Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Disappointing"

When I first picked up on Paper Mario sticker star, I'll admit my hopes were high. I am a big fan of both the Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi games, not to mention the legendary Super Mario RPG: Legend of the seven stars, I was really looking forward to another bright fun adventure with an enjoyable story packed full with good humour and to begin with Sticker Star didn't disappoint me.

Let's start with a big positive. Sticker star starts off great, granted it's the usual Mario scenario of Bowser turning up unexpected, causing a bit of mayhem before vanishing with the princess in tow. The introduction of stickers into the "everything is made of paper" concept is brilliantly incorporated and can lead to some unexpected moments. Does that bit of Bower's sticky tape hold down something small or is it going to bring up a whole building? There's an amusing moment where you discover that prior to vanishing into thin air, Bowser managed to squash an entire area of SS's equivalent to toad town then roll the whole thing up like a giant paper pancake! Watching a horde of toads unravel the area was one of the highlights of the game, especially when you spot the poor green toad that ends up stuck underneath everything! These moments are one of the reasons I love the paper Mario games and seeing them turn up did make sticker star a successful sequel in this aspect.
Moving onto another part where stickers have made a big appearance. Combat. In Sticker star all attacks are done through the use of stickers. Stickers are one use and there is a vast variety to choose from as you progress. While in battle you can pay a paltry coin fee to use a slot machine in order to increase the number of stickers you can use per turn as well as gaining bonuses once you get used to the timings involved. The overall system is enjoyable and well designed but suffers from several major flaws. With no experience system or levelling up and a limited album space to collect stickers, getting into fights can rarely be worth the effort and cost. Even with an abundance of stickers in every level to keep your stocks high, it's the better option to avoid enemies when possible and only use the least valuable stickers in order to save the better ones for the stronger unavoidable fights. There is the incentive for extra coins if you win a fight with no damage but coins are plentiful and anything they can be used for can be obtained via other, slightly more time consuming, means.
The last aspect I'm going to cover is the storyline. Before playing Sticker Star, I had not encountered a single Mario RPG game I would not recommend based on its storyline, with Paper Mario TTYD being my favourite. As I've mentioned before, Sticker Star started off with a strong start and to begin with I didn't notice anything wrong for the first half of the game. It was only until I realised I was about half to two thirds of the way through the game where I started to question Sticker Star's lack of depth. Excluding Mario, Bowser and the Princess I found I could count all the named characters in the story on one hand. The game breaks up the world into levels, Super Mario World style, which itself appears to cut up everything as there are very few links between the levels and no real storyline building up each area. Most of the bosses are all standard Mario enemies each with their own vulnerability to a specific sticker which you will be complained at after the fight if you win without using it! Overall the combat tends to be varied but unrewarding and I feel that it lacks the structure that was present in all the other Mario RPG games to date.
While Sticker Star does have a lot of positives, it's a flawed experience and a lacking addition to the series. Even without the comparison to its predecessors I felt it feels cut short.