Paper Mario: Sticker Star (3DS)

[Diogenes]

I kinda want to get this game one day, but Carbo giving the only fully positive review in this topic kind of has me worried.

How often do you see a "fully positive" review that's not just a fanboy or a shill?

 

I got the game for Christmas, I've fooled around with it for a bit and it's pretty fun so far. I'm disappointed at the lack of story, but no surprise there, and I don't feel the battle system has all the kinks worked out, but that's to be expected when it's entirely new. It's not a TTYD 2, but so far I can't say I'm disappointed to own it.

[Doctor MK]

Got this game for Christmas and I must say I'm impressed. It's one of those games where everything may look gloomy beforehand, but as soon as you actually pop in the cartridge and start playing it, you get engrossed in how much fun it actually can be. It's a bit like the recent NSMB games in that sense, I guess - on the surface they look disappointing, but deep down they are still good, solid games. Not that I'm comparing this to NSMB2 or NSMBU though, because Sticker Star has so much more originality.

 

Most strikingly, the world is full of charm. The emphasis on the paper theme is really cranked up to the max, more so than ever before, and within the first ten minutes alone you'll have encountered a myriad of ways in which the Mushroom Kingdom being wafer-thin has been used to its full, hilarious potential. And there's just something so satisfying about moving Mario around in these games, I can't explain it. Even his walking manages to be charming, somehow.

 

As for the gameplay itself, I've not really run into too many issues with the battle system so far. It's not as fine-tuned or polished as the one from Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door but it's not as bad as some might have you believe. As look as you keep peeling stickers off walls and popping to the shop to top up occasionally, you'll never be left without any at all (at least, not so far) so if you struggle it's your own fault really. And the adventure is nowhere near as linear, giving you very few hints, which is both a positive and a negative. It can be frustrating to be stuck somewhere and have absolutely no clue what to do next or where to go to solve it, but it also massively encourages exploration of each of the levels, and why wouldn't you want to explore? The world is so engaging and interesting, you'll want to see every corner of it if you can. It's not always easy to, but if it were too simple we'd no doubt all be complaining about that as well. We're an odd bunch, us gamers.

 

My conclusion is that it may not be the best Paper Mario game out there, but it is pretty much everything you could want from a handheld Paper Mario game. It's easy to pick up and play in small doses thanks to the levels being split up, and it's a simplified - though still enjoyable - experience. Don't go into this one comparing it to Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Go into it expecting a fun, visually appealing and sometimes flawed adventure, and you won't be too disappointed. Heck, at the very least, it's better than Super Paper Mario. They may have both been experimental titles, but at least this one actually works in the context of the original formula.

[-Mark-]

You don't need to use a Bowling Ball on Bowser, nor should you waste space in your sticker album for it, but yeah, that should be fixed.

 

No, you don't need to use it, but as you said, it's not beyond expectation for the player to try using it on him. Apparently using any rolling item whatsoever on him causes the game to crash.

[Blue Blood]

My conclusion is that it may not be the best Paper Mario game out there, but it is pretty much everything you could want from a handheld Paper Mario game. It's easy to pick up and play in small doses thanks to the levels being split up, and it's a simplified - though still enjoyable - experience. Don't go into this one comparing it to Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Go into it expecting a fun, visually appealing and sometimes flawed adventure, and you won't be too disappointed. Heck, at the very least, it's better than Super Paper Mario. They may have both been experimental titles, but at least this one actually works in the context of the original formula.

I don't get why this game being a handheld should make any difference. Some types of game call doctor different experiences between handheld and conse, but Paper Mario simply is not one them. I wanted the full paper Mario experience.

[Doctor MK]

I don't get why this game being a handheld should make any difference. Some types of game call doctor different experiences between handheld and conse, but Paper Mario simply is not one them. I wanted the full paper Mario experience.

I'd have vastly preferred the "full" experience as well, but judging the game on what it is rather than what it's not, it's still very good. We can but hope we get a new, massive Paper Mario game on Wii U which is more akin to the first two entries in the series.

[JezMM]

Splitting the levels up for portability is a silly excuse anyway because every level is a good 30-50 minutes long if you explore and fight everything, and Save Blocks ONLY appear before bosses.  If you only have ten minutes to spare you will not be doing anything worthwhile in this game.

 

 

"Oh but Jez you can just close the 3DS at any time and play more at the next opportunity".

 

Yes, just like you could in a proper non-split-up overworld.  8I

 

Honestly I actually feel like the previous games had more opportunities to save than this one.  Each level in this is about 5-10 maps long with no save blocks, whereas the old games had one usually every 4 or 5 maps.

Edited December 27, 2012 by JezMM

[Carbo]

I wanted the full paper Mario experience.

I want the full Paper Mario experience too.

I just don't want it on 3DS. It's the entire "console game setup being restricted by portable system" that ruined games like Okamiden, and it was something I would have hated were it to happen to Paper Mario as well. Why constrain one of your best series to a handheld if it's only trying to be a console game? It's absolutely stupid. With a game like Thousand-Year Door I'd rather unwind on a couch and take my time sinking into the spectacle on the big screen, not straining my neck for multiple hours on a portable.

 

 

Splitting the levels up for portability is a silly excuse anyway because every level is a good 30-50 minutes long if you explore and fight everything, and Save Blocks ONLY appear before bosses.  If you only have ten minutes to spare you will not be doing anything worthwhile in this game.

That's right, "if" you explore everything.

You can plow through most levels in fifteen minutes on a regular old bus ride if you'd want to. With Paper Mario 2 though? Not so much. You need to fight your battles, you need to level up, you need to get those HPs, FPs and BPs up if you want to stand any chance towards many of the challenging bosses in the game and you also need to stock up your items, Badges etcetera. One world can take up to 2-3 hours to complete, and I would rather not spend all that much time looking down a small screen.

Yes, there are save points at start, mid points and end points of worlds. So what? That's not what the portability argument boils down to. What it is about is gaining the most satisfaction from any single sitting and feeling like you got the maximum amount of accomplishment, it's about quickly getting into the game and quickly getting out of it. Sticker Star rewards the little things; build up your sticker albums, move through levels at a decent pace, rack up your coin count for the super rare stickers, it's almost like Pokémon - a game that's pretty much the posterchild of portable games. Meanwhile the traditional RPG Paper Mario's are long build-ups leading to one payoff, one that isn't merely manageable in a couple of minutes.

[Doctor MK]

Carbo has pretty much taken the words out of my mouth there. Sticker Star never intends to be a true Paper Mario game, nor would it ever have been seeing as it's on a handheld - you have to look at it on its own merits, because even it was a fully fledged RPG like TTYD, it would likely still fall short by comparison due to the technical limitations.

[-Mark-]

See, the thing that bugs me most about Sticker Star isn't that 'it's different' or any of the gameplay mechanics per se, it's just that the level design is absolutely inexcusably bad for much of the game. It felt like I was playing Where's Wally with the scenery half the time, and the other half I spent tearing my hair out at the piss-poor implementation of the Paperizing/ Sticker puzzle mechanic.

 

The game suffers from Ace Attorney syndrome somewhat; even if you can find an 'obvious' solution, if it's not the one the game wants, then it won't work. You know, how it only lets you use one specific item to perform a task, even though by all logic there are about five that could do the same thing.

 

Need to clear a pile of scrunched up papers? My initial reaction was "Oh, I can use the fan to blow them all away!". My brother's was "I can use the vacuum to suck them up". Using real-world logic (and dare I say even a shred of common sense), both of these should be acceptable solutions, and there's no reason or context in-game as to why they wouldn't. However, the game simply decides that you need the goat to eat all the paper instead. Just because. 

 

Considering how much hand-holding Nintendo have been doing in recent years what with their optional Super Guides and Hint Videos and all, Sticker Star has got to be the most user-unfriendly game they've put out in a long while. Kersti is fucking useless 95% of the time if not more (seriously, her advice rarely amounts to more than "Hey, we're stuck! My advice is that we find an answer!", useless bitch) and the game rarely gives you any clues as to what the hell you need to do to progress. Sticker puzzles are frustrating and unhelpful and largely come down to trial and error much of the time and far too often the game feels like you're just hitting your head against a wall.

 

I don't have much of a problem with the mechanics, or that they cut the game down in so many ways for portability, the game is just outright frustrating far too often for reasons that it needn't be.

[JezMM]

I want the full Paper Mario experience too.

I just don't want it on 3DS. It's the entire "console game setup being restricted by portable system" that ruined games like Okamiden, and it was something I would have hated were it to happen to Paper Mario as well. Why constrain one of your best series to a handheld if it's only trying to be a console game? It's absolutely stupid. With a game like Thousand-Year Door I'd rather unwind on a couch and take my time sinking into the spectacle on the big screen, not straining my neck for multiple hours on a portable.

 

 

That's right, "if" you explore everything.

You can plow through most levels in fifteen minutes on a regular old bus ride if you'd want to. With Paper Mario 2 though? Not so much. You need to fight your battles, you need to level up, you need to get those HPs, FPs and BPs up if you want to stand any chance towards many of the challenging bosses in the game and you also need to stock up your items, Badges etcetera. One world can take up to 2-3 hours to complete, and I would rather not spend all that much time looking down a small screen.

 

Thing is though I am the sort of gamer who hates just moving forward if I can SEE there's something else to explore before doing so.  I was astonished at how fast I can beat levels when ignoring enemies and side areas upon going back to previous ones, but that completely feels like the "wrong" way to play on an area I haven't done yet.

 

 

Generally though the portability is a moot point because the main reason I dislike the "levels" system is that simply it makes it feel more like a "game" when the previous games felt more like living breathing worlds.

 

 

It's sad because I'm still on World 3-2 right now.  I haven't played it in a good week and the reason is that the lack of story and disconnected feel of the world has made me just... not care.

 

What's gonna happen?  I'm gonna get all the stickers and fight Bowser whoop (and I've heard he doesn't even have any speaking lines in the game just wtf is that about).  The game itself is fun but there's just no drive for me.  Maybe I'd feel differently if this was the first Paper Mario game ever but it's hard to shake off three game's worth of "training" in regards to caring about the characters and story.

Edited December 27, 2012 by JezMM

[Carbo]

What's gonna happen?  I'm gonna get all the stickers and fight Bowser whoop

Just like the first game, right?

That's pretty much what the entire first Paper Mario was - it was a typical Bowser kidnaps Peach story but with a metric ton of more writing and exposition behind it. Granted, there was a lot more plot exposition in that one than Sticker Star and it made Bowser a lot more interesting as a character, but on top of that there literally wasn't anything more to it other than really good writing which still remains in Sticker Star. While Thousand-Year Door and Super Paper Mario had a lot more twists and turns making it into more of a discovery plot, the original is still thought of very highly to this day and taking cues from that is not a bad thing.

Setting aside that my point was never that the game's quality as a game was impeccable but rather how the game is perfect for it's format, I'm not going to say Sticker Star is a perfect game and I've said as much before - the design is rather archaic because of the game's set up being far too much of a pure old-school Adventure game with one-minded logic, and there's a lot of flaws in it. I still don't dig how the exposition isn't as deep as the original. But in the case of the latter point, the atmosphere and writing is still intact and good as ever, and it's far, far from a bad game or even an offensive one. Maybe I'm just hardened from all that good-old PC gaming in the hey-day when I'd be clicking an item and using it on everything to be phased by it. But everything else around that? Pretty damn great.

[JezMM]

Just like the first game, right?

That's pretty much what the entire first Paper Mario was - it was a typical Bowser kidnaps Peach story but with a metric ton of more writing and exposition behind it. Granted, there was a lot more plot exposition in that one than Sticker Star and it made Bowser a lot more interesting as a character, but on top of that there literally wasn't anything more to it other than really good writing which still remains in Sticker Star.

Setting aside that my point was never the game's quality as a game was impeccable but rather how the game is perfect for it's format, I'm not going to say Sticker Star is a perfect game and I've said as much before - the design is rather archaic because of the game's set up being far too much of a pure old-school Adventure game with one-minded logic, and there's a lot of flaws in it. But it's far, far from a bad game or even an offensive one.

 

And bolded is what made the big difference.  It was completely throwaway but it didn't FEEL throwaway.  The story wasn't just "Bowser is being bad stop him."  The story was the entire world and everything that happened within it as a result of "Bowser is being bad".  In Sticker Star that just doesn't really feel there.

 

I mean uhh... if I recall I don't even think it's been mentioned that Peach was kidnapped?  Bowser just kinda wrecked stuff, sudden fadeout and then everyone's just upset because the town got squished and the sticker festival was ruined.

 

And I want to like the writing but there isn't much of it.  I mean there doesn't seem to be at the moment anyway.  It's pretty much limited to boss introductions with the occasional uninteresting Toad NPC every couple of levels.  Just... guh.

 

I mean I agree don't get me wrong.  I have fun when I play it, but I just don't think anything excuses the lack of care for the story and characters.  I mean Bowser was literally the funniest part of the previous games, no question, and they cut him.  Just guhhh.  It's extra annoying as well because I used to defend lack of story in the main series quite a lot because I always used to say "the real personality comes through in the RPG titles" but... we don't even have that any more apparently.

 

 

Okay I need to play it some more right now coz all this talk is making me forget what's good about it I think.

Edited December 27, 2012 by JezMM

[-Mark-]

One thing that really bugs me about all this is that for all the game's flaws and considering how generally negative fan-reception has been, it's still to sell plenty on the Mario brand name alone and the eShop reviews will be full of people blindly giving it five stars simply because it's Mario. Therefore the game will be seen by Nintendo as a critical and commercial success that was well-received, and the people who have any kind of problem with the game will be seen as 'people who just want to bitch and are never happy with anything', when that's absolutely not the case.

 

Nintendo will basically feel like they've done nothing wrong with this game, and therefore likely won't make any attempts to right its wrongs in future Paper Mario games. 

 

Also I love how in their standard Club Nintendo survey, the one time I've ever actually felt compelled to say that the game was 'not as good as I was expecting', they then skip the part that asks why. Seriously, whenever I say I like a game, they want to know what I liked about, why, and if they could have done anything better. Tell them you don't like something and they apparently don't want to know, which is ridiculous.

[Carbo]

Actually, the game isn't selling well at all, and the Metacritic score which publishers are taking into account a lot more is not that enthralling. It never charted in the west, so that blind-sided assumption is pretty much kicking it when it's down.

It's selling like gangbusters in Japan after a disastrous first week though, and has been top 3 these last two weeks with 3DS' current resurgence, mostly because as previously has been stated, it's the kind of format that is a perfect fit for the things they like. Fairly sure it's the most sold Paper Mario game over there.

[-Mark-]

Oh? It's in the 3DS top ten here in the UK at the moment (#7 I think?). Granted that's pretty low for a new Mario game but it's still charting here.

[Carbo]

Opening week in America was somewhere in the #30-40 range I think so it was pretty bad there at least. I guess #7 is relatively decent for an individual chart in the UK though.

[Danj86]

I mean uhh... if I recall I don't even think it's been mentioned that Peach was kidnapped?  Bowser just kinda wrecked stuff, sudden fadeout and then everyone's just upset because the town got squished and the sticker festival was ruined.

 

I always talk to any NPC around, and I do believe a toad did mention that Peach was pinched by the rampaging Bowser.

 

I do miss the verity of NPCs from other Paper Mario games and it feels odd that you don't get EXP for winning battles, kinda making it feel like battling is less important. And even though I do take part in many battles, I'm often wasted by a boss character when the time comes. I've battled two royal sticker holders so far, and both have defeated me. Even though I am an explorer and have found several HP+ items hidden in levels.

But on the other hand, I do enjoy a good, challenging boss fight.

 

I do find the concept of a royal sticker attached to a character making them insane, to be an interesting story aspect. It's just a shame that you lose one of the most comical characters of the series by doing this. Speaking of comical characters, it's a shame Luigi isn't being used much, as he also helps bring charm and humour to the series. Although I have spotted him in several locations.

[Toby]

Can I just say that the characters mentioning they were made of paper every five minutes really, REALLY took me out of the game. I get it, the name of the game is Paper Mario, the last three didn't have to remind me whenever I talk to some NPC.

[Blue Blood]

Can I just say that the characters mentioning they were made of paper every five minutes really, REALLY took me out of the game. I get it, the name of the game is Paper Mario, the last three didn't have to remind me whenever I talk to some NPC.

I'm not against making the paper theme a bit more elaborate- in the first three it was more the art style than anything else. I can see it being taken too seriously in SS though.

[Kuzu]

Man, this game is pretty divisive isn't it, it's kind of turning me off from getting it.

[JezMM]

Played a bit more and I am enjoying myself again mostly. Currently helping out Wiggler in the woods. Though the more I learn about the battle system the more pointless it feels to fight enemies. I'm spending most of my time avoiding them now since you only get coins out of it and you only need coins to buy stickers... stickers I don't need because I'm not fighting anything.  (And my coin level has been keeping pretty steady at around the 2000 mark which is more than you need for the average boss battle - the only time I ever use the bonus spin slot machine thinger).

 

I'm not against making the paper theme a bit more elaborate- in the first three it was more the art style than anything else. I can see it being taken too seriously in SS though.

 
I was bothered by this too, but mainly because of the disconnect it caused with previous games.  Kinda concreted the idea that this is just a random story that is not part of the same continuity as the previous games at all.
 

Man, this game is pretty divisive isn't it, it's kind of turning me off from getting it.

 
I would still recommend it to someone who enjoyed the first two.  But... you know, kinda in the same way I'd recommend chocolate flavour cereal to someone who enjoyed chocolate cheesecake.  You'll probably like it but it is not the same thing at all.

Edited December 27, 2012 by JezMM

[Pelly <3's U]

Man it is so weird that people are saying they are avoiding battles because they don't need the coins. I remember I had to grind hard in 4-1 to get coins, I dunno if it's because I was always putting all my stickers in the museum or what but I never felt like I had a ton of coins.

[JezMM]

It might help that I only discovered the museum by the time I was nearly done with World 2.  I thought the Toad trapped under the fountain would come up again after some future event, not be an optional thing for me to solve.

 

But really even when I do spend coins on stickers it's usually only like, 30 to 50 or so because when I do return to restock in Decalburg I can fill up most of my book just with the ones you find stuck around every time.

[Mega]

The thing that baffles me about them nailing in the paper bit is that I always felt the paperness was just an aesthetic choice in the previous games, not that the characters were made out of paper. I mean, other than TTYD acknowledging it through some of the curses and SPM's 2D/3D mechanic, it's never really mentioned in that much detail.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

The thing that baffles me about them nailing in the paper bit is that I always felt the paperness was just an aesthetic choice in the previous games, not that the characters were made out of paper. I mean, other than TTYD acknowledging it through some of the curses and SPM's 2D/3D mechanic, it's never really mentioned in that much detail.

 

I always thought it was a pop-up book thing. Y'know, fitting with the more story-driven experience.