Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Fans of the series may want to pick this up to get another taste of what used to be an amazing franchise, but be forewarned that it's not what you're hoping it to be and that you should probably steer clear.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star's pop-up book, papercraft visuals retain the series' classic charm and allows the developers to play around with the construction and development of their game world. While using stickers in combat and puzzle solving is a neat idea, players will usually end up hoarding their stickers for fear of needing them later on. This makes overall gameplay feel a bit slow and uninspired, but Sticker Star is a fun game to play regardless.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star is clever and fully committed to its paperized setting. That's not enough to excuse its biggest flaws. You'll spend time backtracking and getting stuck on puzzles that require too much guesswork.

Small problems notwithstanding, Paper Mario: Sticker Star is easy to recommend to any 3DS-User. Just crank up the excellently utilized and in no way distracting 3D and don't expect the role-playing experience earlier games in the series offered and you get a refreshing take on the familiar formula.

It's far from a bad adventure, but it's also not as cozy or cohesive as the previous Paper Mario games, or the sublime Mario & Luigi series of RPGs. There's plenty to enjoy, but Mario has done better as an RPG hero before.

A blend of genres that can be straightforward and fun, but also anodyne and tedious.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star sure isn't like the Paper Mario games that have come before it. So much so, that's it's hard to think of Sticker Star as a role-playing game. If role-playing is defined as collecting and using stickers, then it would fit, but it doesn't.

Frustrating at times and vague to the point of being obtuse, Paper Mario: Sticker Star still shines where it counts.

The latest Mario papercraft adventure delivers an enjoyable and easy-to-play platform RPG, with some uninspired and sometimes frustrating design elements.

Although it would have been nicer to see Nintendo pick one of two directions rather than offer something that perches on the fence between platforming thrills and RPG depth, Sticker Star is nonetheless a beautiful and eventually engrossing adventure, once it hits its stride.

Sticker Star has two sides. One is a world that's a simple, vibrant joy to be in. The other is a set of systems so pared back that they waver between easy and tedious, matched up to a badly signposted set of puzzles. There's just enough adventure and charm to mitigate the latter, but that's the shame of it; Sticker Star squeaks a pass when it could, and should, be spectacular

An enjoyable, usually easygoing, funny RPG, with some unfortunately frustrating elements affixed to it.

I can overlook a lot because of Paper Mario's charm. I really enjoyed a lot of it in spite of it committing the terrible sin of wasting my time.

The presentation is cute beyond believe, the music is great, the fighting system is as simple as varied – it sure sounds like a winner. But at its core there are too many weaknesses on display, most notably the absence of RPG elements, which makes the fights too monotonous in the long run.

The game's superfluous combat and unforgiving puzzle-solving mechanics only serve to bog the experience down; I can only assume that, without them, Sticker Star would have been infinitely crisper and more enjoyable.

Paper Mario's first outing on a handheld device is pretty charming, but the paper is starting to tear. The lack of RPG-elements make the fights feel pointless and some strange decisions lead to frustrating moments. Despite all the stickers, his game doesn't stick.

The plot and adventure are both more than worthy of the Paper Mario name, and the game is set in a massive, beautifully designed world for gamers to explore. Still, these aspects can't hide the fact that the sticker fighting system is flawed and removes a lot of the fun from the RPG combat.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star is a worthy successor in the Paper Mario-series that will probably satisfy both veterans and newbies. Most of us will unmercifully get stuck within a puzzle or a dead end, but do know that there's no shame in looking for answers on the Internet.

Much of what made Paper Mario charming in the first place still remains with Sticker Star. However, this 3DS game can be pretty tedious to play. The sticker system is a fresh and interesting idea, but ultimately, too many problems bog the game down and what's left is a lacklustre installment.

Sticker Star's lavish tapestry of neat touches keeps you pushing forwards in spite of the wonky puzzling and boring combat, and its vibrant, buoyant world marries so well with the script's deliciously wry take on Mario's classic tropes. It's just a real shame that the rest of the game feels paper thin.

For all its beauty in the presentation stakes, Paper Mario: Sticker Star is certainly not the RPG than many fans of the series in general were expecting. It does prove to be a satisfying enough adventure after becoming accustomed to the mix and match of gameplay styles included, but the back-tracking and frustrating limitations of the sticker battling system fail to impress. The whole package feels a bit 'lost and confused.'