Nintendo showed off more of its upcoming Paper Mario: The Origami King game this week during a Treehouse Live event that gave us a better look at the gameplay from Mario’s paper world. The event was first teased on Thursday and promised gameplay from the game that we’ve really only seen a few previews from in the past, some from Nintendo and others from outlets like ComicBook.com which were able to share impressions on the game. Exploration, story overviews, boss battles, and the new combat mechanics were among the features showcased during the stream.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The Treehouse Live video above shows the Paper Mario: The Origami King gameplay that ran for around 30 minutes. Commentary included in the video provided insights into different parts of the game like how players will want to approach different situations when they’re in battle.
That battle system is one of the most noteworthy features in the game that you’ll notice is quite different from the rest of the Paper Mario games. Mario battles on an arena filled with rings in The Origami King and has to line up his enemies in the best way possible to maximize his damage output and take enemies out at once. Some enemies are more susceptible or invincible to certain attacks, so Mario has to use special items at times to defeat them quickly. Some special items will deplete after a while, but Mario will always have his basic boots and hammer at his side.
The boss fights are different still compared to the normal battles. We see Mario fight a tin of colored pencils towards the end of the video where Mario has to navigate an arena by taking the correct path around the boss until he’s in an advantageous spot to strike the enemy.
We didn’t get to see the end of the boss fight, but after the normal battles, we saw the post-battle screen everyone’s been keeping an eye on in the buildup to The Origami King’s release. Mario was gifted tons of coins and earned more for doing things like completing the battle puzzles, and once he returned to the normal world, was gifted more confetti that’s used to patch holes and other points of the game’s world in order to access different areas and secrets.
Paper Mario: The Origami King releases for the Nintendo Switch on July 17th.