Paper Mario: The Origami King – A parent’s review

Humor for all ages

For context, I have two kids, ages six and four. Damian, the one who’s super into origami, is six going on seven. Malcolm is the more physical and hyper one of the two and he’s four going on five in a month.

So when I started up the game, my kids were already hyped when seeing the title screen.  I had told them what the game was, how it plays and everything but something about seeing the world made out of paper was still enough to make them go, “Cool! It’s a paper world!”

My worry about the game referencing a bunch of stuff from previous games was washed away from the very first scene. In it, Luigi is driving Mario to a festival and they’re in the basic cart from Mario Kart. Both of my kids immediately recognized it and excitedly pointed out to me they knew what it was. Points to Nintendo.

This was immediately followed by the Paper Mario series, once again, pointing out that Paper Luigi is kind of butt when he explained that he was going to go park the car because he didn’t want to tip a valet. I laughed out loud and my kids kind of hissed at him. Good times all around.

We all really enjoyed a lot of the visual effects the game came forward with, my kids even more so. The game is chock full of adorable and clever moments both visually and with the dialogue. I found myself laughing along with my kids at several of the silly moments.

For example, there is a Rocky Wrench that lives in a barrel. To talk to him you have to hit the side of his barrel with a hammer and he comes up, lid balancing on his head.

When I approached him and talked to him I tried something; I jumped on top of the barrel and hit the barrel from there. He still rose up but lifted me with him. Then he looked around confused as Mario silently stood there before Rocky went back in his barrel.

We ended up doing this multiple times. A lot more than I’m proud of.

Another thing they loved were the Toads. The Origami King has taken the Toads and stuffed them away wherever he could. Maybe he crumpled them up and throw them in a container, rolled them up and stuffed them in a hole, or maybe even folded them into a swan and threw it into the water. They are everywhere. I even paid a Toad for popcorn and when he turned on the machine found it was filled with balled up Toads that I then freed. My kids thought it was hilarious and it made you really pay attention to the whole world as you examined everything just in case.