I feel like I say this a lot, but sorry for the long wait on this one. We worked really hard on this one, I wanted this to be the best video I could make it. I could have gotten this out a lot sooner, but I wanted this to be the first video with the new assets, and those assets took awhile to make, on top of the amount of time went into the making the video itself. I hope the wait was worth it, this was a long time coming.
That was a good review, it really is sad that Paper Mario: Sticker Star turn out like this, and what you said in Paper Jam, oh boy. Tho one things for sure....... I can not wait for you to tackle Paper Mario: The Origami King, which is one of the more "interesting" games in the series, I played and beaten it two times, and my expressions were very (and I mean VERY)......devisive, to say the least.
Sticker Star isn't just the worst Paper Mario game IMO, It's quite possibly my least favorite entry in the entire Mario franchise. And this includes shit like Hotel Mario.
@@maxtubb you’ll understand why chuggaaconroy hates this game so much if you commit to it. I personally love rpg’s, but out of all of them, this is the worst one I’ve ever seen, never played the game, but seeing them review it, don’t need to
I think the reason people only bring up backtracking in ttyd is because it’s the only real problem people have with that game, but sticker star has so many other problems that the backtracking isn’t the first one you think of
Late response, but it's also been said that at least some of TYD's backtracking has value; Chapter 4 making you go back and forth without your partners and then again with Vivian gives you a sense of how much you rely on them and raises some stakes; it's not great, it's definitely annoying, but it at least serves a purpose. Sticker Star just seems to want you to backtrack for the most arbitrary, time wasting reasons possible.
Honestly the backtracking isn't even that big of a deal. I find more frustration with the smoke machine stage hazzard in battles. Also it's kind of odd that nobody brings up how dumb and cryptic the interlude between chapter 2 and 3 is when you have no idea where to go.
@@dELTA13579111315 "Find this random character inside of a building passed a slit between two buildings, pay him 64 coins and he'll tell you to buy a dried shroom and a dizzy dial from a shop, then you'll be asked what your favorite color is and say it's yellow."
I think the thing to focus on is how much more specific the criticism has to be for TTYD than any of the 3 newest paper Mario games released. (I'm including Origami King in this, not Super)
@@jaretco6423 In Sticker Star, you have to backtrack every time you get a Thing so that you can turn it into a sticker for you to use as a special attack. You need those special attacks to make 6 of the bosses remotely manageable, so that makes at least 6 times you have to backtrack around the game to find the things you need assuming you get everything in one go. And that's not counting the obscure puzzles that requires said things which I'm too lazy to count. Couple that with finding pieces of the Drybake Stadium, collecting all of Wiggler's parts, and revisiting 5-3 to get the path necessary to progress with the world, and that's 3 more major instances of backtracking to deal with. It's pretty rancid.
People always say "Paper Mario fans just hate Sticker Star because it's different!!" and this video shows that it simply not the case. We dont hate sticker star because it's different. We hate it because it's a irredeemable game.
yeah I honestly don't get how people can defend this game unless they're the ones that didn't actually play it. The combat is terrible, the story is nonexistent, the characters are flat (hah), the boss fights literally ask you to skip them instead of actually playing the game, and running from battles is literally better than fighting in every way. It's just a bad game.
Yeah like, if PM fans just hated change, we would probably have just as much if not more ire toward Super, instead of it being Somewhat Divisive like it actually is (if you're wondering I'm on the side that considers it a great game)
These are the same people that act like we only dislike recent Mario games (re: the remakes of a couple timelessly 2D Mario & Luigi games and the New Super Mario Bros. sequels) because we have our nostalgia goggles on and just aren’t letting Nintendo do what they want even though we have no power over the company to do a much better job with a lot of like they used to.
I feel the worst for the Intelligent Systems employees who felt passionate about Paper Mario, and were genuinely excited to come into work to design great characters and settings, brainstorm interesting ideas, iron out the plot, write great dialogue, etc. Only to find that they had to scrap the work they did so far on their new 3DS Paper Mario. And henceforth, their brains would be hogtied and they would never again be allowed to create interesting stuff. So sorry, Kawade-san.
It honestly makes me kind of lose some respect for Miyamoto like even with his involvement in helping making Nintendo successful in the past and the other higher ups as well that still does not exempt them from criticism they are human after all...or are they🥸.They kind of come across as creatively bankrupt cowards that are afraid of being outside there comfort zone like they come across like they can't survive with one spin off Mario series being outside there no story philosophy they feel like they only want to enforce there stock standard genericness nothing else matters...ok maybe that's extreme but ya get me. Like they claim they want to be fresh and innovative yet they literally sucked out most of the charm and personality and the cool brand new characters and races and world building that fans enjoyed and replaced it with mostly recycled Toads with no redesigns allowed are you kidding me Nintendo and having interesting story is also no longer Allowed and they also won't allow the fun simple to play RPG gameplay that fans also enjoyed granted I give SPM a pass because that entry at least had most of what fans enjoyed about the first 2 games. Thanks Nintendo sigh..... Honestly these higher ups to me come across as such kill joys considering Mario Odyssey has tons of new races and locales so like what excuses does Nintendo have that the Devoloper's at Intelligent System's can't use new characters and races and locales that literally make's no sense to me. And it almost feels like they ignore most of the fans wanting the old stuff back like Miyamoto complained that sticker's gameplay was too much like TTYD like it's a bad thing so lets just dunk all that good stuff down the trash bin that fans enjoyed. Nintendo no offense but your kind of dense towards your fan base some times😮💨 Like I'm still a Nintendo gamer but man this is just shallow on Nintendo or Tanabe.
@@seasonembrace3624 literally every spinoff has some originality for its designs or a new race, even the fucking gacha mobile game. Like, Luigis Mansion dark moon, even if the designs are a bit wack, introduces us to evershade valley: a locale full of friendly ghosts with a ton of worldbuilding that came out a couple months after sticker star. and IS has stated they have a lot of creative freedom with the franchise. so why the fuck is paper mario so unoriginal?
@@seasonembrace3624 But they dont, The Paper mario team have downright said they have complete creative freedom and Sticker stars limitations were ultimately just a suggestion to use the mario world cast… which they used like 8% of.
I theorize the reason why people don't talk about sticker stars huge backtracking problem is because they blocked it out of their mind due to how terrible it is. I certainly did.
Agreed. It is more like calling out a big blemish on an otherwise near immaculate game whereas Sticker Star is as Red puts it, "a shiny turd" where there is so much wrong with the game that backtracking is small potato's.
Yeah, to be fair there was quite a few instances of backtracking you had to do in Thousand Year Door. But at least it wasn't for the WHOLE GAME. Sticker Star is ONLY backtracking.
And the new team have replaced all the unique toads with a legion of clones or some body snatchers with this as there permanent blank expression🙂.....truly a horrifying turn of events😱 Honestly someone should make a ghost story/creepy pasta or a horror game parody with this premise😁.
Eh at least it seems like Origami King is an edible game compared to the style over substance Sticker Star. Granted Origami is not a perfect dish but at least there is substance if we’re going based on comparisons. Of course I’m not saying Origami is better than the original trilogy (64 & TTYD & SPM) but at least it’s the best out of the modern entries so far from what I've heard so I guess that's something.
@@maxtubb But why? The first two Paper Mario video games are great, especially the second one. The third one is great too storywise but videogameplaywise, not so much.
@@maxtubb Yeah the Mario series as a whole isn't about story before and after the RPGs we're a thing and the series as a whole has sold well but you also can't really blame the fans for being bummed out about the developers gutting out most of the stuff that worked well for this spin off series that fans enjoyed and making it pretty shallow in the character designs because of annoying restrictions that other mainline Mario games don't have to follow is not what I call good game design if we're only talking about the Paper Mario series not the whole of Mario. But if you still feel that Paper Mario doesn't really deserve to have an interesting story just because of it's cutesy art style well it's your loss in my opinion but I also respect your opinion.
@@maxtubb Yeah that's fair it's not your style of gameplay preference as for me I'm not a giant fan of Tetris style games or puzzle games for the most part.
The thing I hated most about this game wasn't even the battle system. It was how cryptic the puzzles were. I was stuck on this game for God knows how long. I had to look up what to do. Sticker Star is impossible to play without a guide.
Honestly this the biggest flaw. The “thing” puzzles aren’t even intuitive often. I like the rest of the game actually. Still weakest in series of course.
This is my first time learning about how that Toad in the windmill level has his garden re-destroyed after you beat the stage and come back. Poor guy... The game he's in sucks, but he didn't do anything wrong. Little man just wants to grow some flowers and have something nice, and the world just says 'lol no.' I feel kind of bad for him. That is, by a wide margin, the *most* emotion I've ever felt about ANYTHING relating to Sticker Star.
Ya wanna know another problem with Paper Jam? It not only only uses Sticker Star for Paper Mario, but because of how clean and sanitized Sticker Star is, it sanitized Mario and Luigi too. None of the characters or environments from the other four M&L games appear. That game, while still good, in my opinion symbolizes everything wrong with the late 2000s-2010s era of Mario. Where everything is sanitized and basically just New Soup in RPG form. Where the few new things are for *one* game only. Thankfully with Mario Wonder and the TTYD remake it seems like we’re going back to actual unique things in Mario from before New Soup Wii.
If Sticker Star were the very first game in the series, I think its simplistic storytelling and mechanics would be somewhat more forgivable. But as you've comprehensively shown, even as a standalone game its flaws are too numerous and extensive, and it simply doesn't hold up well.
Yeah like for the storytelling maybe, but the fact of the matter is that the mechanics are just straight up *bad*. If you design an RPG battle system where *running* is more powerful than fighting, where basic attacks are consumables, where boss fights are a binary between tedious or nonexistent, where there is almost zero strategy. Then you've just made a bad game, regardless of any possible context it could be placed in.
I have two theories reguarding Paper Mario. My first is that Super Paper Mario created two timelines, one good and one bad. We are currently going through the bad timeline, where Dimentio succeeded in ending all worlds and turning them all lifeless (aka Sticker Star)! Think the fallen hero timeline from Zelda, but it makes more sense because these stories after Super feel mor deliberately lifeless. My second theory is that instead of the two separate timelines, perhaps, Dimentio failed, however, he still had a small amount of power left, as hinted by his final bits of dialogue, to JUST curse Mario's dimension to become bare and stripped of all life and become paper, as one final act of revenge. This theory would make sense when you realize the curses in Thousand Year Door were about transforming Mario in the paper. These curses were unnatural and were treated as such, making this radical change all the more fitting. This paper dimension now is a desolate waste land that is stripped of life, and no one there remembers anything of their previous lives. I mean, they kinda rebooted the story from the first game in SS, like nothing from the first game even happened, but this time, everything went wrong. It's like a reset timeline, where everyone's memories have been cleansed of all previous event. So much so that Bowser even forgot to talk! When there are references to the past lives in Paper Mario, they are left in a garbage dump in 5-1! This is going to sound like a potential third theory, but maybe it caused a rift in dimensions, where there are now 2 Mario dimensions, as seen in Paper Jam. Whatever, that game is not cannon, so just ignore that theory. Anyways, when you take into account Sticker Star's implications and what came before it and etc., Sticker Star is actually a storytelling masterpiece, and it expertly displays its themes in its terrible gameplay and general structure!
I so hope Kawade returns for one last time to close off the Paper Mario series and maybe somehow incorporates a story that they escape from the paper universe - like these adventures still exist but SS, CS and TOK being under a different world than the 1st 3 (which I still feels more connected the loose Mario canon).
You know? That would be an amazing idea for an actual good RPG Paper Mario. Imagine that you start an adventure something like Seven Stars but you are playing something like Sticker Star at the start and then you find a Star Point orb with Twink in it and he tells you that the world is under Dimentio's absolute control and as you find your 7 or 8 mcguffins to beat Dimentio, you free not only the world but your own RPG capabilities. That would be pretty awesome if properly executed.
46:47 I agree completely. Some of my favorite Mario games were games that took bold risks. Games that weren’t too afraid to get weird. The Mario universe has sooooo much variety and potential for new ideas. This I believe is because Mario, like you mentioned before, is elevated by the environments he finds himself in. Mario is interesting because he can be incredibly flexible to unique and new styles and ideas and, when done right, can be some of the most new and exciting experiences ever for a video game franchise. Personally, I do have a soft spot for the classic style but games like Odyssey, Galaxy, and the Mario and Luigi series show just how much Nintendo can push a Mario games core ideas and are some of my favorite games because of this change. Mario can be in almost anything, and that’s why it works so well. I still have yet to try the Paper Mario series out for myself properly but I really want to try out TTYD. I am a bit more of a platformer guy than an RPG guy but I do enjoy the art style of the N64 Paper Mario and TTYD quite a bit. There’s just something about the chunky outlines and the characters designs and color that is just super unique to those games. The sticker star game and Origami King unfortunately are my only experiences with the Paper Mario series.
Regarding the first strike defeat, I feel TTYD had that down pat with the First Strike badge. Instead of having your base attack being higher than the opponents being the catalyst (which would be pointless since your base attack only goes up with the Super and Ultra boots and hammer), its instead based on your level. The higher your level it, the less star points you get from weaker enemies, to discourage grinding, and when the number of star points you get from an enemy is 0, then the First Strike badge kills the enemy on the field. This is much simpler than whatever the hell Sticker Star tried to do, and its much more useful since you can still use the First Strike badge even in later areas since, again, they give less EXP as you level up.
Basically 4 hours of FACTS. I feel exactly as you did. Sticker Star ultimately wasn't the worst game I ever played but man...it destroyed a franchise that meant the world to me. Ultimately the thing that helped me move past this franchise was Bug Fables. I think the game is absolutely fantastic, its a spiritual successor to Paper Mario and lowkey...I think its better than TTYD. And that's my favourite game. Excellent video man, keep up the good work.
It was a blast working on this video with you and I feel this review clears up a lot of misconception and surface level lens from people of not just the fanbase, but many critics as a whole. ESPECIALLY in regards to articulating the linear vs non linear fallacy! Gamers nowadays have such a black and white perspective of this if its "nonlinear its good, if its linear its bad" as if being designed either way is the ONLY way a game should or shouldn't be designed, there are these people just speaking in absolutes, as if every single fundamental aspect must be design in a specific way, not everything needs to be nonlinear or 100% freedom to be good. Otherwise you're just wanting every game designed with the same clear ideologies in mind. It's how a game executes the uses of nonlinearity and linearity that determines weather or not the design is outright bad. Its like how people say Sonic Adventure is more "open" than Adventure 2 because you can spin dash jump, which basically requires the player to skip the level, which isn't nonlinear you're just not playing the level. Or than PM64 is "open" because of branching paths, ignoring how most of them just lead to designated areas and most are just connected by hallways anyway. But also I'm sick of the sudden apologists of this game who all of a sudden just decide this game is good (being it sudden reviews on TH-cam or an entire perception change within the PM community itself) just because the game happens to be "nonlinear" or entirely basing it on the perception of "its good because its not like TTYD" thing, when this game isn't hated or bad because its not like TTYD. (I also hate how much of a label that's being thrown around to the point the fanbase is downright insufferable with it) and even if I myself dislike sections like Twilight Town or General White I feel so much focus in the PM community nowadays is how much "TTYD is bad, or overrated" in the same vein as when Ocarina of Time was getting the same rep based on the perception Arin Hanson layed onto it, rather than having actual discussions, because its hard to have one when so many discussions are just endless echo chambers of someone complaining about TTYD. Outside of with you guys of course, because its always fun. lmao And admittedly there's still fun in going more indepth with the series. I'm not saying it doesn't have its issues, it does, but like there's a point where proving a game has flaws verges into just complaining to the point of repetition. The outright hostility this fandom has with discussions over any game (especially TTYD) anymore is insane, its honestly the worst fanbase as of 2021. Regardless I feel this review did what a lot of other reviews failed to do and that is a dissection as to why the image of this game is the way it is or why its so bad. Also nice touch on counteracting those "similarity "arguments (which get used a lot against TYD) in how a game can have similar design aspects, but how the game uses them can still form its own identity. Just because both chapter 1's are grassy areas that lead to castles doesn't mean one is ripped off from the other. As a side note, I'm not saying people can't like this game, whatever prerogative you have is your own, I'm just calling out the ones who just now 180 this game and just decide its a good game based on very surface level generalizations or observations. Being nonlinear fails for this game because the way its structured doesn't equate very well to the design at all. This is one of the worst video games I have ever played, even if I've played worse like Metroid NES, Megaman X7 and Anubis 2 the design of this game is just so inheritly bad that its awful to play. And its only the second worst RPG game I've ever played. Well done Red also to Horayn and IKG as well!
Almost 4 Hours It’s hilarious to me that this is regarded as an incredibly simple game compared to what came before, yet you talk about it for an hour longer than super, half of which was really just the story; close to twice as long as ttyd, which is known to have the deepest combat; and nearly *three* times as long as the first game. You put your heart and soul into this video and it shows. Keep up the great work man! 👍
I remember when everyone was saying the world was gonna end on december 21st back in 2012 so i spent all day and night playing sticker star because i got it the day before as an early christmas gift and i was determined to play through it. The fact that this game could have been the last game i ever played before the entire human race went extinct upsets me
I think the book in Paper Jam is simply a written retelling of how Mario rescued Peach from Bowser. There's nothing implying that any of the 3 original Paper Mario games are actually a part of it. If that was the case then characters from those games should've actually come out of it, which they didn't. To me that's a clear implication those are different stories entierly. As for the 3 original Paper Mario games they are technically stories told by someone (an invisible narrator). Whether or not they are stories of stuff that actually happened, made up or just a legend that has changed over the years we don't know. Nor do we know who the reader is, or if it is anyone at all (The story teller technically doesn't have to be anyone).
I think the worst thing about Sticker Star is the potential. Imagine a PMSS where stickers were the new badges, Kersti started being nicer after you reunite in the pit, and Things didnt need to be Slinged. Just those small changes would make the game so much better
Only 3000 subs? Wow. This is on par with every 1M+ review channel. I loved this and you definitely just summed up everything that I've wanted to scream from the rooftops about this game for a while. Can't wait to see your channel get huge once the algorithm starts actually working and recommends everyone your videos! Great job, king. As someone who some of my favorite games of ALL TIME are Paper Mario and TTYD, I'm still salty and probably always will be about what they did to this franchise. Modern Paper Mario games ARE better than Sticker Star, but really, that's not saying much. The fact that Nintendo will, with every amount of odds, just ignore the original Paper Mario and TTYD style and never-ever return to it us extremely frustrating and sad. All in the name of money, harmonization with the new "modern" two-dimensional boring ass version of Mario that they're pushing now, compared to games as beautiful and well-written as the first two Paper games. What is perhaps more frustrating and sad is that even if fans banded together to make a non-for-profit Paper Mario game - one that is actually faithful to the original titles, they'd gleefully DESTROY the developer's entire lives with lawsuits and debt. God forbid somebody spends months on their lives working on a passion project to try and faithfully follow up the original games. I guess the way Nintendo sees it, every person who enjoys playing a Paper Mario game faithful to the original on an emulator technically loses them a nanospeck of money that people should (in their opinion) be going to their bastardized new Paper Mario games instead, so therefore, they must be obliterated. I understand their savage tactics if people are blatantly stealing their game/assets for profit, but when it comes to people working together to create a not-for-profit passion project/recreating game franchises and concepts that Nintendo refuses to touch anyway, and they come at them full-force and try and obliterate their entire lives... It really busts my balls. I just want SOMEBODY to make a faithful Paper Mario game again. I'm not saying this because I looooove undermining Nintendo, but they AREN'T DOING IT THEMSELVES. In their mind, I suppose, they couldn't care less, since there's the possibility of losing money (however microscopic an amount) by doing so, since money (and good PR, in turn resulting in more money) is the only thing that matters. This video was extremely cathartic for me, and I was loving every second of it. Hats off to you and the other writers for this massive undertaking. It summarizes everything that's been bubbling under the surface about this game that I haven't put into words before. It's so validating to see other people have the same (100% accurate) view on this sad ending for the original franchise. Can't wait to see your channel get bigger, bro. Great job :)
How don’t you have more of a following? This is one the most comprehensible reviews I have seen. The editing, the writing. All of it screams quality. Keep up the incredible work. You’ve earned yourself a subscriber.
I was once in the camp of "Thousand Year Door had way too much back tracking" but then I played Sticker Star, and Thousand Year Door was now my favorite, despite the back tracking
Ttyd's backtracking AT WORST is go from one area and back. Sticker Star's is more "find roadblock, look for possible solution, lose solution because it wasn't the devs intent, find actual solution, make it a sticker and find roadblock again."
I always hate it when people make the argument "If you judge the game on its own merits, instead of always comparing it to the previous games...." I mean the game sucks anyway but...even if it didn't, that's still a horrible argument. You're right when you say that if it didn't WANT the comparison, it shouldn't have called itself Paper Mario, but I wanted to go further than that. Companies BENEFIT when they use brand names like that. Paper Mario is a brand, and there is some brand recognition/loyalty of some kind (well...not so much after this game, but hey, people didn't know this game sucked when it first came out, did they? Especially if they got it at launch!) I don't think it's fair to let companies gain sales by slapping a brand name on their game and then try to argue that we shouldn't judge games by the brand names put on them. They chose to set expectations by saying it's Paper Mario, they didn't HAVE to do that. They USED those expectations to make more money, they deserve to be JUDGED by them, too.
The Enigmansion's books of tutorials on playing the game, the lore of the Sticker Fest, and how it connects with Decalburg with the secret door make me think the Enigmansion was supposed to be in World 1, and not World 4. It would explain why some of the Paperization puzzles were kind of basic and why the tutorial books and lore are there.
I always heard this game was bad, but never heard much elaboration beyond "It's different." And now I've been blessed with over 3 hours explaining exactly why a game I don't even have the console to play sucks.
You made sticker star interesting. Not made me interested in wanting to play it, but interested in hearing about it. Your video might be the best thing to come of this game.
2:08:37 As a kid, this level stumped me and was one of the two levels I was never able to complete (the other being the temple that needed this level to be completed in order to access it). As an Australian, I didn't recognize that it was a plug outlet as outlets down under have three pin holes, not two. So I couldn't understand what the game wanted me to do and even the hint to check the harbor made no sense as it didn't click a vacuum of all things could stop the sandstorm, silly me. Keep in mind I didn't have access to internet in my house at the time so a year later, in frustration, I threw every thing sticker I could at it until I used the vacuum, which I was absolutely gobsmacked at. Then, to top it off, years later when I replayed the game, I FORGOT the solution to the puzzle because it never made sense as a kid, to which I used a guide to remember the idiocy that was 'puzzle solving' in this game.
I read online that apparently, the texture or the plug is actually different for different versions of the game, but I only have access to the American version, so I can’t verify this.
The vibe of this entire video is just AM's hate monologue but instead of a mad AI's disgust of humanity it's a three hour long video detailing every single reason why you absolutely loathe sticker star in the most in depth description possible. This is a theatre-length movies worth of pure malice and vitriol. and I mean this in a "this is a very well done and intricate video" way and while I'm well aware this part of a series, the conclusion strongly implied "sticker star was so absolutely horrible that im going to play color splash just so I have even MORE reasons to tear apart sticker star and the modern paper mario games" while not indented, that's purest hater energy and I found it hilarious
Fun Fact: Petey actually DOES have a specific Sticker weakness the game doesn't even come close to hinting at POW Blocks (both the actual Sticker and effect from the Battle Spinner) instantly flip him over and expose his weak point Sticker Star Is A Very Weird Game
@@TheRedGuy Thank you. Sorry, don't mean to be so glum, just another reason why I loathe this game, due to personal reason. I got this video in my recommendations today, and I'll make sure to look through it when I've got the time. Dissecting Sticker Star is something I can't get enough of.
Excellent video. One thing I miss is how much work was put into the hub world's of the first three games. Rogueport is my favorite. You can lose yourself in the sewers, it's very mysterious and eerie with the music.
This video is extremely well made for such a small channel, and I couldn't agree more with your points. Keep up the content, I hope you can get more subscribers soon!
At 54:19 you're right, these toads might as well be Board characters from super mario galaxy 1 and 2. Even they have names. I wouldn't mind to have billboard signs everywhere world map. Except the main town and docking area because needed some real people there.
2:53:39 I hate to be that guy... but um... actually, the toad outside the decalburg shop who's jumping up and down and freaking out mentions that he "saw something flying over the forest" and THAT'S your only hint to go visit Wiggler again
@@TheRedGuy Throughout the game, there are even OTHER TOADS who say answers to cryptic puzzles. One toad I think mentions that either the sphynx is where you find the lightbulb, or that the lightbulb could help brighten a dark room. Something like that, and that's your answer for waking up the toad in the harbor to get the ship wheel... Credit where credit is due, the game does give you these hints. However, Who is talking to the toads in town, and who would think "I'm stuck on a puzzle. Let me go to the only town in the game, and talk to people to see where that gets me"? It's again, more backtracking that this game makes the player do to find answers to puzzles, that they shouldn't have to backtrack to answer
@@friskd909 Man, if only there were specific characters who would give hints, like a character you constantly talk to in between chapters, or maybe a fortune teller, or maybe, just maybe, a character that follows you the whole game...
@@TheRedGuy Maybe if Kersti was better written, and her hints weren't just "Wow! The breeze here sure is strong!" she could fit that role. But nope. Unlikable, and with pointless flavor text, that has no flavor at all. It's a bland meal of letters and paper based remarks.
There is a bit of agency to Wiggler’s character. If you check the journal in his home (which, of course, the game doesn’t tell you about), you can see that the last Wiggler piece, the one that was covered in poison, was at Surfshine Harbor to try to go and take care of Gooper Blooper himself. But of course, why would Sticker Star tell you that directly?
This is exactly what I wanted. A full on major analysis of Paper Mario Sticker Star that actually goes in depth with the problems of the game, that isn’t screaming rants on Twitter and a actual coherent arguments, and even highlights the positives of the game that no one is willing to do so. I played this game three times and 100% it each time so I know a lot more then the average person does and even then this review surprised me in new information I never knew, like the rock that is a outlet in the desert oasis level. I thought that was a rock with eyes like how every hill in Mario has eyes. That said there are a few things you didn’t mention. The cheep cheep boss actually has a second thing weakness. It’s the pushpin thing which you get in one of the secret doors in world one. When the cheep cheep is out of the water and fully inflated, the pushpin thing will pop it and kill it in an instant. Also the First phase of the Bowers fight, you can use staples as well as pushpins to block the enemy spawn doors. Also the thing Turkey sticker animation is really good and I’m sad it didn’t get attention. One more thing is the super flags that require lots of battles and spending money. While you say the poor battle system encourages you to avoid battles but it don’t think that’s the intention of the devs to make a battle system that is intentional bad that you WANT to avoid it. I believe they do want you to fight, use up lots of stickers and earn lots of coins in battles. It just that the whole system is so poorly designed that running away seems to be the more desirable option. The super flags that require lots of grinding to get can actually be gotten within the main game. As long as, in every world you beat every enemy, use the battle spinner to spend 18 coins to guarantee two attacks so you can better get perfect bonuses and Jackpots, and spend the huge amount of money you get from the end of level comet bonuses, then by the time you beat bowser you should have all the super flags done or at least, you only need to grind a little for the 10,000 coin one. Which isn’t too bad if you repeat Snow Rise over and over, beating every enemy there and collecting the huge coin bonus at the end. But of course, if you don’t enjoy the battle system or don’t want to spend time slowly beating every enemy then these super flags are not worth doing. But they do show that the devs want you to engage the battle system, despite how awful it was.
Well yeah just by the nature that you are rewarded at all for battling means they want you to battle, the game discouraging combat is an unintentional consequence of the poor design, rather than what's intended. But thanks for the comment! Yeah the turkey is funny but not much room to highlight it lol.
I'd go on a limb to say that TTYD bosses did actually use the Crystal Stars, to an extent, mainly with Hooktail, Cortez, Doopliss, and (obviously) Grubba, though there are some parallels with the others (this is from TV Tropes BTW): Hooktail has the Diamond Star, which grants you power over the earth. Hooktail will use an earthquake move similar to the one you gain from beating her. It also explains how she can fly despite the tiny wings - with Gloomtail and Bonetail confined to a thousand-year-old palace and a miles-deep prison, there's no reason to assume they even can fly, as the dragons look much too heavy. Using the Diamond Star's power would remove that limitation. The Emerald Star is received after stopping a boss who employed a timed bomb. As a reward, you get to use a bomb that stops time. Although, this is unrelated to Crump himself. It could be that it has something to do with the Great Boggly Tree, no doubt hundreds of years old, maybe thousands. When Mario obtains the Gold Star, he's able to use Power Lift to boost his attack and defense. That (obviously) explains why Grubba was able to increase his own attack and defense. In a similar vein, in the confines of his own chapter, Doopliss can monitor the whole area, morph people into pigs, break through reality to ambush you, and remove an actual letter from your phonetic capabilities, that is to say, your character-entering screen. Why? The power of the Ruby Star is art. This gives it near-limitless power in a game where everything from the environments to the inhabitants are paper. Notably, the next time you fight him, he doesn't take advantage of such power, because he's been separated from the Ruby Star. Cortez possesses the Sapphire Star, which grants you Sweet Feast. The reason he's impossible to beat isn't because he's a ghost, that's just why he won't die. The reason he won't stay down despite having a meager 20 health is because he keeps replenishing it throughout the fight. The Garnet Star, though lacking a boss, grants you Showstopper, which lets you end some fights without even trying. Garnet is often thought of or mistaken as a ruby, relating to the fake-and-switch nature of the Sanctum's scenario. Since the Star lets you blow away the easier fights, you're getting rid of them as they're "not a real challenge". The boss of Chapter 6 is Smorg, so there is a boss associated with the Garnet Star. However, it's not really associated; Smorg lives in Riverside Station and hitched a ride on the Excess Express to pick a fight with Mario in retaliation for him smacking it around like it was nothing (you don't even battle it in the station, you just beat the blobs off of a lever). the Smorgs have no connection to Poshley Sanctum. Finally, the Crystal Star in the X-nauts' base gives Mario the ability to deal massive damage in a huge explosion, similar to the one that almost takes out their base upon Crump's defeat, as well as the way Mario and co arrive to the base (via a large Ba-Bomb cannon).
I think the reason you got another flashy sticker from that paperization box is because flashy is the highest tier of sticker, at least for that type. The mechanic still blows though
Wow, I can't believe I watched an almost 4 hour video about Sticker Star of all things. Really cool video, good job analyzing on these flaws the game had in a critical view! I always think back to how this game was shown in E3 2010 and how we were so close to a true successor to TTYD/64 before they changed everything by 2011.
Another issue that was pointed out to me about the thing sticker puzzles is that your partner will only give you hints on a puzzle if you have ALREADY found the thing you need to solve the puzzle once before. So say you didn't know the vacuum existed in the harbor because you never went there and you ask Kersti for help she won't even give you a hint on the way to clear the level and will just say. "Boy the weather here stinks doesn't it."
For 20+ years of my life, I've played so many games, I can count on one hand the ones I regret buying the most. Sticker Star was one of them. I curse this game for what it's done to a series I loved so fucking much since I first played Paper Mario 64. I haven't bought a Paper Mario game since. Being wary, I looked at what other Paper Mariotubers thought of the rest of the later games and concluded that I would move on, but maybe one day, hope and see evidence of a game series I love come back.
Chariii5 managed to fall through the floor in world 2, and it is possible to crash the game with an excellent hit on Gooper Blooper. So technically this game does not meet Nintendo’s standards of quality.
I'd argue the Wiggler is actually not as shallow a character as the rest of the game's offerings at all. The problem is that his arc is not verbally justified. You mentioned how the segments might have his personality, and I think this is correct. However, there also seems to be an unwritten implication that once he gets restored, the Wiggler retains the memory of each individual segment. If we go by that logic, then the Wiggler was potentially rowdier and more insincere than he lets on. But it just so happens that the head catches on to his own plight before his segments do, and because of this, his only given means of talking doesn't really imply his bad side at all. But this sort of would explain how he learns where the poison was coming from after being restored, and why he would have any reason to want to be more responsible afterwards. Of course, this would be so much easier to understand if the game made mention of this directly. But because the game runs on severe miscommunication, it's as easy to miss as the few journal entries that do convey parts of the forest's narrative. This, coupled with the horrid level design of World 3, means that the only overarching story in the game with any resemblance of depth going for it is basically poisoned at the surface, with no real reason to dive into it.
Not sure why the TH-cam algorithm led me to you and this video one whole year after upload, but God I am so happy it did. I haven't even played this game (but I love the Paper Mario franchise, at least the first three games), but I was enthralled listening to you go off for almost 4 hours.
I feel like the games sticker consumable combat could've been so much better, so fuck it, here's my idea on what the stickers should have been. Another thing that would've been interesting to use stickers as is to scrap the entire thing of just spamming stickers, and instead keep your base action commands with a hammer and jump but instead have the stickers act as sort of a boost or a new ability, now this would remove most of the sticker variants but it'll make more sense later. For now lets look at the types of stickers you will use. Offensive Stickers: these will be your main source of damage providing special abilities to your stock jump and hammer Defensive Stickers: these will increase Mario's defensive stats and sometimes provide special traits Status: These will inflict statuses on both you or the enemy depending on what you use. Partners: these will replace the normal enemy item stickers and instead bring a temporary partner into the fight with their own hp and unique attacks (ie boomerang give you a boomerang bro) Healing: Will heal Mario and apply special buffs on you and your partner if one is active. Things: No longer have action commands and instead act like star-power with more powerful ones requiring more TP to use, things also only require you to find and fling them ONCE, they are separate to your stickers and have their own menu. Stickers can now be stacked in pairs of 3 for the entire time. This can be upgraded later but that'll be soon. For now lets go into how this all works. At the start of a battle it will look the same as sticker star, only with 1 difference. Your stickers are completely optional and you can freely use a hammer and jump. However, due to this, the game will be a tad harder. To attack you'll select the hammer or jump, then you'll have the option to choose a sticker to give that attack a certain buff. Stickers like the jump and hammer are no longer used for attacking, instead you can add 1 to boost your damage, do a specific hammer attack, or inflict a certain status onto an enemy. However, you can also choose not to attack and instead use the defend option. this will let you use a Healing, Status, Defensive, or Partner sticker on Mario but prevent him from attacking until the next turn. Action commands are now more diverse than just pressing the a button, especially for higher tier stickers. Partner stickers will summon an enemy based on the sticker to aid you in battle, each one has their own set of attacks and HP/DEF, but cannot use stickers like Mario, however if you choose the partner command instead of defend, attack or run. you can apply a buff of status sticker to a partner. Since the partners are also enemies certain de-buff stickers will actually help a specific partner, if your partner is a blooper, a poison mushroom will actually raise the amount of turns their poison is applied for depending on the rarity. After a battle you will gain EXP, when you level up you can choose to increase your sticker count size by 1, increase your TP or, increase your SP, Health Defense and base attack power is increased after each world you beat to balance with difficulty spikes. SP replaces higher tier sticker types by making them a permanent upgrade. SP can be used to upgrade your stickers to permanent higher tiers. If you upgrade a shiny sticker to a flashy, all stickers of that kind will be flashy. Sticker tiers will all be the same and are ranked in this order Worn Out Normal Shiny Flashy Big Shiny Mega Flash Finally, running from battles is a 100% chance but, will inflict you with a unique status that aggro enemies to you for a moment, creating a risk vs reward system, that lets you escape unwanted fights, but makes another encounter more probable. this is just an idea, but its far better than anything this shitty game that's came up with.
I’m glad you brought up the paper aesthetic problem because that was one of my biggest problems as well. Considering the first game was originally called Mario RPG 2, it’s interesting how the localized name has become its identity to such an extreme degree.
Sticker star’s save system is actually glitched and allowed for arbitrary code execution. One of the main ways of modding a 3DS at one point was through Sticker Star. Though Pokémon picross ended up taking the prize later cause it shared the same issues and was free to download.
19:53 had a heart attack praying the video wasn't gonna get taken down till I heard the redubbing of the clip and then I looked at how long ago it was uploaded right after and realized, "oh ok I'm just stupid"
3:07:50 I missed the fish hook right next to the cheep cheep boss. On the bright side not finding the Thing made me so frustrated I stopped playing so in the end I'm thankful
It's weird to think that I found this channel through your twitter reply to one person asking about Sticker Star. It's quickly become one of my favorites.
Great video. This is the most detailed look at Sticker Star I’ve ever seen and why it’s as bad as it is. I had no idea the whomp in the final boss was actually weak to anything while on the ground, as I always attacked it with scissors. I’m really sad with how the series has fallen and even though it has gotten better in recent years, there’s still a long way to go. I can tell they are still set on the paper mechanic unfortunately. The recent trailer for the original Paper Mario game on the Nintendo Switch Online service just HAD to put in paper puns for a game that almost had NOTHING to do with paper. I mean the game’s name in Japan is Mario’s Story!
I vehemently REFUSE to play any game after Sticker Star. I don’t give a single solitary (Insert your favorite Swear Word here) about what positives people may have to say about “”Paper Mario”” The OK. I Will Not play that game, or any like it, for what they did to my Beloved Paper Mario. I already talked about how Sticker Star was the Last Game me and my now deceased Friend were waiting for together before he passed away. We were friends at a young age, didn’t hang out for like 10 Years or so, and then we somehow got in contact again. What did we do? We played Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door together. It was the first game I ever played from beginning to end together with a friend. We had a blast. Our Friendship came back once more around this game. It is one of my life’s all time most precious memories. May he Rest in Piece. I miss you, Daniel. Not only do I have one of the worst things that have happened to me in my life tied to this game, but I also blame this game for the Death of one of my All Time Favorite Game Franchises ever. Because of this game, we will never get another proper Paper Mario ever again. I own Multiple Copies of each of the three games, both Physical and Digital, just because I love them all so much. Sticker Star forever changed what Nintendo will allow the franchise to do due to its misunderstood success. People didn’t buy it as much as they did because it was as good as the proper Paper Mario games, but because everyone thought that we would get something like TTYD2, or at least SPM2. That is not what we got at all. What we got was a complete soulless mess of incoherently smushed together mechanics that wore the skin suit of our beloved Paper Mario. I can’t put it into as clean and concise words as you could perhaps, but sit down and talk to me and you won’t hear the end of it. If I could go back in time, I would un-purchase this game. Only reason why I have not thrown this game in the trash is simply because I can’t make myself do that to a video game, no matter how bad it is. I know for a fact that I am not the only one who feels like this. Your paper shredder of a review proves as much. This is also how Arlo because as prominent as he is. He got his most important subscriber boost ever thanks to his video about how Paper Mario is now Dead. Because so many of us believe the exact same thing, and were clearly affected by the loss of the franchise. Which is also why I Love Bug Fables as much as I do. It took everything I Love about Paper Mario, and went above and beyond. It is what a Proper Paper Mario Game deserves to be. If only we could get a game like it with the manpower and resources that only a company like Nintendo can provide. But seeing how Nintendo handles everything that isn’t Mainline Mario and a few exceptions, I do not think that we will ever get it, at least until something drastically changes. Very nice review you guys. Well done tearing this Failed Art Project to absolute shreds. It deserves nothing less than the worst.
@@maxtubbPFFT- dude we are getting new creative games: totk, Pikmin 4 and more. Yet your here saying stuff like that about a remake that everyone wanted for years and the original game was getting very expensive so it's hard to play the original game.
@maxtubb8560 I get your angle, but few people have (legal) access to these older games. It can be very expensive. I don't mind the ports or remakes for that reason. Some kid will get to experience their new favorite game through these remakes. Besides, emulators can be a hassle to set up optimally.
@@maxtubbAlso it's reasonable for Nintendo to pull back on new IPs right now since a couple of their recent experiments have underperformed. Arms, Labo, and 1 2 Switch are a few that I can name off the top of my head. It sucks, but brand recognition is vital to sales right now.
You forgot that bowser can crumple you therefore making you unable to move so you will have no way to heal or damage him and when you are crumpled you get 2x damage, so if you get hit and the 50% chance you get crumpled, instant death. Complete garbage.
I was one of those weird players who actually battled almost every enemy even though there was little incentive, and despite the game being a guilty pleasure, I still absolutely hated the achievement banners. Combining the lack of a post game and the fact that you'll have a lot of stickers prepared for the final boss, grinding during the late game for those achievements extends the already indefinite tedium to a whole nother dimension, and you'll have a heck of a time preparing for the boss again. It might genuinely be less painful to get through SPM 2-3 without opening the safe.
Paper Jam sucks even more from the perspective of someone who is both a Paper Mario and M&L fan. Not even the M&L side has anything from the series except Starlow. Even though Bowser is last seen with the Elite Trio in Dream Team and up till then the games were fairly consistent with continuity with each other, and would often bring back old characters especially in Dream Team. Heck even the later REMAKES did this, with the side modes featuring characters who were introduced in later games to give extra history for them. And yet... Paper Jam exists in its own sterile bubble. AlphaDream is better than this game. They showed it with Dream Team and even the remakes that they weren't gonna suck-up to the modern Mario "IP integrity" mandates. Except of course, the mandates won where it mattered the most, the game that was Paper Mario's last chance to bring back its own characters by being in the hands of a dev who cares about keeping RPG characters around beyond the main cast. Paper Jam in concept, combining my two favorite series ever, could have been my favorite game of all time, but in execution it's one of my least favorites of all time. That.... stings so hard 😢
The world-building Paper Mario did still remains after Paper Jam, because the book is a paralel world, which means everything from inside the book happaned in the real world, just with slight differences, specifically some paper jokes and mechanics. The Paper Mario world-building is referenced numerous times outside of the Paper Mario games in the rest of the franchise, so it still all happened in the real world and is still all canon.
1:33:32 it’s funny, I’ve been saying for a while now that Color Splash could have been alright if they structured combat like a deck building game, I didn’t even think of the possibility that Sticker Star also could’ve been better if it had some deck building aspect to it.
I'm surprised this channel doesn't have more subscribers. This review is super well thought-out and a lot of fun to watch! You can see how much care was put into it.
If I may add. Alot and I mean ALOT of these problems were fixed in the beta, let me list them (idk if anybody will read this but I just want to document this as a fyi) -decalberg was going to be far more alive, with more houses, toads, and more maps in general, hell, it even had a cut sewer system -obviously the battle system with the partners. Some being mario enemies like the chain chomp and "the gold galoomba", and some being original charecters like kirsti and "mr slit" -more unuiqe levels such as the famous card area and a "rotating warehouse" -bosses not only had original designs like the king mander and king mole, but it is very likely they didn't need the use of things either - there would've been a butt load of more original charecter, including some I've mentioned before like king mole, king mander and the entire mander race (those koopa snake guys from the one screenshot) mr slit, gold galoomba, and even the toad from the enigmansion used to be old and had a mustache, with bowser, birdo and most enemies without dialogue in retail having fully fledged talking animations. -alot of the thing stickers might've (and this is speculation fyi) just been cut, atkeast for out of battle use, as they might very been partner abilities Instead. -a few of the bosses were better in terms of story in the beta, for some reason they cut mr blizzerds entire reason why he needed to be stopped, even though it was fully implemented in beta screenshots, as he was supposed to bring apon a snow storm apon the land for all the levels (like that one from enigmansion) and king mander (likely unused world 1 boss) likely being brought back to life (as code implies his boss would've started with him being a skeleton) -peach interludes were in the beta -final note is that, there would've been an extra chapter, as seen in a trailer depicting 7 Royal crowns instead of 6, likely being that the lava and jungle world were separated, making both better in the long run. Hope you enjoyed reading this wall of dumb sticker star trivia, it's tumps me why some of this stuff was cut as some (not all) of it was practically almost finished and just made the game 10 times better, I joke to myself that they accidentally released a early prototype of the game, but hey, if you have any more questions let me know since I have researched this game for more time then I'd like to admit lmao
This video is a absolute massacre and shuts down any possibility of a positive opinion on the game and the fact its 4 hours long just shows how much the game sucks
I’ve stated before that I have a decent amount of experience when it comes to character building, and just story writing in general. But that didn’t come just out of the blue one day. I take inspiration from the media I consume; we all do, whether we see it or not. I like reading stories; I like seeing what plot twists games can conjure up to throw me off. Making a creative and original story isn’t trying to make a brand new thing that’s never been seen before, since that’s impossible. In my eyes, it’s taking the ideas that you have and mixing and matching them together until you have something that’s a fresh take on the key idea. To clarify, it’s not to just plagiarize the popular stories, it’s to offer a new spin on the existing idea, usually another idea in and of itself. Do games need a story? Well, yes. It doesn’t have to be very complex or original, but it needs to have a good one; something to keep the player engaged to the end. People love Banjo-Kazooie, and I wouldn’t exactly say that game’s story is very complex: Grunty kidnaps Tooty, Banjo and Kazooie go off to rescue her. That’s really it. But it’s still fun and charming, and something that almost anyone can enjoy. The characters actually have personalities and interact in different ways to each other. The main cast isn’t very big, just Banjo, Kazooie, Grunty, Bottles, Mumbo, and Tooty. But they’re fun and memorable, genuinely feeling real sometimes. My point is, games don’t have to have deep plots to be good. But this game? This is a disgrace to the writing community as a whole. The story is practically nothing, giving you next to no context as to why you’re doing anything. And the characters? Yeah, they suck; I’m looking at you, Kersti. But hang on. Kazooie is Banjo’s counterpart, and like Kersti, is irritable, rude, and impulsive. What’s the difference? LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE. Sure, Kazooie might have a sharp beak, constantly insulting almost everyone and not shy to say she hates something, but she’s actually likeable. Her outbursts tend to be hilarious and creative, and her being sassy to others is just as funny. Not to mention, gameplay wise, Kazooie is incredibly useful, the Talon Trot and Rat-a-Tat Rap being amazing in gameplay. Kersti? Yeah, she’s got none of that. Never once was Kazooie angry at Banjo (though there were times Banjo got angry at her), but Kersti just has no one else to vent her spleen on aside from Mario, which obviously doesn’t work here since Mario has the depth and character of a tennis ball. If they were going for a Kazooie-style character (not that I think they were), they failed miserably. This game had twelve writers-TWELVE-and this is what they came up with for story and characters!?
Just watched this whole series of reviews so far in a row and I'm extremely impressed (as well as surprised they aren't getting more attention). Super high quality work, and I love how thorough you cover everything about these games. Consider me a fan, very much looking forward to the Color Splash video!
This one was a great video really, maybe to heavy for one sitting (in my case i saw it between days), but all the references (edited memes), opinions, an extra stuff shows all the care you put in a review of something you hate so much. I can't imagine a review of something you love, would be perfect ! Im glad i found your channel
Thanks! I have a few games I love that I'd like to give a similar treatment to, but I don't know if they'll reach this length, it tends to take longer explaining how something doesn't work, then it does explaining why it does. But who knows.
With the 64 comparisons, in sticker star. Color splash has ttyd,s skeleton but without everything that makes that game work. Example 1; the game starts at mario,s house, Peach invites you to a town, the boat is the exact same as ttyd,s boat, the starting area and layout of Port prisma is very alike that of Rogueport then you a have a simillar plaza with a pool in the center, like the noose.The town also has a west side and east side, but without the sewers or the train station or the character of rogueport. world 1 involves getting to a castle but instead of fighting a dragon you fight Morton, the paint stars are basically the crystal stars. Example 2: world 4 has you getting on a boat to get to a pirate island, you fight wendy instead of Cortez, because this is the nsmb era. world 5 has a sunset setting, a train that you ride, like the excess express, and you fight larry on top of the train like smorg. these are all the comparisons that I can find . Is it me or is this just a coincedence, that the very, very basic plot structure is the same.
It’s a really streamline paper Mario game for on the go! They filtered out all the things that make the game “slow” like EXP, party members, other playable characters, a post game, a plot, the fun…
I love Paper Mario. And youtube discussion videos like this are a guilty pleasure of mine on long drives. 2 days ago I decided I'd see if anyone thought to merge the two things I love and I found your channel. I think I'm 8 hours into your content now and I'm a fast fan; next up is your Luigis mansion saga and I can't wait for it. I've subbed and hit the bell in anticipation of the eventual color splash and origami king videos! Thank you for the time you put into this channel
Literally, I think I was biased towards the game initially because of how fun the museum was to fill out. I do remember getting extremely frustrated at a bunch of the things mentioned in this review, though, so I never beat it. Edit: Oh no I know who you are oh God
The part about the boss weakness... using the weakness is not even the fastest option sometimes. Like you can take out gooper blooper and the giant pokey in 1 or 2 turns with the boom box to double your attack power and the squirt gun item to take out most of it's health and finish it off with whatever other attack based thing items. Although Kirsti STILL goes on the "you used too many stickers" speech despite the solution the game wants you to do can only be pulled off effectively in 4 or 5 turns. But at least it isn't Color Splash where the game treats the player like an idiot by having the kooplings have an instant death attack that they do when you don't have the weakness... even though they could've instantly killed Mario turn 1 but decide not to????
I’m starting to understand why it’s hated. It feels like whoever was head of the game development or someone above them just wanted to make it a middle finger to the older games and players
I picked up paper jam, played it and put it down. I had no clue about sticker star, so the strange gimmicks and thing about paper mario being in a book I thought must've been the Mario & Luigi creative team not understanding the source material. But the fact it was the source material not understanding itself... ouch. It was too infuriating to get through, I really thought I was gonna get fun references and maybe a really cool silly crossover. Silly me lol
I'm pretty sure it's more so that Alphadream was put on a restraint by Nintendo to do the game exactly how they wanted them to rather than being given creative freedom. It's a combination of Miyamoto getting his hands on Paper Mario and the producers themselves wanting to focus on braindead simple storytelling and abandoning old Paper Mario altogether. There is no way Alphadream would just neglect putting Toadsworth in their game. Literally a staple character from both M&L and even main series Mario. It's definitely an outside force at hand. Considering even Miyamoto doesn't like how Sticker Star turned out, there may still be hope, VERY thin hope that he'll let a faithful Paper Mario happen again by the hands of another team with the passion to do it right and won't actively sabotage the game. *_Peers carefully at Moonsprout Games_*
The catharsis about how Paper Jam messed up how the original 3 Paper Mario games affected the potential and importance per se of them to the Mario franchise - I so agree hehe. Like I get they had to have a way to crossover the two spin-offs, but it just emphasized how "paper" it is. I really didn't realize it's implications until I saw what Paper Mario has become. I would have to think Alphadream asked if Mario in Paper Mario was different when it was pitched but I assume the current staff saw that universe as different. Anyway, at best you can say Paper Jam is non-canon as it is the last new game in the M&L franchise (sadly) and it didn't get referenced in TOK.
Paper Mario being a book makes perfect sense actually. The name for the original paper Mario in in Japan was Mario story, and the paper Mario games look like pop up story books. I mean both paper Mario 64 and TTYD literally starts with someone telling a “story” the story of the wish granting star rod or the story of the ancient town and the thousand year door. Paper Mario isn’t just another story in the Mario universe paper Mario is literally story pop up books featuring Mario and other characters from the mushroom kingdom. I think it was actually really clever how paper jam basically shows that indeed paper Mario is just a story book in the real Mario world. Still think that they should have included characters from all 4 games though. But the book thing is still really clever and neat.
Regarding the Paper Jam confusion. I don't think the Paper Mario stories are contained within a book, seperate from the "real" Mario and Luigi. I interpret Paper Mario as just a storybook facsimile/retelling of an actual adventure done by Mario. Like, Mario's life got documented and the illustrations are the Paper Mario characters. Those characters just happened to be brought into the real world by Luigi in Paper Jam. So like, the Mario that went to Rogueport and Flipside is the Mario in Mario and Luigi. The Paper Mario is just like... a clone with all his memories.
(Apologizes for the comment string) As for my thoughts, this was easily the most thorough and well researched video regarding this game. So many baffling design choices and not an ounce of nuance in its story or writing. I know I'm a bit late, but this was worth the 3 hours for sure. Also the commentary between you three was hilarious! Missed opportunity for a joke to transition to the door stickers would've been using the Secret Door joke from Fosters. Also as a Peach fan I found her portrayal here insulting! Easily her worst Mario appearance.
As someone who personally does not hate sticker star in fact I have replayed it a couple of times yeah you’re pretty much right and all of your points. I don’t hate it but I completely see why everyone else does. Although I do love color splash and I just know once you review that game you’re really gonna rip into it. Which is fine. Color splash is not perfect and I’m not gonna pretend it is but it’s still going to hurt my soul a little bit😂. Anyway It sucks that you put so much time and effort into this video and it really doesn’t have as many views as it should. You’re super underrated
I have a quick tip for color splash, MAKE SURE you turn on “basic + buttons” in the settings, it removes pretty much all of the “new” problems in the battle system
It's crazy that we went from this, to slightly better Sticker Star (which I liked) to Origami King which even a year later I'm shocked most people actually liked. I couldn't play this game due to my eye condition but based on all the bad things I've heard about this game I was ready to hate the sequel only to enjoy it despite it's issues.
1:11:11 I think you did a really good job explaining why the run system is awful. But get this: the only way you’d know about the ‘Action Command’ for running is checking the little piece of paper that came in the box. On the bottom right corner, there’s a blurb that states you need to mash A to increase the chances of running away. This is the only time it’s explained how to run… and they lied. As you said, mashing A does absolutely NOTHING to affect the chances of running! It’s one thing to have a bad tutorial that doesn’t properly explain game mechanics, but it’s another to outright lie to the player about a mechanic.
@@TheRedGuyThe real worst part of this running system is that it’s completely out of your control. Even in a game series like Pokémon, which only says “Got away safely!” or “Can’t escape!” to signify if a run is successful, there is still a way to influence it: some Pokémon are faster than others, and the faster ones have a higher chance of successfully running. And some Pokémon guarantee a successful run with an ability called “Run Away.” Even then, you don’t get anything for running in those games, and you can’t even run from a trainer battle. Here? You can’t influence the chance of running at all. It’s a total coin toss.
Excellent video with legitimate gripes about the game, from a meta sense and an in-game sense. I have a few memories of the game myself (and maybe a little rage too): I judged Sticker Star from a purely in-game sense all these years, since to me the decision to change Paper Mario seems to have come from Miyamoto plus a prevailing view throughout Nintendo that having 2 Mario RPGs running concurrently was redundant (see the Iwata Asks interview about Sticker Star, and I believe Intelligent Systems developer Rita Tabata spoke to the redundancy point in another interview. The "2 RPG's" argument lost a lot of steam once Alphadream bankrupted). Sticker Star was certainly the victim of poor corporate decision-making. Paper Mario wasn't doomed so long as developers listened to fan feedback and tried to correct course with the next game. Instead of correcting anything, they released the trailer for the next game and my hope for the series died. It was COLOR SPLASH's reveal that truly broke my heart, since that was a slap in the face to fans that let us know, unequivocally, that Nintendo had NOT listened to its fans in any way and the Paper Mario we knew and loved was honestly, truly gone. I'm glad some people enjoyed it but I just couldn't. I remember my friend and I meeting up between college classes to express our utter shock to each other for a half hour after we saw the Color Splash trailer. I complained about it to my older brother. He said "I thought you liked Color Splash." I said "I did, but I *never* wanted it to happen again." Color Splash was a total blindsiding. I couldn't IMAGINE them sticking with the Sticker Star formula for another game because it made so little sense! Color Splash was when I really felt the betrayal of the series. I bought it used for $5 and still felt ripped off after I played it. At least Nintendo didn't get the $5. They didn't deserve the money for thinking Color Splash was a good idea. Despite Sticker Star's flaws, I knew what they were going in and I was prepared to enjoy the game despite them. I didn't--couldn't--do the same for Color Splash. I could live with Sticker Star as a "mistake" the developers would be ashamed of and try to forget, but the fact that they were actually proud enough of that asinine drivel they shoveled onto the 3DS to make another soulless bootleg of my favorite RPG series of all time!...Ugh, I just hate Color Splash. Origami King was an improvement and I enjoyed it, but it's still hard to ignore the fact that the Paper Mario a lot of us grew up with is just...unrecognizable today. They should not have stuck with the Sticker Star formula for future installments. Period. For some positivity Red, you might find it odd that my favorite moment in Sticker Star was the Bowser boss battle. The bosses in general, despite being a horribly designed difficulty spike, were my favorite parts of the game because nothing in the game was challenging except those artificially difficult bosses. I really like the idea (thematically, not necessarily gameplay-wise) of Bowser having a strategy for once in his life. The guy's always a brute who uses force to fight Mario, but this time he tries to trap Mario in this multi-layered defense-in-depth of his castle. Until he loses and gets huge like he always does but whatever. Also didn't hurt that I hoarded Thing Stickers and happened to have every Thing I needed to beat him without backtracking. Either way I only liked the fight's music and concept, not the gameplay itself. On backtracking, hoarding Thing stickers helped with that a lot, which is why I didn't have a very bad backtracking experience. It's also nice that, if you look up a guide, you'll quickly find the Thing you need, whereas in Thousand Year Door having a guide won't really speed up the slog of backtracking very much except for a minor skip in Keelhaul Key. Still, you put up a compelling argument that Sticker Star has the series' worst backtracking. If we switch gears to talk about lazy level design, I think Super Paper Mario has everyone beat thanks to things like the Sammer Guy challenge & heavily truncated Chapter 6, copy-pasted Pit of 100 Trials, and generally lifeless 3D flip segments outside of mandatory progression/puzzle elements. They hide it well, but it's there and once you notice it there's no un-noticing it. For what it's worth, Color Splash improves on some aspects of Sticker Star but, in my opinion, has the weakest battle system of the entire series since it's so clunky and time-consuming to just initiate an attack. Sticker Star was incredibly basic, but at least it was quick and intuitive. Origami King's battle system is a matter of how engaged you are with solving the ring puzzles vs. just paying coins to let the game solve everything for you. I find the former to be more fun for obvious reasons. Origami King's story is still pretty weak, but it's something, certainly...it...exists when compared to Sticker Star which is an improvement.
I honestly see Paper Mario Sticker Star as a reboot of the Paper Mario series, and the original series timeline ended with Super Paper Mario. So only Sticker Star is only in that book in Paper Jam.
![Chugga Sticks It to Sticker Star [Full Review]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rUEdHCGNvpo/mqdefault.jpg)
I feel like I say this a lot, but sorry for the long wait on this one. We worked really hard on this one, I wanted this to be the best video I could make it. I could have gotten this out a lot sooner, but I wanted this to be the first video with the new assets, and those assets took awhile to make, on top of the amount of time went into the making the video itself. I hope the wait was worth it, this was a long time coming.
It’s completely fine that you took your time with the video because making something with a better quality is always better then something rushed
That was a good review, it really is sad that Paper Mario: Sticker Star turn out like this, and what you said in Paper Jam, oh boy.
Tho one things for sure....... I can not wait for you to tackle Paper Mario: The Origami King, which is one of the more "interesting" games in the series, I played and beaten it two times, and my expressions were very (and I mean VERY)......devisive, to say the least.
Sticker Star isn't just the worst Paper Mario game IMO, It's quite possibly my least favorite entry in the entire Mario franchise. And this includes shit like Hotel Mario.
Have you tried 100% sticker star, cause chuggaaconroy has, and it’s a crime against rpg’s to him
@@maxtubb you’ll understand why chuggaaconroy hates this game so much if you commit to it. I personally love rpg’s, but out of all of them, this is the worst one I’ve ever seen, never played the game, but seeing them review it, don’t need to
I think the reason people only bring up backtracking in ttyd is because it’s the only real problem people have with that game, but sticker star has so many other problems that the backtracking isn’t the first one you think of
Late response, but it's also been said that at least some of TYD's backtracking has value; Chapter 4 making you go back and forth without your partners and then again with Vivian gives you a sense of how much you rely on them and raises some stakes; it's not great, it's definitely annoying, but it at least serves a purpose. Sticker Star just seems to want you to backtrack for the most arbitrary, time wasting reasons possible.
Honestly the backtracking isn't even that big of a deal. I find more frustration with the smoke machine stage hazzard in battles.
Also it's kind of odd that nobody brings up how dumb and cryptic the interlude between chapter 2 and 3 is when you have no idea where to go.
@@PipeGuy64Bit How is it cryptic?
@@dELTA13579111315 "Find this random character inside of a building passed a slit between two buildings, pay him 64 coins and he'll tell you to buy a dried shroom and a dizzy dial from a shop, then you'll be asked what your favorite color is and say it's yellow."
I mean at least in TTYD backtracking is somewhat defendable since the locations are memorable and fun.
They complain more about TTYD backtracking because it's the game that people ACTUALLY play and like doing it unlike this... thing.
people only bring up general white. but almsot every chapter in ttyd has some form of backtracking.
I think the thing to focus on is how much more specific the criticism has to be for TTYD than any of the 3 newest paper Mario games released. (I'm including Origami King in this, not Super)
@@jaretco6423 In Sticker Star, you have to backtrack every time you get a Thing so that you can turn it into a sticker for you to use as a special attack. You need those special attacks to make 6 of the bosses remotely manageable, so that makes at least 6 times you have to backtrack around the game to find the things you need assuming you get everything in one go. And that's not counting the obscure puzzles that requires said things which I'm too lazy to count. Couple that with finding pieces of the Drybake Stadium, collecting all of Wiggler's parts, and revisiting 5-3 to get the path necessary to progress with the world, and that's 3 more major instances of backtracking to deal with. It's pretty rancid.
I don't like backtracking in TTYD.
@@TheNuts1225 I'll take it over Sticker Star's backtracking
I have never seen a reviewer obliterate a game with such a calm demeanor such as yourself. Absolutely brilliant.
Try watching chuggaaconroy’s review/analysis it’s my favorite
To be fair, if we could not enter the Thousand Year Door without Flavio to give us a boost up the ledge, it would be hilarious.
People always say "Paper Mario fans just hate Sticker Star because it's different!!" and this video shows that it simply not the case. We dont hate sticker star because it's different. We hate it because it's a irredeemable game.
yeah I honestly don't get how people can defend this game unless they're the ones that didn't actually play it. The combat is terrible, the story is nonexistent, the characters are flat (hah), the boss fights literally ask you to skip them instead of actually playing the game, and running from battles is literally better than fighting in every way. It's just a bad game.
Yeah like, if PM fans just hated change, we would probably have just as much if not more ire toward Super, instead of it being Somewhat Divisive like it actually is (if you're wondering I'm on the side that considers it a great game)
People never said that
These are the same people that act like we only dislike recent Mario games (re: the remakes of a couple timelessly 2D Mario & Luigi games and the New Super Mario Bros. sequels) because we have our nostalgia goggles on and just aren’t letting Nintendo do what they want even though we have no power over the company to do a much better job with a lot of like they used to.
@@hype5456 Yes they do, and it still happens. They were running rampant on Miiverse back in 2016 when Color Splash was announced
I feel the worst for the Intelligent Systems employees who felt passionate about Paper Mario, and were genuinely excited to come into work to design great characters and settings, brainstorm interesting ideas, iron out the plot, write great dialogue, etc. Only to find that they had to scrap the work they did so far on their new 3DS Paper Mario. And henceforth, their brains would be hogtied and they would never again be allowed to create interesting stuff. So sorry, Kawade-san.
It honestly makes me kind of lose some respect for Miyamoto like even with his involvement in helping making Nintendo successful in the past and the other higher ups as well that still does not exempt them from criticism they are human after all...or are they🥸.They kind of come across as creatively bankrupt cowards that are afraid of being outside there comfort zone like they come across like they can't survive with one spin off Mario series being outside there no story philosophy they feel like they only want to enforce there stock standard genericness nothing else matters...ok maybe that's extreme but ya get me. Like they claim they want to be fresh and innovative yet they literally sucked out most of the charm and personality and the cool brand new characters and races and world building that fans enjoyed and replaced it with mostly recycled Toads with no redesigns allowed are you kidding me Nintendo and having interesting story is also no longer Allowed and they also won't allow the fun simple to play RPG gameplay that fans also enjoyed granted I give SPM a pass because that entry at least had most of what fans enjoyed about the first 2 games. Thanks Nintendo sigh..... Honestly these higher ups to me come across as such kill joys considering Mario Odyssey has tons of new races and locales so like what excuses does Nintendo have that the Devoloper's at Intelligent System's can't use new characters and races and locales that literally make's no sense to me. And it almost feels like they ignore most of the fans wanting the old stuff back like Miyamoto complained that sticker's gameplay was too much like TTYD like it's a bad thing so lets just dunk all that good stuff down the trash bin that fans enjoyed. Nintendo no offense but your kind of dense towards your fan base some times😮💨 Like I'm still a Nintendo gamer but man this is just shallow on Nintendo or Tanabe.
@@seasonembrace3624
literally every spinoff has some originality for its designs or a new race, even the fucking gacha mobile game.
Like, Luigis Mansion dark moon, even if the designs are a bit wack, introduces us to evershade valley: a locale full of friendly ghosts with a ton of worldbuilding that came out a couple months after sticker star.
and IS has stated they have a lot of creative freedom with the franchise.
so why the fuck is paper mario so unoriginal?
@@seasonembrace3624 But they dont, The Paper mario team have downright said they have complete creative freedom and Sticker stars limitations were ultimately just a suggestion to use the mario world cast… which they used like 8% of.
@@MahNamJeff Huh...now that is SUS now that you mention that.
I theorize the reason why people don't talk about sticker stars huge backtracking problem is because they blocked it out of their mind due to how terrible it is. I certainly did.
Agreed. It is more like calling out a big blemish on an otherwise near immaculate game whereas Sticker Star is as Red puts it, "a shiny turd" where there is so much wrong with the game that backtracking is small potato's.
Yeah, to be fair there was quite a few instances of backtracking you had to do in Thousand Year Door. But at least it wasn't for the WHOLE GAME. Sticker Star is ONLY backtracking.
It's because the game is so boring that backtracking doesn't feel that different from going to new places or levels.
They didn't actually "add" unique Toads, they just missed some Toads when purging the previous team's work.
And the new team have replaced all the unique toads with a legion of clones or some body snatchers with this as there permanent blank expression🙂.....truly a horrifying turn of events😱 Honestly someone should make a ghost story/creepy pasta or a horror game parody with this premise😁.
Who can't forget the iconic characters such as Toad, Toad, Toad and who can't forget Blue Toad
@@MeepMacArthuryou forgot to mention toad number 46,853
Kristi is such a big step down from Tippi from Super Paper Mario in every way.
Even Origami King gave us Olivia who is so much better, and Origami King is the bread sandwich of the Paper Mario series.
Eh at least it seems like Origami King is an edible game compared to the style over substance Sticker Star. Granted Origami is not a perfect dish but at least there is substance if we’re going based on comparisons. Of course I’m not saying Origami is better than the original trilogy (64 & TTYD & SPM) but at least it’s the best out of the modern entries so far from what I've heard so I guess that's something.
Man explains why Sticker Star is godawful for almost 4 hours straight.
@@maxtubb But why? The first two Paper Mario video games are great, especially the second one. The third one is great too storywise but videogameplaywise, not so much.
@@user-jk6iu6lf6b Super paper mario is great gameplaywise but it does suck that it is mainly a 2d platformer
@@maxtubb sure your correct and that is Nintendo’s philosophy gameplay before story but these newer paper mario’s are far too mid
@@maxtubb Yeah the Mario series as a whole isn't about story before and after the RPGs we're a thing and the series as a whole has sold well but you also can't really blame the fans for being bummed out about the developers gutting out most of the stuff that worked well for this spin off series that fans enjoyed and making it pretty shallow in the character designs because of annoying restrictions that other mainline Mario games don't have to follow is not what I call good game design if we're only talking about the Paper Mario series not the whole of Mario. But if you still feel that Paper Mario doesn't really deserve to have an interesting story just because of it's cutesy art style well it's your loss in my opinion but I also respect your opinion.
@@maxtubb Yeah that's fair it's not your style of gameplay preference as for me I'm not a giant fan of Tetris style games or puzzle games for the most part.
The thing I hated most about this game wasn't even the battle system. It was how cryptic the puzzles were. I was stuck on this game for God knows how long. I had to look up what to do. Sticker Star is impossible to play without a guide.
Yeah trying to play this game without a guide is a nightmare.
@@TheRedGuy Yup. Not to mention the amount of paths and items that blend EXTREMELY well with the environment.
Honestly this the biggest flaw. The “thing” puzzles aren’t even intuitive often. I like the rest of the game actually. Still weakest in series of course.
@@Buttington_Headerson Agreed.
It's precisely why I gave up on the game. Having to keep looking up a guide to progress wasn't fun.
The best part of sticker star was that when your health was low mario got super drunk and the music reflected that, I prefer it over the beeping
This is my first time learning about how that Toad in the windmill level has his garden re-destroyed after you beat the stage and come back. Poor guy... The game he's in sucks, but he didn't do anything wrong. Little man just wants to grow some flowers and have something nice, and the world just says 'lol no.' I feel kind of bad for him.
That is, by a wide margin, the *most* emotion I've ever felt about ANYTHING relating to Sticker Star.
Ya wanna know another problem with Paper Jam? It not only only uses Sticker Star for Paper Mario, but because of how clean and sanitized Sticker Star is, it sanitized Mario and Luigi too. None of the characters or environments from the other four M&L games appear. That game, while still good, in my opinion symbolizes everything wrong with the late 2000s-2010s era of Mario. Where everything is sanitized and basically just New Soup in RPG form. Where the few new things are for *one* game only. Thankfully with Mario Wonder and the TTYD remake it seems like we’re going back to actual unique things in Mario from before New Soup Wii.
If Sticker Star were the very first game in the series, I think its simplistic storytelling and mechanics would be somewhat more forgivable. But as you've comprehensively shown, even as a standalone game its flaws are too numerous and extensive, and it simply doesn't hold up well.
Maybe that's what Sticker is chronologically, the very first game in the series.
Yeah like for the storytelling maybe, but the fact of the matter is that the mechanics are just straight up *bad*. If you design an RPG battle system where *running* is more powerful than fighting, where basic attacks are consumables, where boss fights are a binary between tedious or nonexistent, where there is almost zero strategy. Then you've just made a bad game, regardless of any possible context it could be placed in.
Story maybe, but absolutely not with the gameplay
I have two theories reguarding Paper Mario. My first is that Super Paper Mario created two timelines, one good and one bad. We are currently going through the bad timeline, where Dimentio succeeded in ending all worlds and turning them all lifeless (aka Sticker Star)! Think the fallen hero timeline from Zelda, but it makes more sense because these stories after Super feel mor deliberately lifeless. My second theory is that instead of the two separate timelines, perhaps, Dimentio failed, however, he still had a small amount of power left, as hinted by his final bits of dialogue, to JUST curse Mario's dimension to become bare and stripped of all life and become paper, as one final act of revenge. This theory would make sense when you realize the curses in Thousand Year Door were about transforming Mario in the paper. These curses were unnatural and were treated as such, making this radical change all the more fitting. This paper dimension now is a desolate waste land that is stripped of life, and no one there remembers anything of their previous lives. I mean, they kinda rebooted the story from the first game in SS, like nothing from the first game even happened, but this time, everything went wrong. It's like a reset timeline, where everyone's memories have been cleansed of all previous event. So much so that Bowser even forgot to talk! When there are references to the past lives in Paper Mario, they are left in a garbage dump in 5-1! This is going to sound like a potential third theory, but maybe it caused a rift in dimensions, where there are now 2 Mario dimensions, as seen in Paper Jam. Whatever, that game is not cannon, so just ignore that theory. Anyways, when you take into account Sticker Star's implications and what came before it and etc., Sticker Star is actually a storytelling masterpiece, and it expertly displays its themes in its terrible gameplay and general structure!
I so hope Kawade returns for one last time to close off the Paper Mario series and maybe somehow incorporates a story that they escape from the paper universe - like these adventures still exist but SS, CS and TOK being under a different world than the 1st 3 (which I still feels more connected the loose Mario canon).
This sounds like the dumbest yet chest ARG idea in the world.
You know? That would be an amazing idea for an actual good RPG Paper Mario. Imagine that you start an adventure something like Seven Stars but you are playing something like Sticker Star at the start and then you find a Star Point orb with Twink in it and he tells you that the world is under Dimentio's absolute control and as you find your 7 or 8 mcguffins to beat Dimentio, you free not only the world but your own RPG capabilities. That would be pretty awesome if properly executed.
46:47 I agree completely. Some of my favorite Mario games were games that took bold risks. Games that weren’t too afraid to get weird. The Mario universe has sooooo much variety and potential for new ideas. This I believe is because Mario, like you mentioned before, is elevated by the environments he finds himself in. Mario is interesting because he can be incredibly flexible to unique and new styles and ideas and, when done right, can be some of the most new and exciting experiences ever for a video game franchise. Personally, I do have a soft spot for the classic style but games like Odyssey, Galaxy, and the Mario and Luigi series show just how much Nintendo can push a Mario games core ideas and are some of my favorite games because of this change. Mario can be in almost anything, and that’s why it works so well. I still have yet to try the Paper Mario series out for myself properly but I really want to try out TTYD. I am a bit more of a platformer guy than an RPG guy but I do enjoy the art style of the N64 Paper Mario and TTYD quite a bit. There’s just something about the chunky outlines and the characters designs and color that is just super unique to those games. The sticker star game and Origami King unfortunately are my only experiences with the Paper Mario series.
I am unsure why youtube recommended me this 2 year old video, but I’m glad it did because this video was great, your channel deserves more attention
Thanks to TH-cam i know what im gonna be watching for the next 8 hours 😂 (he has too many interesting videos and he explains everything so well) ❤
Regarding the first strike defeat, I feel TTYD had that down pat with the First Strike badge. Instead of having your base attack being higher than the opponents being the catalyst (which would be pointless since your base attack only goes up with the Super and Ultra boots and hammer), its instead based on your level. The higher your level it, the less star points you get from weaker enemies, to discourage grinding, and when the number of star points you get from an enemy is 0, then the First Strike badge kills the enemy on the field. This is much simpler than whatever the hell Sticker Star tried to do, and its much more useful since you can still use the First Strike badge even in later areas since, again, they give less EXP as you level up.
Basically 4 hours of FACTS. I feel exactly as you did. Sticker Star ultimately wasn't the worst game I ever played but man...it destroyed a franchise that meant the world to me. Ultimately the thing that helped me move past this franchise was Bug Fables. I think the game is absolutely fantastic, its a spiritual successor to Paper Mario and lowkey...I think its better than TTYD. And that's my favourite game. Excellent video man, keep up the good work.
Thanks! Yeah Bug Fables is really good.
It was a blast working on this video with you and I feel this review clears up a lot of misconception and surface level lens from people of not just the fanbase, but many critics as a whole. ESPECIALLY in regards to articulating the linear vs non linear fallacy! Gamers nowadays have such a black and white perspective of this if its "nonlinear its good, if its linear its bad" as if being designed either way is the ONLY way a game should or shouldn't be designed, there are these people just speaking in absolutes, as if every single fundamental aspect must be design in a specific way, not everything needs to be nonlinear or 100% freedom to be good. Otherwise you're just wanting every game designed with the same clear ideologies in mind. It's how a game executes the uses of nonlinearity and linearity that determines weather or not the design is outright bad. Its like how people say Sonic Adventure is more "open" than Adventure 2 because you can spin dash jump, which basically requires the player to skip the level, which isn't nonlinear you're just not playing the level. Or than PM64 is "open" because of branching paths, ignoring how most of them just lead to designated areas and most are just connected by hallways anyway.
But also I'm sick of the sudden apologists of this game who all of a sudden just decide this game is good (being it sudden reviews on TH-cam or an entire perception change within the PM community itself) just because the game happens to be "nonlinear" or entirely basing it on the perception of "its good because its not like TTYD" thing, when this game isn't hated or bad because its not like TTYD. (I also hate how much of a label that's being thrown around to the point the fanbase is downright insufferable with it) and even if I myself dislike sections like Twilight Town or General White I feel so much focus in the PM community nowadays is how much "TTYD is bad, or overrated" in the same vein as when Ocarina of Time was getting the same rep based on the perception Arin Hanson layed onto it, rather than having actual discussions, because its hard to have one when so many discussions are just endless echo chambers of someone complaining about TTYD. Outside of with you guys of course, because its always fun. lmao And admittedly there's still fun in going more indepth with the series.
I'm not saying it doesn't have its issues, it does, but like there's a point where proving a game has flaws verges into just complaining to the point of repetition. The outright hostility this fandom has with discussions over any game (especially TTYD) anymore is insane, its honestly the worst fanbase as of 2021. Regardless I feel this review did what a lot of other reviews failed to do and that is a dissection as to why the image of this game is the way it is or why its so bad. Also nice touch on counteracting those "similarity "arguments (which get used a lot against TYD) in how a game can have similar design aspects, but how the game uses them can still form its own identity. Just because both chapter 1's are grassy areas that lead to castles doesn't mean one is ripped off from the other.
As a side note, I'm not saying people can't like this game, whatever prerogative you have is your own, I'm just calling out the ones who just now 180 this game and just decide its a good game based on very surface level generalizations or observations. Being nonlinear fails for this game because the way its structured doesn't equate very well to the design at all.
This is one of the worst video games I have ever played, even if I've played worse like Metroid NES, Megaman X7 and Anubis 2 the design of this game is just so inheritly bad that its awful to play. And its only the second worst RPG game I've ever played. Well done Red also to Horayn and IKG as well!
You, my friend, are based.
Almost
4
Hours
It’s hilarious to me that this is regarded as an incredibly simple game compared to what came before, yet you talk about it for an hour longer than super, half of which was really just the story; close to twice as long as ttyd, which is known to have the deepest combat; and nearly *three* times as long as the first game.
You put your heart and soul into this video and it shows. Keep up the great work man! 👍
It tends to take longer to explain why something doesn't work, then why something does work. And there's a lot wrong with Sticker Star lol.
I remember when everyone was saying the world was gonna end on december 21st back in 2012 so i spent all day and night playing sticker star because i got it the day before as an early christmas gift and i was determined to play through it. The fact that this game could have been the last game i ever played before the entire human race went extinct upsets me
Turns out, Sticker Star is what the Mayans really predicted.
I think the book in Paper Jam is simply a written retelling of how Mario rescued Peach from Bowser. There's nothing implying that any of the 3 original Paper Mario games are actually a part of it. If that was the case then characters from those games should've actually come out of it, which they didn't. To me that's a clear implication those are different stories entierly. As for the 3 original Paper Mario games they are technically stories told by someone (an invisible narrator). Whether or not they are stories of stuff that actually happened, made up or just a legend that has changed over the years we don't know. Nor do we know who the reader is, or if it is anyone at all (The story teller technically doesn't have to be anyone).
I think the worst thing about Sticker Star is the potential. Imagine a PMSS where stickers were the new badges, Kersti started being nicer after you reunite in the pit, and Things didnt need to be Slinged. Just those small changes would make the game so much better
Only 3000 subs? Wow. This is on par with every 1M+ review channel. I loved this and you definitely just summed up everything that I've wanted to scream from the rooftops about this game for a while.
Can't wait to see your channel get huge once the algorithm starts actually working and recommends everyone your videos! Great job, king.
As someone who some of my favorite games of ALL TIME are Paper Mario and TTYD, I'm still salty and probably always will be about what they did to this franchise. Modern Paper Mario games ARE better than Sticker Star, but really, that's not saying much.
The fact that Nintendo will, with every amount of odds, just ignore the original Paper Mario and TTYD style and never-ever return to it us extremely frustrating and sad. All in the name of money, harmonization with the new "modern" two-dimensional boring ass version of Mario that they're pushing now, compared to games as beautiful and well-written as the first two Paper games.
What is perhaps more frustrating and sad is that even if fans banded together to make a non-for-profit Paper Mario game - one that is actually faithful to the original titles, they'd gleefully DESTROY the developer's entire lives with lawsuits and debt. God forbid somebody spends months on their lives working on a passion project to try and faithfully follow up the original games. I guess the way Nintendo sees it, every person who enjoys playing a Paper Mario game faithful to the original on an emulator technically loses them a nanospeck of money that people should (in their opinion) be going to their bastardized new Paper Mario games instead, so therefore, they must be obliterated. I understand their savage tactics if people are blatantly stealing their game/assets for profit, but when it comes to people working together to create a not-for-profit passion project/recreating game franchises and concepts that Nintendo refuses to touch anyway, and they come at them full-force and try and obliterate their entire lives... It really busts my balls.
I just want SOMEBODY to make a faithful Paper Mario game again. I'm not saying this because I looooove undermining Nintendo, but they AREN'T DOING IT THEMSELVES. In their mind, I suppose, they couldn't care less, since there's the possibility of losing money (however microscopic an amount) by doing so, since money (and good PR, in turn resulting in more money) is the only thing that matters.
This video was extremely cathartic for me, and I was loving every second of it. Hats off to you and the other writers for this massive undertaking. It summarizes everything that's been bubbling under the surface about this game that I haven't put into words before. It's so validating to see other people have the same (100% accurate) view on this sad ending for the original franchise.
Can't wait to see your channel get bigger, bro. Great job :)
One small detail I like is when the Pokey boss fight starts, instead of saying "FIGHT!", it says "PLAY BALL!".
How don’t you have more of a following? This is one the most comprehensible reviews I have seen. The editing, the writing. All of it screams quality.
Keep up the incredible work. You’ve earned yourself a subscriber.
Thanks!
I was once in the camp of "Thousand Year Door had way too much back tracking" but then I played Sticker Star, and Thousand Year Door was now my favorite, despite the back tracking
I was too but I’ll take ttyd backtracking over sticker star backtracking any day
Ttyd's backtracking AT WORST is go from one area and back. Sticker Star's is more "find roadblock, look for possible solution, lose solution because it wasn't the devs intent, find actual solution, make it a sticker and find roadblock again."
I always hate it when people make the argument "If you judge the game on its own merits, instead of always comparing it to the previous games...."
I mean the game sucks anyway but...even if it didn't, that's still a horrible argument.
You're right when you say that if it didn't WANT the comparison, it shouldn't have called itself Paper Mario, but I wanted to go further than that.
Companies BENEFIT when they use brand names like that. Paper Mario is a brand, and there is some brand recognition/loyalty of some kind (well...not so much after this game, but hey, people didn't know this game sucked when it first came out, did they? Especially if they got it at launch!)
I don't think it's fair to let companies gain sales by slapping a brand name on their game and then try to argue that we shouldn't judge games by the brand names put on them. They chose to set expectations by saying it's Paper Mario, they didn't HAVE to do that. They USED those expectations to make more money, they deserve to be JUDGED by them, too.
People only use this excuse when dismissing criticism. I never see it used as a defense.
Now next is color splash. I'm pretty sure it's the same.
The Enigmansion's books of tutorials on playing the game, the lore of the Sticker Fest, and how it connects with Decalburg with the secret door make me think the Enigmansion was supposed to be in World 1, and not World 4.
It would explain why some of the Paperization puzzles were kind of basic and why the tutorial books and lore are there.
I always heard this game was bad, but never heard much elaboration beyond "It's different." And now I've been blessed with over 3 hours explaining exactly why a game I don't even have the console to play sucks.
That's because you need to listen to why people dislike the game themselves rather than people who take offense to it.
You made sticker star interesting. Not made me interested in wanting to play it, but interested in hearing about it. Your video might be the best thing to come of this game.
2:08:37 As a kid, this level stumped me and was one of the two levels I was never able to complete (the other being the temple that needed this level to be completed in order to access it). As an Australian, I didn't recognize that it was a plug outlet as outlets down under have three pin holes, not two. So I couldn't understand what the game wanted me to do and even the hint to check the harbor made no sense as it didn't click a vacuum of all things could stop the sandstorm, silly me. Keep in mind I didn't have access to internet in my house at the time so a year later, in frustration, I threw every thing sticker I could at it until I used the vacuum, which I was absolutely gobsmacked at. Then, to top it off, years later when I replayed the game, I FORGOT the solution to the puzzle because it never made sense as a kid, to which I used a guide to remember the idiocy that was 'puzzle solving' in this game.
Oh I didn't even consider different regions having different outlet types to make that puzzle harder to figure out for people.
I read online that apparently, the texture or the plug is actually different for different versions of the game, but I only have access to the American version, so I can’t verify this.
The vibe of this entire video is just AM's hate monologue but instead of a mad AI's disgust of humanity it's a three hour long video detailing every single reason why you absolutely loathe sticker star in the most in depth description possible. This is a theatre-length movies worth of pure malice and vitriol. and I mean this in a "this is a very well done and intricate video" way
and while I'm well aware this part of a series, the conclusion strongly implied "sticker star was so absolutely horrible that im going to play color splash just so I have even MORE reasons to tear apart sticker star and the modern paper mario games" while not indented, that's purest hater energy and I found it hilarious
HA, well the next videos may not quite live up to that expectation lol.
Fun Fact: Petey actually DOES have a specific Sticker weakness the game doesn't even come close to hinting at
POW Blocks (both the actual Sticker and effect from the Battle Spinner) instantly flip him over and expose his weak point
Sticker Star Is A Very Weird Game
Oof, wish I knew about that.
Yeah I can't blame you for not knowing given that, as far as I can tell, it's not even on Mario Wiki or anything of the sort
He's also weak to water based thing Stickers like the Squirt Gun that renders him soggy which is very useful when he's on his back.
I'll never forgive Sticker Star to be the last game me and my friend looked forward to together before he passed away.
Sorry for your loss
@@TheRedGuy Thank you.
Sorry, don't mean to be so glum, just another reason why I loathe this game, due to personal reason.
I got this video in my recommendations today, and I'll make sure to look through it when I've got the time. Dissecting Sticker Star is something I can't get enough of.
Excellent video. One thing I miss is how much work was put into the hub world's of the first three games. Rogueport is my favorite. You can lose yourself in the sewers, it's very mysterious and eerie with the music.
This video is extremely well made for such a small channel, and I couldn't agree more with your points. Keep up the content, I hope you can get more subscribers soon!
Thanks!
At 54:19 you're right, these toads might as well be Board characters from super mario galaxy 1 and 2. Even they have names. I wouldn't mind to have billboard signs everywhere world map. Except the main town and docking area because needed some real people there.
2:53:39
I hate to be that guy... but um... actually, the toad outside the decalburg shop who's jumping up and down and freaking out mentions that he "saw something flying over the forest" and THAT'S your only hint to go visit Wiggler again
...Seriously? Wtf...
@@TheRedGuy Throughout the game, there are even OTHER TOADS who say answers to cryptic puzzles. One toad I think mentions that either the sphynx is where you find the lightbulb, or that the lightbulb could help brighten a dark room. Something like that, and that's your answer for waking up the toad in the harbor to get the ship wheel... Credit where credit is due, the game does give you these hints. However, Who is talking to the toads in town, and who would think "I'm stuck on a puzzle. Let me go to the only town in the game, and talk to people to see where that gets me"? It's again, more backtracking that this game makes the player do to find answers to puzzles, that they shouldn't have to backtrack to answer
@@friskd909 Man, if only there were specific characters who would give hints, like a character you constantly talk to in between chapters, or maybe a fortune teller, or maybe, just maybe, a character that follows you the whole game...
@@TheRedGuy Maybe if Kersti was better written, and her hints weren't just "Wow! The breeze here sure is strong!" she could fit that role. But nope. Unlikable, and with pointless flavor text, that has no flavor at all. It's a bland meal of letters and paper based remarks.
There is a bit of agency to Wiggler’s character. If you check the journal in his home (which, of course, the game doesn’t tell you about), you can see that the last Wiggler piece, the one that was covered in poison, was at Surfshine Harbor to try to go and take care of Gooper Blooper himself.
But of course, why would Sticker Star tell you that directly?
This is exactly what I wanted. A full on major analysis of Paper Mario Sticker Star that actually goes in depth with the problems of the game, that isn’t screaming rants on Twitter and a actual coherent arguments, and even highlights the positives of the game that no one is willing to do so. I played this game three times and 100% it each time so I know a lot more then the average person does and even then this review surprised me in new information I never knew, like the rock that is a outlet in the desert oasis level. I thought that was a rock with eyes like how every hill in Mario has eyes.
That said there are a few things you didn’t mention. The cheep cheep boss actually has a second thing weakness. It’s the pushpin thing which you get in one of the secret doors in world one. When the cheep cheep is out of the water and fully inflated, the pushpin thing will pop it and kill it in an instant. Also the First phase of the Bowers fight, you can use staples as well as pushpins to block the enemy spawn doors. Also the thing Turkey sticker animation is really good and I’m sad it didn’t get attention. One more thing is the super flags that require lots of battles and spending money. While you say the poor battle system encourages you to avoid battles but it don’t think that’s the intention of the devs to make a battle system that is intentional bad that you WANT to avoid it. I believe they do want you to fight, use up lots of stickers and earn lots of coins in battles. It just that the whole system is so poorly designed that running away seems to be the more desirable option. The super flags that require lots of grinding to get can actually be gotten within the main game. As long as, in every world you beat every enemy, use the battle spinner to spend 18 coins to guarantee two attacks so you can better get perfect bonuses and Jackpots, and spend the huge amount of money you get from the end of level comet bonuses, then by the time you beat bowser you should have all the super flags done or at least, you only need to grind a little for the 10,000 coin one. Which isn’t too bad if you repeat Snow Rise over and over, beating every enemy there and collecting the huge coin bonus at the end. But of course, if you don’t enjoy the battle system or don’t want to spend time slowly beating every enemy then these super flags are not worth doing. But they do show that the devs want you to engage the battle system, despite how awful it was.
Well yeah just by the nature that you are rewarded at all for battling means they want you to battle, the game discouraging combat is an unintentional consequence of the poor design, rather than what's intended. But thanks for the comment! Yeah the turkey is funny but not much room to highlight it lol.
According to interviews Chuggaconroy found, the devs actually thought people would enjoy the battle system, so you're kind of right on that.
I'd go on a limb to say that TTYD bosses did actually use the Crystal Stars, to an extent, mainly with Hooktail, Cortez, Doopliss, and (obviously) Grubba, though there are some parallels with the others (this is from TV Tropes BTW):
Hooktail has the Diamond Star, which grants you power over the earth. Hooktail will use an earthquake move similar to the one you gain from beating her. It also explains how she can fly despite the tiny wings - with Gloomtail and Bonetail confined to a thousand-year-old palace and a miles-deep prison, there's no reason to assume they even can fly, as the dragons look much too heavy. Using the Diamond Star's power would remove that limitation.
The Emerald Star is received after stopping a boss who employed a timed bomb. As a reward, you get to use a bomb that stops time. Although, this is unrelated to Crump himself. It could be that it has something to do with the Great Boggly Tree, no doubt hundreds of years old, maybe thousands.
When Mario obtains the Gold Star, he's able to use Power Lift to boost his attack and defense. That (obviously) explains why Grubba was able to increase his own attack and defense.
In a similar vein, in the confines of his own chapter, Doopliss can monitor the whole area, morph people into pigs, break through reality to ambush you, and remove an actual letter from your phonetic capabilities, that is to say, your character-entering screen. Why? The power of the Ruby Star is art. This gives it near-limitless power in a game where everything from the environments to the inhabitants are paper. Notably, the next time you fight him, he doesn't take advantage of such power, because he's been separated from the Ruby Star.
Cortez possesses the Sapphire Star, which grants you Sweet Feast. The reason he's impossible to beat isn't because he's a ghost, that's just why he won't die. The reason he won't stay down despite having a meager 20 health is because he keeps replenishing it throughout the fight.
The Garnet Star, though lacking a boss, grants you Showstopper, which lets you end some fights without even trying. Garnet is often thought of or mistaken as a ruby, relating to the fake-and-switch nature of the Sanctum's scenario. Since the Star lets you blow away the easier fights, you're getting rid of them as they're "not a real challenge". The boss of Chapter 6 is Smorg, so there is a boss associated with the Garnet Star. However, it's not really associated; Smorg lives in Riverside Station and hitched a ride on the Excess Express to pick a fight with Mario in retaliation for him smacking it around like it was nothing (you don't even battle it in the station, you just beat the blobs off of a lever). the Smorgs have no connection to Poshley Sanctum.
Finally, the Crystal Star in the X-nauts' base gives Mario the ability to deal massive damage in a huge explosion, similar to the one that almost takes out their base upon Crump's defeat, as well as the way Mario and co arrive to the base (via a large Ba-Bomb cannon).
I think the reason you got another flashy sticker from that paperization box is because flashy is the highest tier of sticker, at least for that type. The mechanic still blows though
Wow, I can't believe I watched an almost 4 hour video about Sticker Star of all things. Really cool video, good job analyzing on these flaws the game had in a critical view! I always think back to how this game was shown in E3 2010 and how we were so close to a true successor to TTYD/64 before they changed everything by 2011.
Thanks!
Another issue that was pointed out to me about the thing sticker puzzles is that your partner will only give you hints on a puzzle if you have ALREADY found the thing you need to solve the puzzle once before. So say you didn't know the vacuum existed in the harbor because you never went there and you ask Kersti for help she won't even give you a hint on the way to clear the level and will just say. "Boy the weather here stinks doesn't it."
I want to ROM hack this monstrosity of a game. Make it playable, allow you to jump and hammer by default, change the story to something more... EPIC.
Please add experience points to make the battle not so useless
For 20+ years of my life, I've played so many games, I can count on one hand the ones I regret buying the most. Sticker Star was one of them. I curse this game for what it's done to a series I loved so fucking much since I first played Paper Mario 64. I haven't bought a Paper Mario game since. Being wary, I looked at what other Paper Mariotubers thought of the rest of the later games and concluded that I would move on, but maybe one day, hope and see evidence of a game series I love come back.
Chariii5 managed to fall through the floor in world 2, and it is possible to crash the game with an excellent hit on Gooper Blooper. So technically this game does not meet Nintendo’s standards of quality.
Apparently Chugga managed to consistently crash the game when using the bowling ball Thing sticker on Gooper Blooper.
I'd argue the Wiggler is actually not as shallow a character as the rest of the game's offerings at all. The problem is that his arc is not verbally justified.
You mentioned how the segments might have his personality, and I think this is correct. However, there also seems to be an unwritten implication that once he gets restored, the Wiggler retains the memory of each individual segment. If we go by that logic, then the Wiggler was potentially rowdier and more insincere than he lets on. But it just so happens that the head catches on to his own plight before his segments do, and because of this, his only given means of talking doesn't really imply his bad side at all. But this sort of would explain how he learns where the poison was coming from after being restored, and why he would have any reason to want to be more responsible afterwards.
Of course, this would be so much easier to understand if the game made mention of this directly. But because the game runs on severe miscommunication, it's as easy to miss as the few journal entries that do convey parts of the forest's narrative. This, coupled with the horrid level design of World 3, means that the only overarching story in the game with any resemblance of depth going for it is basically poisoned at the surface, with no real reason to dive into it.
You do have a point there.
Not sure why the TH-cam algorithm led me to you and this video one whole year after upload, but God I am so happy it did. I haven't even played this game (but I love the Paper Mario franchise, at least the first three games), but I was enthralled listening to you go off for almost 4 hours.
I feel like the games sticker consumable combat could've been so much better, so fuck it, here's my idea on what the stickers should have been.
Another thing that would've been interesting to use stickers as is to scrap the entire thing of just spamming stickers, and instead keep your base action commands with a hammer and jump but instead have the stickers act as sort of a boost or a new ability, now this would remove most of the sticker variants but it'll make more sense later.
For now lets look at the types of stickers you will use.
Offensive Stickers: these will be your main source of damage providing special abilities to your stock jump and hammer
Defensive Stickers: these will increase Mario's defensive stats and sometimes provide special traits
Status: These will inflict statuses on both you or the enemy depending on what you use.
Partners: these will replace the normal enemy item stickers and instead bring a temporary partner into the fight with their own hp and unique attacks (ie boomerang give you a boomerang bro)
Healing: Will heal Mario and apply special buffs on you and your partner if one is active.
Things: No longer have action commands and instead act like star-power with more powerful ones requiring more TP to use, things also only require you to find and fling them ONCE, they are separate to your stickers and have their own menu.
Stickers can now be stacked in pairs of 3 for the entire time. This can be upgraded later but that'll be soon. For now lets go into how this all works.
At the start of a battle it will look the same as sticker star, only with 1 difference. Your stickers are completely optional and you can freely use a hammer and jump. However, due to this, the game will be a tad harder. To attack you'll select the hammer or jump, then you'll have the option to choose a sticker to give that attack a certain buff. Stickers like the jump and hammer are no longer used for attacking, instead you can add 1 to boost your damage, do a specific hammer attack, or inflict a certain status onto an enemy.
However, you can also choose not to attack and instead use the defend option. this will let you use a Healing, Status, Defensive, or Partner sticker on Mario but prevent him from attacking until the next turn. Action commands are now more diverse than just pressing the a button, especially for higher tier stickers.
Partner stickers will summon an enemy based on the sticker to aid you in battle, each one has their own set of attacks and HP/DEF, but cannot use stickers like Mario, however if you choose the partner command instead of defend, attack or run. you can apply a buff of status sticker to a partner. Since the partners are also enemies certain de-buff stickers will actually help a specific partner, if your partner is a blooper, a poison mushroom will actually raise the amount of turns their poison is applied for depending on the rarity.
After a battle you will gain EXP, when you level up you can choose to increase your sticker count size by 1, increase your TP or, increase your SP, Health Defense and base attack power is increased after each world you beat to balance with difficulty spikes.
SP replaces higher tier sticker types by making them a permanent upgrade. SP can be used to upgrade your stickers to permanent higher tiers. If you upgrade a shiny sticker to a flashy, all stickers of that kind will be flashy. Sticker tiers will all be the same and are ranked in this order
Worn Out
Normal
Shiny
Flashy
Big Shiny
Mega Flash
Finally, running from battles is a 100% chance but, will inflict you with a unique status that aggro enemies to you for a moment, creating a risk vs reward system, that lets you escape unwanted fights, but makes another encounter more probable.
this is just an idea, but its far better than anything this shitty game that's came up with.
Interesting ideas
I’m glad you brought up the paper aesthetic problem because that was one of my biggest problems as well. Considering the first game was originally called Mario RPG 2, it’s interesting how the localized name has become its identity to such an extreme degree.
Sticker star’s save system is actually glitched and allowed for arbitrary code execution. One of the main ways of modding a 3DS at one point was through Sticker Star. Though Pokémon picross ended up taking the prize later cause it shared the same issues and was free to download.
19:53 had a heart attack praying the video wasn't gonna get taken down till I heard the redubbing of the clip and then I looked at how long ago it was uploaded right after and realized, "oh ok I'm just stupid"
3:07:50 I missed the fish hook right next to the cheep cheep boss. On the bright side not finding the Thing made me so frustrated I stopped playing so in the end I'm thankful
Just watched a nearly 4 hour Video about one of my favorite Rpg franchise and its worst entry.. LOVED EVERY SECOND :D Sub earned!
Glad you enjoyed
It's weird to think that I found this channel through your twitter reply to one person asking about Sticker Star. It's quickly become one of my favorites.
Lol, glad you're enjoying it!
Great video. This is the most detailed look at Sticker Star I’ve ever seen and why it’s as bad as it is. I had no idea the whomp in the final boss was actually weak to anything while on the ground, as I always attacked it with scissors. I’m really sad with how the series has fallen and even though it has gotten better in recent years, there’s still a long way to go. I can tell they are still set on the paper mechanic unfortunately. The recent trailer for the original Paper Mario game on the Nintendo Switch Online service just HAD to put in paper puns for a game that almost had NOTHING to do with paper. I mean the game’s name in Japan is Mario’s Story!
I vehemently REFUSE to play any game after Sticker Star.
I don’t give a single solitary (Insert your favorite Swear Word here) about what positives people may have to say about “”Paper Mario”” The OK.
I Will Not play that game, or any like it, for what they did to my Beloved Paper Mario.
I already talked about how Sticker Star was the Last Game me and my now deceased Friend were waiting for together before he passed away.
We were friends at a young age, didn’t hang out for like 10 Years or so, and then we somehow got in contact again.
What did we do? We played Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door together. It was the first game I ever played from beginning to end together with a friend. We had a blast. Our Friendship came back once more around this game. It is one of my life’s all time most precious memories.
May he Rest in Piece. I miss you, Daniel.
Not only do I have one of the worst things that have happened to me in my life tied to this game, but I also blame this game for the Death of one of my All Time Favorite Game Franchises ever.
Because of this game, we will never get another proper Paper Mario ever again.
I own Multiple Copies of each of the three games, both Physical and Digital, just because I love them all so much.
Sticker Star forever changed what Nintendo will allow the franchise to do due to its misunderstood success.
People didn’t buy it as much as they did because it was as good as the proper Paper Mario games, but because everyone thought that we would get something like TTYD2, or at least SPM2.
That is not what we got at all.
What we got was a complete soulless mess of incoherently smushed together mechanics that wore the skin suit of our beloved Paper Mario.
I can’t put it into as clean and concise words as you could perhaps, but sit down and talk to me and you won’t hear the end of it.
If I could go back in time, I would un-purchase this game. Only reason why I have not thrown this game in the trash is simply because I can’t make myself do that to a video game, no matter how bad it is.
I know for a fact that I am not the only one who feels like this.
Your paper shredder of a review proves as much.
This is also how Arlo because as prominent as he is. He got his most important subscriber boost ever thanks to his video about how Paper Mario is now Dead. Because so many of us believe the exact same thing, and were clearly affected by the loss of the franchise.
Which is also why I Love Bug Fables as much as I do.
It took everything I Love about Paper Mario, and went above and beyond.
It is what a Proper Paper Mario Game deserves to be.
If only we could get a game like it with the manpower and resources that only a company like Nintendo can provide.
But seeing how Nintendo handles everything that isn’t Mainline Mario and a few exceptions, I do not think that we will ever get it, at least until something drastically changes.
Very nice review you guys. Well done tearing this Failed Art Project to absolute shreds.
It deserves nothing less than the worst.
Now that The Thousand Year Door is getting a remake there just might be hope for Paper Mario's future.
@@maxtubbPFFT- dude we are getting new creative games: totk, Pikmin 4 and more. Yet your here saying stuff like that about a remake that everyone wanted for years and the original game was getting very expensive so it's hard to play the original game.
@maxtubb8560 I get your angle, but few people have (legal) access to these older games. It can be very expensive. I don't mind the ports or remakes for that reason. Some kid will get to experience their new favorite game through these remakes.
Besides, emulators can be a hassle to set up optimally.
@@maxtubbAlso it's reasonable for Nintendo to pull back on new IPs right now since a couple of their recent experiments have underperformed. Arms, Labo, and 1 2 Switch are a few that I can name off the top of my head.
It sucks, but brand recognition is vital to sales right now.
@@maxtubbMario bros Wonder seems extremely creative but yea
@@maxtubb Yea me too. I was shocked that they made a super Mario bros games with some personality and charm to it after all the new soup shenanigans
You forgot that bowser can crumple you therefore making you unable to move so you will have no way to heal or damage him and when you are crumpled you get 2x damage, so if you get hit and the 50% chance you get crumpled, instant death. Complete garbage.
I literally played this game and only now recently knew what the weakness to the goomba king is
I was one of those weird players who actually battled almost every enemy even though there was little incentive, and despite the game being a guilty pleasure, I still absolutely hated the achievement banners. Combining the lack of a post game and the fact that you'll have a lot of stickers prepared for the final boss, grinding during the late game for those achievements extends the already indefinite tedium to a whole nother dimension, and you'll have a heck of a time preparing for the boss again. It might genuinely be less painful to get through SPM 2-3 without opening the safe.
Paper Jam sucks even more from the perspective of someone who is both a Paper Mario and M&L fan. Not even the M&L side has anything from the series except Starlow. Even though Bowser is last seen with the Elite Trio in Dream Team and up till then the games were fairly consistent with continuity with each other, and would often bring back old characters especially in Dream Team. Heck even the later REMAKES did this, with the side modes featuring characters who were introduced in later games to give extra history for them. And yet... Paper Jam exists in its own sterile bubble. AlphaDream is better than this game. They showed it with Dream Team and even the remakes that they weren't gonna suck-up to the modern Mario "IP integrity" mandates. Except of course, the mandates won where it mattered the most, the game that was Paper Mario's last chance to bring back its own characters by being in the hands of a dev who cares about keeping RPG characters around beyond the main cast. Paper Jam in concept, combining my two favorite series ever, could have been my favorite game of all time, but in execution it's one of my least favorites of all time. That.... stings so hard 😢
The world-building Paper Mario did still remains after Paper Jam, because the book is a paralel world, which means everything from inside the book happaned in the real world, just with slight differences, specifically some paper jokes and mechanics. The Paper Mario world-building is referenced numerous times outside of the Paper Mario games in the rest of the franchise, so it still all happened in the real world and is still all canon.
1:33:32 it’s funny, I’ve been saying for a while now that Color Splash could have been alright if they structured combat like a deck building game, I didn’t even think of the possibility that Sticker Star also could’ve been better if it had some deck building aspect to it.
I'm surprised this channel doesn't have more subscribers. This review is super well thought-out and a lot of fun to watch! You can see how much care was put into it.
I'm now subscribed because this is phenomenal content, and you put so much effort into this video.
If I may add.
Alot and I mean ALOT of these problems were fixed in the beta, let me list them (idk if anybody will read this but I just want to document this as a fyi)
-decalberg was going to be far more alive, with more houses, toads, and more maps in general, hell, it even had a cut sewer system
-obviously the battle system with the partners. Some being mario enemies like the chain chomp and "the gold galoomba", and some being original charecters like kirsti and "mr slit"
-more unuiqe levels such as the famous card area and a "rotating warehouse"
-bosses not only had original designs like the king mander and king mole, but it is very likely they didn't need the use of things either
- there would've been a butt load of more original charecter, including some I've mentioned before like king mole, king mander and the entire mander race (those koopa snake guys from the one screenshot) mr slit, gold galoomba, and even the toad from the enigmansion used to be old and had a mustache, with bowser, birdo and most enemies without dialogue in retail having fully fledged talking animations.
-alot of the thing stickers might've (and this is speculation fyi) just been cut, atkeast for out of battle use, as they might very been partner abilities Instead.
-a few of the bosses were better in terms of story in the beta, for some reason they cut mr blizzerds entire reason why he needed to be stopped, even though it was fully implemented in beta screenshots, as he was supposed to bring apon a snow storm apon the land for all the levels (like that one from enigmansion) and king mander (likely unused world 1 boss) likely being brought back to life (as code implies his boss would've started with him being a skeleton)
-peach interludes were in the beta
-final note is that, there would've been an extra chapter, as seen in a trailer depicting 7 Royal crowns instead of 6, likely being that the lava and jungle world were separated, making both better in the long run.
Hope you enjoyed reading this wall of dumb sticker star trivia, it's tumps me why some of this stuff was cut as some (not all) of it was practically almost finished and just made the game 10 times better, I joke to myself that they accidentally released a early prototype of the game, but hey, if you have any more questions let me know since I have researched this game for more time then I'd like to admit lmao
Now everytime some kid asks why i hate Sticker Star with burning passion, i'll send them this video. Thanks
This video is a absolute massacre and shuts down any possibility of a positive opinion on the game and the fact its 4 hours long just shows how much the game sucks
I LOVE KING OF CARDS I LOVE HOW YOU RANDOMLY BROUGHT IT UP LOL
I’ve stated before that I have a decent amount of experience when it comes to character building, and just story writing in general. But that didn’t come just out of the blue one day. I take inspiration from the media I consume; we all do, whether we see it or not. I like reading stories; I like seeing what plot twists games can conjure up to throw me off. Making a creative and original story isn’t trying to make a brand new thing that’s never been seen before, since that’s impossible. In my eyes, it’s taking the ideas that you have and mixing and matching them together until you have something that’s a fresh take on the key idea. To clarify, it’s not to just plagiarize the popular stories, it’s to offer a new spin on the existing idea, usually another idea in and of itself.
Do games need a story? Well, yes. It doesn’t have to be very complex or original, but it needs to have a good one; something to keep the player engaged to the end. People love Banjo-Kazooie, and I wouldn’t exactly say that game’s story is very complex: Grunty kidnaps Tooty, Banjo and Kazooie go off to rescue her. That’s really it. But it’s still fun and charming, and something that almost anyone can enjoy. The characters actually have personalities and interact in different ways to each other. The main cast isn’t very big, just Banjo, Kazooie, Grunty, Bottles, Mumbo, and Tooty. But they’re fun and memorable, genuinely feeling real sometimes. My point is, games don’t have to have deep plots to be good.
But this game? This is a disgrace to the writing community as a whole. The story is practically nothing, giving you next to no context as to why you’re doing anything. And the characters? Yeah, they suck; I’m looking at you, Kersti. But hang on. Kazooie is Banjo’s counterpart, and like Kersti, is irritable, rude, and impulsive. What’s the difference? LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE. Sure, Kazooie might have a sharp beak, constantly insulting almost everyone and not shy to say she hates something, but she’s actually likeable. Her outbursts tend to be hilarious and creative, and her being sassy to others is just as funny. Not to mention, gameplay wise, Kazooie is incredibly useful, the Talon Trot and Rat-a-Tat Rap being amazing in gameplay.
Kersti? Yeah, she’s got none of that. Never once was Kazooie angry at Banjo (though there were times Banjo got angry at her), but Kersti just has no one else to vent her spleen on aside from Mario, which obviously doesn’t work here since Mario has the depth and character of a tennis ball. If they were going for a Kazooie-style character (not that I think they were), they failed miserably. This game had twelve writers-TWELVE-and this is what they came up with for story and characters!?
Just watched this whole series of reviews so far in a row and I'm extremely impressed (as well as surprised they aren't getting more attention). Super high quality work, and I love how thorough you cover everything about these games. Consider me a fan, very much looking forward to the Color Splash video!
This one was a great video really, maybe to heavy for one sitting (in my case i saw it between days), but all the references (edited memes), opinions, an extra stuff shows all the care you put in a review of something you hate so much. I can't imagine a review of something you love, would be perfect ! Im glad i found your channel
Thanks! I have a few games I love that I'd like to give a similar treatment to, but I don't know if they'll reach this length, it tends to take longer explaining how something doesn't work, then it does explaining why it does. But who knows.
With the 64 comparisons, in sticker star. Color splash has ttyd,s skeleton but without everything that makes that game work. Example 1; the game starts at mario,s house, Peach invites you to a town, the boat is the exact same as ttyd,s boat, the starting area and layout of Port prisma is very alike that of Rogueport then you a have a simillar plaza with a pool in the center, like the noose.The town also has a west side and east side, but without the sewers or the train station or the character of rogueport. world 1 involves getting to a castle but instead of fighting a dragon you fight Morton, the paint stars are basically the crystal stars. Example 2: world 4 has you getting on a boat to get to a pirate island, you fight wendy instead of Cortez, because this is the nsmb era. world 5 has a sunset setting, a train that you ride, like the excess express, and you fight larry on top of the train like smorg. these are all the comparisons that I can find . Is it me or is this just a coincedence, that the very, very basic plot structure is the same.
It’s a really streamline paper Mario game for on the go! They filtered out all the things that make the game “slow” like EXP, party members, other playable characters, a post game, a plot, the fun…
I love Paper Mario. And youtube discussion videos like this are a guilty pleasure of mine on long drives. 2 days ago I decided I'd see if anyone thought to merge the two things I love and I found your channel. I think I'm 8 hours into your content now and I'm a fast fan; next up is your Luigis mansion saga and I can't wait for it. I've subbed and hit the bell in anticipation of the eventual color splash and origami king videos! Thank you for the time you put into this channel
Thanks man!
I now remember frustratingly filling out the museum was the only thing keeping me going when I played the game. Its hurt so good
Literally, I think I was biased towards the game initially because of how fun the museum was to fill out. I do remember getting extremely frustrated at a bunch of the things mentioned in this review, though, so I never beat it.
Edit: Oh no I know who you are oh God
The part about the boss weakness... using the weakness is not even the fastest option sometimes. Like you can take out gooper blooper and the giant pokey in 1 or 2 turns with the boom box to double your attack power and the squirt gun item to take out most of it's health and finish it off with whatever other attack based thing items.
Although Kirsti STILL goes on the "you used too many stickers" speech despite the solution the game wants you to do can only be pulled off effectively in 4 or 5 turns. But at least it isn't Color Splash where the game treats the player like an idiot by having the kooplings have an instant death attack that they do when you don't have the weakness... even though they could've instantly killed Mario turn 1 but decide not to????
I’m starting to understand why it’s hated. It feels like whoever was head of the game development or someone above them just wanted to make it a middle finger to the older games and players
Myamoto.
I'm legit stunned there's 3 games of this style now and they still haven't given us a good reason to fight normal enemies.
I I beat PMSS in high school. I do not remember a single thing except big stickers
I picked up paper jam, played it and put it down. I had no clue about sticker star, so the strange gimmicks and thing about paper mario being in a book I thought must've been the Mario & Luigi creative team not understanding the source material. But the fact it was the source material not understanding itself... ouch. It was too infuriating to get through, I really thought I was gonna get fun references and maybe a really cool silly crossover. Silly me lol
I'm pretty sure it's more so that Alphadream was put on a restraint by Nintendo to do the game exactly how they wanted them to rather than being given creative freedom. It's a combination of Miyamoto getting his hands on Paper Mario and the producers themselves wanting to focus on braindead simple storytelling and abandoning old Paper Mario altogether. There is no way Alphadream would just neglect putting Toadsworth in their game. Literally a staple character from both M&L and even main series Mario. It's definitely an outside force at hand.
Considering even Miyamoto doesn't like how Sticker Star turned out, there may still be hope, VERY thin hope that he'll let a faithful Paper Mario happen again by the hands of another team with the passion to do it right and won't actively sabotage the game. *_Peers carefully at Moonsprout Games_*
The catharsis about how Paper Jam messed up how the original 3 Paper Mario games affected the potential and importance per se of them to the Mario franchise - I so agree hehe. Like I get they had to have a way to crossover the two spin-offs, but it just emphasized how "paper" it is. I really didn't realize it's implications until I saw what Paper Mario has become. I would have to think Alphadream asked if Mario in Paper Mario was different when it was pitched but I assume the current staff saw that universe as different. Anyway, at best you can say Paper Jam is non-canon as it is the last new game in the M&L franchise (sadly) and it didn't get referenced in TOK.
PHENOMENAL, absolutely phenomenal. Nearly four hours and never a dull moment. This video deserves more than 32k views, it deserves 32 million.
The most mysterious part of this game is how anyone actually defends it's problems.
Paper Mario being a book makes perfect sense actually. The name for the original paper Mario in in Japan was Mario story, and the paper Mario games look like pop up story books. I mean both paper Mario 64 and TTYD literally starts with someone telling a “story” the story of the wish granting star rod or the story of the ancient town and the thousand year door. Paper Mario isn’t just another story in the Mario universe paper Mario is literally story pop up books featuring Mario and other characters from the mushroom kingdom. I think it was actually really clever how paper jam basically shows that indeed paper Mario is just a story book in the real Mario world. Still think that they should have included characters from all 4 games though. But the book thing is still really clever and neat.
Regarding the Paper Jam confusion. I don't think the Paper Mario stories are contained within a book, seperate from the "real" Mario and Luigi.
I interpret Paper Mario as just a storybook facsimile/retelling of an actual adventure done by Mario. Like, Mario's life got documented and the illustrations are the Paper Mario characters. Those characters just happened to be brought into the real world by Luigi in Paper Jam.
So like, the Mario that went to Rogueport and Flipside is the Mario in Mario and Luigi. The Paper Mario is just like... a clone with all his memories.
(Apologizes for the comment string) As for my thoughts, this was easily the most thorough and well researched video regarding this game. So many baffling design choices and not an ounce of nuance in its story or writing. I know I'm a bit late, but this was worth the 3 hours for sure. Also the commentary between you three was hilarious! Missed opportunity for a joke to transition to the door stickers would've been using the Secret Door joke from Fosters.
Also as a Peach fan I found her portrayal here insulting! Easily her worst Mario appearance.
No worries, and thanks! I actually did want to make that Fosters joke, but I couldn't find a clip of it to use.
As someone who personally does not hate sticker star in fact I have replayed it a couple of times yeah you’re pretty much right and all of your points. I don’t hate it but I completely see why everyone else does. Although I do love color splash and I just know once you review that game you’re really gonna rip into it. Which is fine. Color splash is not perfect and I’m not gonna pretend it is but it’s still going to hurt my soul a little bit😂. Anyway It sucks that you put so much time and effort into this video and it really doesn’t have as many views as it should. You’re super underrated
Kersti: He's Toad, He's Toad, you're Toad, I'm Toad! Are they're any other Toads I should know of!?
I have a quick tip for color splash, MAKE SURE you turn on “basic + buttons” in the settings, it removes pretty much all of the “new” problems in the battle system
I love how this is still gonna be longer than Chugga's 6 part series.
Yeah that was the first thing I noticed when I saw the video on my suggested videos
It's crazy that we went from this, to slightly better Sticker Star (which I liked) to Origami King which even a year later I'm shocked most people actually liked. I couldn't play this game due to my eye condition but based on all the bad things I've heard about this game I was ready to hate the sequel only to enjoy it despite it's issues.
I didnt even get past world 2 in Origami King, it still had most of the glaring issues from the last two games
First play style syndrome then huh?
1:11:11 I think you did a really good job explaining why the run system is awful. But get this: the only way you’d know about the ‘Action Command’ for running is checking the little piece of paper that came in the box. On the bottom right corner, there’s a blurb that states you need to mash A to increase the chances of running away. This is the only time it’s explained how to run… and they lied. As you said, mashing A does absolutely NOTHING to affect the chances of running! It’s one thing to have a bad tutorial that doesn’t properly explain game mechanics, but it’s another to outright lie to the player about a mechanic.
Oh wow, I never bothered to look at that...
@@TheRedGuyThe real worst part of this running system is that it’s completely out of your control. Even in a game series like Pokémon, which only says “Got away safely!” or “Can’t escape!” to signify if a run is successful, there is still a way to influence it: some Pokémon are faster than others, and the faster ones have a higher chance of successfully running. And some Pokémon guarantee a successful run with an ability called “Run Away.” Even then, you don’t get anything for running in those games, and you can’t even run from a trainer battle.
Here? You can’t influence the chance of running at all. It’s a total coin toss.
Excellent video with legitimate gripes about the game, from a meta sense and an in-game sense. I have a few memories of the game myself (and maybe a little rage too):
I judged Sticker Star from a purely in-game sense all these years, since to me the decision to change Paper Mario seems to have come from Miyamoto plus a prevailing view throughout Nintendo that having 2 Mario RPGs running concurrently was redundant (see the Iwata Asks interview about Sticker Star, and I believe Intelligent Systems developer Rita Tabata spoke to the redundancy point in another interview. The "2 RPG's" argument lost a lot of steam once Alphadream bankrupted). Sticker Star was certainly the victim of poor corporate decision-making. Paper Mario wasn't doomed so long as developers listened to fan feedback and tried to correct course with the next game. Instead of correcting anything, they released the trailer for the next game and my hope for the series died. It was COLOR SPLASH's reveal that truly broke my heart, since that was a slap in the face to fans that let us know, unequivocally, that Nintendo had NOT listened to its fans in any way and the Paper Mario we knew and loved was honestly, truly gone. I'm glad some people enjoyed it but I just couldn't. I remember my friend and I meeting up between college classes to express our utter shock to each other for a half hour after we saw the Color Splash trailer. I complained about it to my older brother. He said "I thought you liked Color Splash." I said "I did, but I *never* wanted it to happen again." Color Splash was a total blindsiding. I couldn't IMAGINE them sticking with the Sticker Star formula for another game because it made so little sense! Color Splash was when I really felt the betrayal of the series. I bought it used for $5 and still felt ripped off after I played it. At least Nintendo didn't get the $5. They didn't deserve the money for thinking Color Splash was a good idea. Despite Sticker Star's flaws, I knew what they were going in and I was prepared to enjoy the game despite them. I didn't--couldn't--do the same for Color Splash. I could live with Sticker Star as a "mistake" the developers would be ashamed of and try to forget, but the fact that they were actually proud enough of that asinine drivel they shoveled onto the 3DS to make another soulless bootleg of my favorite RPG series of all time!...Ugh, I just hate Color Splash. Origami King was an improvement and I enjoyed it, but it's still hard to ignore the fact that the Paper Mario a lot of us grew up with is just...unrecognizable today. They should not have stuck with the Sticker Star formula for future installments. Period.
For some positivity Red, you might find it odd that my favorite moment in Sticker Star was the Bowser boss battle. The bosses in general, despite being a horribly designed difficulty spike, were my favorite parts of the game because nothing in the game was challenging except those artificially difficult bosses. I really like the idea (thematically, not necessarily gameplay-wise) of Bowser having a strategy for once in his life. The guy's always a brute who uses force to fight Mario, but this time he tries to trap Mario in this multi-layered defense-in-depth of his castle. Until he loses and gets huge like he always does but whatever. Also didn't hurt that I hoarded Thing Stickers and happened to have every Thing I needed to beat him without backtracking. Either way I only liked the fight's music and concept, not the gameplay itself. On backtracking, hoarding Thing stickers helped with that a lot, which is why I didn't have a very bad backtracking experience. It's also nice that, if you look up a guide, you'll quickly find the Thing you need, whereas in Thousand Year Door having a guide won't really speed up the slog of backtracking very much except for a minor skip in Keelhaul Key. Still, you put up a compelling argument that Sticker Star has the series' worst backtracking. If we switch gears to talk about lazy level design, I think Super Paper Mario has everyone beat thanks to things like the Sammer Guy challenge & heavily truncated Chapter 6, copy-pasted Pit of 100 Trials, and generally lifeless 3D flip segments outside of mandatory progression/puzzle elements. They hide it well, but it's there and once you notice it there's no un-noticing it.
For what it's worth, Color Splash improves on some aspects of Sticker Star but, in my opinion, has the weakest battle system of the entire series since it's so clunky and time-consuming to just initiate an attack. Sticker Star was incredibly basic, but at least it was quick and intuitive. Origami King's battle system is a matter of how engaged you are with solving the ring puzzles vs. just paying coins to let the game solve everything for you. I find the former to be more fun for obvious reasons. Origami King's story is still pretty weak, but it's something, certainly...it...exists when compared to Sticker Star which is an improvement.
I honestly see Paper Mario Sticker Star as a reboot of the Paper Mario series, and the original series timeline ended with Super Paper Mario. So only Sticker Star is only in that book in Paper Jam.