A Move in the Right Direction | Paper Mario: The Origami King Retrospective
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ค. 2024
- To conclude the Paper Mario retrospective, let's take a look at The Origami King. Taking a step back from the direction the previous two games took, Origami King reinvented the battle system to focus on puzzle-solving. Does it pan out in a better direction? That's what we're here to find out.
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TIMECODES
00:00 - INTRO
02:13 - DEVELOPMENT
05:41 - GAMEPLAY AND BATTLE SYSTEM
12:45 - PARTNERS
15:51 - LEVELS AND CHAPTERS
21:48 - AESTHETICS
26:53 - STORY AND CHARACTERS
31:00 - CONCLUSION
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SOURCES / RECOMMENDED READING:
VentureBeat: Paper Mario: The Origami King revealed with July launch date (bit.ly/3IOfP7v)
Game Informer: Paper Mario: The Origami King Folds Familiar Elements Into An All-New Adventure (bit.ly/3yqn5BI)
Video Games Chronicle: Paper Mario's development team lays it all out (bit.ly/3m8sPuW)
GamesRadar UK: Paper Mario: The Origami King developers talk origami influences, hidden Toads and celebrating Super Mario (bit.ly/3s8NpPM0)
Video Games Chronicle: Paper Mario producer says it's 'undecided' if series will continue to move away from its RPG origins (bit.ly/3ytGmSI) - เกม
Vote on the first CloudConnection retrospective of 2022 here! strawpoll.com/uao67gbej
We finally got a picture of bigby and Snow White in season 2 I think that you should talk about it
while I agree this was the strongest battle system since TTYD (not saying much), I absolutely was avoiding battles by the end of the game and it's easily the worst part of this otherwise very good experience
Bobby threw me for a sharp turning loop cuz like
Bob-ombs fall back down after blowing up, but nah, he was just
Gone
And that messed me up for the following hours
Paper Mario fans: "BRING BACK TURN BASED COMBAT"
Nintendo: aight we gotchu ;)
They kept the boring aspects of turn based combat while getting rid of everything that makes turn based combat actually function (ie experience gain, actual strategy and planning). Would rather the combat be real time at this point.
I swear this series literally survives on the good will earned from the first two games. Then they make a game knowing that it's not oriented around paper Mario's fundamentals and plea with the players to try it out because they might like this new formula instead of just giving the players what they want....
Imagine if they had super Mario's platformer aspects removed for some arbitrary reason... You'd have an accurate description of what paper Mario has been subject to. Nintendo, just give us what we want!!!! Please!
What you described is Nintendo 101. Come up with new formulas and gimmicks rather than giving players what they actually want haha.
I hated that you could feel the developers hitting the ridiculously imposed limitations at every turn. It just frustrated me to play this game because you could tell the devs wanted so badly to do more
What do you think they wanted to do more of?
The Pool music from Snif City hotel is another banger. It sounds like Reel Big Fish's Beer or No Doubt - Spiderwebs, very late-90's ska/pop.
Honestly I was already avoiding as many battles by the time I got to chapter 3. While the battle system might have been pretty fun, it was also VERY tiring.
Simply put these turn based style fights do not work unless you're gaining XP and such from them and there's a reason why this style of battle system has historically been restricted to RPGs
Origami King is a fantastic experience only hindered by it's lack of engaging gameplay. Story, dialogue and music are incredible and I love the world traversal. It's beautiful stuff. The battles were really fun at first but they lost their luster fairly quickly. The lack of any true reward for entering an encounter makes these puzzles start to feel boring and pointless halfway through the game, which unfortunately impacts the pacing.
I don't know if it's Tanabe, Aoyama or Nintendo but the stubborn "rules" about removing partners and Mario's character progression, or the rules about not altering established creatures, creating variants or new species really hurts would could have been the best game in the series. We don't need traditional XP necessarily but you need to encourage the player with some kind of character advancing reward, especially if you're going break up the flow by having them enter into turn-based combat.
I hope they learn some lessons and apply them to the next project.
this guy nailed it
EXP was actually cut extremely late into development as it’s still nearly fully functional in the game’s coding
@@awesomeocelot7475 seriously? That would honestly explain a lot.
And I hope they will stop with the f*cking paper jokes and imagery, the first 3 Paper Mario games were not all about paper jokes and gimmicks.
@@firestar4407 but that's what makes it fun
For me the ultimate Paper Mario game would be one with the partners, badges and rpg elements from the first 2 games mixed with the exploration, writing and graphics (with the whole papercraft theme toned down) of the newer titles.
Swap the writing for Mario RPG and I'm down. Best part of OK to me is the seamlessly interconnected world. I hope paper mario never goes back to doing their worlds the old way.
Great retrospective man 👍🏻 TTYD is one of my favorite games, and I’m glad to hear to hear that this game is pretty good. You made me wanna get it 🤘🏻
Great series. Excited to see what comes next! Thanks for the great content.
This was actually my very first Paper Mario game (I know, I know) but I've been tangential to people's thoughts about the series over the years. While there were some weak points that I hope the series can improve in future installments, I loved it overall and it makes me want to go back and play the Paper Mario games I've heard praised so highly. Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful retrospective!
Ayy excited to see your retrospective
A fantastic end to a fantastic retrospective. Great job, my friend!
Thanks so much!
I had a lot of fun playing The Origami King. The music was probably a huge part in that. My biggest problem with it was probably the low difficulty. You're always able to get more hearts in the ring, or use one of your millions of mushrooms to heal. I don't like games that are too hard, but it really hurt the bosses in my opinion. I'd say the biggest contributor to this problem was the Vellumentals. Their boss fights aren't very interesting, and the moves you gain from them completely obliterate the Legion of Stationary. You're able to avoid all of their coolest attacks with the Vellumental moves, and they have some really cool attacks. The worst example being freezing "The Duel Bladed Duelist" so he can't attack at all.
Although for Scissors, you do have to not break the cover to get the Ice Vellumental attack, so it does act as a reward for using good strategy.
If there's one thing that has always been consistent in Paper Mario games, it's that the bob-omb is always the best partner.
No one talks about this game and yet it apparently sold well, and just did well overall?
Origami king is a pretty good game. The music is amazing and the writing is top-notch as usual. My only real complaint is of course the battle system. I actually quite enjoy the boss battles in this game but the normal battles are infuriating! The game would be so much better if all of the enemies were just over world enemies. I also have a Lotta complaints about the ending of the game but I’m not going into that right now because if I complained about the ending of the game it would be at least two paragraphs. I have a lot of problems with the ending😂
I don t know the ending wasn t bad at all if anything its really sad because we won t be able to see Olivia again 😢
This game is visually and musically just the best thing ever
Hopefully with Paper Mario being done we get a video on Bug Fables in the future *crosses fingers*
Maybe some day!
Tbf Bower did speak in Paper Jam, though I get that people don't exactly like counting it as the 5th game.
Let's be real, Paper Jam is just a Mario and Luigi game with Paper Mario stuff in it. It's called Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam for a reason.
Honestly, this game is amazing if you don't have Arlo in your ear screaming to you that it's bad.
Origami King is the first Paper Mario I really skipped out on- not because I was adamantly against anything that wasn’t Paper Mario 64 or TTYD, but because I was convinced the series just wouldn’t ever fix the character dilemma it’s been plagued with or handle the identity crisis it’s been having. I did watch a playthrough streamed and can confidently say I think it’s a good game, so I’m not just looking at it from trailers and writing it off, though.
My issue with the franchise is Nintendo will say it’s definitely not an RPG… with turn based combat, something very heavily engrained in the DNA of RPGs. And I just wish they’d scrap that aspect of these games and go for just an action adventure style, as I think a Zelda-like Mario that has the Paper aesthetic and does what Origami King does for world and story would work amazingly for the series.
And my other big issue is easily fixed. Even if they stick with no real named characters, just vary it up. Have a beach area with Piantas, Whittles in a forest, maybe even introduce the Kongs in Paper form? I’d love to get named characters with unique designs back, of course, but if Nintendo is steadfast in their refusal to do new characters based off existing species, just include more species and I’d be happy.
Again, though, I did see Origami King played and while that doesn’t get the whole gameplay experience for myself, I had a good impression of it. I did enjoy Color Splash and even Sticker Star even if I can see their flaws now. While I’d love a return to the formula from the first two games, I’m just hoping the series will fix the identity crisis it has, since the games that have come out post Super have been good, just… lacking in a central direction, which makes for messy feeling sequels that may be good in a bubble, but not for a franchise brand.
Sounds like you need to do Wind Waker next.
Great review! Whilst I disagree on your stance on The Legion of Stationary (I personally really loved them) I can understand why you and many others don’t enjoy them very much. Also very surprised you didn’t mention any of the amazing boss themes when going over the music, as it has honestly become some of my favourite boss music from the Paper Mario series!
I have a lot of problems with the ending to this game but but my biggest problem with the ending is olly himself. In my opinion the final boss is very anti-climactic I have said that before but that’s not my biggest problem. My biggest problem is Ollys motivation for being evil. The entire reason he turned to evil in the first place…… is because a toad wrote on him…. And he didn’t even bother to read what the writing said….. I don’t think you have to be a genius to already understand the problems with his motivation. It is so stupid! Olly basically being a racist and wanting to kill all toads is an interesting idea but they don’t do enough with it. Olly barely even gets any screen time to be honest. If I were to rewrite his motivation I would’ve made it so that he would’ve been abused by his dad (the toad that folded him). That motivation would’ve been a way stronger and we actually would’ve understood where he was coming from. And then after the final boss where he finally realizes all the mistakes he’s made, that could’ve been so powerful. I know that this is a Mario game and it shouldn’t get THAT dark but i’m sorry his motivation in the game is so stupid almost to anything could’ve been better😂
There is a bright side to the lack of design for the Legion of Stationery:
It’s let the fandom run wild with their own designs
It always confuses me how fans can do a developers job better, but their games get cancelled by said developers.
the other day i saw a “humanized” scissors concept its wild lmao
@@ARCHIVED9610 you have no idea
you have barely scratched the surface
there are DOZENS of human scissors
WE MADE A SITCOM WITH A LOT OF THEM ONCE
As many restrictions as Origami King had to work under, it is a noticeable improvement over the previous two entries. If future games continue this pattern of increasing creative freedom and reducing executive meddling, then maybe they can eventually get something closer to what longtime fans have been waiting for for nearly *two decades.* Overall, I'm hopeful for the future, and hopefully the next game will be allowed to be even better.
Absolutely fantastic, hits many of the same notes I had on the game, I think a lot of people got their hopes up for this game and were disappointed when they didn’t get exactly what they wanted… For me, it was an awesome game to play and one I’ll keep around, but not having any lofty hopes or expectations made sure that I could treat the game realistically when it came out and appreciate it for what it actually is.
Mario & Luigi retrospectives when lol
Bobby RIP
I liked everything about the game except for the battle system. But while I did like the game, I do fully believe Paper Mario is at its best when it embraces its rpg roots, with unique badge builds, unique characters, a dark plot, etc. etc. The Origami King is a good game, its just not a good Paper Mario game.
First two PM games: paper as meta aesthetic art style.
Later PM games: paper world as a part of in universe reality.
I don't like the later series use of paper in this fashion.
First 2? I’m pretty sure super had less “paper gimmicks” than TTYD had
(Sorry if this sounds condescending, I mean no harm to you)
@@jackwilliams8399 The whole world is 2D is very "Paper". Moving in 3D as paper is an "alien" concept. That's Super.
@@AkaiAzul I guess you’re right about that, I was more thinking of paper as physical flimsy flat sheets (like the curses in TTYD or the confetti in TOK (during the tutorial of which Olivia literally says the entire world is made of paper)) but your interpretation is completely valid. Have a good day and thank you for being civil on the internet.
@@jackwilliams8399 The first three Paper Mario games actually take place in the mainline Mario universe, so the characters and environments are not made of paper. It's just Mario's adventures told through a storybook(hence the storybook aesthetic), there's no paper world in the first three Paper Mario games. The curses in TTYD, Mario has to be cursed in black magic in order to do these un-natural transformations. The fact Mario has to be cursed proves that Mario himself is not made of paper. The curses in the chest made that very clear. Super Paper Mario just plays around with the idea of dimensions, Mario is in a different dimensional world where there's a 2D and 3D side to it. So in Mario's view, the 3D side took different view of the other side of the place in the same location. It has nothing to do with paper. The new Paper Mario games misses the the purpose of the OG Paper Mario games by treating the world and characters as if they're made of paper. Complete opposite what 64, TTYD and SPM are going for. Paper Mario isn't even the original title of the original game, it's originally called Mario Story, which is more a fitting title series name for the first three Paper Mario games than the name Paper Mario.
@@retrofan4963 If Mario wasn't paper back then but was still flat, does this mean getting crushed between 2 walls has become canon in Mario or is he just a very thin sheet of flesh and bones?
It's really telling that the only praise Origami King actually deserves is that it's not as horrible as Color splash, which wasn't as horrible as Sticker Star.
First, great overall series. As a die-hard SMRPG fan I simply did not enjoy Paper Mario. I played PM64 and thought it was a significant regression in plot, battle system, characters, world, and almost every aspect.
While TTYD was an improvement, it was still bland compared to SMRPG.
Really would love if you did a video on SMRPG.
Eventho the bosses look lame at least they are cool fights and we do get informatión of where they came from tho i wonder how did olly turn the origami Craftsman's tools into bosses
I wish I had you, but no. This was the first Paper Mario game I could not finish. I made it through to the water-dragon and stopped. Up to that point, I felt like I was forcing myself to get through this game. The comedy-writing did nothing for me, the attempts at drama felt forced, and the battles were interesting at first, but became tedious pretty quickly and the continued lack of XP still means battling is a net-loss.
The game looks and sounds good, but the gameplay just felt hollow. Good art and music does not make a good game.
Okay dude, I was really, really hesitant, but you've convinced me. I'm gonna pick up and try Oragami King in the future.
saw a used copy of origami king for like $40 the other day. strongly considered nabbing it since i have heard more positive things even from TTYD diehards like me, but just couldn’t justify it at that moment. probably will give it a try eventually but after replaying PM64 on NSO over the weekend it just makes me want TTYD2 all over again. the pain just never ends with this series lol. thanks for the vid.
If you haven't played bug fables yet you definitely should
Uhhh where's the link?
strawpoll.com/uao67gbej
@@CloudConnectionThank youuu
If you have the pc port of SA1 on steam BTW - I recommend using the BetterSADX mod.
@@Supermariorpg6 Noted. It's usually easier for me to record games off of PC when possible (plus I don't currently own a Dreamcast) so that'll definitely come in handy
Here I am waiting for a new Mario and Luigi rpg.
@@mariomuncher44 when Hudson got bought nintendo just went to a different company
Bruh Kamek is funny, what are you talking about?
Personally my least favorite world in the game is The purple streamer. I cannot express to you how much I hate it! I got lost so many times going around the ocean in that stupid boat and I had no idea where I was supposed to go. It also doesn’t help that my Wi-Fi was down when I was playing it so I couldn’t even look up where I was supposed to go. In my opinion it’s tedious boring and frustrating and easily the worst chapter in the entire game! Funnily enough it’s followed by my favorite chapter in the game. The green streamer is super fun and the idea of heaven being a spa is really funny to me. Kamek and bowser jr are the best partners in the game by their dialogue alone. But there is one thing about this chapter that I absolutely despise. I hate shy guys finish last. It comes out of literally nowhere and it feels completely out of place and the story comes to a crashing halt because of it. It also doesn’t help that it’s not even fun. And what makes it 10 times worse is that it’s a complete rip off of snifit or whiffit which is infinitely better and had way more charm. Other than shy guys finish last the green streamer is without a doubt my favorite chapter in the game. The whole heaven is a spa idea is really cool and the ending of the chapter is really good
Personally I think that this game has one of the best build ups to a final boss I have ever seen in the video game. After you break the green streamer everything after that leads up to the final boss in all of it is super exciting and fun. The thing is though I don’t like the ending of this game as much as everyone else does. The final boss is pretty easy and anti-climactic making this the third Mario game on the switch to have a easy and anticlimactic final boss (the other two are super Mario odyssey in Luigis mansion 3). The ending of the story is that Olly dies and Olivia uses the 1000 cranes to wish that everything all folded became normal again and then Olivia dies. First I guess we’re going to ignore the fact that the thousand crane technique definitely would’ve been used by other villains in the past games Something that shouldn’t be ignored is that why does Olivia even get to Make the wish? Olly fold a 999 cranes and Olivia only folded one. I thought the entire point of the wish is that you had to fold 1000 to get the wish. Olivia only folded one. Second off I feel like everyone forgets that almost every enemy in the game that you fight is an innocent person being mind controlled by Olly. How many folded soldiers died in this game? Well that question is never answered and the fact of them being mind controlled is never really brought up again after the prologue. My point is Olivia could’ve made a wish that could’ve saved all of the people that had died in this game. Olly literally murders two people on screen at the beginning of the final chapter. What is instead of the wish she actually made Olivia wish to that after her brother folded her can you turn the good. That way none of the events of the story would’ve even happened and everyone would’ve been saved. I know some people would be mad by this technically being “it was all just a dream ending” but personally I actually think it would’ve been a way better ending than the one we got. Not to mention if they actually did you this ending Bobby wouldn’t of died. My last complaint about the ending is that Olivia‘s sacrifice is so stupid. She basically killed herself for no reason. All she would’ve had to do is reward her wish. I really like this game but there are just so many problems with the ending that it kind of hurts my experience with it a little bit
Beat this game when it first released. There are some good aspects, but largely I think it's a pretty bad game because it's core issues are just overwhelmingly detrimental to the final product. I hope if they do bring any elements back for future games, it'll be stuff like the relative seamlessness of the world, the quality of music, and the graphics. As far as Artstyle goes, I could take it or leave it. It looks great, but maybe moving away from the strictly "everything is paper" focus would be a good thing.
The battles were fun for sure, but after a while they just became way too slow, you'd have a ton of platforming and exploration in the over world then start a battle and have to slowly solve a puzzle and watch slow animations, and if you don't line up enemies well then they barely even damage you.. it's both super fun and extremely boring at the same time in my opinion. (If you want an RPG with great battle system rivaling TTYD play Bug Fables).
But I do absolutely love this game cause there's always something to do and even though Toads are just Toads, they also have great dialogue usually and honestly I think this game has the best dialogue in the series easily, even just side characters you never have to talk to can be hilarious. And I do like how the world was layed out cause it did all feel progressive but some journeys were tedious when you needed to backtrack. I won't ever say this is my favorite Paper Mario, but I can comfortably say it is in my top 3 just out of overall charm and love that was clearly put into the game, I think anyone who even likes the old paper Mario's should definitely give it a chance as it definitely was an enjoyable game to play. Just don't think you're gonna get a full 100% on your first playthrough since 2 parts of the 100% are never told to the player and are extremely easy to disqualify themselves, you can't use any battle accessories, and you can't game over a single time to get a full 102% completion on your save file, the game over one being the hardest considering half of the trophies are instant game overs in the over world if you fail them.. so yeah a completionist's nightmare, but a stunning game overall.
all i heard was sticker star is the best paper mario game
I've listened and watched plenty of Origami King reviews, and I have to say, yours is the most positive one so far. Then again, I could have been watching reviews from Paper Mario fanboys, who will just remind you "It's not The Thousand Year Door." Don't get me wrong, The Origami King will definitely not fall in my top 3 Paper Mario games, but it will not end up in the bottom 2 either.
Oh, and I saw you made a Luigi's Mansion retrospective. It might encourage me to Luigi's Mansion myself ;)
I really enjoyed Origami King. I liked the battle system and I really liked the story
I hate this game so much
It's the worst I've played. I haven't played
Super
Color splash
Or sticker star
I love the 1st 2 Games. I bought this one and haven't finished.
Mario does not exist
Because he is a fictional character developed by Nintendo
@@wantedbird55srandomchannel28 that is true
The best part of this game is ANY part that does not include Olivia. She is the reason I will never finish this game.
.....origami king was the worst paper mario ever made. It lost its way and forgot where it came from.
I really enjoyed this retrospective of this series, although it is a shame that it's over, because now it means you can't review the next game in the series when it releases in the future. I still haven't played the first game yet, but hopefully I will get the chance to experience it someday. I do hope to get a job at Intelligent Systems and maybe fix the series, but I highly doubt that could happen. All in all, thanks for the great retrospective, CloudConnection. Also, Covid-19 demonitisation?🏰🗺🌀🧻🖌✂