Paper Mario: The Origami King, tried the combat system
Contents
Battles Boss Clashes Certainties and Doubts We have been playing Paper Mario: The Origami King for Nintendo Switch for a few days; pending the review, which will arrive next week, we share with you our impressions of the game's original fighting system. This series was born as a parodic version of the J-RPG: in the first chapters the mechanics were quite similar to those typical of the genre to which it belonged and, at the same time, on which it ironed. Things have changed a lot over the years, and The Origami King, although different from the more recent predecessors, continues along the same path of departure from the original genre.The title does not include a level-up system, the Mario's evolution is mainly linked to the discovery of increasingly powerful objects, there are no longer the "spells" to be used by consuming FP (Flower Points). It cannot be said, however, that the fighting system of The Origami King is not interesting, on the contrary; simply, rather than based on the strategy and personalization of the protagonists, it is based on puzzle elements. Once an enemy is impacted, the scene moves to a different stage from the one hosting the exploration sections, a circle made up of four "rows" and several columns, at the center of which Mario (and possibly his assistant).
battles
At the beginning of each battle, the main objective is to put in a row opponents within a certain time limit, and using a limited number of trips. The latter involve the participation of the boxes that make up the floor of the arena, and can occur from or laterally within the same row, or in-depth within a single column; the goal is to arrange the enemies in rows of four elements, or into squares by four squares close to the location of Mario. If you succeed, the attacks of the hydraulic improve to 50%, and often manages to defeat his opponents without that they can counter-attack. Vice versa, you must suffer the offensive of the enemy.objects and the rivals become more and more strong, the damage as a result of increase, the puzzle of the beginning of combat are more complex, but this setting remains essentially unchanged for the entire part of the adventure that we played. The same assistants , a classic of the old Paper Mario , is nothing more than a "bonus" in aid of the plumber: the player controls the movement or actions. Simply provide attacks more, which facilitate the elimination of opponents. To further enhance the shots of Mario, as is typical for the series, should press the right button (A for jump, B for the hammer) in the vicinity of the contact helps to make the whole thing more lively, but to be sincere, we do not believe that it influences a lot on the outcome of the struggle that, as we said, is addressed mainly by the resolution of the puzzle initial. The developers are aware of the peculiarity of this structure, in fact, the fighting of The Origami King are not obsessively present: when the enemies become "too weak" for Mario, risking to become boring or useless to the fight (there will be no experience points, but only monetary rewards) you can kill them with a simple hammer blow directly on the game map.
Some of the clashes, more rarely, occur during the exploration phase (without access to the circular arena) with the mechanical reproductions of the enemies are typical of the series: when you encounter these opponents, you have to be careful not to be affected and, at the same time, being ready to attack them with a hammer.
Clashes with the boss
The circular arena also characterises the clashes with the boss - in this regard, if from the video you seem to be particularly scarce, it is only because we can not show you the best strategies to combat them (you can believe it or not, here). Unlike with the enemies "simple" however, in this case, is the boss to be at the center, and to dominate the scene, with Mario forced to the margins of the circle . In these battles, moving the boxes as usual, the goal is to take advantage of the arrows (which direct and generate movements) in such a way to reach the platform right, or, more commonly, closer to the enemy. The majority of the clashes that we have had with the boss, they are also, essentially, of the challenging puzzle game; you have to first guess as to cause damage to the opponent, then figure out how to do it, and finally be ready to manage the complications that the boss offers in order to avoid the reiteration of the pattern (to him) harmful.Are more puzzles that fights real, because it is almost impossible to defeat an enemy in a manner different from that provided by the game; the box on the right, you can reach it by altering the path in the various provisions, however, it is difficult to eliminate a boss simply by attacking, not by using precisely the best strategy . Let's talk about two, three, or zero damage, compared to fifteen, twenty, or thirty. It is not easy to describe a situation without going into detail, we assure you, however, that playing it will all seem more clear than it may seem from this article.
In conclusion, at least from where we came - and we got rather beyond - the battles, both with enemies on normal, with the boss, and have a lot more to do with a challenging puzzle game with elements of strategy and action. The structure of a original and curious, but in the long might be getting tired: for this the developers have them dosed with expertise, without overdoing it.
In this preview, we've decided to focus entirely on the combat system, pending the review of the next week. It is perhaps the most original of Paper Mario: The Origami King, and for now it has made a good impression: they are fights that basically involve the resolution of a puzzle, does not require the development of a serious strategy, but are still stimulating and, from where we arrived, handled well (neither intrusive, nor very present). As a small foretaste, we were quite surprised by the size of the game map: is an adventure bigger than we had expected, the writing is brilliant as always, some of the characters are memorable. The quality for now is high, let's see if it will remain that way until the end.
