in an hour. 1 coin would then represent 6 min of playtime. As it stands, 1 coin represents 0.3 seconds of playtime.

The second reason is, they don’t feel special. 10,000 coins starts losing meaning with that many zeros after getting them so quickly. Coins should be special and worth more. Coins should provide incentive to collect. There’s absolutely zero incentive to collect coins when you’re getting this many of them this quickly. The prices may balance that out, it doesn’t change the fact it devalues the incentive of collecting single coins or anything less than 100 at a time.

Battle Incentive
There’s just no incentive to battle. Coins are it. And that could work fine- it’s not that it couldn’t work if done right, but it’s just not done right. Because you are swimming in coins everywhere you turn, who cares about an extra 100 from a battle? It’s just not special. It’s not enough to make me want to go out of my way to battle and certainly not do it repeatedly. Which means battling is only alluring until it stops being fun. And I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen well before I reach the end of the game. If there was XP, even to level up the confetti bag, it would perhaps be enough to provide that nudge to want to keep battling. You don’t even need XP as long as there is proper incentive, even if that incentive is just the thrill of battle or requirement to progress, but I’m not sure that’s going to hold for the duration of the game having now experienced it for myself.

Battles
I think the turn-based system is novel, but I’m not sure I like it as much since you kinda take enemies out in one go. And whenever there’s enough enemies you can’t do it in one turn, they always give you two turns in a row. In turn based games you often encounter enemies where it takes several back-and-forths to win. But here, they always give you enough moves to do everything in one go. If you do it right the enemy will never even get to attack. Ever. I’ve now encountered battles where it does take back and forths. Two rows of winged goombas takes 2 turns of two goes each, and that’s if you line up perfectly each time. That being said, even at an hour in, the puzzles are getting hard enough that I’m not able to consistently line them up properly every single time. In at least one in four bottles I’m not able to figure it out perfectly, so this complaint might not actually be valid. I just want to throw that out there because I am only an hour in and if I’m already making mistakes to where the enemy gets to attack me back, and it’s only going to get harder from here on out, this might not actually be an issue. But I did want to mention it nonetheless, just in case.

Larger World
Ironically, as much as I love the huge spanning world, it doesn’t lend itself well to the slow travel speed of Paper Mario. It just feels like a chore when you want to get somewhere else. They really should have doubled his movement speed in this game to account for the larger areas. In older games like TTYD and SPM, you went through shorter areas so it was never really a problem. But here, it feels too slow for areas so large. You can buy drinks that make your movement speed increase for maybe 15 seconds but that’s not really a solution. And you do get a skate later on, but you spent tons of time running around on foot, and I just think they should have increased the movement speed.

Collectibles
Frankly, they’re boring. I don’t care about a loudspeaker collectible on a stand. They should have done really cool 3D models like in DKC Tropical Freeze, with special mini diorama models. What they have here just doesn’t impress me enough to make me really care about collecting them.

Text Speed
Why is it, in the year of our Lord 2020, we still have games that force slow text and don’t allow you to speed up or advance with a button press? It’s archaic, shameful and aggravating to no end. I swear the director of this game is living in his own little bubble.

What I do like
The graphics. Game is gorgeous. It’s a pleasure just playing the game and seeing how beautiful everything looks. And that’s doubly true for handheld.

The writing. As always, The dialogue is witty, fun and engaging, and one of the main draws of the game itself.

The mechanics. Everything feels smooth and responsive, as it should. The clunk and ca-ching of stomping on enemies while earning a coin (even if it’s worthless, at least it sounds cool) is incredibly satisfying.

The toads. Finding them is addictive. Definitely one of the better mechanics they’ve added to the series.

The audience. Great to see this make it back into the series. And I love how you can pay them for hints (even if you’ve got so many coins you could literally pay for hints in every single battle the rest of your life).

The accessories. It’s basically badges (though having preallotted points each is worth and only activating within your point range would have added another strategy layer) and I love it.

The partners. I haven’t gotten far enough to get a partner yet but I’ve seen them in plenty of gameplay I’ve watched and I love them. I wish they did more and had unique moves in the world to solve puzzles, but they’re welcome nonetheless.

Thousand fold arms. It’s pretty cool actually. More so with split joycon than gyro in handheld but, it’s cool.

Difficulty. I was worried the game would be too easy but that’s actually proving not to be the case. It feels pretty well-balanced for my skill level. I mean, it hasn’t been hard. But over a 15 minute time span my health had somehow whittled down into the 20s. That really felt reassuring. Because without challenge it stops being engaging.

Confetti. It’s actually more fun to collect and use than I thought it would be.

Turn based battles. Yes, I know I had this on my list of negatives, but I kind of feel conflicted because I also kind of like the battles? I know, weird. But ya I do actually enjoy them. I just think without proper incentive they’ll lose their luster sooner rather than later. Coins could have been a good incentive but it turns out coin inflation has killed the value of a 100-200 coin battle bonus.

Will update as I play more. These are just my thoughts so far.