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

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some spoilers
When I heard that 3ds was getting another Paper Mario game, I was pretty excited. Paper Mario for the n64 is still one of my favorite games, and I found The thousand year door to be good also, but in my opinion the original Paper Mario is still far superior then all of its predecessors. Paper Mario had charm, thousand year door had its own charm but still wasn't as good as the orignal Paper Mario, which was still ok because the game was still good overall.

Then came the sequel on the nintendo wii, Super Paper Mario. At the time of its release, I didn't care much because I only had a gamecube and xbox. I did get super paper mario and beaten it, even though I like the rpg elements the original 2 had, this one was different and I was ok with it. Now they should never go back to the same idea of not having rpg and more platforming, they did it well here.

During Ds days, I was really hoping they would remake the original Paper Mario to ds, but with added extras such as extra items, extra partners, enemies, longer story, ect. Like they did with super mario 64 ds. But then they made an announcement for Sticker Star, I was even more happy when I seen the trailers because I seen that it was back to rpg style, the battle scenes seemed a bit off though. I was a pretty nervous about that and was hoping Nintendo isn't still going down hill with this and make another worse Paper Mario game.

After completing the game, I was pretty disappointed. The rpg style fighting in Sticker Star was completely different from the original 2, you collect stickers to in this one to fight, basically you only fight with items. An rpg with no default weapon, only items you pick up and find, that is Sticker Star. Though you will find a lot of stickers, your going to find the same 10 stickers most of the time? Mario's Hammer and Boot attacks weren't enough? Partners in the original 2 also offered a lot of so much variety it almost never got boring. Not only that, there isn't very many stickers, around 90 stickers in total, which is really weak especially for this fighting style ( And around 30 are thing stickers, which will take up most of your sticker book anyway) . During boss fights, if you don't have the right set of super stickers (thing stickers) then you can't beat them, simple as that. Which can also get annoying, why? Well to get your thing stickers back, you can either go back to the beginning of the game and buy them, some of them can be pretty pricey, the other way is to go back to the original spot of the sticker, which can feel like a chore and a little bit annoying, also back tracking isn't fun. Now the only item rpg formula this game offers isn't the only problem. This game isn't adventure style like the other 3, you select levels and continue on. Exp has been removed, still no badges, removed since Thousand year door for some reason? Another fun element they removed was cooking which didn't surprise me because the items were only stickers. The level designs were fun, and I thought the graphics were great. The variety of enemies and stickers was pretty weak, they didn't add very many new items other then the raccoon tail and the frog suit, other then you've probably seen all it before. Even Super Mario 3ds and New Super Mario bros. ds 2 had more replay value, and this is suppose to be a rpg? Bosses were decent though, some of my favorites was the Tower Pokey (beaten with a baseball bat lol). Big Buzzy Beetle, Gooper Blooper was pretty cool, for some reason I had the most trouble with this one, Big Boo was cool, my favourate level was in fact 4-3 . Also, speaking of bosses, Kamek is wearing blue robes in this one, he should be wearing purple... It suits him better especially for rpgs, not blue.

edit: Forgot to mention some other big flaws, another thing was when you engage fights and win you get nothing, no exp, except sometimes you may get some coins and if your lucky a sticker that isn't really that great 90% of the time.

tltr; basically to make another good Paper Mario game, go back to the original way, bring back the leveling system, normal rpg elements, more items like Super Mario rpg, same original Paper Mario charm, more enemies, way more replay value an rpg obvious, adding 2 extra hard bosses helps a lot, cooking, tattle log, BADGES, good rpgs should have easter eggs, and anything else I missed. When you make sequels, you should make them better, not worse.

tltr tltr version*; remake Paper Mario 64 as the next Paper Mario for 3ds, damn that money. Call it Paper Mario 64 3ds. Update the graphics and polish the game more... I think adding extras like enemies, items, badges, longer story, more bosses, ect, would be good. Think about it like super mario 64 ds.

Paper Mario n64 - 9.8/10
Thousand Year Door gamecube - 9.7/10
Super Paper Mario wii - 8.3/10
Paper Mario Sticker Star 3ds (The worst for sure) - 7.9/10
Super Mario Rpg for snes - 9.6/10
Also the very original was Super Mario Rpg, Paper Mario was originally going to be called Super Mario Rpg 2, but that was canceled. I still loved the original Super Mario Rpg for snes, I bought it for my wii and I had fun. I think it was very good for its time, it also had the best easter eggs.

Sticker Star Boo boss

Paper Mario 64 Luigi's diary

Super Mario Rpg secret boss Culex

Princess Peach's Room

Paper Mario Thousand Year Door pit of 100 trials boss Bonetail

Mario Kart Super Circuit Rainbow Road

Bow and Bootler

Favorite theme - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0O07iyCc4s

I still have faith in another good Paper Mario game .