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 Forum 2

James Richardson

Paper Mario: Origami King

            In Paper Mario: Origami King, you play as a literally flat piece of paper, fighting 3D origami enemies. Although the past few Paper Mario games haven't been that well-received, this new game was a lot of fun to play. The game has many features that line up perfectly with the 12 points of animation we read about.

1. Timing

            In battle, doing the most amount of damage requires you to hit the attack button at the perfect moment. This is mostly right when the attack is about to hit, causing the attack to either minimal damage or max it out by 5 extra damage points. There are also two different attack items that have their own unique timing prompts. For the Boots, you jump on enemies in a straight line for a max of 4 enemies or jumping on a boss 4 times if you time it right. The Boot is the only weapon that can hit flying enemies as well, so it is definitely needed for those. The next weapon is the Hammer, witch hits in a square pattern right in front of you, but only the first 2 space and not 4. This one works by having a wheel that fills up and, to do max damage, you need to get it right when it is at its max. There is also the Hurlihammer, which can be thrown in a straight line, but it can only hit flying enemies if they are the first in line, and will miss any others after it. For Bosses, the hammer will do the most amount of damage, but some of them fly, so you have to knock them down with the boots first, then use the hammer.

2. Staging

            In Paper Mario, Each objective is in a vastly different area than the last. Be it Deep Temples that house Elemental Beasts, a large and baron Dessert that can only be travel by car, Avast and expansive Ocean with different Islands that give unique rewards, Or even Shogun Studios, a Theme Park based off of ancient Chinese empires. In each of these areas, whenever you go into battle, The background, enemy, and stage look very different, so it really makes you feel like you are in that kind of area. You will also be rescuing Toads throughout the game, and they can help you in battle, but will mostly sit on the sidelines and comment about the battle or area. They are also folded up into different shapes when you find them, like a fish that you need to catch, bugs in bushes, flowers on the ground, or even tiles on a roof. They will blend in and are unique in certain areas, so it also makes you have to look around very closely.

3. Solid Drawings

            The Paper Mario series is filled with characters that are literally just characters from the main Mario games draw as little 2d cartoon characters, so it's filled with Solid drawings. You have little flat Mario, all the different Toads you help out and save, and even Bowser himself has his own little cartoonish drawing. on the opposite side,  most of the Origami characters don't have any dawn lines of them, consisting mostly of creases and folds. the two Origami characters that have actual Lines are your companion Olivia, and her brother Ollie who is the main villain of the game. The only lines they have are for their eyes, which also transfer over to when they transform into the Elemental Beasts since even the Origami Beasts don't have eyes. Even the none beasts bosses are just Office Supplies like colored pencils, a tape dispenser, a stapler, and scissors. which also doesn't have any hard lines drawn on them.

4. Anticipation

            As mentioned before, with the timing, for combos, you are waiting for the perfect moment to hit the button to be able to maximize your damage. Another aspect you have to time in the game is blocking incoming attacks, do it too late, an,d you obviously get hit, but do it too early, and it may end before you get hit, leaving you wide open. You have to watch the opponent, wait for just when they are about to strike, then hit and hold the button to block it, also minimizing the damage done to you. When you are out of combat and about to start a fight, you can either jump or hit them to do extra damage right from the start, but different enemies work in different ways. Some enemies will simply just walk up to you where you can either jump or use your hammer on them, but sometimes they will jump at you, then allowing them to attack you first where you are unable to block.

5. Secondary Action

            In Paper Mario, there are many different cues and extra animations to show how a character is feeling or how they react. With Mario, he will briefly float when surprised, run in place if he is trying to escape something, sag and droop down when sad or hurt, and switch between multiple facial expressions. Despite him being a little flat and 2-dimensional character, he does show off a lot of personalities as well, but his partner Olivia seems to be the most expressive. Whenever she is happy, she will float around and bob through the air; when she gets sad, he ears/crown will drop down loosely, and she will float lower to the ground, and when she is mad, her ears/crown will point up more, her face will turn red, and she will float higher. She also provided a good bit of comedy with some of her actions, like struggling to hold Mario up and float him to safety if he falls, or just forgetting she can fly and will fall with you, or getting too relaxed in a hot spring and almost uncreasing herself.

        For such a simple-looking game, you wouldn't expect it to have so many basics with Animation, partly due to it consisting of completely flat and 2D characters. You can tell that a lot more thought was put into this game than some of the previous ones since they brought back old concepts that people loved that haven't been in the newer games.