Murmy TOK thoughts

Murmy's kinda indepth thoughhts about Paper Mario: The Origami King

Favorite Paper Mario List

1. TTYD (S)
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2. PM64 (B+)
3. TOK (B)
4. SPM (B)
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5. SS (C)
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6. CS (F)

-I think me and most other people agree that TOK is somewhere SPM. I happen to like more rpg type gameplay than 2d platforming so I put TOK above the game.

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Of course baby spoiler warning but the first part is just my thoughts on the mechanics of the game so if you havent finished u should be safe. I think if u atleast beat chapter 1 ur pretty much fine but be warned.
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First things first ye the text moves slow theres no excuse LOL. Luckily I didn't really mind.

Gameplay/Mechanics thoughts.

1. Ring Battles (My Score 8/10)
-One of the biggest complaints about the game that I've seen is about the battle system. I actually enjoy the ring mechanic of this game. I like standard jrpg style combat but also appreciate the breathe of fresh air that comes with adding a puzzle element to battles. Over all I do like the puzzles and getting a power boost/coin bonus for getting the correct solution or taking no damage is nice. The main thing that I have seen is that some people think doing puzzles gets old as the game goes on. While I didn't feel this way as I played, I can see why people think this is a problem. I do think the difficulty could have been inceased a bit to atleast make this less prevalent but there is still the problem that if you don't like the puzzle in the first place it will still seem like a chore. Boss battles have much more depth and variance in their puzzles and the different themes of each battle are really cool. Overall I liked the ring system alot and think most people just judged it unfairly.

2. Confetti/Coins (My Score 6/10)
-You get confetti and coins from each battle. From my point of view they are a good enough payoff for completing battles but that is because I like to go for 100% normally on casual playthroughs. That is really what it boils down to though. Aside from getting 100%, confetti and coins are still useful and give you some nice incentives whether it be buying better weapons or finding useful secrets that actually benefit you. If you are challenging yourself to do as little as possible, then yeah battles are pretty much useless. I do think this game is more enjoyable the more you collect though.

3. Mario Stat Progression and more Battle Mechanics (My Score 5/10)
-There are 2 stats in the game: HP and ATK. Theres also a pseudo DEF through guarding. Obviously there is no experience or stat gains or ability to get stronger through battling. The way mario gets stronger in TOK is by equipping different weapons/accessories or collecting max up hearts. This is going to be the biggest section of this paste but before I continue I should write that I think the battle mechanics of this game work well in combination with everything that game provides. There are certain things that I wanted to be changed but if you are to change one thing for example having levelling up, you would have to completely revamp the whole game but like I said, the battle mechanics as they are work really well together and I actually really enjoyed it.

-I'll start with defense. In TOK you can guard to reduce damage by a small amount which you can increase with an accessory. First the guard mechanic just kinda sucks. A lot of attacks are just unreactable on your first time seeing them anyways (mostly due to ridiculously weird/or lack of a of way to tell when the attack will actually hit mario). Not only is guarding mechanically bad in this game, the idea of guarding is stupid because even if you guard, the damage output from enemies (especially bosses) is so high that guarding has very little value compared to your max hp. They really needed to better balance the HP and guarding in this game. Without balancing the other options are either have a "Super" guard mechanic similar to either TTYD (a seperate guard command) or SMPRG (better timing = even less damage), or switching the defensive battle mechanic to dodge and counter (while still having a normal guard) like in the Mario and Luigi games. I think I'm pro the M&L system because it would add more depth to the battle system. This would also open the door to having battle that last multiple more turns and still getting the coin bonus even if you do puzzles differently.

-HP and ATK are actually bundled together in this game. You increase your hp by collecting max up hearts in the game and for every 10 hp you get, mario's base damage increases by 1 (i think). The addition of an ATK stat is very welcome however I wish it was done better. I really think these stats should have been separated. Seperating these two stats would have allowed for more customization in the type of build you could make mario. I already mentioned it a bit but HP is the most important stat. The damage output from certain enemies basicallly requires you to pick up most of the max up hearts. This is one of those things where you can't change it otherwise you would need to change something else. I would like it if you could skip hearts but you would have to change defense. Base attack power is not super important due to the fact that damage is mostly based on the weapon you use but it is helpful to be able to oneshot weaker enemies.

-Equippable Weapons and Items are really cool in this game and I liked this. The weapons are breakable in this game but they do last a good amount of attacks. There is a severe lack of different kinds of weapons and items in the game and all the weapons are just variations of jump and hammer. This does suck but not too much in my opinion because everything is useful. While I do miss things like shooting stars or fire drive and quake hammer, I don't miss the 100 bad/useless items and badges. This is something that is really dependent on the battle system and with the way the rings work this is handled appropriately.

4. Partners (My Score 5/10)
-There are partners in this game. They are more partners based on the story but I put them here because they do have a small part in battles. They are supe dumbed down and AI only. They just serve as an extra attack but it is better than nothing. Some partners actually have really good attacks though.

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Story/Visuals/Audio thoughts. This is gonna be short but yeah this game looks really good, sounds really good, and is really funny.

1. Areas and Visuals (My Score 9/10)
-Yeah this is legit the best looking paper mario game. All the areas look really good. Especially the cutscenes.

2. Sound Track (My Score 10/10)
-All the sounds are also dope.

3. Story/Characters (My Score 8/10)

-The story was pretty a pretty standard mario story. I thought the pacing was really good. The characters are hilarious.

4. Toads and other character designs (I don't care LOL)
-People have been complaining about toads but I just see them as collectibles. They are all funny and I enjoyed collecting them. The other designs are all enemies and while they were not very individual(ized, istic u know what i mean right) I didn't mind and actually like all of the characters. As a concept I enjoyed that you get to see in the lives and personalities of all of bowsers minions and the toads. People are mad because the goombas don't have hats i guess but i really don't think that the npcs not having original designs really matters. For the partners it would have been nice to have more creative designs. Technically bobby and preofessor toad were original (no fuse and explorer gear) and kamek and bowow are already established characters but the more important part to me was their personalities. IT was really just something that should have been in but I wasnt sweating that it wasnt in.

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	SPOILERS AHEAD
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	SPOILERS AHEAD
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This is gonna be my ratings for each chapter and the dungeons. Also gonna have some more thoughts about the story.

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Favorite Chapters List


1. Chapter 2 (S)
-Probably the most beautiful looking areas in all of paper mario games. Bobby saving section was fun. Water temple looked reallly cool and good puzzles. Eddy river was kinda hard for getting 100% but I liked it. Shogun studios was really fun but I did kinda spend time just running around not knowing what to do. I think that was due to it being a really open area and you just kinda have to get everything so u can enter the next areas. The ninja house was really cool. Rubber band was pretty good.
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2. Chapter 3 (A+)
-BOBBY WHY! The story was amazing at this point I wish theother partners left a more lastig impression like bobby but I soon found out with toad that they were all just kinda plain. They didn't even have an ending to their arcs which was unfortunate. This chapter had good puzzles and riddles. Macho Bloop was really good but Macho Pokey was bad. The desert looked really cool at night. It was also home to the best and worst dungeon. Fire Temple legit sucked ass. Althouhg the Fire boss was a really good fight, the dungeon had no puzzles, and no hidden collectibles. It was just run and jump. Shroom Temple had really good puzzles however so I guess it kinda evens out. Fire Temple really just robbed it of S tier though.
3. Chapter 4 (A)
-I am biased towards water/ocean themes. I really liked the great sea and i think this chapter is best done doing 100%. I do wish there was a bit more to do because the great sea was so big but unfortunately there was only 10 islands. Ice temple had good puzzles. Don't really remember tower of gods and tape was alright.
4. Chapter 1 (A)
-Chapter 1 started the game off really strong. Getting the shell stones was a fun time. Th earth temple was one of the best temples. The huge amount of hidden items made looking for them all on my first visit really fun. The earth boss unfortunately suffered from 1st boss tutorials it would really good if you could choose your actions like in the battle lab but nope :(. The mini dungeon at the end was reallly cool I really got into the atmosphere and mood of that section. I also liked the color pencil battle a lot.
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5. Chapter 5 (B)
-This chapter was really carried by the story and visuals for me. There wasn't much to do in it looking back on it but I had a lot of fun. Shu guy game was fun. Sumo Bro was a fun mini boss. Bowsers castle I didn't put down as a dungeon but that section was pretty good. Handaconda rps didnt make sense i eventually figure out when it was lying but stupid that the game forced you to fail the rps pretty much. Unfortunately it objectively had the worst boss fight in the game. There should not be a boss fight that OHKOs you with no warning. especially when your last save was before doing another miniboss right before. especially when you cant save in between that mini boss and boss fight. Jumping on the scissors with iron boots OHKOS u too. even though throughout the whole game, the way to beat enemies that have something sharp on their head is to jump on them with iron boots.
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6. Chapter 6 (C)
-just boring but there wasn't really much to do story wise besides go beat the game. Bowser was dope though.
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Favorite Dungeons List

1. Desert Temple (S)
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2. Water Temple (A+)
3. Earth Temple (A+)
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4. Ice Temple (B+)
5. Tower of Gods (B+)
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6. Origami Castle (C)
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7. Fire Temple (D)