Why did it have to be Stickers?Back on November 11, 2012, Nintendo brought Paper Mario to the 3DS by making Paper Mario: Sticker Star. It was the 4th game in the Paper Mario series, and the 8th Mario Role-Playing Game (RPG) overall. How does this game compare to other games in the series? I'll share my thoughts by making this review.
Graphics: 7/10 Paper Mario: Sticker Star has decent visuals for a 3DS game. There's a nice variety of areas to explore, such as deserts and dense forests. These areas all look pretty good for a Paper Mario game, and the stickers add more visual appeal to an already interesting looking world that Paper Mario games provide. While Paper Mario: Sticker Star may not have the incredible graphics that other 3ds games like Kid Icarus: Uprising and the 3DS Monster Hunter games have, but the graphics are still good enough for me to give this category a 7.
Sound: 9/10 The one aspect of Paper Mario: Sticker Star Nintendo got right on the money was it's soundtrack. The boss themes in particular are some of the best I've heard in the Paper Mario series. The super catchy mini-boss theme, and the Bowser battle themes in particular are some of the best music I've heard in the series. Sticker Star still to this day has one of the best soundtracks I've heard from a 3ds game. The sound gets a 9 from me.
Addictiveness: 2/10 Whenever I play a JRPG, I usually play them for the story and for the battle system they provide. I unfortunately found out early in the game that Paper Mario's battle system is one of the worst that a fan of turn based RPG's will ever come across. In just about any JRPG, there's a level up system, and the way to level up is by earning experience points. You get experience points from defeating enemies. When you level up, your stats such as HP and attack get higher. In this game however, there is no level up system, and there are no experience points to earn. Instead, you rely solely on collecting stickers which are used to perform attacks such as Mario's jump and hammer. When you use a sticker, it gets removed from your inventory, so collecting powerful stickers is required to take down powerful bosses. Unfortunately, there is a limit to how many stickers that you can have for combat. The sticker system eventually makes normal battles completely pointless to do since you aren't getting rewarded for beating enemies, this means that you'll find yourself avoiding all types of battles except for boss battles the farther you progress in the game. Replacing a level up system with stickers is the worst thing Nintendo's ever done in any of their RPG's. It's almost like they forgot what the genre is all about. Overall, Paper Mario: Sticker Star has no replay value whatsoever, and it has an extremely boring battle system. I would give this category a 1, but Sticker Star has one thing going for it, diverse bosses. Instead, I'm giving this category a 2.
Story: 2/10 Out of all the Mario RPG's (including the more recent entries Mario and Luigi: Dream Team and Paper Jam), Paper Mario: Sticker Star has by far the worst storyline in the series. Here's Sticker Star in a nutshell: Paper Princess Peach gets captured during a festival by Paper Bowser. You have to team up with an annoying crown fairy named Kirsti to collect the Royal Stickers, which are needed to reach Bowser and thus, save Peach. Besides the generic storyline, Sticker Star suffers from low quality dialogue and a bland cast of characters. The only new character introduced in this game is Kersti, who I've already said is annoying and an extremely rude character throughout the adventure. When playing an RPG, I expect to see an excellent storyline and a memorable cast of characters. Paper Mario: Sticker Star doesn't provide either of these. In fact, it provides the opposite. For those reasons, I'm giving the story a 2.
Depth: 7/10 While Paper Mario: Sticker Star has a trainwreck of a story, it does provide enough content to last a gamer for good amount of time, especially if you're a completionist. Besides the main story, there's an entire museum full of stickers you need to fill up by finding stickers throughout the mushroom kingdom. The main story combined with all the collecting that needs to be done makes the depth of Sticker Star deserve a 7.
Difficulty: 3/10 Out of all the games in the Paper Mario series, I'd definitely say that Sticker Star is the easiest to complete. Most of the enemies that you encounter throughout the game are pretty easy to defeat. The only bosses in the game that provide any sort of challenge are the ones at the end of the game. Other than that, all the other boss battles are extremely easy. Some stickers can be a bit tricky to find, but other than that, Sticker Star doesn't provide that big of a challenge. I'm giving the difficulty a 3.
Overall Score: 4/10 When I bought this game back in 2012, I had very high expectations for this game. The critics may not have panned the game, but soon after I started playing, I realized that I was in for one of the worst RPG experiences I've had on a handheld console. Sure the game may have a great soundtrack and plenty of stuff to do in it, but the most important part about any RPG is supposed to be it's storyline. Paper Mario fails miserably in that regard, bringing one of the blandest storylines I've ever seen from an RPG. If that wasn't bad enough, Sticker Star doesn't have a level up system or experience points. It's almost like Nintendo forgot how to make a great RPG. Paper Mario: Sticker Star could've been a must have 3DS RPG. Instead, it's one of the worst RPG's Mario has ever been a part of. Overall, Paper Mario: Sticker Star is one of the most disappointing titles you'll find on the 3DS. I'm giving this game a 4 out of 10.
Graphics
7 Sound
9 Addictive
2 Depth
7 Story
2 Difficulty
3
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