Today is the release date for Paper Mario: The Origami King, the newest entry in Nintendo's long-running RPG spin-off of the iconic platforming series. The first new entry since 2016's Paper Mario: Color Splash, Paper Mario: The Origami King marks the return to many of the features that made the original Nintendo 64 title and the GameCube's Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door iconic, including the return of party members. While this has many fans excited, as party members can now finally help Mario in battles and interact with him as part of the story once again, many are still disappointed by their integration.
Party members in previous Paper Mario games had unique, distinct designs, such as Goombella, a female Goomba studying to become an archaeologist, and Parakarry, a Paratroopa character who acts as a delivery man in the original Paper Mario, spinning familiar Mario series enemies into memorable characters that stuck with the player well after the credits rolled. While Super Paper Mario marked a distinct shift in the series' direction gameplay-wise, it wasn't until Paper Mario: Sticker Star on the Nintendo 3DS that fans to become increasingly disappointed in how the series was losing its charm as it had completely moved away from party members and started experimenting with new battle systems.
Thankfully, fans may finally have an answer as to why Intelligent Systems has moved away from re-imagining iconic characters, asPaper Mario series producer Kensuke Tanbe stated that "since Paper Mario: Sticker Star, it's no longer possible to modify Mario characters or to create original characters that touch on the Mario Universe." This means that while the team could create new characters such as The Origami King's main villain Olly, these characters have to originate from outside the Mario universe and cannot change any of the designs or personalities of existing characters as it did in the past. Tanbe continues, stating "We need to create original characters with designs that don’t involve the Mario universe at all, like we’ve done with Olly and the stationery bosses."
While many will be understandably disappointed to hear that it is unlikely that Nintendo and Intelligent Systems are unlikely to return to reimagining existing Mario characters in the future, the strangest thing to stem from this interview is Tanbe claiming that new villains cannot even originate from Mario's existing universe, meaning that any villains introduced in future Paper Mario games must either already exist in the game's universe (but not stem from the personalities presented in previous titles) or be completely original and be invading Mario's universe.
Paper Mario: The Origami King is out now, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
Source: VGC