Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Paper Mario: Sticker Star[lower-alpha 1][3] is an action-adventure video game with role-playing elements. Developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo, the game was released for the Nintendo 3DS console in North America on November 11, 2012 and in December 2012 in Japan, Europe, and Australia. It is the fourth entry in the Paper Mario series and is the first game in the series playable on a handheld console.[4]

Paper Mario: Sticker Star
North American packaging artwork
Developer(s)Intelligent Systems
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Director(s)Naohiko Aoyama
Taro Kudo
Producer(s)Kensuke Tanabe
Toshiyuki Nakamura
Designer(s)Yukio Morimoto
Toshitaka Muramatsu
Programmer(s)Junya Kadono
Writer(s)Taro Kudo
Composer(s)
SeriesPaper Mario
Platform(s)Nintendo 3DS
Release
  • NA: November 11, 2012
  • JP: December 6, 2012
  • EU: December 7, 2012[1]
  • AU: December 8, 2012 [2]
Genre(s)Action-adventure, role-playing
Mode(s)Single-player

Unlike the previous Paper Mario games, Sticker Star uses a distinctly papercraft visual style, which is heavily incorporated into its gameplay mechanics. Sticker Star introduces the use of stickers, which are littered throughout the game world and are used as one-use items or power-ups, aiding the player in turn-based battles against enemies or in solving puzzles. A sequel for Wii U, Paper Mario: Color Splash, carried over many ideas introduced in Sticker Star and released in October 2016.

Gameplay
Mario attacking a Goomba using a Jump sticker in battle. Sticker Star differs from its predecessors in that Mario's stats and available attacks are determined by collecting stickers rather than accumulating experience points and leveling up.

Sticker Star features a similar visual style to its predecessors, in which the characters appear as paper cutouts in a 3D papercraft Mushroom Kingdom, with landscapes ranging from snowy areas and forests to volcanoes.[5] The story focuses on Mario's efforts to retrieve the six Royal Stickers that have been scattered by Bowser after he attacked the annual Sticker Fest. Mario is accompanied by Kersti, a sticker fairy, who bestows upon Mario the power of stickers.[6]

The player controls Mario as he explores the various locales of the Mushroom Kingdom. A major facet of Sticker Star's gameplay is the use of collectible stickers, which are used to gain abilities to progress through the game. The player collects stickers that are found and peeled off from various areas in the environment. The player can purchase stickers using coins or receive them from non-playable characters.[7] The player has limited inventory space, and larger stickers take up more room.[8] Stickers are used both in combat and for interacting with the environment. The player can enter a state called "Paperization" that allows them to place stickers in certain areas of the visible overworld to activate certain events. The player can find real-world objects, known in-game as "Things", such as baseball bats and scissors, that can be turned into special types of stickers, called "Thing Stickers",[9] which are often needed to solve puzzles in the overworld. For example, a Fan Thing Sticker can be placed in strategic areas in the environment and, when activated, creates wind that moves or destroys obstacles.[10]

The turn-based battles in Sticker Star are similar to those in the original Paper Mario game and The Thousand-Year Door, initiated when Mario comes into contact with enemies in the overworld.[11] The player's available attacks are determined by the stickers on hand.[12] For example, possession of the Jump sticker is required to attack an enemy by jumping on it.[13] Certain kinds of attacks are required depending on the enemy being fought. For example: an enemy wearing a spiked helmet cannot be jumped on and must instead be attacked using a different kind of sticker, like a hammer. Thing Stickers are used to inflict more damage on enemies, and certain types of Thing Stickers are required to make it easier to defeat boss characters. However, each sticker is removed from play after one use; it is necessary for the player to consistently collect new stickers.[14] Unlike the previous three games, the player increases their maximum HP and other stats through collection of HP-Up hearts, which give Mario five more health points and a stronger first attack, instead of gaining experience awarded from winning battles.[15] Bonuses or special events that occur during battles can increase Mario's attack power or allow him to use a single sticker multiple times.

Plot

Every year, the Sticker Comet lands in the Mushroom Kingdom, and those who wish on it have a good chance of their wish being granted by the Royal Stickers that reside within the comet. Mario attends the Sticker Fest, a festival held in Decalburg to accommodate the Sticker Comet's arrival; and Princess Peach presents the comet on the stage. There, as the Toads prepare their wishes, Bowser interrupts the celebration and breaks in six parts, the "Royal Stickers", over the Kingdom, with one falling on Bowser's head; Mario tries to stop him but fails and falls uncounsicous. He is later awakened by Kersti, a fairy whose her role of the Sticker Comet is to grant the wishes. After cleaning Decalburg from Bowser's mess, Mario and Kersti departs to the first Royal Sticker. They find it at the Goomba Fortress kept away from "Megasparkle Goomba". The duo then go to the Drybake Stadium where "Tower Pokey Pokey" is keeping it. On their way to the third Royal Sticker, Mario and Kersti meets Wiggler, who tries to stop the poison flood all over the fortress. At his home, they learn that Wiggler's body has been segmented by Kamek apart all the forest. While Mario regain all Wiggler's body parts, he learns the poison's source: a wrecked ship near an island caused by Gooper Blooper; after defeating him, Mario stops the poison and restore calm and peace on the forest. They then adventure through an icy region, where they prevent a mansion from being invaded by Boos. They then learn that the region is in a eternal winter when they defeat "Mizzter Blizzard", a snowman who used the fourth Royal Sticker as he wishes to never melt when the winter ends. Mario and Kersti then go across a jungle and a river in order to access the volcano where the fifth Royal Sticker landed; however, Kersti is eaten by Petey Piranha and Mario is left alone in the volcano. Mario then prevents Kersti from being indigested by Petey Piranha and they retrieve the fifth Royal Sticker.

After defeating each boss, a little cutscene shows how they received the Royal Sticker and their motivation: Megasparkle Goomba took the first Royal Sticker as a crown and calls itself a king; Tower Pokey Pokey is being sealed by Kamek; Gooper Blooper being a music-lover uncontrollably releasing poison; Mizzter Blizzard controlling winter in order to never melt; and Petey Piranha who accidentally ate it.

Wiggler, now a butterfly, takes Mario to Bowser's Castle, only to run into Bowser Jr. After defeating him, they defeat Kamek and confront Bowser. During the last battle, Kersti sacrifices herself to gain Mario strong powers to defeat Bowser; winning, Bowser drops the last Royal Sticker, who gives Mario a wish: set back peace at the Mushroom Kingdom and restore the Sticker Comet, resurrecting Kersti in the progress. On a second celebration, Bowser tries again to gain powers but Kersti stops him, as she does not wish it to be a tradition, and if it does so, think again about the choice of her career. The game ends with a parade for the Sticker Comet.

Development

According to an interview with some of the game's developers, the partner system prevalent in previous Paper Mario titles was removed because it was found to often conflict with the sticker-focused gameplay and the developers were asked by Miyamoto to, "As much as possible, complete [the game] with only characters from the Super Mario world." Miyamoto also asked the developers to change the gameplay and battles because he considered them to be too similar to The Thousand Year Door and asked the developers to greatly de-emphasise the game's story, saying "It's fine without a story, so do we really need one?"[16] The world map and level system seen in Sticker Star was implemented so that players could easily stop and resume play at any time.[17]

In developer interviews for the 2020 title Paper Mario: The Origami King, Kensuke Tanabe stated that starting with Sticker Star they were told from Nintendo that they "were no longer able to graphically represent individual characteristics, such as age, gender etc., in the Toad NPCs (non-playable characters), and so it has become that much more important to convey their personalities simply through text."[18] Tanabe further elaborated that, since Sticker Star, "it’s no longer possible to modify Mario characters or to create original characters that touch on the Mario universe. That means that if we aren’t using Mario characters for bosses, we need to create original characters with designs that don't involve the Mario universe at all".[19] While Tanabe did not explain the origin of the restriction, Andy Robinson of Video Games Chronicle identified a 2012 "Iwata Asks" when Tanabe and Satoru Iwata discuss Shigeru Miyamoto's philosophy around designing Mario game that emphasis the character's traits should be a product of their function and gameplay and not their visual appearance, which may have originated this change.[20][21]

Sticker Star was announced at E3 2010 under the tentative title Paper Mario, demonstrated in trailer form.[11] Few details about the new Paper Mario title were given outside of additional trailers that were released at Nintendo World 2011 and E3 2011.[22][23] The game and its full title was announced during Nintendo's E3 2012 press conference, alongside New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, with a release window sometime during the 2012 holiday season. A live gameplay demonstration by Nintendo of America localization manager Nate Bihldorff, one of the writers for Sticker Star's English text, was later shown at the Nintendo 3DS Showcase event, which heavily detailed and elaborated on the sticker-focused gameplay.[24] The game was announced to be distributed both physically as a Nintendo 3DS cartridge or downloadable via Nintendo eShop.[25]

Reception
Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
Metacritic75/100[26]
Review scores
PublicationScore
Destructoid8/10[27]
Edge8/10[28]
EGM6.5/10[29]
Eurogamer7/10[30]
Game Informer8.75/10[31]
GameSpot7.5/10[32]
GamesRadar+[33]
IGN8.3/10[9]
Nintendo Life8/10[34]
Nintendo World Report7.5/10[35]
ONM83%[36]

Sticker Star received "generally favorable reviews", gaining an aggregate score of 75/100 on Metacritic.[26]

Ben Lee of Digital Spy gave the game 3 out of 5 stars, praising the visuals, but commented on the game's difficulty and backtracking. "Writing is sharp and legitimately funny at times. [The game] has a lot of charm and personality [but] stalls horribly as you backtrack and replay level after level, trying to figure out what you're missing. It's often unclear where Mario needs to go to progress, and these moments end up being frustrating and ruin the flow of the story."[37] Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation gave the game a negative review, criticizing the gameplay while stating that it overall lacked the imagination of the previous entries, ultimately declaring it to be "an exercise in phoning it in". [38]

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences chose Sticker Star as the "Best Handheld Game of the Year" during their 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards ceremony.[39]

The game sold 402,000 copies in Japan in 2012.[40] As of March 31, 2013, the game has 1,970,000 worldwide sales.[41]

Notes
  1. Known in Japan as Paper Mario: Super Seal (ペーパーマリオスーパーシール, Pēpā Mario Sūpā Shīru)
gollark: Horse = 🐝
gollark: Horse = somewhat repetitive
gollark: Horse = hash table with many collisions
gollark: Horse = Mooosey-Andrew set theory
gollark: Horse = Norse

References
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