Paper Mario: The Origami Salami

Bland-Aid's GAMER-pinions
THIS SPOILS THE ENTIRETY OF ORIGAMI KING BTW SO YEAH

• Battle system was interesting, being more of a puzzle than anything, but that also meant the "battle" part of battles felt underdeveloped
• There's a bunch of enemies, but really only a few unique enemy types: regular, spiky, and flying
• The way they attack doesn't really matter that much, and none of their attacks have unique properties or anything
• There were only a few enemies I can remember being more interesting than that: Boos (which just turned invisible, and that feels a bit artificial?) and the Little Paper Cutout Soldiers, which showed up for a grand total of four battles, only one of which was required
• There really should have been more enemies that took advantage of the system like that
• Also seriously why weren't the cutout soldiers in Olly's castle they fit the vibe and aesthetic perfectly what the fu
• Also also when you've Solved The Puzzle, going through the process of Actually killing the enemies is tedious, especially when there are three or four groups

• Equipment system also felt a bit underdeveloped
• The game's intended playstyle is for you to one-shot groups of enemies by solving the puzzles, hence the damage bonus for a good lineup (and speaking of which what the heck determines whether or not your lineup is "great" or "perfect?" It seems random)
• To do so you have to use the "latest" equipment for each area, i.e. by the yellow streamer you'll be using Shiny and Flashy Boots/Hammers, and Legendary Boots/Hammers by endgame
• I'm assuming this is supposed to simulate a more traditional progression system (along with the life-up hearts increasing HP and attack power)... but in that case why not just have EXP and leveling up like usual?
• Equipment breaking is pointless too, since a) each piece has, like, ten uses and b) you can buy and stock up on more than you need because coins are so plentiful in this game, so by the time one piece breaks you could buy, like, three more
• I ended the game with six Flashy Iron Boots, three Legendary Iron Boots, Three Shiny Hurlhammers, and Four Legendary Hammers that I never used, and I wasn't even trying to be particularly conservative with them
• The accessories felt like a very underwhelming facsimile of badges
• Why wasn't the Confetti Vacuum accessory just. The default confetti collection range
• Why wasn't the shop discount card just on all the time, why would you ever want to spend more money on things (actually probably so you can get to higher tiers of the card faster... Fine,)
• The step meter that gave you coins every 1000 steps you took only activated twice in the entire game for me, and I had it on literally all the time from the moment I bought it

• Speaking of having more stuff than you need, my goodness are there too many coins in this game
• I spend copious amounts of coins on Toad cheering and extra time since I'm awful at the puzzles, and I was never in danger of running out of money
• The only time I was was when I accidentally bought an extremely expensive collectible figurine in Shangri-Spa, and that wasn't even required
• You get so many coins that battling to get coins becomes pointless after a while
• And so battles eventually become chores just like SS and CS, though the ring system is at least better than stickers/cards

• Exploration was actually pretty fun, though looking back on it most of it was just busy work
• You're never Ever going to run out of confetti so filling in holes (haha) is never an issue
• Finding Toads was alright and they had some pretty funny lines, but I'm not really sure if they have any tangible benefit? I mean I know more appear in the battle crowd but does that affect anything
• Also the game kinda just gave up on having hidden Toads when you reach the underwater diamond area? There are no hidden Toads in the Sea Tower, Shangri-Spa, Bowser's Castle, or Olly's castle
• Collectible figurines don't really do anything, you collect them for the sake of collecting them (and admittedly I did enjoy finding them)
• They also just kinda gave up hiding them around endgame, there's a bunch just in ? Blocks in Olly's castle
• Speaking of ? Blocks, those all count toward 100% completion
• Hidden blocks are either reasonably well-hidden and have subtle tells to where are they are, or they're just floating totally out of the way with fuck all to indicate where they are (except the hidden block detector I guess)
• ? Blocks hold coins (which are extremely easy to come by just by battling) and equipment (which you can buy extremely easily due to how many coins the game gives you) so rarely did what was in one feel especially rewarding
• Platforming was just okay. Mario jumps extremely low, he's sluggish in movement, and has no momentum, so it doesn't feel great. Obviously it was like that in the older games too, but... I'm not particularly fond of platforming with Paper Mario's engine in general

• Bosses were probably the high point of the game, but even those were mixed for me
• Colored Pencils was basically a tutorial battle, extremely easy but whatever it's the first boss
• The Rainbow Roll phase was weird, though. Grabbing the spinning colored pencils wasn't obvious at all
• Yeah there are hint envelopes to tell you what to do but you're never going to be in the process of doing the things the hints tell you to do when you grab them so it's still trail-and-error
• Rubber Band was also disappointingly easy. The bumper band gimmick probably helped more than it hindered
• Hole Punch I didn't actually do properly, I didn't know you could take off his case, but he was at least actually threatening since he lowered your max HP
• Tape was okay. Not being able to jump on him isn't really well telegraphed so that's just trial-and-error, but other than that he's pretty good. Him taping up the rings actually tripped me up, so kudos for that
• Scissors being able to insta-kill you makes sense and it's genuinely threatening, but putting a boss that can do that right after a long miniboss with no save point in between is Stinky Poo Poo Garbo
• Also I guess he just takes off his case himself if you don't get an Excellent action command on an attack, which is weird
• Stapler came out of nowhere and I think I was missing something with the battle. The game kept telling me to make Stapler waste its staples so its attacks would be harmless, but I could never get rid of all of them before it finished charging its Bite Barrage
• Usually there's something you can do with the 1000-Fold Arms or a Vellumental Power to exploit the bosses weakness, but there wasn't anything like that for Stapler? I'm fairly certain I'm missing something but the game didn't tell me what, so
• Vellumental battles were just okay
• Fire Bird healing when you hit it with a slam rush was not telegraphed and kinda stupid, 1000-Fold Arms are your main source of damage for every other fight so having to wait until it's almost dead to use them was not obvious at all. Trial-and-error!!

• King Olly's first phase was just the Vellumentals again, which was disappointing. Was really hoping he'd do something cool with the ring system
• Second phase was kinda silly but I liked that Bowser got to do Something
• Third phase was cinematic and climactic!!
• I genuinely enjoyed it, but I wish the meat of the battle (the part where you're directly fighting Olly) was better
• Mario randomly gains the ability to jump extremely high and hold back Olly's gigantic hand from crushing him? I guess it was the power of the Big Magic Circle??
• The ending sequence was sweet

• Non-gameplay stuff:
• The partner characters were generally pretty good. Not being able to have unique designs kinda held them back but I liked their characterization
• Bobby and his backstory and sacrifice were obviously the highlight, even though Bob-ombs in past games in the series have been able to explode without actually dying but shhhhhh those don't exist anymore
• Professor Toad was alright
• Captain T. Ode was good, but he kinda fucks off in a rather abrupt way once you enter the Sea Tower
• Kamek and Bowser Jr. were great
• Everything Bowser said was wonderful, though he wasn't even a character last two games in the series so maybe I was just glad he had Any personality
• Olivia was surprisingly enjoyable in general, she's a Dumb Baby but I love her
• Peach does NOTHING
• Luigi was just a running gag but I think the game escaped the thing the M&L series did with him (haha look at Luigi he's so lame and incompetent) by actually having him help you out, even when he kept finding the wrong key
• Olly was an alright villain. His motivation was kinda dumb (if he had just read what his creator wrote on him none of this would have even happened??) but ehhh whatever
• The Legion of Stationery I'm mixed on
• On the one hand they all have enjoyable characterizations. Yeah they're all one-note stereotypes but they're not really that prominent outside of their battles so I think that works
• On the other hand, all of their designs (except Rubber Band) being Just Office Supplies kinda drags them down a bit for me
• Like, I dunno, I CAN appreciate their personality but I also can't look past the fact that it's just a roll of tape
• I think giving them actual names beyond what their appliances are would have gone a long way

• The story as a whole was pretty unremarkable (Bad Guy does Bad Thing, travel around the world to several specific spots to unlock his lair and beat him), but the individual story beats were good.
• The plot being unremarkable isn't a bad point btw; TTYD had a pretty bland and by-the-numbers setup but the scenarios and moments of the chapters were what made it. Origami King is similar
• First three streamer areas were great, but the Purple Streamer sea area was kinda just okay
• I don't really remember many of the little islands, but the undersea diamond and sea tower were good
• Shangri-Spa was a great idea but it kinda fell flat
• The jungle area randomly had a bunch of instant Game Over opportunities, Shy Guys Finish Last was cute at first but got annoying quickly (I was awful at all the games though, so that's probably just me), and Bowser's Castle felt underwhelming for an area's final dungeon
• The back half of the chapter also had, like, four bosses in pretty quick succession, which I guess isn't awful I guess but it's weird
• Olly's castle was kinda short but the music was good

• Misc. stuff
• Music was kickass the whole way through
• This game looks Really good
• Using Bob-ombs as ammunition during the airship portion feels really really off considering Bobby's earlier sacrifice. Why couldn't they have just been cannonballs
• I know it sounds like I hated the game but I genuinely had fun playing it
• It's a step in the right direction I suppose, but their stubbornness about traditional RPG mechanics and their inability to have unique designs for characters anymore really holds them back
• Next game they're gonna just come up with a new battle system?? For the love of god just choose something and stick with it, no one wants you to keep reinventing the wheel like that