How many games can a franchise produce before it releases a game that stagnates, or worse is terrible? Unfortunately for the Paper Mario series, that number seems to be three, as up until the latest entry, Paper Mario was nothing short of amazing with well written and clever dialogue, quirky and memorable characters, a simple yet in depth combat system, and levels that encouraged exploration. Super Paper Mario took an odd turn, but it was at least decent. Paper Mario Sticker Star however, is not only in my opinion the worst entry in the Paper Mario series, but one of the worst Mario games period.
To me the Mario RPG's were fantastic due to creative writing, memorable characters, fantastic mechanics and beautiful graphics. They were all self aware, funny, and inventive while still managing to be serious at times. They always felt fresh and rewarding. Sticker Star however decided to strip down numerous mechanics and features that were core to the Paper Mario series, as well as the Mario and Luigi series. The story is by all means an excuse plot that is pretty much the same as the main Mario games. Bowser kidnaps the princess once again and now Mario must journey across the kingdom and collect several plot coupons in order to save the princess once again. Usually the RPGs mock this plot or use it as a spring board for numerous subplots that would unfold during the duration of each chapter, this time however the subplots, or any real story has been completely removed, and gone with it are the quirky and memorable characters, heck Bowser doesn't even speak this time around, thus removing the funny personality he had in ALL of the RPGs. And because of the lack of story and characters, the writing as a result suffers greatly as it really has no purpose.
So without a story to back up the gameplay and give the player any sort of motivation to progress through the twenty plus hours the game offers, we have to rely solely on the gameplay in order to captivate us, however in another attempt to freshen up the series and keep it original, the creators decided to not return to its roots and instead bring in the sticker mechanic, which in theory isn't bad, but unfortunately is not well implemented at all. The idea of finding stickers and using them for combat could work with a little tweaking, but here it seems to try its hardest to be boring and uninspired. In most RPGs you fight enemies to gain experience and level up or find items. This time around however Mario fights increasingly powerful enemies with increasingly powerful stickers and does not change at all. As a result, star points or experience points period are another casualty. The idea is that you find stickers or buy them, select them from your touch screen and they represent a single use attack or healing ability. You defeat an enemy, receive money and use them to...buy the stickers you just used to fight the enemy so you can get more of the same sticker to fight more enemies. As you might have guess, the combat is utterly pointless. Yes, pointless combat in an RPG or scratch that, pointless combat in a video game.
The boss battles are worse however, they have boat loads of hit points and each have a weakness, that being a really big "thing" sticker that you must throw at them in order to take them down in a few hits. However, you are never really given any indication as to what that sticker is, in fact you may find it and write it off as useless because its purpose is not clear and it takes up a lot of room in your inventory. The puzzles fair even worse as the difficulty of the puzzles is completely inconsistent. They range from insultingly simple to being so obscure and confusing that you will probably consult a walk through to complete them. the worst example is in world two where a twister blocks your path and the item you need to complete it not only makes absolutely no sense, but is not even in the chapter you need it in. The game's level design tries to encourage open world exploration, but they end up being so confusing and bland that you will most certainly get lost or bored during the course of the game.
The old saying goes like this "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Miyamoto didn't seem to care when he told the development team to remove the story and add no new characters to the game. Instead of a Paper Mario game, we were given a Mario game with a Paper Mario paint job. the combat is awful and pointless, the story is absolutely pitiful and has no creativity whatsoever, the writing is lacking due to the absolutely idiotic decision to remove the story and partners, and the level design is just lazy and confusing. After two absolutely incredible and an OK entry in the series, Paper Mario fails to not only deliver a good sequel, but a decent stand alone game. If you like the previous entries, give this one a miss.