Oh hell yeah! Mario is back! In Pog form!
Wait, that’s not it. Paper form! That’s right, the RPG style Paper Mario series returns with the latest instalment Paper Mario: The Origami King.
Mario and Luigi are invited to attend an origami festival in Toad Town, but things take a turn when it seems Princess Peach has been converted to origami by King Olly. With the Princess under his control King Olly seizes the castle and kidnaps her! Whatever will Mario do? This has never happened before in the history of the Mushroom Kingdom!
The trailer shows Mario travelling through the ravaged paper landscape Mario meets Olivia, King Olly’s sister, and the two join forces to stop Olly and rescue Princess Peach, teaming up with allies and old enemies alike to battle the origami menace. Check it out here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX6DTLcWUdY
Like in other Paper Mario games, you have special skills, like the new 1,000 Fold Arms ability, that lets you interact with the environment and solve puzzles.
The battles look particularly interesting. The Origami King forgoes the stand lines of enemies like in your traditional turn-based RPGs, instead using a ring system. This new system lets you rotate the battlefield and line up enemies for combo attacks. I’m interested to see how this plays out as it has the potential to be extremely tactical in how battles unfold. It also looks like the series is keeping the motif of fighting in front of an audience with how entertained they are impacting the battle.
(Image Nintendo) Paper Mario has a long road a head of him
Most of the trailer was showing off cinematics and cut scenes, but we got a glimpse at what looks like large open areas and paper mache creation, such as an over sized Goomba. The trailer ends with a short scene of Mario wearing a paper mache Samus Aran helmet from the Metroid series, which has me a little bit hopeful that we might see some specialty helmets in the game that do certain things, but more than likely it’s there to remind us that Nintendo are still working on Metroid Prime 4.
Even without much actual gameplay the trailer has me excited though. It’s been a while since I played a Paper Mario game and the last release, Color Splash on the Wii U, didn’t exactly set the world on fire. The Origami King looks fun and I’ll be keeping an eye out for more information.
Paper Mario: The Origami King releases for Nintendo Switch on 17th July 2020.
Written by resident Mario expert Str8tJaktJim – reach out for more Mario adventures with @str8jaktjim on twitter.
