People have been looking for that perfect follow-up to The Thousand Year Door and while this one's gameplay can be VERY different, I think The Origami King takes the spirit of that game and brings it into the 2020s. The visuals are gorgeous and the writing is incredibly charming and hilarious. And the dance sequences! There hasn't been this much dancing in Mario since Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix. Spiritually, it fits right in with the fun weirdness of TTYD.

There are of course major differences to TTYD. You don't wind up collecting this big party of companions like in the classic games but without that rigid structure, this game has the freedom to explore deeper arcs for the characters who DO decide to join your team for a little while. It's a little like the Disney characters who join up with you in each of the different worlds in Kingdom Hearts only funnier and (in at least one specific case) a lot more dramatic.

Speaking of dramatic...the combat is obviously the most dramatic departure from the classic formula. I've seen this rotating-disc-puzzle combat mechanic be described as infuriatingly difficult and while there's definitely a learning curve at the beginning, this is nowhere near the most challenging gameplay situation I've ever been in. The game throws a lot of information at you when it's teaching you the mechanics and it can be a little overwhelming but once you start to understand the layout patterns it can be really fun and satisfying. Seeing all the lined up enemies click into place exactly where they need to be gives me that feeling when I do really well on Wordle or one of those kinds of daily brain teaser puzzles. Even if you don't line everything up correctly though, the game is pretty forgiving. The boss battles do ramp up the difficulty but the game gives you everything you need to make it through without things getting too hairy. It's extremely generous with coins and consumables and with those things on your side you'll find there's pretty much no fight you can't overcome. Is it a little overly experimental and "innovative"? Probably. But it's FAR from impossible and generally I actually think it's pretty fun.

Playing TTYD on Switch really opened this series up to me. I was a little underwhelmed playing the original N64 game but this one showed me that the heart of that classic game everyone loves is still very much intact despite what some might consider deal-breaking changes to gameplay. I think if you love TTYD you'd be crazy not to try this one but I've also never been a huge RPG fan so what do I know?

It’s interesting in hindsight to see how much of the structure of this was kept intact in Thousand Year Door. The trajectory of the story, the types of worlds, the abilities of the companions. So much of this was replicated in TTYD but also improved upon. The craziest thing is that the game doesn’t even really do anything with the “paper” concept. It’s just that everything is flat like paper. I still had fun and there’s part of me that wishes I played this first and then followed it with having my mind blown by TTYD but truthfully I don’t think I would’ve been able to keep the momentum going if I had played this first so it’s probably for the best.

My first full playthrough of this classic. My brother played the original in our house back in the day and I only caught passing glances of the story but it’s a testament to how strong those party member characters are that I remembered basically all of them very clearly.

This was so much fun. The most approachable (and least boring) turn-based combat I’ve ever encountered and this remaster is visually fantastic. It’s the ideal remake/remaster because it does just enough retooling and polishing that it recreates your memory of what you loved about the original while quietly smoothing out more dated edges.

I gotta find out who is responsible for the writing/localization in this game. It’s possibly some of the best dialogue writing in all of video games. The personalities are so strong and so REAL. It’s genuinely so funny in such a natural way. It’s still so refreshing 20 years later.