New Trailer for Paper Mario: The Origami King Gives a Closer Look at its Story and Combat

Just over a month from launch, Nintendo released another trailer for Intelligent Systems’ upcoming title, Paper Mario: The Origami King, showing off more of the game’s environments, characters and gameplay.

The trailer introduces King Olly, the titular Origami King, who has overtaken Peach’s castle and is causing chaos across the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond. His sister, Olivia, joins Mario in his quest to unfurl the streamers surrounding the castle and free the kingdom, alongside other characters such as Bobby the Bob-omb, Professor Toad and some familiar faces such as Kamek, Bowser Jr. and a folded up Bowser. It’s too soon to say, but the trailer suggests that side-characters may have a bigger presence in The Origami King than more recent entries, which many fans have been asking for since The Thousand-Year Door.

Combat, however, looks completely new. Instead of either the traditional RPG formula or more recent card-based battles, The Origami King features ring-based encounters in which you spin and slide tiles on a ring to line up enemies for attacks. It’s certainly different, but the trailer does a good job of explaining how a typical encounter will work. It also shows off boss battles, which function a bit like board games, with Mario making his way across the ring until he reaches the boss.

Even if it’s not exactly what many fans have been clamoring for, The Origami King still looks to be an intriguing experience in its own right, and the more in-depth look at its setting and mechanics give hope that it will carry the Paper Mario series to new heights.

Paper Mario: The Origami King launches July 17 on Switch.