Paper Mario: The Origami King-It’s OK to Take a Break
Sometimes it’s nice to take a break. If this year has taught me anything, it’s the importance of doing something that can bring a smile to your face, and that is exactly what my time spent with Paper Mario: The Origami King did. Paper Mario: The Origami King took me on an adventure filled with laughter, tears, and memories I will carry with me for a long time.
Coming off The Last of Us Part 2, I was in a dark place with gaming. I was dreading going into Ghost of Tsushima, thinking it was gonna just be another dark & gritty story. I needed a palette cleanser, but nothing sounded good. Everything around that time either sounded like more murder sprees, or never ending grind fests. Then, out of the blue, came Paper Mario: The Origami King. I was initially gonna pass on this game after the last installment, Paper Mario: Color Splash, left a bad taste in my mouth. However, after watching a few trailers, I eventually said, “Fuck it. Why not?” It’s easily the best gamble I took on a game this year.
While Paper Mario: The Origami King is not for everyone, it hit all the right spots for me, mostly due to its new combat style. They kept the turn based combat of the originals, but decided to add a major–and literal–twist to the combat in this game. The Puzzle stage has to be the most divisive topic about the game, but I absolutely adored it. Basically, the stage is a circle and you try to line up enemies in a way that gives you a way to hit all enemies with certain weapons, like the hammer or jump boots, and give you damage bonuses. There were times where some of the puzzles were pretty easy, and at other times the puzzles caused me to burn resources to figure them out. The bosses in this game are then grander scale versions of the puzzle turn based combat, each with their own unique way of managing the board. Basically this game scratched my puzzle itch while at the same time stringing me along with its humor and story.
Going into this game I knew I would take away a bit of cheer, joy and humor, but what I got from the game was more than that. It starts out as the typical journey of big bad does some horrible stuff to the kingdom and captures Princess Peach, but this villain is literally warping people into what he sees as perfection against their will. Not only is the main antagonist pretty messed up, but some of the companions we meet along the way have pretty good back stories and character development. There is one character in particular that had an explosive character development that I still think about today, and how that character changed my perspective of what it must be like to be one of them.
Overall, 2020 has been a year that I will not look fondly on. There are a handful of games that got me through this year, and Paper Mario: The Origami King is high on that list for me. With games progressively telling bleaker and darker stories, it was nice to be able to play something with thoughtful storytelling that didn’t just beat you over the head with depressing subject matter. The game takes you on a journey full of laughs and excitement, while at the same time introducing heavy material but giving you plenty of time to take a breath. While it’s not the best game out there this year, it’s the kind of game I needed the most this year. It was a nice reminder that sometimes it’s ok to take breaks from the normal, and do something for yourself that makes you smile.
