This means that the team behind Paper Mario: Origami King had to come up with new characters from outside the existing Mario Universe for the game, as they couldn’t part with the established villains of the Mushroom Kingdom. The new characters apparently can’t even look like Mario characters: “We need to create original characters with designs that don’t involve the Mario universe at all, as we have done with Olly and the stationery bosses.”This resulted in the game’s main villain, King Olly and his younger sister, Olivia, who serves as a useful companion during Mario’s journey. It appears that other developers dealing with Mario’s ownership will have had to follow similar rules, as Nintendo wants to retain the current cast of Mario characters as it is for the foreseeable future.
“Whether a character becomes an all-time hit or not is not up to us on the development side; I think it’s more the case that the characters that fans really accept end up that way,” added Tanabe, suggesting that fan demand will. decide if we see the new Origami King characters in another game. “I hope the origami brothers in Paper Mario: The Origami King will remain in the memory of the players, even if they only appear in this title.”
We reviewed Paper Mario: Origami King, we gave the game a 7/10 and praised it for its personality and visual design.
Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
