Paper Mario: Sticker Star

[spatular]

Been playing this for a number of days over the xmas holidays...

the 3D effect looks ace, oddly a game with 2D paper cutout graphics seems a perfect fit for the 3D. also the bottom screen with the shiny stickers has a great effect as you tilt the 3DS.

the script is alright, some laughs, but not much story and not a patch on 1000 year door in this aspect.

the levels are clever and there's some nice puzzles and stuff. you find "things" (like a hoover) that you turn into stickers then use them to solve puzzles. but for me it really encourages me to use a guide as if you try something and mess up you lose the sticker, and it can cost a few 100 coins and some small backtracking to replace. also stuff can be well hidden, stuff that you need, so i've been using a guide quite a lot.

the fighting all uses stickers you collect, this is pretty cool, but can also be annoying. and standard paper mario stuff like timed button presses to block/do extra damage. some fights need certain stickers or types of stickers and you're screwed if you don't have the right one or enough of the right type. for example one of the early bosses is resistant to a certain type of move, so half my stickers were useless so i ran out of useful stickers and had to give up.

also for an rpg - there is no leveling up - i like this. you can find items to increase your health bar though.

not sure if this is coming across as negative as i quite like the game, enough to stick at it, i seem to be over half way through although that could be misleading.

[spatular]

finished! it's pretty good fun, i like the no leveling up and the combat, and how you can easily avoid a lot of the combat. later bosses were much easier than early ones...because i used a guide so knew the trick to them. did sort of feel like i was just playing for the sake of it though after half way, think i'd have enjoyed it more had it not been a rental, so then i could have given it a rest and not rushed through it with a guide.

not a patch on 1000 year door imo - loved the story and dialogue in that game, which there wasn't much of in sticker star, although there are some good/funny bits.

[DANGERMAN]

I don't like this, I don't think it's awful, and I really liked it at the start, but it's so obtuse.

It looks like a traditional Mario game in terms of level layout, you complete a stage and it opens the path to the next on the world map. There's 4 'worlds' to choose from the first town, however only one path is really viable. Do that, move on to a different one and you'll find your path is blocked, you need to go somewhere else to find the item you need. The game doesn't do a good enough job at communicating where you're supposed to go and why. For example, after getting stuck I hit the hint button and was told I was going the wrong way, I needed to get to someone's house, but the only level it mentions is the one I'm currently in, and that is the wrong way. Like wise there's a level I completed but there's 2 exits from it, I'm not sure which one is technically the secret one, but the one I missed was certainly difficult enough to find. When I did get through I then found my progress blocked, to the games credit it did then tell me to go to a specific place, which I did, found the item I needed, and now need to head back.

I like elements of the combat, I like that you have to engage with it to do well. You select your sticker, let's say 'Iron Jump', then you have to press the jump button at the right time to continue the combo, dealing more damage and earning coins, that's probably better than just sitting there. What I don't like is that things start to become very samey, you get in to a fight, a couple of extra enemies appear, you use the fruit machine option to earn yourself an extra attack or two, then you select the same stickers to deal with the same enemies. It doesn't help that there's no reason for you to get in to fights, in fact they cost you stickers, so you're better avoiding fights as much as possible, especially as you don't really need the money.

You start to resent enemies too. Because you don't level up, because this is an adventure game rather than an rpg, you encounter enemies that you know you can beat easily, you've fought them 100 times, but you still need to go through it, you still need to waste a decent sticker on them. If this was an rpg you'd be at that point where one round of attacks would wipe them out, you'd get your 10 gold and 49xp and move on. Here you have to concentrate otherwise you'll be using more stickers than you already have to. I think a solution to this would have been for Mario to have a basic attack, with the stickers augmenting that, but then what do I know

[retroed]

I don't like this, I don't think it's awful, and I really liked it at the start, but it's so obtuse.

Same here. I enjoyed it to begin with, but it soon grew old and I traded it in when I got bored part way through World 3. I agree with everything you said. Lack of hints as to where to go or what to do made me frustrated. I had to resort to GameFAQs and I hate doing that, especially in a game that absolutely should not require it.

Massive disappointment for me. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team better be good.

[DANGERMAN]

I can deal with gamefaqs for the odd bit, either because you've gone briefly stupid or whatever, and there are games where I'll have a guide open pretty much all the time because I want guiding towards a specific thing (999 for example, though not for puzzles), but having to rely on one for a game like this, and one that's on a handheld just emphasises what's wrong with it