How Origami King Became the --Pineapples on Pizza-- of the Nintendo Switch

Paper Mario: The Origami King became the most unexpected controversial game in the history of Nintendo. What started out as a trailer that was met with uneasiness and nervous anticipation exploded into chaos once the battle system was revealed. Hostility reigned supreme during all the footage leading up to the release of the game, and continued on even after critic reviews of said game were actually on the positive side. And to this day, many Paper Mario fans remain extremely bitter for how the game turned out, splitting the fanbase in half. But no way Nintendo is going to care too too much about the feedback because of one main thing:

Origami King is easily going to become the best-selling Paper Mario game of all-time.

No matter how much Paper Mario fans are going to rage about the complete departure from its original RPG elements, the more basic character design, and extreme distancing from the well-received battle systems of the early 2000s, Nintendo is going to see those nice sales figures as a sign that Intelligent Systems succeeded in providing yet another game that makes the House of Mario money. But why is this adventure game creating such anger from longtime Nintendo fans? Why is this the game that has unleashed the toxicity that we are seeing all over social media? How did Origami King end up being the most polarizing mainline Nintendo game since probably Metroid: Other M?

What if I told you that The Origami King isn’t the issue as much as it is a multitude of previous events that created a snowball of disappointment and frustration that ultimately crashed into the existence of the now-infamous circle-based system that is not battling as much as it is puzzle-solving? What if I told you that the current status of Nintendo role-playing games is precisely why it sounds like Paper Mario and Nintendo fans were back-stabbed by the company? My theory is that Nintendo’s recent wave of decisions combined with chaos caused by the coronavirus created the very divisive reception of what has become a successful and critically revered game.

Let’s look at what’s happening up to this point in Nintendo’s rather uneven history with role-playing games:

We have yet to see a Mother remake, sequel, or even a remaster, and Mother 3 is STILL a Japan-only property. The Japanese got to enjoy a Game Boy Advance package of the first two Mother games as well as the third---and all of this sold extremely well. Earthbound (Mother 2) did poorly in the United States after a miserable marketing campaign, but its cult following allowed for Ness to be a Smash Brothers staple and the main character of the best recurring joke between Nintendo fans and former president Reggie Fils-Aime.

Golden Sun has seen nothing in a decade, with Dark Dawn being its last release during the peak Nintendo DS era. All three games were well-received, the characters are constantly being requested to be part of Smash Bros., yet outside of re-releases in the Virtual Console market we haven’t seen any updates from this Camelot franchise. Let me be clear, a Golden Sun remake covering the first two games would make a fantastic addition to the Nintendo Switch.

Final Fantasy, the second-biggest RPG franchise in the business, has a very strange history with Nintendo. Originally exclusive to Nintendo, Final Fantasy went on to Sony after the Nintendo 64 was proving itself to be a pain to make games for, especially RPGs with expanded stories and cutscenes. This led to a bitter breakup between Square and Nintendo and eventually the company being owned by Sony for a brief time, which made it impossible for the mainline games to also be released on Nintendo consoles. Although recently the floodgates were finally opened for Nintendo owners to play games of their PSX/PS2 days, they still trail heavily Sony and Microsoft in terms of their recent games like Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Kingdom Hearts 3.

….and Nintendo Switch still doesn’t have Chrono Trigger or Chrono Cross….

Now, let’s go more recent.

Pokemon remains the best-selling RPG series in history, is one of the top franchises in the entire history of the medium, and each new release sparks a frenzy of sales and success. But Pokemon Sword/Shield had a lot of negative feedback from longtime fans because what should have been the next giant leap forward in the franchise with being a console release and stronger online implications just became a half-step that sold well but didn’t quite reach the quality heights of other Nintendo franchises that up to now have evolved into their best versions (Mario Kart, Smash Bros., 3-D Mario, Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem).

Sword/Shield has sold nearly 20 million copies, but critics and gamers alike agree that potential was hardly met. This isn’t as much Nintendo as it is Game Freak and the Pokemon Company’s approaches to the brand, but nonetheless the anger has been targeted at the company with the exclusive rights. Even after the DLC releases, not much has improved in the Sword/Shield reputation.

The Mario and Luigi series was the other Mario RPG franchise fans could depend on for funny content, new characters, elongated storylines you never see in mainline Mario games, and great humor that pokes fun at the zany chaos that revolves around the Mushroom Kingdom universe. But after back-to-back disappointments in terms of sales, Nintendo unexpectedly had to say goodbye to the series entirely (for now) as Alphadream declared bankruptcy in late 2019. As the Paper Mario series drifted away from the RPG elements, gamers at least have these games to fall back on. But with Mario and Luigi gone, Paper Mario is their only source for the simplistic, meta, and action-based RPG gameplay that began way back in 1996 with Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (ANOTHER potential franchise that had become dormant for a variety of reasons).

Side-Note: Before I continue, I should point out that we really shouldn’t pretend like its been complete doom-and-gloom for Nintendo owners in terms of the RPG genre. You can argue that Nintendo, despite recent disappointments, still has a very strong RPG base in their Nintendo 3DS and Switch consoles. Lately, Nintendo finally got to make amends with Square Enix, and it had to a multitude of handheld surprise hits like Bravely Default, The World Ends With You, and Octopath Traveler.

Then we have the Xenoblade franchise, whose modern success and appeal began back in the Wii days when Xenoblade Chronicles’ American release became a successful result of a strong petition. If we want to dig a bit deeper, most of the backlash can be avoided if many of these great RPGs from the DS/3DS handhelds can be ported to the also-portable Switch.

But look at the bad news snowball: Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee was a successful forgivable cashgrab that looked much worse in retrospect because the eventual “big” games Pokemon Sword/Shield didn’t exactly captivate the RPG crowd—and at times looked even WORSE than the simple Pokemon GO-inspired remakes. Mario and Luigi franchise disappeared because AlphaDream went under. Then came 2020, the pandemic, the cancelled events left and right, no news coming from Nintendo, and then out of nowhere we have a Paper Mario game that is extremely far away from the peak years of the franchise (The Thousand-Year Door).

What probably drives the Paper Mario fans even crazier is the fact that every other element of the game was faithful to the successful formula, except for the battle system that not only is reduced to elongated puzzles, but they even took away experience points and partners in battle, which renders these encounters nearly pointless. Why even call it Paper Mario at this point if they are trying so hard to not continue the concept of RPGing? And man, Origami King has the greatest soundtrack of battle themes, and you aren’t even actually battling most of the time.

We never got an actual sequel to Super Mario RPG (Square, what’s the holdup!?!?). We never got the true successor to The Thousand-Year Door. We still haven’t gotten a Grand Theft Auto-sized Pokemon game (Pokemon Silver/Gold had 16 badges, this was TWENTY years ago. Why are we still stuck at less than 10 badges?!!), and Sword/Shield appears to be a smaller game than Sun/Moon, a 3DS title. We haven’t gotten a sequel to the Mario and Luigi franchise in half a decade. Combine all this with the existence of 2020, cancellations everywhere, and Paper Mario: Origami King’s mere existence became the straw that broke the camel’s back.

If Mario and Luigi still existed and with a recent entry, the pain wouldn’t be so bad. If they called this game Paper Mario ADVENTURES, then maybe RPG elements would not have been more anticipated by the gamers. If the folks at Intelligent Systems working on the game itself had not given us so many frustrating interviews, maybe the pain wouldn’t cut so deep. Lastly, if we had not seen so many spectacular instances of franchises growing into their strongest forms (Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild are among the best games of all-time, let alone best in their series), then maybe we wouldn’t be expecting more from a console that had already given us so much amazing gameplay before the world decided to revolt against human beings.

But it was a multitude of bad gaming-related news and disappointing results in the last 18 months mixed in with the horrifying news related to the pandemic, and the Paper Mario fandom went crazy. Nothing is going to douse these flames anytime soon because this year has been a giant hotbed of bad news, one after another. So this gave Nintendo the most unexpected video game to become a major controversy. Even Halo Infinite’s ugly first impressions didn’t draw this level of ire. A company notorious for mixing up the formula to their biggest games and notorious for experimentation suddenly saw their latest unique approach to games be met with social media toxicity that’s nearly on par with politics.

Only time will tell what happens to the reputation of The Origami King, as it continues piling up good reviews and good sales, leading to a growing circle of acceptance. But one thing is certain, Nintendo, not in their wildest dreams, could have expected the hostile reception of a simple adventure game in a long-running franchise.

I bet all this is punishment for us not making Bernie Sanders president.

Regardless of my thoughts on Origami King, I still very much miss Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door….