Prior to 2020, I had never played a Paper Mario game. But with Paper Mario: The Origami King stealth releasing on Nintendo Switch in July, the series was on my radar. Despite never having played a game, I knew two things about the series from its rather vocal fans: First, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is the best thing since sliced bread. Second, Paper Mario: Sticker Star is more like a super moldy crust of bread –– you might eat it if you were starving, but even then you might pass.

Unfortunately, The Thousand Year Door is selling for the cost of a small house on eBay. And since I only have enough money for one small house at a time, and I don’t have an N64 or WiiU, I didn’t have many options for dipping my toe into the series. I ultimately picked up a copy of Sticker Star to give the series a chance.

I reasoned that if Sticker Star really was the worst in the series, then I didn’t have much to lose. If I liked it, then the other games could only get better, right? And if I didn’t love it, but thought there was potential there, then maybe the rest of the series would be better all the same.

And I will admit that I actually had a really good time with this game. Do I think it’s incredible and absolutely everybody should play it because they will love it? No, I wouldn’t go quite that far. That’s why this post is a bonus post of sorts. It isn’t a full-throated recommendation (that’s what our post about Super Paper Mario is for). Instead, I wanted to take this opportunity to explain why some of you, if you’re like me, could enjoy this game despite its flaws. (High praise indeed.) 

A Paper Thin Story

Paper Mario: Sticker Star gets a bad rap for its simplistic story, and that’s a valid criticism. The story is pretty simple, more akin to a traditional Mario game. It’s not a bad story, just not as involved as others in the series.

The Mushroom Kingdom is celebrating its annual “Sticker Fest,” which marks the arrival of the Sticker Comet. Each year, when this special comet arrives, the area’s inhabitants gather together to make a special wish on the Royal Stickers that accompany the comet. Unfortunately, Bowser shows up and makes his own wish on the Sticker Comet, sending everything into chaos and scattering the Royal Stickers across the land. It’s up to Mario to collect the Royal Stickers with the help of Kersti, his new, sticker-ey sidekick (sorry Luigi).

You adventure through each stage as Mario reshaping the environment with Kersti’s help and battling enemies in turn-based combat. Sticker Star’s mechanics are (shockingly) centered on stickers. You use stickers to attack in battle, and they are frequently used for puzzles in the overworld. Although the stickers disappear after you use them, there are plenty of them lying around. Most stickers are found littered throughout the levels or in various shops you can visit. But certain special stickers––the Thing Stickers––are more limited and difficult to come by. They’re also more powerful in battle and have key, progression-related purposes outside it.

Silly Stickers

I think the combat and stickers are where a lot of people got hung up with Sticker Star. In most RPGs, including the first two Paper Mario titles, you were incentivized to battle by the allure of experience points. The more EXP you get, the higher your level and the better you are at battling. You might even gain new abilities and powers (and who doesn’t love extra powers?). 

If you avoid battles, you don’t grow, and then bosses mop the floor with you when you eventually have to battle. But that’s not true in Sticker Star. Instead of EXP, you get extra coins and, occasionally, some stronger stickers. But coins are primarily used for buying stickers in the game, and there are relatively few mandatory battles. So, if you never battle, then you never use up your stickers. And if you don’t use up your stickers, then you don’t need coins to buy more because you’ve already got too many. Thus, the only reason to engage in any battles along your journey is either (a) it’s a mandatory battle, or (b) you actually enjoy the battles. And for a lot of people, the battles just weren’t that enjoyable.

In my opinion, this system is a bit of a relief because it takes away my least favorite part of RPGs: grinding for more EXP. Grinding can be tedious, and I like the option of being able to avoid battles without wondering whether it’s going to ruin my chances of beating a boss later down the line. I actually like that in Sticker Star, I can battle if I feel like it, but I needn’t if I don’t. I liked the battles well enough, probably because I didn’t have to battle when I didn’t want to. And while the battles are not usually difficult, there were a handful that were tough enough that I got some satisfaction out of winning.

A few boss battles were certainly frustrating. Some of them require a particular Thing Sticker in order to win, but the game doesn’t communicate that to you until you’ve already begun the battle. So you may have to fight some bosses twice: once to figure out what Thing Sticker you should have picked up four stages back, and once to actually win. This can be irksome, and I do wish that the game did a better job at indicating to the player what they will need going into a given situation.

My Flimsy Defense

But that said, I still had a great time with this game. In spite of the somewhat lacking story and the debatable battle mechanics, the game has a lot of charm. There were several times where I just busted up at the writing in the game. The game’s humor thrives on subverting your expectations or breaking the fourth wall just a little bit.

For example, at one point, you fall down this deep, dark hole and think that this must be the beginning of some crazy boss battle. But nope! The lights come up, and you’re in the middle of a dangerous (but rather funny) game show where enemies are asking you trivia questions and having you perform mini games in a poisonous haze. It’s a ton of fun, and I couldn’t keep from smiling the entire time I worked my way through the challenge.

I think Sticker Star is a great game, and I do recommend it for folks who haven’t played Paper Mario before. Its cardinal sin seems to be that it was the fourth game in the series, rather than the first. Most of the levels are typical Mario fare – desert level, ice level, Bowser’s castle, you know. And there are not any of the unique, non-Mario characters that the previous Paper Mario games had. Because it came on the heels of Thousand Year Door and Super Paper Mario, lauded for their gameplay and story respectively, Sticker Star seemed like a huge step backward.

And I definitely get that. Nothing feels worse than seeing something you love get mangled by the developers. But I do still think this is a pretty fun game. I didn’t mind the levels being new takes on familiar Mario themes (partly because I didn’t know anything else). I loved some of the locations in this game! The poisonous swamp had a lot of fun puzzles. One of my favorite levels was a haunted mansion in the ice world where you have to battle ghosts and save Toads and stuff. Even if the game lacked some creativity in the setting department, I enjoyed it.

That’s part of why I recommend it as a good starting place for newcomers. If you are used to regular Mario games and want a bit of variety, Sticker Star is a good bridge between the usual platformer style and the RPG style of the Paper Mario games. At least, it was for me!

Who to Play With

Not anybody on the internet. They’ll eat you alive if you suggest playing Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Those people aside, the game is very family friendly. It’s rated E, and this is one of those games where I would genuinely agree that anybody of any age could enjoy it. The battles involve mostly jumping on the heads of enemies or smashing them with a hammer in true Looney-Tunes fashion. The Thing Stickers have some kookier elements, but the battles are all kid friendly. Nothing crass, scary, or overly violent here. Just good, clean fun for the whole family!

Except that Paper Mario: Sticker Star is a single-player, 3DS game. That can make it tough to really get into the game at the same time as your other family members. It’s hard to watch someone play on that little screen. So, to play together, this might be one of those situations where you each just have to play your separate save files and talk about it as you’re going along or share specific moments with each other  as you play.

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If you want a recommendation for a Paper Mario game that you can play together, check out our new post on Super Paper Mario! Or, if you’re not into Paper Mario at all, you could peruse our archives of things to play together. Either way, be sure to subscribe to our email list so you never miss a new post.