Paper Mario: The Origami King

I don't necessarily think they have to go back to the old formula to be good tho. I mean, as attested by even the sales of the last two games the series is still doing great for people outside of the vocal minority that values story. I would say myself included but I sadly haven't played either of the two but all I really want is a game that's fun and enjoyable. Preferably with unique character designs to please everyone else I guess (although the characters really need, well... character, most importantly)? The ideal scenario is that this game brings the best of both worlds, so that way everyone's happy. Heck this game looks to have the same basic qualities as Paper Mario 64 (level design that rewards exploration) and a fun battle system. As long as I have these two elements I'll be happy. And good writing already looks present.
 
vocal minority that values story.
i really don't think that caring about story at all is a minority opinion, maybe caring about it as much as gameplay is, but i am a huge paper mario fan, i read people's opinions on paper mario all the time and i'd definitely say that well over half care about story to some degree
 
You're judging the opinions of a majority based of a small sample size of people, and as Koops said a "vocal" one, meaning they're even smaller then they seem. You can't really judge the amount of people who actually care about a story based of a few YouTube videos, their comments, and website which I've already explained why it is a poor choice to use to sum up the opinions of the majority. This would total up to a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand if you're being generous, when these games often sell over a million copies each.
 
You're judging the opinions of a majority based of a small sample size of people, and as Koops said a "vocal" one, meaning they're even smaller then they seem. You can't really judge the amount of people who actually care about a story based of a few YouTube videos, their comments, and website which I've already explained why it is a poor choice to use to sum up the opinions of the majority. This would total up to a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand if you're being generous, when these games often sell over a million copies each.
it's true that i can't be sure, but with the sheer number of opinion's i've read, it would take a fairly large coincidence for it to not say something about the general opinions of fans
 
Keep in mind that really the only people who would care about Paper Mario story are the really hardcore Mario RPG fans. That's far from a majority of people who actually play it, but it will be the majority of those who comment on it.

Was refreshing seeing this game discussed in Shiver Star (wikirby discord) and not one person complained about the newer paper marios removing the "deep" stories the earlier ones had.
 
it's true that i can't be sure, but with the sheer number of opinion's i've read, it would take a fairly large coincidence for it to not say something about the general opinions of fans
As I stated in my previous post however, that's only a small amount of people. Is ~1,000 people really equivalent to <1,000,000? That's less then 0.1% of the people who actually buy these games, so it's impossible to make an accurate judgement based off that.

In the Smash community there's this concept of the "Smash Bubble", it's essentially the concept that so many people have bought the Smash games that basing the majority opinion on the opinions of the people you see on GameFAQs, SmashBoards, Twitter, Reddit and YouTube isn't going to cut it. Nobody expected Simon or Bayonetta to added as they wasn't a popular picks, yet Sakurai stated when they added, that they got put in Smash because they were a popular choice in the Smash Ballot. I can't fully explain this myself, so I'd recommend reading this write-up about on SmashBoards. I think same thing applies to the Paper Mario fanbase, as the people you see on YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and even this forum are only a small group, and don't accurately represent want people really want out of the series.
 
I can sum it all up with "anecdotes aren't the plurality of data" and "convenience sampling polls are unreliable and heavily biased".
 
As I stated in my previous post however, that's only a small amount of people. Is ~1,000 people really equivalent to <1,000,000? That's less then 0.1% of the people who actually buy these games, so it's impossible to make an accurate judgement based off that.

In the Smash community there's this concept of the "Smash Bubble", it's essentially the concept that so many people have bought the Smash games that basing the majority opinion on the opinions of the people you see on GameFAQs, SmashBoards, Twitter, Reddit and YouTube isn't going to cut it. Nobody expected Simon or Bayonetta to added as they wasn't a popular picks, yet Sakurai stated when they added, that they got put in Smash because they were a popular choice in the Smash Ballot. I can't fully explain this myself, so I'd recommend reading this write-up about on SmashBoards. I think same thing applies to the Paper Mario fanbase, as the people you see on YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and even this forum are only a small group, and don't accurately represent want people really want out of the series.
I think the difference between Smash community and (Paper) Mario fanbase is that the latter sticks to just one universe and canon so that they understand it well, while the former consists of fanbases of different franchises and their opinions can hardly be organized. Such as "Waluigi should be a Smash fighter" is objectively an opinion from Mario series fans, but some of them try to claim that all gamers who love other franchises would want Waluigi too. Some people often fail to take personal preference apart from general gaming discussion.

Like I said, the continuation of Paper titles sure has some relevance with longterm support of hardcore fans (or Nintendo could choose to do some other original Mario games). So that there is sure a reason why old fans would tend to compare the newest titles to the old ones and see if the good merits are kept. I mean, I don't reject new things, but whether the new games bring better experience than past titles do is still questionable at this point. And "fanservice" could still be a potential factor that makes people feel this game really brings enjoyable experience.

Such as, I don't think Waluigi must be in this game, but his inclusion could be a big thing that brings people's attention and simultaneously raises NIntendo's fame.
 
Last edited:
As I stated in my previous post however, that's only a small amount of people. Is ~1,000 people really equivalent to <1,000,000? That's less then 0.1% of the people who actually buy these games, so it's impossible to make an accurate judgement based off that.

In the Smash community there's this concept of the "Smash Bubble", it's essentially the concept that so many people have bought the Smash games that basing the majority opinion on the opinions of the people you see on GameFAQs, SmashBoards, Twitter, Reddit and YouTube isn't going to cut it. Nobody expected Simon or Bayonetta to added as they wasn't a popular picks, yet Sakurai stated when they added, that they got put in Smash because they were a popular choice in the Smash Ballot. I can't fully explain this myself, so I'd recommend reading this write-up about on SmashBoards. I think same thing applies to the Paper Mario fanbase, as the people you see on YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and even this forum are only a small group, and don't accurately represent want people really want out of the series.
While I agree with your assessment, one would think that people in the silent majority are more likely to be casual fans who don't have strong opinions either way. The reason that people go online to those websites and post their opinions is because they are hardcore fans who care more about the series than casual fans. Therefore, there is a difference between the core fanbase and the general playerbase. While for Smash I can see how the silent majority can have a large effect on Nintendo's decisions due to the more widespread appeal of characters such as Steve, I'm not sure this would be as relevant for a series like Paper Mario since the casual fans are less likely to care either way and are less likely to have any sort of uniformity in their opinions. Thus, it may be possible to gauge the opinions of the core fanbase despite the impossibility of getting the opinion of the true majority of the overall playerbase (though I'm not going to make any claims on what the opinion of the core fanbase actually is). Assuming the silent majority will be happy either way, it makes sense for Nintendo to appeal to the core fanbase.

On the other hand, this is mostly speculative as one can't really prove whether or not the silent fans have strong opinions on the matter or that they aren't making their opinion known in some other way that isn't posting about it online. Sales data also doesn't say much about the majority opinions since as far I can tell the sales of the Paper Mario games have depended mostly on the success of the console they are on. There is that old Club Nintendo poll where story was voted the least important element of Super Paper Mario iirc. In the end, it's hard to tell what factors Nintendo is considering when making decisions for their games. Heck, does anyone even know what the Japanese playerbase thinks of the Paper Mario series and its current direction? For all we know, the strong preference of the original format over the newer one may be a western thing. I guess the only thing that's for certain is that it's nearly impossible to accurately gauge the opinions of very large and diverse groups in any field.
 
If the 'silent majority' doesn't care either way, then they shouldn't have a problem with the direction that the hardcore fans want though right? It's like, the passionate fans are desperate for the series to reflect what made them fall in love with it, while the casuals are like "eh whatever," they aren't asking for the opposite.
 
I just want to remind you that being a minority opinion doesn't necessarily mean your opinion is invalid. It can feel that way, but I still think something about the story in those games clicked for some people, but I don't know why exactly. It's easy for me to dismiss these people for not having played enough games but that's just a malicious assumption in my part and might've contributed to an attitude I had on others before.

Anyhow I'm really going to guess that people like the Mario stories not so much for the inherent quality of those stories (though perceived quality factors in) but that those stories are told with Mario characters in a way fanfics and other fan products don't deliver as well as better-written plots don't. That's what I'm guessing. I don't know if it's "shallow" or not to like things just for the setpieces but that's what that comes off to me.

And I say this knowing very well that practically every video game is so much better with Mario characters being a playable option, just as how I don't think sports games without Mario, even if they're superior on the gameplay department, are more enjoyable.
 
I'm a person who thinks Mario Sports Superstars is an amazing 3DS game because of something stupid and vapid and I'm fully aware of it that and I fully embrace that, to the chagrin of blockheads who want to mock another person's taste. I may not like Super Paper Mario's plot at all, I have lots of words for it, but I understand why some do. To some, it's riddled with emotions and an attempt at building character depth not normally seen in Mario-themed games but something Mario fans appreciate. It's the same reason I like playing as characters that look like Baby Luigi but are not functionally any different in GTA.

I hate the "you have bad taste" argument. Absolutely abhor it. You're just telling other people that you're an insecure weenie because someone likes something you don't.
 
People can like it all they want for whatever reason.

But I still believe the vast majority of PM fans don't play many rpgs.
 
I'm one of them. I don't think RPGs are my favorite genre, they tend to be massive time sinks. A lot of them I've heard about only because my brother played them and I watched, such as Persona, Baten Katios, and Tales (though LGM and I eventually played Tales). Miss watching my brother play through a games, it introduced me to a lot of things that got me familiar with them.
 
I'm a person who thinks Mario Sports Superstars is an amazing 3DS game because of something stupid and vapid and I'm fully aware of it that and I fully embrace that, to the chagrin of blockheads who want to mock another person's taste. I may not like Super Paper Mario's plot at all, I have lots of words for it, but I understand why some do. To some, it's riddled with emotions and an attempt at building character depth not normally seen in Mario-themed games but something Mario fans appreciate. It's the same reason I like playing as characters that look like Baby Luigi but are not functionally any different in GTA.

I hate the "you have bad taste" argument. Absolutely abhor it. You're just telling other people that you're an insecure weenie because someone likes something you don't.
What, praytell, is the stupid thing you like about Mario Sports Superstars
 
New video
looks like there's a lot of toads and so on which i don't mind. and yeah things like the tape are papery gimmicky but i'm fine with that as long as it doesn't replace story and all
 
sick of generic mario characters? do you crave for more originality? don't worry, in this game you can now battle interesting bosses such as:

*pencil
*rubber band
*tape.

i rolled my eyes so hard at that. this game IS a fucking joke. can we please, PLEASE, kick Tanabe out of the office and leave him make his stupid little web games for toddlers?
 
Okay, imma be honest, the game is looking amazing. Interesting new worlds, charcacters that seem to have personallity and a unique battle system that doesn't use consumable attacks. I wasn't a big fan of the latest two games' battle system, dispite not playing the fist two pm games. But this time battling seems really fun. Alot of people just want to go back to TTYD, but then it wouldn't be a new game, just a rehased TTYD.
 
After this trailer, I can say that I like the new battle system. It looks like it's utilized in a great way. Besides the timer, what's up with that?
 
I think the timer's there so that you don't have infinite time to set up the stage to fight optimally
 
I like the idea of the timer. It keeps things more intense. Theres also an option to buy more time for players that are a bit slower.
 
sick of generic mario characters? do you crave for more originality? don't worry, in this game you can now battle interesting bosses such as:

*pencil
*rubber band
*tape.

i rolled my eyes so hard at that. this game IS a fucking joke. can we please, PLEASE, kick Tanabe out of the office and leave him make his stupid little web games for toddlers?

You know a post like this really makes you look more immature then the supposed "toddlers" you claim this game to be for.
 
Back