first....babies

okay, SO IT IS ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD. several hundred times better than the sticker collection, but not as good as Thousand Year Door or PM64

I really liked the characters-- and the DIALOGUE GIVES ME LIFE

there were several points while playing it where I thought: "Hm...this game is never going to end!!!" and some parts where I was like "THAT WAS OVER SURPRISINGLY QUICK"

it has a good mixture of fighting in battle and out of battle-- i appreciate that. the audience was back and outside of the sheer charm of rescuing Toads to fill the seats, you can B R I B E them to assist you in battle. which I used. often.

money is extremely easy to come by. I would be surprised if you were unable to buy something at any point because the game just throws it at you like you're an expensive stripper

badges are still not back, and there was no leveling up in the traditional sense. you have an absurd amount of HP. that being said, you can use accessories to help you along for battle. You also gain HP with special 'Heart Container'-esque items, which give you a little attack power boost

with that boost, you can kill lower level enemies without entering battle with them. you get more money if you fight them on the spinny grid, but you have the option of not entering battle if you choose.

now let us talk about the battle system because B O Y i have some feelings

my sweet husbun tried it and LOVED it-- the tiles spin and rotate in clever ways. the point is to get the enemies all in a row so you can jump on them, or in a set of 4 in front of you so you can smash 'em with your hammer.

i....am not clever-- I am in fact, pretty straightforward when I play games, and this was pretty difficult to get used to.

pair that with the fact that Nintendo thinks the idea of introducing items that brEAK IS JUST FUN AND GOLLY WHAT A GR8 TIME NINTENDO

if you have 2 attacks lined up and you use an item that is close to breaking, there is a chance that you won't get to attack a second time whiCH IS HORSE BOLOGNA

Mario moves along the grid by use of green arrows, which you move and line up to lead him to an attack circle. they always start randomly. the amount of time you have to play with the grid gets more as you equip the right accessories but man. MAN SOMETIMES IT IS ROUGH OUT THERE

the Towds that sit in the audience that you can bribe will be able to move the grid around for you to solve the puzzle, if you pay them enough (600g was enough for me, typically. this was after I had collected several (hundred? thousand? million??) toads.)

baby moved....

i know there were a lot of complaints about how little character design was put into Origani King but I still loved all of them bECAUSE OF THE BEAUTIFUL DIALOGUE

A+++++ ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL

ever since Toadsworth jogged away from Mario and Goombaria in Thousand Year Door, with his little "Huff! Huff, I say!" I have been in love. I think the dialogue set apart Thousand Year Door and PM64 for me, but I loved them both very much.

every toad has something adorable and dumb to say. Other characters, while lacking the artistic differences (eg: Lady Bow vs. an average Boo) that set apart important characters, were genuinely loveable and interesting.

I loved the theme of the game and appreciated the nuances made to give the game more life. I think it was an amazing direction to take the series...but

I miss Paper Mario telling a story. not anything related to paper. I miss the paper references that broke the 4th wall. The game has just kind of accepted them all, and while that is Ok, I do miss the story and the fun game play that came with Thousand Year door. the battles. the leveling up and the badges and the party characters.

outside of money, there is no reason to fight battles in Origami King-- you don't get anything absurdly special, and you may feel as if you're wasting resources the further along you go.

I think that was an enormous oversight.

I still enjoyed Origami King, but I would like to see something more closely related to Thousand Year Door. I don't need the extra gimmicks of stickers and confetti.

so....out of 5 stars, I'd give Paper Mario, Origami King 4/5. it was a great game, but it sits in the shadows of TYD and PM64.