Paper Mario: Sticker Star 3DS review

Welcome to what everyone considers is the worst Mario RPG, and for the right reasons. I think it's the third worst, but whatever. Let's dive into this game.

Take a look at this garbage, no book intro. I wanna hear a story because I can't be bothered to go read a book and expect video games to read them for me. So you get this ugly gray scale color screen with stickers to make it look less ugly. So Mario walks in an endless gray background of ugly until you press A.

Oh wait, there's a story? Hell yeah! Best Paper Mario game, amirite, or just deluded. New can't be bad, right. All new games must keep up to our standards and everything new is good, right. Yeah no, I would probably still be deluded and go by this logic that new games are always good if I were 12, but unfortunately, I am not 12, so now I have beyond knowledge of what is good and bad. So anyways, in the Mushroom Kingdom, there is a holiday called Sticker Fest. I'm pretty sure you can read the picture, so I don't need to explain more than that.

Oh really, this is celebrated every year? Then why don't we have a Mario game about a sticker festival every year then? Stupid game, at least try to make some sense. I wanna have a Mario game every year, so Bowser should steal whatever that crap is!

So there is a sticker festival. Also Toads. Look at this, what in the hell is Mario doing? Is he doing the Nazi Salute ? What ***brilliant*** game designer thought it was a good idea to make Mario into a racist? The Jewish should sue this game for allowing this horrible salute in this game! So anyways, everyone is celebrating the sticker festival, Bowser comes out of nowhere, Mario jumps on him and the screen turns white.

In case this is your first time playing a Mario game (why the hell would you pick this as your first Mario game???) or are too stupid to know who he is... this is Mario, the main protagonist of the game. He is made out of paper in this game. How did he even become paper in the first place? This is so confusing and they couldn't even bother explaining that in this game.

Also prepare to meet what is arguable the worst Mario character in the entire franchise. This is Kersti, who seriously shouldn't have gotten an introduction, but since she'll be ***sticking*** around in your pants the whole game, the game is going to act as if she's important. Oh look! See how clever that paper joke was? I have better humor than the "teehee were paper" self-aware jokes in this game. They were also in Paper Jam and they are not funny. Also as if Kersti wasn't a bad enough character, she already pins the blame on you for touching the sticker comet or whatever it was. Also why doesn't Peach get her proper introduction?

So for your first task in the game is to collect Toads because that wasn't tedious enough in Paper Jam. And it's done way better here anyways. Once you collect all the Toads, you can deburrito, unburrito, burrito, burrito, burrito, burrito, burrito, stupid Toad saying burrito the town. Thankfully he fell under the fountain so I don't have to hear his annoying self, at least for a while.

So now that you unburrito, unburrito, burrito, burrito, del taco'd the town, you can now make progress. Or at least you would, but then you fight Goombas # 89,969, 89,970, and 89,971. You beat them, they run away and now you can go to NSMB World 1-1. All this trouble just to go to the first stupid level of the game. Also there's a shop and you can now use stickers in battles if you've been collecting stickers.

So in World 1, you go forward until you see some crazy Toad who runs into you and you permanently brain damaged him because now his head doesn't straighten out. He has a Scissors sticker, which looks cool, but unfortunately you can still get infected by it. Sorry, I was thinking of something else. Anyways, you need to use the scissors to beat Bowser Jr because no other sticker works. Once you beat him he destroys the bridge. Game over. Yeah... you're not falling for that one. So then you need to get the Toads to help you. How was I suppose to know that? Don't worry, the puzzles become even more confusing and renders this game unbeatable unless you use a guide.

Once you reach the end of each level, you get some colored star piece. No, not the cool looking star pieces from the first two Paper Mario games. They are comet pieces, I think, in this game. The comet vomits outs coins (why else would they be so spread out) and you only get like 2 seconds to collect them all before the screen turns black and leaves you with missing coins. At least they could have given you 10 seconds to get them all rather than in the same second coins come out the screen blacks out. Who's idiotic idea was it to give you only 1 second to collect the coins? It's no wonder players are always poor and can't afford the expensive things in this game.

World 1-2 is no better than the first level. It's another Goomba level, but this time with Koopas. Also there's a fan you need, a crying Toad because his flowers got destroyed and a Toad getting whooped by two Goombas. Also this text to my right. Uh, yeah. Goombas are secondary characters with no importance. Why do you wanna have your chance in the spotlight 30 years after your creation? You're not important, sorry! :/

Also you have to fight 5 Goombas in this part, which is also the part where Kersti is stupid and decides until NOW to show you how to do the roulette. If you mess up, you only get this one chance to get a freebie and get a three in a row combo on the roulette. Basically, it's use 3 stickers. If you kill everyone without using all stickers, you lose the stickers you didn't use, which makes about as much sense as trying to get milk from a bull.

As I've mentioned, there are a lot of secrets in this game that the game expects you to know. Like look at this junk in World 2-1, how was I supposed to know this was here without having to look up a guidebook or cheats online to know this was here? I heard there was a Toad in World 2-4 that tells you, but what good is that? That just influences more backtracking. At least let the player know sooner than later, because this section is also important for progress. It's one of the three pieces you collect for treasure. It leads you to an underground tunnel for no reason. If you had gone to any other quicksand pit, you would have died. So what's so special about this one area? World 2-3 is also confusing mess that it'd take you about a year to find both secret exits.

I forgot to mention this, but you can't level up in this game. Apparently it's an RPG that you can't level up. That's like telling the consumer to buy a bottle of milk without the actual milk inside the carton. You also end up wasting too many stickers sometimes you have to go back to other levels to replenish the amount of stickers so you don't run out because this game is as cheap as dirt and rarely gives you stickers in battles. Don't bother going in the shops because they sell stickers for at least 100 coins each. Since you can't level up, you can only collect HP-Up Hearts which increase your HP by 5. You also somehow become more powerful when making a first strike outside of battle when you have more HP hearts collected.

Also the bosses, yeah "bosses". They're really not. Either you have a cheap "thing" sticker, which are those real life items that you can paperize into stickers in the perky Toad place in Decalburg, or you fight the boss without any cheap stickers, almost dying in the process too. Also if you didn't bring the cheap sticker, Kersti mocks you that you should have brought a cheap sticker, which she doesn't even tell you which sticker to use. For the Goomba boss, you needed either the scissors or a fan sticker to use.

Also the bosses are apparently Pokémon in this game because they keep repeatedly saying the word "shinyshinyshinyshinyshinyshiny" with a few dumb words included. Take a look at this Pokey Tower Power Pokey, excuse me, I also have to be politically correct in my reviews. Who the hell is Rooney, and why should I care about him? Anyways, the Pokey Tower Power Pokey calls on someone named Rooney and then the battle begins. Your hint? You need a baseball bat sticker. Where's the hint? Apparently the battle takes place in a stadium and instead of "Fight!" the game says "Play Ball!", and the Sticker Star defenders will say you're dumb if you didn't know you should have brought a bat. Well, I'm sorrrrrrrry, but I don't have time to backtrack or die because I didn't bring the right sticker, the game should have told me before the actual boss fight. As a reviewer, I have to review the juiciest parts of the games and either tell the people if they should buy it or not. I am more reliable than IGN is in any way.

Moving on to World 3, which is the poisonous jungles this time apparently. Where are the Ice and Water Worlds? In this place, you need to rescue Wiggler's segments. Also, more confusing puzzles. Take a look at this in World 3-5, how was I expected to know that there were invisible blocks there? That's like telling a baby to learn Geometry, news flash people: it won't work! I swear, this was the game that made me have to spoil myself for every game released after this one so that I wouldn't get stuck on another confusing segment.

Also, remember when I said you would need to find Wiggler's segments? Well you need to fight them too. Good luck with that! Why? Because they'll dodge all your freakin' attacks no matter what you use. You'll probably waste over 30 stickers because they'll keep dodging your attacks. Ninjis also dodge your attacks, but they at least give you hints. If it's jumping, you use a jump sticker and if it's standing still, you use a hammer. The Wiggler segments don't give you hints, so you need RNG and pray you don't waste all your stickers in these horrible parts. Also once you beat a Wiggler segment, they won't run away from you to the next level.

There is one level in World 3-7 where you lose all your stickers because that's the game's middle finger for you. Your useless partner also gets kidnapped, who by the way is also ungrateful when you rescue her. Also, apparently she also wonders what Mario would do in this situation. Well he's not Superman , so give him a break. Mario would probably be slacking off until Luigi checks his mail, oh wait, that doesn't exist anymore, and neither did the first three Paper Mario games. Oops, wait, there were three Paper Mario games before Sticker Star?

World 3-10 has a game show level, which is probably as creative as it gets. It's probably by far the most and only creative level in this game too. The game show's name is Snifit or Whiffit with your host, ***Snifit***. What a creative name. I thought it was ***Shy Guy with a robotic face***. So all you do is pick correct choices and do some easy tasks with the poison that'll keep damaging you every two seconds.

I forgot to mention this, but once you deburrito, deburrito, unburrito, unburrito, burrito, burrito, burrito, burrito, untaco the bell the fountain the green burrito, burrito, burrito, Toad fell in in the beginning of the game, you can go check his sticker collection. Well, it would be a sticker collection, but he has no stickers. So for your sidequest, you need to go collect stickers and put them in his sticker museum.

Your only other sidequest is beat the other enemies that bullies the worldwide touring Red Toad and some achievements that the only Yellow Toad of the game plasters in the grass once you beat the first world boss. Let me go and say for the record, these achievements are useless and solely exist for bragging rights. I call the Yellow Toad the "Ricky Martin" Toad because he says something like "viva la sticker festival" or something like that, and apparently that reminds me of Ricky Martin's best song, Livin' La Vida Loca .

You'd think the game would improve from here, but it doesn't. World 4-3 has the ghost mansion level. I normally hate ghost levels because they're confusing and has you look all over the place to find some stupid secrets. This one isn't like that, thankfully, but it's a one hour disaster level that has you backtracking paperize every single thing in the mansion. Also you fight Boos, and a gold one, also the Big Boo.

As if the puzzles weren't confusing enough, the biggest offender is the one in World 5-1. You need to get the Goat sticker in order to actually make progress in this level. Here is a story: Three Spear Guys stole three things you need to paperize. You need to kill all three and get all three pieces. So now that you read that story, you now need to find them all. Unfortunately, you need the Goat to get one of them who is hiding behind the trash. What message is this sending to children? Goats eat trash? Feed goats trash? As an environmentalist, this offends me so much because our animals are going extinct, we are killing nature and then people are creating games like this that uses backwards logic saying we need to feed goats trash? Have you ever seen the body of a dead bird's insides? They have plastic all over their body! We are destroying the environment as we know it! These poor animals eat the plastic and garbage we don't throw away! Oh yeah, well how would you like it if you were fed trash? You definitely wouldn't. So stupid Nintendo, at least get it right and at you should have made it grass instead. How was I suppose to know that a goat eats trash anyways? It doesn't, and that's why this puzzle doesn't make any sense. There's no way you would be able to do this without looking at a guide. Admit it! You probably used a guide for this part, implying you even made it this far in the game.

I forgot to mention this, but these characters also have character introductions, I dunno why. They're not that important. Actually, they are since you fight them three times in this game.

Anyways, you reached the final level, World 6-3. You have to fight Kamek again, but guess who? The laughing stock in other RPGs, but apparently can't speak in this game for some dumb reason. It's not like he would have anything special to say anyways. He'd probably have generic "I will destroy you, Mario." dialogue or something lamer. Anyways, you fight him and he has five sections. In this part, you'll be wasting all your stickers because you'll never know when he'll decide to go to the next section and then heal 9999999999 HP just because. First section is Bowser with a few enemies, second is a giant Whomp, third is Bowser with the fireball enemies, and fourth is Bowser with a Chain Chomp.

You'd think you beat him, but he has a fifth section. As is NSMB tradition and this is secretly a NSMB game, Bowser turns giant and is invincible. Until Kersti decides to sacrifice herself and die. I kinda wonder, did the directors ever say that Sticker Star would have a part that would make you cry? If they ever did say that in an interview, it's supposedly this section. But I didn't cry. Why? Because Kersti is a bad character. Now, spoilers, oh gosh (this whole review was spoilers), Kersti comes back from the dead because that was Mario's wish once you beat Bowser. How do we even know that was Mario's wish anyways? He's completely silent in this game and doesn't make a sound. So anyways, once you beat Bowser, you rescue Peach, the game is over. Also you see everything that was in the beginning and PEACH STILL DOESN'T GET A PROPER INTRODUCTION! She is about as 1000000000x more important than Kersti and more relevant than Kamek or Bowser Jr and she still doesn't even get a name introduction! Also we never know what is Bowser's purpose in this game considering that he never talks. So what is it?

Oh, the ending? Kersti revived by Mario's wish (oh she mentions it), and Bowser trying to get the sticker comet again. It ends off with a cheesy joke and Bowser and Peach laughs, oh ha ha. Oh, and there are Toads too, but they're not important.

Also the credits. As is tradition in Paper Mario games, there is a parade. Luigi leads the parade if you find all 5 Luigis in the game. Yes, he's been demoted to being a useless cameo with no purpose other than for trivial reasons. And him appearing in the end is your reward for collecting all 5 Luigis. If you don't collect him five times, then it's just a generic Toad leading the parade.

So now that you know, this game sucks because puzzles are confusing and you can see how my complaints are like, ***waaaaaaay*** different from everyone elses because they only want the OCs and a dumb story seeing how I have not mentioned either one or the other throughtout the whole review. Hell, I actually forgot that was one of the biggest complaints of the game. So anyways, this game sucks because you can't get through it without an online guidebook and there were six worlds as opposed to the normal eight worlds/chapters that a Mario game has. Since this game was first revealed in 2010, it's pretty obvious it went through significant changes for better or worse. As you can see, it's obvious it went worse, and not only that, but it was rushed too. So there you have it, this game gets a 1/10 from me, but because there is no Rosalina in this game, I give it a 2/10. Until next time!