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[RM8]

What about it makes you like it more than the other games? I'm not even being flippant. I'm legitimately trying to understand the appeal

I really dug the puzzle-adventure gameplay, I love the stage structure, the music was freaking superb. And it's probably the game that has used 3D the best. I almost want to play it again thinking about it

 

[Professor Renegade]

It's been a while since I played the game so sorry in advance if I've mistaken a few things. Let's just get this out of the way: Sticker Star lacks the charisma of having a cast of companion characters like the original and TTYD had, and it makes the story less interesting imo. The main thing about Sticker Star that makes it absolute shit is the primary game mechanic with the stickers. Since all your attacks and abilities are used with stickers you're constantly collecting and managing stickers that you collect in your sticker album, constantly using them up in battle, and constantly collecting more in the world. Since there are better stickers than others though you're always saving the best stickers for the big boss fights, sometimes making normal battles longer than what they're worth.
So it's just and endless fucking cycle of managing all your abilities throughout the game, and because you can find them nearly everywhere in the world coins are almost useless. Instead of creating a creating a different game mechanic that employed stickers in a creative way they just turned it into a big micromanagement game.

 

[timshundo]

Actually, rewatching some videos of Sticker Star, it definitely had it's moments and there were times when the sticker system could actually be satisfying, but still ultimately a let down. Or really, I guess it deserves the exact reception/scores it got.

...Which sounds like a horrible non-contribution to the conversation until you realize how much gaf can disagree with review scores. People here would have you believe FFXIII was like a D- game.

 

[RM8]

Actually, rewatching some videos of Sticker Star, it definitely had it's moments and there were times when the sticker system could actually be satisfying, but still ultimately a let down. Or really, I guess it deserves the exact reception/scores it got.

It's worth noting that while not stellar, it has a Metascore of 75, which is a far cry from the stuff some people say about it.

 

[oatmeal]

It's not a bad game. It's a bad Paper Mario game.

It the Best paper Mario game.

GAF

 

[Poltergust]

Can you explain what you mean by this?

This post gave a good explanation of what I was talking about.

I totally agree with this - the game is flawed from a design standpoint because battles give you coins, which only have the purpose of buying more stickers, to use in battles, to get coins. Since battles don't have the extra incentive of XP, all battles are in the late-game is time wasters once you have tons of coins.

The bosses are also completely obtuse - requiring you to have an extremely specific sticker with no real hint or warning to get through pretty much all of them. You collect all these "Mega" stickers that you'd think you'd save for strategic boss fights, then find out that boss fights are just a guessing game to win.

For example, you can get halfway through the final Bowser fight, and if you didn't bring a Scissor sticker, you have no choice but to quit and restart the whole fight. Why would you know you need a scissor sticker?

Otherwise, yeah, it's a decent game, I thought the overworld puzzles and the battle system itself were pretty fun. But the design is just poked through with holes and fighting a speechless Bowser was just depressing.

I literally had to redo the final boss because I ran out of stickers that would hurt him. All I had were jump stickers, which are useless because the final boss is spiked. That's really awful. I had a good balance of stickers going into the fight, too.

 

[leroidys]

This post gave a good explanation of what I was talking about.



I literally had to redo the final boss because I ran out of stickers that would hurt him. All I had were jump stickers, which are useless because the final boss is spiked. That's really awful. I had a good balance of stickers going into the fight, too.

See, I can kind of understand where people are coming with with this stuff, but to me it seems like they are just completely misunderstanding how the gameplay and world are designed.

First off, you get TONS of stickers from the environment. You quickly fill up your notebook if you are running from enemies, so enemies actually serve to drain the stickers you don't want as much in exchange for coins. It's COMPLETELY INACCURATE to say that the only purpose of coins is to buy more stickers. They also allow you to use the battle jackpot wheel and buy Things, both of which help tremendously for the bossfights that everyone complains about.

Second, the battle system is designed to be fun. The reward for battling enemies is experiencing *fun*, just like jumping on a goomba or breaking a block in Super Mario Bros.

Third, although battles give experience points in the Paper Mario RPGs, the exp curve is so ridiculous that most of the game it's almost as if they don't. You level up after fighting like 10 enemies in each area, and then start getting a pitiful amount of experience points. I actually found myself running away from enemies far more in 64 and TTYD than I did in SS.

Fourth, the bosses require a little bit of forethought, but I figured (practically) everything out without referencing the internet, and with very little frustration. It's not exactly Demons' Souls. I don't know why having to fight the last boss twice in this game to beat him is so offensive. It took me five tries, but I had a ton of fun doing it. The boss is really well designed and is a great final expression of the battle system.

I think that a lot of people that were unable to enjoy this game are the same people who horde every single item in an rpg until the last battle and complain that their inventory is too full and the game requires too much grinding. The key to enjoying this game is to constantly be cycling through your stickers and trying new things out.

I could keep going, but I've already probably written more than most will care to read. This is most definitely not directed solely at you, your complaints are shared by a lot of people, if anything I'm the one on the fringe here. Sticker Star is not my GoaT or even my GOTY, but it is a game that I enjoyed a ton that is PROFOUNDLY misunderstood on the internet, so this rant has been building up for quite a while. Again, I apologize that you had to bear the brunt of it

 

[Zaventem]

I don't understand why they keep shitting on this series. All people wanted was a turn based game. Like we already have enough real time marios.

 

[leroidys]

I don't understand why they keep shitting on this series. All people wanted was a turn based game. Like we already have enough real time marios.

We already have 7 turn based Mario RPGs that play extremely similarly...

It's an RPG that punished you for doing random battles, so for me at least that's a yes, it was a bad game.

This is completely false (not least of which because there are ZERO random battles in the game IIRC).

 

[Mr. Nice_Guy]

It's an RPG that punished you for doing random battles, so for me at least that's a yes, it was a bad game.

 

[Zaventem]

We already have 7 turn based Mario RPGs that play extremely similarly...

WOW! A whole seven games in the entirety of mario's existence. Better stop complaining about fhe gameplay type that made the series.

 

[Brashnir]

I'd be fucking amazed if it was worse than Mario & Luigi: Dream Team.

 

[Green Mamba]

We already have 7 turn based Mario RPGs that play extremely similarly...

Six of them are all worse than The Thousand Year Door, and five of them are worse than Paper Mario 64.

The ridiculous gutting of the Paper Mario series is one of the greatest injustices of modern Nintendo.

 

[Sammy Samusu]

It's an AMAZING game, one of my favorite Mario adventures ever, I remember playing it non-stop and beating the whole game in like 2 days. BUT! It's not Paper Mario.

And yeah, Dream Team is one of the worst Nintendo games I have ever played.

 

[Social]

i loved this game a lot. I played it with my wife watching for the whole ride, and loved it all. We had a lot of fun with the puzzles.

 

[Green Mamba]

In the nearly eleven years since The Thousand Year Door, Paper Mario has had... a weird experimental platformer title, a 3DS game that removes basically everything about Paper Mario's identity save its graphics, and now coming out soon Paper Mario is playing the third wheel to the fifth (fifth!) derivative Mario & Luigi. Thanks, Nintendo.

 

[udivision]

Is there anything redeemable from Sticker Star that you'd like to see return in the next "traditional" PM (if such a thing ever exists)?

 

[leroidys]

Six of them are all worse than The Thousand Year Door, and five of them are worse than Paper Mario 64.

The ridiculous gutting of the Paper Mario series is one of the greatest injustices of modern Nintendo.

Superstar Saga and Bowser's Inside Story are pretty great though.

WOW! A whole seven games in the entirety of mario's existence. Better stop complaining about fhe gameplay type that made the series.

I'm just pointing out that if you really want diversity, Sticker Star is it more than another Mario RPG. Hell, there was another Mario RPG that came out within one year of sticker star.

Is there anything redeemable from Sticker Star that you'd like to see return in the next "traditional" PM (if such a thing ever exists)?

The graphics and art direction were amazing and the music was great.

 

[Green Mamba]

Superstar Saga and Bowser's Inside Story are pretty great though.

Yeah, they're pretty good. Super Mario RPG is, too. But not Paper Mario 1 & 2 good.

Is there anything redeemable from Sticker Star that you'd like to see return in the next "traditional" PM (if such a thing ever exists)?

Flush it, and make sure the shit Boo redesign and voiceless Bowser goes with it.

Actually, the music style can stay, that was alright.

 

[Illucio]

I'll put it this way, this game made me never want to play a Paper Mario game ever again since it was the first Paper Mario game I've played since 64.

 

[Draxal]

I thought the game was horrible because the inventory management is incredibly boring.

 

[leroidys]

In the nearly eleven years since The Thousand Year Door, Paper Mario has had... a weird experimental platformer title, a 3DS game that removes basically everything about Paper Mario's identity save its graphics, and now coming out soon Paper Mario is playing the third wheel to the fifth (fifth!) derivative Mario & Luigi. Thanks, Nintendo.

Holy shit I somehow forgot this was even a game :\

Alphadream needs to take a break.

 

[Surface of Me]

I love TTYD.

I also love Sticker Star.

It doesnt deserve the hate it gets.

 

[Salbug]

By the third chapter I had just lost all interest in Sticker Star, and completely dropped it. Don't think I've ever had a sudden drop in interest in a game before. It is quite literally in my opinion the black sheep of the series, and makes me wish we could go back to the style of the first two games.

In the nearly eleven years since The Thousand Year Door, Paper Mario has had... a weird experimental platformer title, a 3DS game that removes basically everything about Paper Mario's identity save its graphics, and now coming out soon Paper Mario is playing the third wheel to the fifth (fifth!) derivative Mario & Luigi. Thanks, Nintendo.

Also this. While I loved the previous M&L games to death, I think it's time for Alphadream to take a rest for a while.

 

[Silraru]

I just ignored the negativity and enjoyed the game as is. Found that if I listened to all the negative info about it, I enjoyed it less. I like it for the puzzles, getting the stickers can be rather annoying though. Otherwise it's a not a bad game.

 

[Ninjimbo]

Third, although battles give experience points in the Paper Mario RPGs, the exp curve is so ridiculous that most of the game it's almost as if they don't. You level up after fighting like 10 enemies in each area, and then start getting a pitiful amount of experience points. I actually found myself running away from enemies far more in 64 and TTYD than I did in SS.

This actually happened to me in TTYD as well. I started skipping a lot of battles especially towards the end because I was literally getting nothing for them.

At least SS incentivizes the battles a bit more by having the enemies drop really useful stickers that replace the ones you use up. I agree with you on the point you made about the game encouraging experimentation. I was always up for finding the right combination of stickers for whatever mobs I came across. The fact that you can only use a sticker once in a battle gave the game an extra layer of strategy that reminded me of Chrono Cross (probably my favorite RPG ever).

People make out the game to be too obtuse, but I didn't use a guide all that much either. I liked the game a lot because it felt so damn unique. I can't think of another game like it on the 3DS or anywhere else. I had a great time with it.