The newest installment of the beloved Paper Mario series entitled The Origami King will be arriving to Switch users soon in just one week. In the meantime, Nintendo has been showing off some gameplay content, including Paper Mario's worst enemies, office supplies.
During Nintendo's Treehouse Livestream event, the company focused primarily on the long-awaited addition to one the most nostalgic Mario series, Paper Mario: The Origami King. In it, Nintendo previewed a boss fight with one of the many office supplies Mario will be forced to face off with, the Colored Pencils, and gave a more in-depth explanation of how the combat system will work as well as a longer preview of the open world in Origami King.
Nintendo previously explained The Origami King's battle system, and it will be significantly different from past installments. The combat sections are far more heavily puzzle-based: Mario will stand in the center of a circle of enemies and will need to carefully map out moves as waves of villains surround him. But for the Colored Pencils, combat will operate a bit differently due to it being a boss fight.
Along with Rubber Bands, Tape, and King Olly, Mario will go up against a box of Colored Pencils. The rainbow pencils are used as propelled rockets directed at Mario. Mario must make his way around the back of the case of Colored Pencils and shut it. Doing so will slowly eliminate the pencils from the box, weakening Mario's opponent. After closing the pencil case, its missiles will be stuck inside itself and implode, doing damage.
Players will be tasked with utilizing arrows and rotating the concentric ring around the Colored Pencils. Instead of a number of different enemies being placed around the inner and outer rings, Mario will need to map out a path with the green arrows to reach the back of the Colored Pencils' lid. Once he reaches the back, he will be able to shut it, but it will take multiple rounds of closing the case and utilizing the elaborate ring system in order to defeat the boss, and Mario will only have a set number of moves he can use per turn, which means players will need to figure out how to get around to the back of the Colored Pencils as efficiently as possible.
In addition to Origami King's brand new combat system, Paper Mario will not utilize experience points this time around. Because experience points are typically used in RPGs to level up the player character, it poses an interesting question of how character progression will work, but players will need to wait until its full release to see how exactly this mechanic will pan out.
Paper Mario: The Origami King will release on July 17, 2020 for the Nintendo Switch.
