Paper Mario: Sticker Star Review

MikeWehner

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Aug 21, 2011
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Paper Mario: Sticker Star Review

A wafer-thin Mario gloriously returns.

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BehattedWanderer

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MikeWehner said:
Paper Mario: Sticker Star Review

A wafer-thin Mario gloriously returns.

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I was hoping one for this game would come out. Does it feel like the other Paper Mario games? I notice it's missing the companions, which were always what sold me on Paper Mario before, so between those and the leveling system being removed, does it still feel like a Paper Mario game?
 

Sylveria

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BehattedWanderer said:
MikeWehner said:
Paper Mario: Sticker Star Review

A wafer-thin Mario gloriously returns.

Read Full Article
I was hoping one for this game would come out. Does it feel like the other Paper Mario games? I notice it's missing the companions, which were always what sold me on Paper Mario before, so between those and the leveling system being removed, does it still feel like a Paper Mario game?
It feels more like a point and click adventure game. I hesitate to call it an RPG at all seeing even the most basic aspects of an RPG are missing. If you're looking for a TTYD sequel, you are not getting it here.

I'm certainly not going to call it "bad" but it is definitely not what you expect from this series.
 

Revnak_v1legacy

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You'd think Intelligent Systems would realize that what people really love about their games is the characters considering their other major series. Oh well, I know I'll still love this and with this, Kingdom Hearts, and the new Fire Emblem all being on the 3ds I knew I'd wind up getting one eventually. Shame that there aren't companions though.
 

BehattedWanderer

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Sylveria said:
BehattedWanderer said:
I was hoping one for this game would come out. Does it feel like the other Paper Mario games? I notice it's missing the companions, which were always what sold me on Paper Mario before, so between those and the leveling system being removed, does it still feel like a Paper Mario game?
It feels more like a point and click adventure game. I hesitate to call it an RPG at all seeing even the most basic aspects of an RPG are missing. If you're looking for a TTYD sequel, you are not getting it here.

I'm certainly not going to call it "bad" but it is definitely not what you expect from this series.
Okay, that was almost exactly what I was wanting to know. My assumption is that it approaches the titular paper aspect in a similar way that Kirby Epic Yarn did, where the whole "It's made of yarn/paper! Look how funny it is that it's made that way!" was much less of a strange quirk and more the focus. Do any staples of the other PM games show up as stickers, at least?
 

Solo-Wing

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Dec 15, 2010
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I am playing through it. I am enjoying it but it just does not have that same.... Charm that the other games had. I remember so many good and witty jokes and antics in Thousand Year Door and Super paper Mario. This one doe not have nearly as much. It just feels bland and Lack Luster.
BehattedWanderer said:
MikeWehner said:
Paper Mario: Sticker Star Review

A wafer-thin Mario gloriously returns.

Read Full Article
I was hoping one for this game would come out. Does it feel like the other Paper Mario games? I notice it's missing the companions, which were always what sold me on Paper Mario before, so between those and the leveling system being removed, does it still feel like a Paper Mario game?
You do get a companion named Kersti. Her personality is basically being "Lady-like." I am having a bit of a hard time liking her. She is basically Goombala with half the charm and without the fun flirting with Mario. And the game still has the trademarked timing during attacks to get more damage dealt when doing them. But other then that it is pretty different.

The world map takes a note from Super Mario World. Well more like steals blatantly. And the only real way to defeat bosses is by using one sticker that is their weakness. Like the Bat for the giant Pokey and the Sponge for Gooper Blooper.
 

chadachada123

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Solo-Wing said:
I am playing through it. I am enjoying it but it just does not have that same.... Charm that the other games had. I remember so many good and witty jokes and antics in Thousand Year Door and Super paper Mario. This one doe not have nearly as much. It just feels bland and Lack Luster.
That is largely disappointing, because I was seriously hoping for a repeat of Thousand Year Door to make up for the drivel that was Super Paper Mario.

Still, I'll be getting it, since it seems like the closest thing to a good Mario RPG in years (Mario & Luigi just doesn't do it for me).
 

Mr. Omega

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Jul 1, 2010
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I've been really enjoying the game, but it doesn't have the same magic as the first two. I am glad that they're experimenting, through, and there are a lot of good ideas. I wouldn't mind the next one be for the WiiU to go back to basics, and perhaps another 3DS game can expand on this concept. Kind of make it a spin-off to a spin-off, if you will. Also, I adore the aesthetics and how they mess around with the whole "everything is made of paper" thing, but I also wish they did a little more with it. And while I appreciate the whole "secret way to beat the boss with a certain object" thing, it'd probably be better if they weren't the ONLY way to beat the boss after the first royal sticker...

A good game. I'd even say a great game. But there are clearly things holding it back.
 

SuperSuperSuperGuy

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I'm glad that they did something new with this one, but I didn't like it.

The combat stagnates heavily after the first world and feels completely unnecessary; I had around 1500 coins after world one, and all battles did after that point is make me waste my library of good stickers. The lack of an experience system severely stunts a sense of personal progression; you don't feel like you're getting any more powerful, but the enemies are. You get HP upgrades by exploring, but you still can't actually level up. The developers should have at least given us defence and attack upgrades, as well, to make the player feel like they're actually getting stronger. The game has poor tutorial, as well; all of the other Mario RPGs had a brief but extremely helpful action command tutorial, but Sticker Star has no such thing. A brief introduction to some of the possibilities of the paperization ability would very much help in getting into the right mindset for it, as well, instead of the game needing to say "PAPERIZE EVERYWHERE!!!" all the time. The bosses are pretty bad, as well; you can only really beat them by using certain object stickers, but they play said stickers up as powerful emergency attacks during their introduction, rather than as in-battle puzzle solvers.

Another thing, though, is that the sticker mechanics create a need to call attention to the fact that the world is made of paper. This ruins the aesthetic for me; recall in the first game how when Mario fell off of the veranda in Goomba Village he fell like a sheet of paper and nothing else really calls attention to it. He just gets up and walks off. Nothing comes up to him and says "good thing you didn't get blown away by the wind BECAUSE YOU'RE A SHEET OF PAPER HA HA." He gets up and tries to find a way out of his predicament. He doesn't know he's paper because that's just the way the world is. It's funny to us, but it's completely normal to the people in that world. This made the aesthetic really charming. The fact that the people know they're paper in Sticker Star destroys this charm. It ruins the aesthetic for me. I had a similar issue in TTYD, but it was minor enough to not bother me so much; the paper-folding field techniques pulled me out of the game, but they weren't used too frequently.

I commend the developers for trying something new, but I think Sticker Star is poorly designed and undermines what made the whole paper aspect great in the first place.
 

immortalfrieza

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When I heard that they were going to go back to the turn based style of the first 2 Paper Mario games, I was for it, since SPM, while not bad, took some getting used to, and I overall I prefered turn based play to what they had in SPM. Now, I haven't played the game yet, but it looks to me from this review that they've made things worse. I mean, no levels? Attacks limited by 1 use stickers? What's the point of combat in the game at all then? You should NEVER limit how much fighting a player is able to do in an RPG, it just doesn't work

Solo-Wing said:
You do get a companion named Kersti. Her personality is basically being "Lady-like." I am having a bit of a hard time liking her. She is basically Goombala with half the charm and without the fun flirting with Mario.
One of my favorite parts about the Paper Mario games was the interesting things and jokes that the exposition characters (Goombario, Goombella, Tippi) would say when you talked to them or used their tattle ability on enemies, does Kersti have that? If she doesn't, then that's a complete deal breaker for me.

Aside from those though, the companions in the Paper Mario games weren't really all that important, and beyond their introduction and starting world they didn't really do all that much, most of them just end up being chucked into Mario's pocket or whatever for the remainder of the game except for the occasional "look at me! The game developers are making a pathetic attempt to make this companion still relevant!" puzzle they'll be pulled out for 2 seconds for, some don't even get THAT. So I don't mind if you only get 1 companion in Sticker Star.
 

The_Echo

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I'll preface this by saying that, at first, I did enjoy Paper Mario Sticker Star.

"Low of frustration?" I would have to respectfully disagree. Sticker Star is practically a puzzle-platformer, and the amount of Thing stickers one needs to progress through each level is absurd, especially considering that only one Thing can operate correctly per puzzle. For example, in one of the later levels, Mario is blocked by streams of lava. So I decide to use a couple of water-based stickers (Watering Can and Squirtgun). Neither of them work, so I just said "fuck it" and looked it up. The real answer? A refrigerator. I can see how that could be the answer, but why it's ONLY that is beyond me. There were also several instances where I just plain couldn't figure out how to navigate a level, due to some hidden passageway that I'd actually have to know about to find in a timely fashion. One of the levels in the fourth world, the Enigmansion, is a huge example of the adventure-game standard of "try everything on everything until it works." While it's nice to have a game that doesn't hold your hand the whole time, a game without guidance is just as bad.

Because they've taken out the leveling system, there is literally no good reason to fight enemies in the field. At all. I spent most of the game avoiding them because it felt so tedious to actually do combat.

The boss fights, in a word, are ridiculous. Each one has a specific Thing or two to make it actually doable with the amount of stickers you have. The kicker? Kersti (Mario's Goombella-but-not-as-useful for this game) doesn't give you a clue about it until midway through the fight. Also, I only got these clues after I'd died and gotten the right sticker. The amount of foresight required to glide through this game is just... frustrating. I got fed up and quit at the final boss. I just didn't have the patience to let him kill me, go back to Decalburg, open up enough space in my album, find all of the Things I would need for the fight, sling them, and THEN go back to the boss.

The plot, when stacked up against its predecessors, is little more than the original Super Mario Bros. plus stickers and dialogue. There's really not much else to say.

My Bottom Line: Sticker Star is not a bad game, but it is a bad Paper Mario game.
chadachada123 said:
Solo-Wing said:
I am playing through it. I am enjoying it but it just does not have that same.... Charm that the other games had. I remember so many good and witty jokes and antics in Thousand Year Door and Super paper Mario. This one doe not have nearly as much. It just feels bland and Lack Luster.
That is largely disappointing, because I was seriously hoping for a repeat of Thousand Year Door to make up for the drivel that was Super Paper Mario.

Still, I'll be getting it, since it seems like the closest thing to a good Mario RPG in years (Mario & Luigi just doesn't do it for me).
Don't bother. Save yourself the 40 bucks if you're looking for an RPG out of it. If anything, it's a puzzle-platformer/adventure game haunted by the ghost of its RPG cousins. Aside from the turn-based combat, there really is nothing in common between Sticker Star and Thousand Year Door.
 

Solo-Wing

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immortalfrieza said:
When I heard that they were going to go back to the turn based style of the first 2 Paper Mario games, I was for it, since SPM, while not bad, took some getting used to, and I overall I prefered turn based play to what they had in SPM. Now, I haven't played the game yet, but it looks to me from this review that they've made things worse. I mean, no levels? Attacks limited by 1 use stickers? What's the point of combat in the game at all then? You should NEVER limit how much fighting a player is able to do in an RPG, it just doesn't work

Solo-Wing said:
You do get a companion named Kersti. Her personality is basically being "Lady-like." I am having a bit of a hard time liking her. She is basically Goombala with half the charm and without the fun flirting with Mario.
One of my favorite parts about the Paper Mario games was the interesting things and jokes that the exposition characters (Goombario, Goombella, Tippi) would say when you talked to them or used their tattle ability on enemies, does Kersti have that? If she doesn't, then that's a complete deal breaker for me.

Aside from those though, the companions in the Paper Mario games weren't really all that important, and beyond their introduction and starting world they didn't really do all that much, most of them just end up being chucked into Mario's pocket or whatever for the remainder of the game except for the occasional "look at me! The game developers are making a pathetic attempt to make this companion still relevant!" puzzle they'll be pulled out for 2 seconds for, some don't even get THAT. So I don't mind if you only get 1 companion in Sticker Star.
She does not show up in Battle. But you can talk to her in the field where she says some interesting stuff, I have laughed a few times from her as well. I also love her hatred of Kamik. She hates this Magikoopa with a passion.
She is okay Personallity wise and looks okay as well.

I can't think of anything bad about her. She just does not stick to me the way Goombella did for me. Which is funny cause she is a sticker.
 

xyrafhoan

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I mostly agree with the above posters. By no means a bad game, this game was heavily scaled down and is actually missing a bunch of features shown in previous trailers (namely, companions). As a friend of mine pointed out, something about the game feels like the initial idea was scrapped midway through development and this is the end result that we got. Hints as to what thing sticker to bring to a big boss fight can sometimes be vague until you actually reach the fight. Plus, they're so big and take up so much inventory space that you'll be hesitant to drag thing stickers around unless you absolutely know if you need it. The first boss is manageable even if you forget the sticker that cuts down the boss's HP massively, but later on the bosses are flat-out impossible without a little foreplanning. Thankfully most stages include a shortcut to the boss so you can leave the area and come back with the proper preparations made. I personally had an easy time figuring out what I needed, but I still needed to reset my game on the 2nd boss simply because I hadn't brought the right item and didn't want to wait out my inevitable death. As for environment puzzles, I found things were more or less easy to figure out, but my friend voiced his frustration at progressing through a few of the puzzles. You really need to keep your eye out for the few clues sprinkled about.

I feel the split into worlds and stages makes the game more manageable for a handheld release, so I'm not bummed out about a world map. I am bummed out about not leveling up, though HP upgrades and more frequent appearances of stronger stickers obviously take the place of levels and item upgrades, and enemy strength and HP doesn't ramp up quite as much as other installments. Battles are faster than ever before and for the most part, avoidable. They also don't respawn until you leave the stage entirely. It takes away a bit of the RPG feel of the game but at least the battles are fast and sometimes bring in elements of the environment into the battle stage.

The writing is funny as usual but there's a lot less of it. The story is far less of what we've come to expect of Paper Mario as a series. I was actually surprised that the introduction was so snappy and dropped you into the action so fast. That's fine for casual play, but it misses the charm of its predecessors and you won't like any of the characters nearly as much, as everyone sort of yawns at the typical "Bowser does something bad, Mario has to save the day." It's almost meta in its execution, but I think most fans were clamouring for something more like TTYD, and so was I.

Conclusion: It's not the TTYD follow-up that most people are waiting for, but it's a fun game with a satisfying amount of content. Just come in with a slightly different set of expectations. This particular game is more adventure than RPG this time around.
 

Shikua

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In my opinion, Sticker Star is the worst Paper Mario game to date. Yes, that means Super Paper Mario was better. No I am not drunk. Super Paper Mario, while having less than stellar game play, had the story and characters that previous Paper Mario titles were famous for. You had companions (Luigi, Bowser and Peach), you had funny, interesting, and occasionally menacing bosses, entertaining worlds that were more than just ice, desert, jungle, ect. Sticker Star had so little story, the witty writing didn't have a chance to really shine like in previous entries. Peach was just robbed of all usefulness, unlike how she had had some role in every previous Paper Mario game. There was no villain to really get attached to, as Bowser had NO FUCKING DIALOGUE. No "I'll beat you this time Mario!", no "I'll marry you Peach!", just "RAAWR". It was really disappointing. In fact, it's the only Paper Mario game that's actually disappointed me. At least Super Paper Mario made up for gameplay with story and characters. Sticker Star took away both of those, and added in combat that was sub-par when compared to previous turn-based entries, and got rid of any sense of achievement in combat by removing levelling.
 

Elvaril

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Well, after reading through all these posts I am definitely going to give this game a miss. All I want is another Thousand Year Door. It kept what was great about Paper Mario, improved on what was bad, and gave us a phenomenal game. The formula was pretty much perfect and yet even after the flop the was SPM, they still seem intent on mucking about rather than giving us a true sequel. The fact that the new Paper Mario was going to be on 3DS is the main reason that I was going to get a 3DS. Guess that I can give the system a miss as well.
 

MikeWehner

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Aug 21, 2011
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I feel like a lot of the complaints about the game I'm seeing here are almost entirely based on luck. I happened to be very fortunate in that I usually had the correct Thing with me during most of the boss encounters. If you had to die and restart the big battles multiple times before the solution became clear, that is by no means your fault, and I can definitely understand the frustration, but that wasn't typically what happened to me.

I think that goes back to the fact that the game really doesn't give you a good idea of how to solve certain things (which i mention in the puzzle section). I never got the point where I was ready to put the game down, but there were times where I was scratching my head and wondering what I was missing. But as a whole, I was (obviously) very satisfied with the game, and while some argue that battles are "optional" (which I very much disagree with, as I obtained some of the best drops in the game from regular battles) I enjoyed just about every moment of the adventure.

I see a lot of people saying they wanted another TTYD, and that's a perfect valid request, given that Sticker Star does carry the Paper Mario name, but as a portable title I just wasn't expecting that when I started playing. I feel like if the game had gone deeper (by adding leveling, a more complex story, more dialogue) there would be others complaining that it doesn't fit on the 3DS and can't be followed in small bites. Nintendo had to make a choice, and they chose to make it a simpler affair overall, and with that in mind, I think they nailed it.

This is a great discussion, and I'm 1,000% open to criticisms about the game (so by all means continue) but I just wanted to chime in. Thanks for reading it, by the way, I love you all.

<3
 

Yopaz

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Jun 3, 2009
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Revnak said:
You'd think Intelligent Systems would realize that what people really love about their games is the characters considering their other major series. Oh well, I know I'll still love this and with this, Kingdom Hearts, and the new Fire Emblem all being on the 3ds I knew I'd wind up getting one eventually. Shame that there aren't companions though.
Yeah, they did really well with the first two and OK with the third. I guess they want to go in new directions which I guess is good... Still the reason I loved the first two seems to be missing with this one. I still can't wait for it to be released though, I'll probably like this anyway.
 

Shikua

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MikeWehner said:
I feel like a lot of the complaints about the game I'm seeing here are almost entirely based on luck. I happened to be very fortunate in that I usually had the correct Thing with me during most of the boss encounters. If you had to die and restart the big battles multiple times before the solution became clear, that is by no means your fault, and I can definitely understand the frustration, but that wasn't typically what happened to me.

I think that goes back to the fact that the game really doesn't give you a good idea of how to solve certain things (which i mention in the puzzle section). I never got the point where I was ready to put the game down, but there were times where I was scratching my head and wondering what I was missing. But as a whole, I was (obviously) very satisfied with the game, and while some argue that battles are "optional" (which I very much disagree with, as I obtained some of the best drops in the game from regular battles) I enjoyed just about every moment of the adventure.

I see a lot of people saying they wanted another TTYD, and that's a perfect valid request, given that Sticker Star does carry the Paper Mario name, but as a portable title I just wasn't expecting that when I started playing. I feel like if the game had gone deeper (by adding leveling, a more complex story, more dialogue) there would be others complaining that it doesn't fit on the 3DS and can't be followed in small bites. Nintendo had to make a choice, and they chose to make it a simpler affair overall, and with that in mind, I think they nailed it.

This is a great discussion, and I'm 1,000% open to criticisms about the game (so by all means continue) but I just wanted to chime in. Thanks for reading it, by the way, I love you all.

<3
I think that levelling alone would have vastly improved the game, and combat though. It would have given a permanent reward for combat, instead of the temporary one of coins and stickers. I think combat in itself was flawed as well. The lack of partners made elements like status effects far to dangerous, with things like getting crumpled becoming an instant death sentence, as there was no way to heal or recover from them other than to wait them out.