I'm a fan of the first two paper marios and I was pretty disappointed with the changes made with this one, but now that I've played it for 14 hours I realized I was terribly wrong. Trust me, this paper Mario is GREAT and many things I've read from reviews are absolutely not true imho (backtracking, battles are pointless, stickers don't work, etc.) If you don't fight, you don't get coins and you will need them in many occasions. I explored every level accurately and I never needed to do any backtracking so far. The game also gave useful hints for the most complex puzzles. Stickers are fun and will make the absence of partners much less painful. Did I mention that the soundtrack is amazing?

The only thing I didn't like is the lack of new characters.... Miyamoto.. why?