Nintendo dropped a surprise announcement out of nowhere, revealing a brand new Paper Mario coming to the Nintendo Switch. Paper Mario: The Origami King sees Mario teaming up with a host of enemies to combat a new threat.
Of course, the game still has all the elements players expect from Paper Mario, including plenty of humor and puzzle-solving. Toads will, once again, be a major part of The Origami King, and there's even a bit of a surprise involving the sidekick.
Fans get their first glimpse at what an adult Toad might look like or at least a Toad that has proper human attributes. It definitely makes Toad an even weirder being than before.
Paper Mario and Toad's Ancestors
As pictured in the image above, some location in Paper Mario: The Origami King features wall art of Toads. Unsettlingly these Toads have normal human proportions, something no other beings in Paper Mario have. Toad has always sported a child-like design, but it's never really been clear how old the character is, or even what they are. Toad has been a part of the Mario series since the very beginning, with Super Mario Bros. in 1985. The character has had the same diminutive design ever since, but interestingly, there's one other example of a more humanoid Toad.
The image above comes from the 1986 animated film Super Mario Bros.: Peach-hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen! In the film, Mario and Luigi encounter a race of mushroom people, and this specific character is listed as Toad 2 in the credits. This is the only other instance of Toad that has humanlike proportions. So that begs the question, just what is this art in Paper Mario: The Origami King? They could just be expressive art, or they could be what Toad's ancestors actually looked like, but who knows?
Paper Mario: The Origami King launches on July 17 for Nintendo Switch.