Paper Mario producer explains his statements regarding NPC restrictions

Not long ago, in an interview with VGC, Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe made news with his statement about how since Paper Mario Sticker Star, the team was no longer able to modify Mario characters or create original characters that are related to the Mario universe.

One of the largest complaints about newer entries in the Paper Mario series is the lack of new characters from the Mario world, with the most recent games focusing almost entirely on existing Mario world characters. This would explain the inclusion of real world objects as bosses.

Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door is coveted by many as the best game in the entire Paper Mario series. One of the main reasons for this is the character development that aids to the overall story as you progress through the game. Your companions “Goombella” and “Admiral Bobbery” both were new characters that touched on the classic Mario universe, but were given unique characteristics that made them stand out.

Paper Mario The Origami King was recently launched on the Nintendo Switch and featured origami based characters Olivia and King Olly, but these two are explicitly stated to have come from a different universe than Mario’s.

In a more recent interview with GamesRadar, Tanabe went into more detail on the previous statements made about their limitations regarding NPCs in the Paper Mario series. They are quoted as saying:

“From the production of Paper Mario: Sticker Star onwards, we were no longer able to graphically represent individual characteristics, such as age, gender etc., in the Toad NPCs (non-playable characters), and so it has become that much more important to convey their personalities simply through text…Our writer, Mr Taro Kudo, has been grappling with this difficult challenge since Paper Mario: Sticker Star, but has managed to achieve giving all the texts a sense of humour. In this installment, Paper Mario: The Origami King, we were able to include some Toads wearing an outfit to match their role, and also created original origami characters.”

It appears that Nintendo has a tight grip over the characters in the Mario universe and perhaps don’t exactly entrust new character creations related to it to be popping up in Paper Mario titles. This is a real shame, as many long time fans of the series really resonated with the games because of this. Even with the further clarification, this overall still seems strange.

In a 2012 Iwata Asks interview, apparently restrictions were placed on the Mario series itself, with new designs specifically only be granted for gameplay function. There is also a section in the interview titled “Abandoning the RPG Structure”.

In the Iwata Asks interview, additionally when asked about the change of the Paper Mario atmosphere, Miyamoto is quoted as saying “It’s fine without a story, so do we really need one?” and “As much as possible, complete it with only characters from the Super Mario world”.

Iwata then responded back with “That’s a difficult task. In some ways that would be the exact opposite direction from recent games in the series.”

We couldn’t agree with you more Iwata.

Check out our Paper Mario The Origami King review here.