As you may have recently discovered, it’s no longer possible to modify Mario villains.
Last month, Paper Mario Nintendo game producer, Kensuke Tanabe, spilled the details to Video Game Chronicle.
In the recently released Paper Mario: The Origami King, a brand new villain is introduced; King Olly invades the Mushroom Kingdom with a mission to turn everything into folded origami paper. This character and other new Nintendo villains are the product of a specific rule established by the gaming giant.
“Since Paper Mario: Sticker Star, it’s no longer possible to modify Mario characters or to create original characters that touch on the Mario universe,” said Tanabe in the interview, when asked what it takes to create an iconic character or villain that could “stand alongside all-time greats like Bowser and Kamek.”
“That means that if we aren’t using Mario characters for bosses, we need to create original characters with designs that don’t involve the Mario universe at all, like we’ve done with Olly and the stationary bosses,” said Tanabe.
So, it’s off-limits to create characters that modify existing ones, and the new ones need to be fresh and original.
This means it’s therefore necessary to create a new villain for each new game, if that game doesn’t involve classic Mario universe bosses. Developers can’t create a character that is meant to stay in the main series standard. Ollie and Olivia, for example, will never make appearances in any other game aside from the Paper Mario series.
Love it or hate it, Nintendo doesn’t seem to be deviating from this design decision any time soon.
