The Paper Mario sub-series has seen more lows than highs in recent years, but Origami King’s release on the Nintendo Switch does at least offer hope for the franchise’s future. While Paper Mario will likely never return to its JRPG roots (the first game was a sequel to Super Mario RPG after all,) it’s clear that Intelligent Systems knows what they’re doing with the combat.
For the most part, that is. Origami King’s battle system is the best Paper Mario’s seen in quite a while, but it still has a number of problems. More importantly, games like Sticker Star and Color Splash arguably experimented too much– damaging their difficulty curves in the process. Origami King is proof that Paper Mario isn’t going anywhere, but the series’ new battle systems have yet to match Thousand Year Door’s quality.
6 Sticker Star
Sticker Star’s battle system is a downright tragedy. After Super Mario Paper traded turn based combat in exchange for action platforming, Sticker Star took a step back and embraced Paper Mario’s combat… on a purely basic level. Experience and Badges were also tossed aside, forcing Mario to rely on stickers to attack enemies.
Unfortunately, stickers are a resource and there are no benefits to random encounters. Players are better off avoiding enemies altogether and saving their stickers for bosses. What’s worse, some bosses require specific stickers and act more as lackluster puzzles than anything else.
5 Color Splash
Although Color Splash is a very clear improvement on Sticker Star– both from a design perspective and as far as battles feel– combat is still primarily driven by consumable resources. Worse is that Color Splash doesn’t quite justify its commitment to inventory management with the same tonal charm Sticker Star did (for all its faults.)
Color Splash is better purely because Intelligent Systems had an opportunity to refine Sticker Star’s combat. At the end of the day, though, it’s still the same shallow gameplay loop that’s left fans disappointed with the franchise.
4 Super Paper Mario
Although well reviewed, Super Paper Mario garnered backlash from the fanbase for pivoting too much from the foundation established by both Paper Mario and Thousand Year Door. Rather than being a turn based RPG like the first two games, Super Paper Mario was an action-platformer with jarringly strong writing (even for the Mario RPGs.)
What it lacks in familiarity it makes up for in a wildly imaginative plot, strong level design, and combat that– while not similar to the first two games– is still appreciable. Plus, the game has the sense to keep its RPG mechanics intact, ensuring that progression isn’t a complete & utter chore.
3 Origami King
It should be pointed out that Origami King’s battle system doesn’t suit itself particularly well for random encounters. While they’re fun enough in moderation, fighting every single enemy will drag the game to a crawl. When it comes down to it, Origami King’s battles are puzzles and needing to actively piece together combat can be exhausting.
That said, this is more of a pacing issue. The actual battle system is superb. Playing off the series’ use of theatrical imagery, Mario now takes center stage in a theatre in the round-esque arena. Players are then tasked with shuffling the ring’s pieces (divided into columns & rows) in order to line up enemies for Mario’s combat phase. Solve the puzzle correctly and Mario even gets a buff.
Boss battles flip this relationship between Mario and stage, however. With bosses center stage, players need to shuffle the arena in order to move Mario from the edge to the boss. Boss arenas are littered with panels that move Mario, heal, deal damage, trigger Vellumental summons, or allow players to stock up on extra attacks. Constantly thought provoking, bosses are a highlight.
2 Paper Mario
The original Paper Mario holds up as one of the absolute best games on the Nintendo 64, if not the outright best. The visuals have aged wonderfully, the story has plenty of heart, the level design is fantastic, and the combat was more or less perfect out the gate.
Paper Mario isn’t a particularly difficult game– its only main drawback– but the reflex based gameplay never gets boring. Later boss fights do well to challenge players in a manner other RPGs don’t as well, and the leveling system offers plenty of character customization.
1 Thousand Year Door
That said, Paper Mario is also outdone by its immediate successor, Thousand Year Door. Refusing to fix what isn’t broken, Thousand Year Door keeps the core combat intact while expanding on it. Customization plays a bigger role, Badges are more involved, Partners are fleshed out, and the reflex based timing has been given even more focus.
Like Paper Mario, Thousand Year Door isn’t too difficult, but it maintains a reasonable challenge from start to finish through some of the best boss fights in the genre.
NEXT: Paper Mario: The Origami King – Where To Find Luigi
