Paper Mario: Sticker StarPaper Mario: Sticker Star
Year: 2012
Rating: E
Time Played: 592 minutes / 9.87 hours

I’ve endured a lot of bad video games in my time. Most overstay their welcome and I eventually just want to get to the end. Others have such cryptic puzzles that I have to give up and use a guide or walkthrough to get me to the end credits. If there’s a skill issue, I have generally just reduced the difficulty so I can experience the full game. It is then a rare case when I legitimately give up on a game. Paper Mario: Sticker Star is one of those games.

I had heard rumors of this games infamy. I figured I could use any of the above techniques to get through it. At almost 10 hours in, I caved and looked at what I needed to do to finish the game and realized how frustrating this task would be. Not only did I have to backtrack through basically every level to find secret items to unlock the next areas, but there were layers upon layers of this and the “flatten the world to look at it differently” mechanic that impeded my progress. There were no creative solutions here, only prescribed gags.

This was, of course, on top of the inventory/battle system. Previous (and future) entries in the Paper Mario series did not restrict the player like this one did. Each item you use in battle takes up space on pages of stickers. There is no way to attack without using an item, so most battles end up being frustrating moments when you’re ambushed by an enemy. Of course, you must use huge chunks of your inventory space for the specific items needed to progress to the next level, let alone hidden door items to obtain that level’s item so you can use it later. I can usually endure a lot of bad gameplay, but this game broke me and I quit.

A convoluted and frustrating mess of a game, I cannot give Paper Mario: Sticker Star a rating.

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