Paper Mario: The Origami King

Paper Mario: The Origami King is a 2020 role-playing video game made by Intelligent Systems and shared by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch console. It is the sixth game in the Paper Mario series, which is part of the bigger Mario franchise. In this story, Mario and his friends travel to stop the Mushroom Kingdom from turning into origami. To achieve this, Mario needs to free Princess Peach’s castle from five special streamers covering the kingdom.

The game mixes different types of play, including action-adventure, role-playing (RPG), and puzzle elements. Players control Mario as they explore a big overworld and fight enemies using a turn-based system with a ring-shaped puzzle board. In battles, enemies appear on a circle like a dartboard split into rings and columns. Players can move these rings to arrange enemies in patterns that help defeat them faster.

The team making the game wanted to try new ideas more than past games in the series. They used origami and confetti as fresh paper themes. They changed the usual linear gameplay to an open world style and included new enemies not from the Mario games before. Nintendo planned to show the game at E3 2020 for the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. (1985), but because the event was cancelled, they announced it separately.

People liked the game a lot, enjoying its story, design, characters, music, and game mechanics. Some felt it was different from older games in the series and wished the characters looked more unique. Opinions on the fighting system were mixed—some loved its new ideas, while others thought it wasn’t hard enough or clear why it existed. By September 2020, two months after it came out, the game had sold three million copies, becoming the fastest-selling game in the series and one of the best-selling games on the Nintendo Switch. It was nominated for three awards and named among the best games of 2020 by many critics.

Gameplay

Paper Mario: The Origami King is a fun video game that mixes action-adventure, role-playing, and puzzle elements. You play as Mario, who looks like paper, and explore a world that looks like it's made from paper and cardboard. Your mission is to stop King Olly, who has turned parts of the Mushroom Kingdom into origami. You'll travel to five big areas, each with puzzles to solve.

Mario can collect coins to buy useful items and find hidden treasures, including friends called Toads. Some Toads might be folded into origami, and you'll help them along the way. In battles, Mario faces enemies in a special ring-shaped arena. You can move the rings to line up enemies and attack them with a hammer or boots. Winning battles gives you more coins to use on your adventure. Boss battles are similar but have special rules you need to follow to defeat powerful enemies.

Plot

Princess Peach invites Mario and Luigi to an Origami Festival near her castle in Toad Town, but the town is mysteriously empty. When they enter Peach's Castle, they find that Princess Peach has been turned into origami by King Olly, a magical origami figure. Many of Bowser's minions have also been turned into origami enemies, and Bowser himself has been folded and stapled into a square shape.

Mario rescues Olly's sister Olivia, who was imprisoned, and later rescues Bowser. They try to escape, but Olly wraps the castle in colorful streamers and moves it to a volcano. Mario, Olivia, and Bowser manage to escape but get separated. Mario and Olivia meet Bobby, an amnesia-stricken Bob-omb, and together they follow and destroy each of the five streamers. Along the way, they face members of Olly's "Legion of Stationery," who guard the streamers.

In the end, they confront King Olly, who wants to turn all Toads into origami with 1,000 paper cranes to gain ultimate power. After a battle, they defeat Olly. Before he passes, Olly realizes his mistake, and Olivia folds him into the final crane. She then uses her wish to undo all the origami, including herself, and the festival celebrates again.

Development

Intelligent Systems, the team behind earlier Paper Mario games, developed The Origami King. Tose helped with design and audio. Producer Kensuke Tanabe said he was only a little involved in the game's start but later had almost full control over its direction. Other key people included Atsushi Ikuno, assistant producer Risa Tabata, and lead director Masahiko Nagaya, who previously worked as an artist for Paper Mario: Color Splash. The game was planned to be announced at E3 2020 as part of a celebration for the Super Mario series' 35th anniversary.

Tanabe wanted to try new ideas for this game, moving away from what was done in past Paper Mario titles. He focused on making the game different by using confetti and origami as its main themes. He looked for paper-related ideas not used before in the series and chose origami, while the team came up with the idea of using confetti.

Characters

New characters in the Paper Mario series had to be completely original and not based on existing Mario characters. Nintendo reviewed all character designs to make sure they fit the series' rules, though Toads were allowed to wear different outfits. In June 2020, Nintendo showed partners who would join Mario on his adventure. Some fans felt these partners didn’t do much, as they hoped for characters who could help solve puzzles and grow with Mario.

Tanabe wanted the origami version of Princess Peach to look mysterious and appeal to older players. He imagined her transforming into origami when she met Mario. Artists worked hard to make sure characters were still recognizable even in their paper forms, studying each one to decide the best view to show their personality. They even made real-life models to check how realistic the in-game forms looked.

The team created characters called the Legion of Stationery, made up of everyday objects like hole punch and colored pencils. These characters were chosen because everyone has used such items. Tanabe used his childhood imagination to decide how these objects would act, like having colored pencils throw missiles because of their shape.

One special character, Bobby, received a lot of praise for his role in the story. Many writers and fans said he was one of the best characters in recent Nintendo games. Olivia, another key character, was designed to be very lively and full of personality, different from typical helper characters.

Design

The game's world and locations were designed before any dialogue was written. The team decided what feelings each part of the game should create in players, like surprise or excitement, and chose whether to show these moments through cutscenes, conversations, or mini-games. They worked closely with Nintendo to make sure the mini-games matched the game's overall feel.

Tanabe and the director of Color Splash came up with the idea for a new battle system where enemies attack Mario from all sides. They used circles to design these battles, comparing it to a Rubik's Cube. Boss battles were made to feel very different from regular battles. The game uses an open world style, letting players explore freely, with something always nearby to catch their eye.

Tanabe explained that while some fans wanted more traditional role-playing game elements, he focused on adding puzzle-solving parts to keep the game fun for everyone. He believed players needed to figure out boss weaknesses and solve puzzles to win battles, making the game more of an adventure.

Promotion and release

The game was accidentally shown online a week before its official release, with players sharing details about characters and story elements using PC emulators. Nintendo officially announced The Origami King on May 14, 2020, and released it on July 17. The announcement came without Nintendo's usual two-day notice because many employees were working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Players found some problems after the game launched, but Nintendo fixed them by August 5. Later, characters from the game appeared in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Reception

Reviews

Paper Mario: The Origami King got good reviews. Review sites like Metacritic gave it a score of 80 out of 100 after looking at 114 reviews. Another site, OpenCritic, said 64% of critics liked it.

People liked the story and how funny the characters were. Some especially liked a character named Olivia. But some thought the characters didn’t look as nice as in older games.

Reviewers also liked the game's world and how you can explore it. They thought the music was nice and remembered it easily. But some felt the game was missing things from older games, like a way to level up characters. They also had mixed feelings about the fighting part—some thought it was clever, while others found it not very rewarding.

Sales

When The Origami King came out, it was very popular. In the UK, it was the second most sold game the week it came out. In Japan, it sold over 109,000 copies in the first week. By the end of 2020, it had sold over 3 million copies and kept selling more each year.

Awards and nominations

In 2020, the game was nominated for some big awards but didn’t win. However, many game websites and magazines named it one of the best games of the year. It was also listed as one of the best role-playing games on the Nintendo Switch.