Topic: Why Sticker Star fails and why Nintendo should stop making worse Paper Mario games

Mario RPGs tend to be very fun, actually. Complexity =/= engaging, at least with RPGs, it's about how they're implimented. For example, I thought the Badge and leveling systems in the first two Paper Mario games were very engaging, offering plenty of depth, strategy, and customization with stats that are easy to read and predict. Do I take the Spike boots Badge because I'm in an area that has some spiked enemies? But it's a volcano, what if there are Fire enemies? Should I equip the Ice Shield Badge instead? Or Should I remove my extra health badge so I can equip both and hope I can make it to the next health box before I run out of Items/health?

It's a good combination of rewarding preparedness and a general risk vs. reward factor that separates the good RPGs and the Greats, IMO. Way better than a game like Final Fantasy VI or Mugen Souls, where you have a bunch of stats and tons of battle options, but most of the stats don't matter and you end up doing the same attacks over and over again, if you ask me.

I love Sticker Star! For what it did it did it well. I love the Mario 3 style map and the stickers themselves were a welcomed change of pace. Its the one series that tries something different and I applaud that. If you want something more similar them play the Mario and Luigi series as that has mostly stayed true to the formula. Plus like you said 7.9 is a good score So I'm not getting the title of this topic at all. With a ton of series often the first can be the best just like a movie trilogy.

Mario RPGs are usually meant to beginner RPGs, hence the simpler gameplay. Simpler, however, doesn't mean less engaging or strategic. The best example is Paper Mario 64/TTYD: by making your sole equipment badges, your given full control over Mario's moveset and properties. The game also gives you the choice of increasing three simple stats upon level up: HP, FP(Think MP), and BP(limiting factor of what badges you can equip). You have to make a strategic decision on what to increase, effecting your character growth hugely rather. You can use this system to challenge yourself in terms of limits on what stats you can increase and to what point (best example: BP only run).

However, Sticker Stars's problem is that they dumbed it down as an RPG by removing a level system and by a combination of poorly thought out game mechanics made battles pointless annoyances. Like I said before, the effect of the bowdlerizing of the story, environments, and characters they also made the game far less interesting. Making lack of charm and gameplay valid complaints.

EDIT: @CanisWolfred Looks like you beat me to the punch this time. ReEDIT: English is my native language, I swear. :-/

I once made a minimal hp run in Paper Mario.

It was pretty fun, though by the end I HAD to increase his HP, the other stats were maxed out.

Sticker Star was a very flawed game, and was the most disappointing purchase I've made in a long time. Some people will fail to find fault with any Nintendo games though. The controls were fine, and the graphics were alright - but the fundamental gameplay and mechanics made no sense at all.

Battling used up stickers, but only got you gold. Except by the end of the first or second set of levels I had plenty of gold, and didn't need any more. Gold is only used to buy stickers, which are used for battles. Since battling gives you no experience for levelling up, and they are really boring (It's like a classic turn based JRPG combat, except you only have 3 attacks, and they're all pretty much identical) you wont want to actually do them. Trying your best to avoid regular battles, you realise that the world isn't that interesting, and finding 'hidden' areas doesn't get you any kind of reward apart from more coins and more stickers used for battles (which you'll always have plenty of anyway).

Failing this you turn to the puzzles and platforming; both of which are very watered down and are either really easy, or take no time at all. Add into this the need to go from A to B to C for item and story reasons, and it really becomes a chore to complete. Boss battles required no strategy either - you just had to use the boss item on them (which if you didn't have, you wasted more time going to get), and then a couple of regular items.

While this game may look like fun in trailers, it really is not worth a purchase. Avoid at all costs, unless you enjoy playing any game with Mario in and don't care about gameplay/fun. They basically took an RPG, with very small elements of a puzzle platformer, then took out everything that makes an RPG function and remain fun.

Super Mario RPG for me is one of my favorite games of all time, I'd give it 10/10. Paper Mario: 9/10. TTYD: 9.5/10, I liked it even more than the original. Super Paper Mario: 7/10, this is where it went downhill. Still was a solid game, I still would recommend it, but it just wasn't to my taste, they took out too many features and the partners weren't the same, I liked it for what it was... And it was great the first time but replaying it wasn't that fun. Sticker Star though... I'd say 5/10 and that would be generous. I didn't HATE it, but worth the $40 purchase? I regretted buying it at launch, I could get more fun from games a fraction of the price. And then a friend pointed out I didn't need to do battles, since there was no exp, and it turned into a game of avoiding every enemy because why bother? I understand if some people find it fun, everyone has different likes, to me it wasn't that fun, Birdo is the only part that made me smile (and that's saying something), and the ending was too predictable, for most games I would've gotten teary eyed there but I just stopped caring. I hope we get real Paper Marios again soon...

I would argue that it was Nintendo's fault in both cases though. In Other M, I found Team Ninja's gameplay and design to be fine, at some parts even fantastic. What brought down the game for me was Sakamoto's awful script.

In the same way, I get the feeling that Intelligent Systems may have made a fantastic 3DS Paper Mario game if Miyamoto didn't come along and demand certain changes and criteria for the game, chief among them being taking out the RPG elements and story.

I never played a Paper Mario before Sticker Star and I bought it for $14.99 new. I read peoples opinions and saw that there was a lot of hate for it which made me hesitant.. I played it anyway and I'm actually pretty happy with it. Some of it is annoying, but for the most part, it was a fun experience.

Sticker Star is fun, and Super Paper Mario is a hidden gem

For blind people?

This review probably comes the closest to expressing my thoughts on this game. Worst $35 (+tax) I ever spent.

Reverse thinking here, all the complaining on different things, got us a faster Wii U OS, got us Star Fox -next year-, will get us new Metroid games, a gamecube adaptor for the U, numerous changes to the 3DS, abeit it was half arsed but it still got us voice chat in mk8 so...

no complaining
continue to get worse entries in the Paper Mario series

complaining
will make Nintendo re-think their ideas for the next one

remember skyward sword and all the complaints it got for linearity? (& a slew of other valid complaints)

Zelda U, all the freedom.

It was so much fun! Not a legend, but super fun.

Powned!!! (LOL just trolling for the heck of it)

Number one thing I hate is when I say "oh I would love a Paper Mario that goes back to the roots" and someone comes out of nowhere blabbering about "WELL GOSH DARN PLAY SUM MARIOZ AND LUIGIZ THATZ LKE THE ORIGINAL GAMEZ" NOPE I want Paper Mario
I honestly don't give two poops about Gameplay (besides sticker star I hate the gameplay) Super Paper Mario was still fun! What I care about is the story and charm and honestly this is where sticker star lacks, no charm nor story no characters I care about no surprisingly deep story NADA sticker star is a empty void this game is easily one of the bigger disappointments from the 3DS

I'm going to give Avi the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant that Super Paper Mario is a well-known game from a well-known franchise that sold a lot and was one of the first to be rereleased under the Nintendo Selects, therefore doesn't really count as a "Hidden" gem.

I certainly agree it's a good game, though.

The more I hear people complain about this game the more I want to play it. I have never played a Paper Mario game before and this will probably be my first.

One thing that I really liked about Sticker Star was the boss fights. They all felt very different from each other and provided at least a decent challenge.

Wrong. Miyamoto had nothing to do with the RPG elements being removed. How many more times do I have to post the link to the Iwata Asks article that disproves this? Taro Kudo, who was in charge of direction for the game: "Personally I think all we need is to have an objective to win the boss battle at the end of the game. I didn't think we necessarily needed a lengthy story like in an RPG."

So your telling me square enix is silly?