Ever since its release in 2020, Paper Mario: The Origami King has been a contentious game. It’s gotten a lot of praise for its visuals and soundtrack, as well as the writing and humour…

But it’s also come under fire for its ring-based battle system and lack of RPG elements too, with many fans wishing it’d have been a more traditional Paper Mario title instead.

Fortunately, it seems like their wishes may soon be getting granted. Why? Because a modder called Hunter Xuman has now started a project to port Paper Mario: The Origami King to the Switch version of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, giving it traditional battles, partners and EXP in the process. Here’s a video announcing the effort:

It’s an ambitious project for sure, and one that could result in an amazing game if it makes it to completion.

But is that actually likely to happen?

Well, it’s hard to say. On the one hand, Hunter Xuman is a very experienced Paper Mario modder, and the leader of a project called Paper Mario: The Origami King Refolded (released just a few weeks ago). That project reimagined The Origami King with new characters, enemies, items and story content, in an attempt to bring it up to par with the classic games.

So, he’s got some experience running projects this ambitious at least. He’s not just an idea guy putting forward some unproven concepts and saying “I’ve got this, trust me bro!”

At the same time though, this is a significantly more ambitious project than Origami King Refolded was too. While that game added content to an existing game and kept the same engine, this one is going to basically convert one game into another, minus a few mechanical differences.

And that’s one hell of a big ask. In fact, any fan remake is one hell of a big ask when you think about it.

Since not only do you have to import the graphics and models and music, but you have to recreate a ton of complex mechanics too, at least if you want to make a project you can truly be proud of. For example, take this game idea. Putting Origami King’s story and content in a Thousand Year Door mod.

To get that right, you really need to add all the following:

1. Overworld mechanics and puzzles for each area in the original game, so they at least somewhat resemble their original incarnations
2. Partner attacks and abilities for an all-new of partners. Given that Origami King gave each partner a single attack and Thousand Year Door gives each partner four of them, there’s gonna be some creativity needed here.
3. Items and gear for in battle, most of which don’t exist in TTYD
4. The accessories from Origami King as TTYD badges
5. New enemies based on every single species found in Origami King that’s not also present in TTYD
6. The bosses from Origami King, which will be a challenge in themselves (how do you convert the Vellumentals and Legion of Stationery to traditional Paper Mario bosses?)
7. Recreations of the Thousand-Fold Arms and confetti bag, or equivalents to replace them
8. Cutscenes, animations and other visual content for flare
9. Plus, many, many more things

That’s a lot of work, especially if you’re a single person or volunteer game developer with a couple of hours free time every night.

But that’s what a good, fairly accurate recreation of The Origami King in Thousand Year Door’s engine would require. Tons and tons of modified resources and new features and even more testing to prove it all works.

Of course, you could cut down on features and make compromises. Maybe you decide that only the enemies and bosses need porting over, and that things like overworld mechanics are going to be retooled to work with what’s already in TTYD. Maybe Olivia goes from being a constant partner throughout the whole game to just one of many like Goombella was. Perhaps you decide that things like battle items and badges don’t need to be changed at all, and the ones from the original game work just fine.

But you always lose something by doing that. You go from presenting an accurate remake of the original game, to something sorta loosely resembling said game. Or perhaps even less.

And it’s a balancing act you need to be careful with. If you’re lucky, you’ll get something like your average Kaze remake. It follows the spirit of the original game, but has Mario 64 style stand-ins for most of the custom elements, and feels more like a homage than a recreation:

If you’re not so lucky, you’ll end up with something like this trainwreck. Where their attempt at a Super Mario Land 2 remake has basically no Super Mario Land 2 elements to speak of and the bosses are cardboard cutouts that act as mere level decoration:

Remakes are the very definition of ‘hidden complexity’, and they’re incredibly difficult to do well because of that. Something this ambitious doesn’t have great odds for success unfortunately.

Still, that’s the project as it is at the moment. There are plans to remake Paper Mario: The Origami King as a mod for Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and they’re by the lead developer for Paper Mario: The Origami King Refolded. Hopefully they work out as expected, and we can all enjoy the Origami King with actual turn-based battles and RPG mechanics!

Source:

Paper Mario The Origami King in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door (YouTube)