Cognition Dissemination: Nintendo Is Still Crinkling Paper Mario
Super Paper Mario marked the end of an era for the Paper Mario franchise, though no one realized it at the time. The first two games in the series were RPGs, but SPM marked a shift to a platformer with considerably more text than the usual Mario platformer game — too much text, if you asked some who played it. At the time, it was thought to be a mere spinoff of in between RPG installments, which might have been developer Intelligent Systems’ actual plan. Nintendo, however, had different intentions for the franchise’s future.
The collective eyebrows of fans were raised after they played Paper Mario: Sticker Star for 3DS. It resembled Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door from appearance, the second RPG installment in the series, but didn’t lean into the RPG elements to the extent previous installments did. The game was lighter on story and did away with experience points, with Mario relying on stickers for attacks and item usage. This also meant it was pointless to get into battles if the player was maxed out on stickers (coins were acquired outside of battles), an additional way in which deemphasizing the RPG elements hurt it.
In a discussion with the dearly-missed Satoru Iwata in an installment of the also-dearly-missed “Iwata Asks” series, Nintendo Ltd. Senior Officer Kensuke Tanabe and Vanpool representative Taro Kudo mentioned that the reduced RPG emphasis was Shigeru Miyamoto’s idea. “It’s fine without a story, so do we really need one?” Miyamoto was quoted as saying, according to Tanabe. He continued by saying “As much as possible, complete it with only characters from the Super Mario world.” Iwata at the time noted how difficult this task was for the development team, and how they went in an opposite direction compared to the previous Paper Mario RPG installments. Fans were not happy about this.
Still, a separate set of fans tolerated it because Mario RPGs were still being made through the Mario & Luigi titles from AlphaDream. Unfortunately, AlphaDream has since folded, and there are no signs that the Mario & Luigi series will continue without them.
This is relevant now because those same fans were hoping the just-released Paper Mario: The Origami King would mark a return to the franchise’s RPG roots. For a very short time, it seemed like that might be the case given the prevalence of text shown in trailers and gameplay videos, and rumors from supposed insiders with mixed-at-best records. But just before its launch, players discovered that while it leans into the RPG elements further than Sticker Star and Color Splash, it’s still closer to those games than the first two titles.
The Origami King is less of an RPG for the same reasons Sticker Star was. In an interview with Video Games Chronicle, Tanabe mentioned that “since Paper Mario: Sticker Star, it’s no longer possible to modify Mario characters or to create original characters that touch on the Mario universe.” If they want to create a boss, it has to be someone with no connection to the Mario universe at large, like Origami Kingdom ruler King Olly. Any hope that Nintendo might have listened to upset fans following Sticker Star and Color Splash has evaporated.
Nor is it likely that they’ll listen to them in the future regarding Paper Mario. This rule for the franchise has been in effect for about eight years now, and this is the third installment in the series in this style to release. There are now twice as many adventure-style PM games as there are RPG installments, suggesting that the former will be the main format from here on. There’s still a chance of Nintendo releasing another RPG installment, but it would be wise not to expect it. At the very least, the games should remain fun to play even if they falter in specific areas.
It would still be preferable if a dedicated Mario RPG brand still existed. There’s no word on whether Nintendo hired the AlphaDream staffers to continue the Mario & Luigi franchise internally, which they previously did for the handheld Legend of Zelda team after Capcom closed the Flagship development studio. But the chance them putting the franchise aside after the 3DS remakes didn’t set the sales world on fire is higher than it should be. If that happens, Nintendo should find someone else to partner with for Mario RPGs. Square Enix, for instance, would be a great partner, only partly because a team at Squaresoft worked on the original Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, the team heads of which later formed AlphaDream.
There has been a team of dedicated fans hoping Miyamoto would relinquish creative control over the Mario series since Sticker Star released, but The Origami King shows how he’s still exerting Bowser-like influence over it while in his late-60s. This in no way implies that control of Mario under him has been bad, as even the worst Mario platformers in the last decade (like New Super Mario Bros. 2) have still been solid. But maybe someone can talk to him about continuing a Mario RPG series.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
