Paper Mario: The Origami King Review

Origami Mario.

Share

In addition to the traditional turn-based battles, there will also be more puzzle-oriented boss fights, as well as papier-mâché enemies in real-time combat, something that fans of traditional 3D Paper Mario will be much more related to.  The game offers a lot of things, from puzzles to action, through exploration and arcade minigames, and broadly and curiously, Paper Mario does everything well .

It has a duration similar to that of previous titles in the saga, being able to complete the main story in about 25 or 30 hours , and taking a few more hours if we want to get everything it offers.

More a RPG Adventure:

The good part, for fans of traditional Paper Mario games, is that it feels like a more traditional RPG adventure, even if it isn’t. At some points in the adventure we will be accompanied by charming characters , somewhat flat, but who earn our approval for their personality. They will not have the same operation as those who accompanied Mario in La Puerta Milenaria, but they will support in combat passively. A small approach to what we wanted, although it ended up being something different.

It is an adventure to enjoy alone. A game that does not provide multiplayer options of any kind, and it is even difficult to play it with another player watching and giving directions in the moments of puzzles. The Switch touch screen has not been used either, with an anecdotal inclusion of the motion control of the Joy-Con that we recommend deactivating, since it contributes little or nothing and will save you shaking your Nintendo Switch as if it were a maraca.

Nintendo Switch players who like to collect trophies and items in RPG-style titles will have a great time with Paper Mario: The Origami King. We found it a perfect game to lose hours completing the zones 100% , always in an ingenious and surprising way at every step.

Presentation:

The Paper Mario saga has everything for Nintendo to surprise us visually. Its representation, with worlds of paper and craft materials, does not have to require a great power of the machine, although Nintendo Switch has much to contribute in this regard.

Once you have a base game with two-dimensional characters and elements in a three-dimensional environment, two premises have been taken as an objective: that the performance does not suffer or drop below 30 images per second, and that enough effects are added so that although it is created as if the world were a model, it seems as realistic as possible.

This has been achieved thanks to a great use of lighting , dedicating much of what the Nintendo Switch can do to bringing volume and consistency light to the world. The shadows of the characters and other elements are highly detailed, being used even to give more emphasis to playable elements, and also casting light shadows on themselves.

If The Origami King looks much better than, for example, Color Splash!, in addition to having a much more saturated color palette , it is because of the great lighting that gives light to this Paper Mushroom Kingdom. It is shocking how a game can change depending on the lighting it has, and The Origami King is the clearest example of that. It is also very attractive that among so many paper elements, there are other three-dimensional paper mache or origami elements, looking very realistic.

The other great part of the resources that Nintendo Switch offers has been destined to the creation of zones of great size . It is not a Xenoblade or Zelda: Breath Of The Wild style game, but we are facing Paper Mario with larger areas of the entire saga. This has a reason, and that is that exploration will be one of the playable keys of the game, so as with Super Mario Odyssey, bigger and bigger places were needed. Oh yes loading times are present …

It has been achieved that the performance does not drop below 30 frames per second on a frequent basis. We have only seen it fall in a very punctual way during battles, and using the attacks that create more movement and visual display on the screen. Perhaps it has to do with the use of more detailed textures than those taught in most of the game. Being paper and cardboard environments, the textures can be much flatter and not only do they not look bad, but they fit perfectly and contribute to give that atmosphere of a model.

None of this would culminate if there had not been an enormous good taste for the design of the scenarios , oriented much more to the Japanese culture than previous games in the series. Still we can find environments of all kinds, such as a jungle, or underground dungeons.

This Japanese character is also reflected in the game’s soundtrack, which is very animated and conveys a feeling of happiness and fun, which makes us know where the shots of The Origami King are going. It is a relaxed and carefree experience, which invites with its music to explore and enjoy its huge world of paper.

 

Conclusion:

Everything suggested that it was a Paper Mario game more similar to The Thousand-Year Door, but we see it as a mixture of all the ideas that have passed through the mind of Intelligent Systems, and that they have captured in a player-friendly Mario game.

The wonderful and huge world of paper invites us to explore every corner, enjoying the journey and feeling fulfilled with each battle successfully completed while we overcome the puzzles.

It wasn’t really the Paper Mario we wanted, but we enjoyed “Paper Mario: The Origami King” a lot, especially how ingenious it has been to mix puzzles with traditional combat and exploration.

Good

  • Visually fantastic
  • Nintendo gameplay style
  • Good combination between puzzles and action

Bad

  • A bit too short compared to the rest
8.4

Great

Story - 8
Graphics - 9
Sound - 9
Gameplay - 8
Value - 8

Leave a Reply

Lost Password

%d bloggers like this: