been a series bogged down in genre convention. Since
the beginning, Paper Mario has begged the question:
when is an RPG not an RPG? Even those first two games
sought to subtly reinvent existing tropes rather than
lean heavily on random encounters and incremental stat
upgrades. And setting aside battle mechanics (and
ignoring Super Paper Mario’s leap into a different kind of
caper entirely), the other entries have plenty in common.
Each one takes an irreverent sideways look at Mario and
friends, with self-referential gags that dig deeper into
the strange foundations that underpin his platforming
adventures. They all invite him to slow down and puzzle
his way through problems rather than leaping on or over
them. And, one way or another, each embraces the
theatricality of turn-based combat. Whether you’ve got
an audience or not, it’s all about putting on a show.Nintendo’s desire to make the genre more broadly
appealing – essentially to build an RPG without the
numbers game – hasn’t always been successful. Sticker
Star’s single-use items and prescriptive approach to
certain fights occasionally became laborious, while Color
Splash didn’t offer enough incentive to take part in
encounters. It’s an issue that The Origami King doesn’t
entirely solve – through exploration you’ll earn the
money you need to buy everything you could possibly
want – though each battle is useful practice. Consider
them instead as lessons in identifying familiar patterns
more quickly, and you’ll recognise how much that pays
off in the final third’s more exacting challenges. And
though there are perhaps too many generic encounters,
it would be untrue to say Intelligent Systems doesn’t
throw in a few curveballs. And sure, we might sigh on
bumping into a wandering Koopa Troopa, but who hasn’t
done so during an RPG when you’re about to reach a plot
trigger only to be held up by a random encounter? That’s
one tradition to which Paper Mario still holds fast.
Granted, despite being told you’re excellent when
you time a hammer blow perfectly or land a succession
of jumps, there will be some who miss the confirmation
that they’re getting incrementally more powerful with
each set of grunts they stomp. But when those with
rose-tinted memories of the GameCube era look back
upon The Thousand-Year Door, we guarantee it’s not
really the battles they’ll remember; rather, it’s marshalling
an army of adorable critters in Boggly Woods, Rawk
Hawk and the impromptu wrestling tournament, or the
tragic tale of Admiral Bobbery (to which there’s a not-
too-distant analogue here). These are the best bits of
any Paper Mario game, and we confidently predict that
The Origami King’s scenarios will provide its players with
the kind of fond memories some will be berating
Nintendo for failing to live up to 16 years hence. QPLAY
W
e managed to get through the review without
mentioning it, but can keep quiet no longer.
A shadow has been hanging over the Paper
Mario series for 16 years. For a not-insignificant number
of Nintendo fans, GameCube entry The Thousand-Year
Door remains the yardstick by which all games in the
series continue to be judged. And The Origami King is
unlikely to quieten the clamour from a not-insignificant
number of that audience for a more conventional
follow-up. Or, heck, even a remaster. While we dare say
Intelligent Systems has delivered the best Paper Mario
game since then, we’re not quite prepared for the angry
letters that would no doubt accompany any suggestion
that it has the older game beat. Besides, it’s been a while
since we played it, and have you seen how much
secondhand copies cost these days?
Its unavailability, of course, is a big part of the reason
why people still clamour for a more traditional followup.
There’s the nostalgia factor, too, of course – do people
really want another Thousand-Year Door or do they want
to feel like they did at a happier, more innocent time?
In truth, we’re beginning to suspect there are reasons
why it hasn’t reappeared in some form, whether it be
a deluxe HD edition or as part of Nintendo’s Virtual
Console service. Have certain narrative elements aged
badly? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s more that its combination
of turn-based battles with realtime action elements
has been reused many times over since then, not least
by Nintendo itself.
Yet if the idea was that the Mario & Luigi series
would continue on that same path while Paper Mario
reinvented itself with each new entry, that’s scant
consolation, particularly so now this other much-loved
series seems to be over, with its developer sadly declared
bankrupt late last year. And so the desire to return to
a more orthodox RPG style is only natural. Indeed, it
says much about the affection in which the first two
Paper Mario games are held – and how widespread the
sentiment is that the series hasn’t managed to live up to
them since – that indie developers are starting to make
this particular niche their own. Released last year on PC
and ported to consoles a few months ago, Moonsprout
Games’ Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling has clearly
taken inspiration from The Thousand-Year Door, not least
in its party mechanics and battle minigames. And just
this month we heard from Adam Robinson-Yu, although
his Untitled Paper RPG – again, fuelled by the desire to
recapture the essence of those earlier Paper Mario games
- appears now to be in development limbo.
At the same time, it’s perhaps easy to get too hung
up on the type of game Paper Mario hasn’t been for 16
years and four games now. Besides, even if it could be
classed as an RPG for its first two entries, it has never
Even if it could
be classed as anRPG for its first
two entries, it
has never been
a series bogged
down in genre
conventionDoes Paper Mario really need to revert to its RPG trappings?
Post Script