Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Sticker Star arrived five years after Super Paper Mario, and on the surface it looked like a homecoming. The turn-based battles of Paper Mario and The Thousand-Year Door were back, with Action Commands timed on the A Button, after a sequel that had swapped them for platforming. The paper was papery again too, and more so than ever: towns roll up like a carpet, Goombas fold themselves into cones, cardboard scenery wobbles on its stand, and the 3DS screen gives the whole thing the depth of a shoebox diorama.

Underneath, nearly everything else had been taken out. Mario has no party to choose from, no Flower Points, no badges, no Star Points and no levels to gain. What he has is an album. Every Jump and every swing of the Hammer in battle is a sticker stuck in its pages, and using it uses it up. Stickers are peeled off walls and floors, knocked out of ? Blocks and bought in shops, and the best of them are not stickers at all until you make them so: household objects called Things, found lying about the Mushroom Kingdom in full, glossy 3D, which a Toad in Decalburg will happily squash flat for you.

The plot is thin on purpose. Bowser breaks the Sticker Comet, six Royal Stickers scatter, and Mario and the sticker fairy Kersti go and fetch them from a Goomba, a Pokey, a Blooper, a snowman, a Piranha Plant and Bowser himself. The cast is thinner still: Toads in assorted colours, a Wiggler, and Bowser’s usual family and troops, with not one new species of enemy among them. Both decisions came from Shigeru Miyamoto, and both are explained under Development.

What is left is a game of small, clever episodes built for a console that lives in a pocket: a haunted mansion with a hundred Boos to catch, a game show run by Snifits, a Wiggler taken to bits, a snowman who only wanted not to melt. Reviewers were mostly kind and occasionally furious, many players who had hoped for another Thousand-Year Door were not kind at all, and the argument about whether this is where Paper Mario went wrong has never quite stopped.

The questions people ask most about Paper Mario: Sticker Star, answered briefly here and in depth further down the page.

Sticker Star tells its story the way a pop-up book does: a page of set-up, then a string of self-contained scenes, each with its own joke and its own boss. The set-up takes about five minutes. The scenes are where the charm is, and several of them (the Wiggler taken apart, the house full of Boos, the snowman’s confession) are as good as anything in the series.

What follows is the whole plot in order, spoilers and all. The six worlds can be tackled with some freedom once the boat is afloat, but the numbers on the map are the order the story assumes.

The Sticker Fest and the Sticker Comet

Once a year the people of Decalburg hold the Sticker Fest, and on the night of the festival the Sticker Comet comes down from the Sticker Star to hang above the stage. Wish on it, the Toads say, and the wish will come true. Princess Peach is presiding, Mario is in the crowd, and the comet is glowing nicely when Bowser and his troops barge in to take it.

Bowser gets one claw on the comet and it bursts. Six crown-shaped Royal Stickers, the real source of its power, fly out. Five scatter across the kingdom. The sixth, the gold one, drops squarely on to Bowser’s head, where it sticks, turns him glossy and makes him very much stronger than he was a second ago. Mario jumps in and is swatted flat.

He comes round in the wreckage. The stage is in pieces, Peach has been carried off, half the Toads are missing and the other half are stuck to things with Bowser Tape.

Kersti

Stuck to a signboard of Princess Peach is a small silver crown with dark blue eyes. Peeled off, she introduces herself as Kersti, a sticker fairy from the Sticker Star and keeper of the Royal Stickers, and immediately accuses Mario of having touched the comet. He talks her round, and she agrees to help get the stickers back on the understanding that he does the fetching.

Kersti is the game’s one new character of any size, and she carries it. She supplies the album, the power to paperize and, a little later, the Battle Spinner, and L summons her for a hint, although she cannot be asked about a particular enemy as Goombario or Tippi could. She is proud, quick to lose her temper, loyal to stickers of every rank, suspicious of Things and openly rude about Kamek. Twice she is taken from Mario, and each time the game shows how much he depends on her by removing everything she provides.

Her English name is the Scottish name Kirsty respelt, and most of an anagram of “sticker”. The Japanese original plays the same game: she is Rūshī (Lucy), the syllables of shīru, “seal”, in reverse. In French she is Collette, in Italian Corinne and in Spanish Tina.

Decalburg

The festival ground adjoins the game’s only town, and Bowser has rolled the town up like a rug. Mario’s first job is to find the Toads, who have been hidden about the place or stuck down with Bowser Tape. One of them gives him a Hammer. When enough have been freed they put their shoulders to the rolled-up plaza and push until Decalburg lies flat again.

On the way out of town three Goombas jump him, and Kersti talks him through his first sticker battle. From then on Decalburg is home: it has the first sticker shop, the Sling-a-Thing stand and the Shady Toad next to it, the house with the newspaper, and, under the fountain, the Sticker Museum.

World 1: grasslands and Megasparkle Goomba

In Warm Fuzzy Plains a red Toad with a crease in his cap, the first of many meetings with him, runs into Mario and drops a pair of Scissors. Bowser Jr. swoops down in his Junior Clown Car to demand them, loses the fight that follows, and in a sulk screws up the bridge ahead and lobs it on to a ledge. A stack of Toads makes a staircase, Kersti teaches Mario to paperize, and the bridge goes back where it was. The first Comet Piece is just beyond it.

Bouquet Gardens has the Fan and a wheel of five Goombas, the cue for the Battle Spinner. At Water’s Edge Way Kamek makes his first appearance, is beaten, and spitefully tears the Comet Piece out of the picture and throws it away, so the course becomes a hunt for a scrap. Hither Thither Hill hides a crying green Toad who will swap a hint for an escort home; the hint is the code for four number blocks inside a windmill, which lead underground to a Big Buzzy Beetle and an HP-Up Heart. Whammino Mountain is a climb under a Lakitu’s rain of Spinies to rescue a blue Toad.

The world ends at Goomba Fortress, all Bob-ombs, wind vents and revolving floors. At the top, a Goomba who picked up the red Royal Sticker out of curiosity has crowned himself boss. He calls fifteen comrades out of hiding and the sixteen of them fold together into Megasparkle Goomba, a single glittering sheet with the ringleader as one of its teeth. Late in the fight the others decide the sticker is costing them who they are and walk out. Left alone with 1 HP, the boss goes down admitting he was nothing without it.

World 2: the desert and Tower Power Pokey

The orange sticker is somewhere in the desert, but the building it is in has gone. Kamek has folded Drybake Stadium away and split the means of unfolding it into three stone tablet pieces. The first is in a chest at the top of the pyramid in Drybake Desert. The second sits on the Yoshi Sphinx’s tongue, a monument with a Yoshi’s head patrolled by a mariachi band of Sombrero, Maraca and Accordion Guys; Kamek is waiting near the top, and his trick this time is to turn every sticker in the album into a flip-flop.

Sandshifter Ruins is a tomb of sand slides and stone caskets that may hold a prize, nothing, or a Dry Bones, and its hidden second exit is the way to Damp Oasis. The oasis is being scoured by a sandstorm and, when the Vacuum has dealt with that, turns out to have no water in it either; a Toad who has crossed the desert to find it is heartbroken until the Faucet fills it up. The third tablet piece is there.

With all three, the stadium unfolds into a tower. Its walls are painted with long-limbed Mural Goombas and Mural Koopas, which are enemies here, and its roof is a baseball ground. Mario reaches for the sticker lying on the pitch, the sand heaves, and Tower Power Pokey comes up underneath it: an ordinary cactus until Kamek stuck a crown on it. The battle opens with the words “PLAY BALL!” where “FIGHT!” would normally be, which is a hint.

World 3: the poisoned forest and Gooper Blooper

World 3 is the longest and the best. On Leaflitter Path Mario wakes a sleeping Wiggler, a big, soft-hearted child of a caterpillar who cannot find anything to eat because the forest’s water has turned to purple poison. They set off for his house together, but Poison Bloopers snatch him on the way, and by the time Mario has got through the looping maze of The Bafflewood to Wiggler’s Tree House, Kamek’s magic has pulled him into five pieces. The head stays put. The four body segments, each with a mind of its own, bolt into the woods.

Fetching them is the heart of the world. One leads a chase out of the Bafflewood, through Strike Lake and on to Loop Loop River. One is in Rustle Burrow, where Mario drops into a Scuttlebug nest and loses the lot: every sticker, the Hammer and Kersti, to be won back from a Big Scuttlebug. One goes from Gauntlet Pond to Stump Glade and ends up as the star prize on Snifit or Whiffit, a true-or-false quiz show with a Snifit for a host. The last is being held by Poison Bloopers in Holey Thicket and, once freed, storms off to Whitecap Beach and then to the harbour to find a boat and sort the poison out single-handed. The boatman says no, a fishing boat having lately vanished out there, and the segment goes home in a huff. Carrying segments about the forest on the way back fills in the pages of Wiggler’s Diary.

Paperized back together, Wiggler ferries Mario and Kersti out to a wreck off the beach, where the purple Royal Sticker has landed on Gooper Blooper. He is, it emerges, a music lover who only wants to “boogie and bop” with his band of Bloopers, and he fights in time to a Latin rhythm, clapping his tentacles on the beat, while the sticker has him pumping poison into the sea. When he is beaten the water clears, in the ocean and the forest alike, and Wiggler can eat again.

Surfshine Harbor

Worlds 4 and 5 are across the water, and the only boat is tied up at Surfshine Harbor with no wheel. Mario cuts the mooring rope, finds the ship’s wheel as a scrap in a pitch-dark warehouse, and has to see off a Big Cheep Cheep in the water outside. With the fish beaten the sailor Toad announces his retirement and leaves Mario the boat, and the Decal Channel is open.

The harbour is also where the Vacuum is found, which sends anyone who skipped Damp Oasis back to the desert.

World 4: snow, Boos and Mizzter Blizzard

The snow world opens gently, with Cooligans sliding down Snow Rise and Birdo turning up to sing a number and hand over a Goat. Past the frozen river of Ice Flow stands The Enigmansion, where a purple Toad, the steward, is waiting outside his own front door. A hundred Boos have got out of the Book of Sealing and taken the house. Mario goes from room to room catching every one, carries the book down to its pedestal in the cellar, and finds Kamek there. He let them out by accident, he says, while looking for a novel about stickers; now he rips the pages out and screws them into a Big Boo. When that has been sealed too, the steward gives Mario tea, an HP-Up Heart and the Forebear’s Portrait, a sepia painting of the mansion’s previous owner.

The portrait is a scrap. Stuck into a gap in the scenery at Whiteout Valley, the old Toad in it comes to life and starts the ski lift, which carries Mario up through Fuzzies and Ice Bros to Bowser’s Snow Fort, where there is a queue for the mine-cart roller coaster. At the end of the ride is a colossal Bowser Snow Statue. Break it and there is a smaller one inside, and a smaller one inside that, like a Russian doll, until what is left is Mizzter Blizzard: a snowman who was melting in the spring sunshine, wished on the Sticker Star for a body that would last, and got the blue Royal Sticker. Beaten, he apologises, and asks to be built again next winter.

Back at the mansion the forebear is master once more and the steward is happily waiting on him. On the voyage home Bowser Jr. attacks for the second time, in mid-channel, and is sent back to his father.

World 5: the jungle and Petey Piranha

In Shy Guy Jungle three Spear Guys have each made off with a section of bridge and have to be fought for it. A raft ride follows, down Jungle Rapids with Fish Bones gnawing at the logs and over Long Fall Falls with a Mega Cheep Chomp in pursuit that ends the game on the spot if it catches up. Chomp Ruins is a temple of grinding saws and shoving Bomp walls with a Big Chain Chomp asleep on the roof; knock out its stake and the Comet Piece appears. Rugged Road climbs past lava and falling rocks to the foot of the volcano.

Inside Rumble Volcano the floor gives way. At the bottom is Petey Piranha, who took the green Royal Sticker off a tribe of Spear Guys and ate it, and who now, before anyone can speak, eats Kersti. For the first time since Decalburg Mario has no hints, no paperizing and no Battle Spinner. He reaches Petey by loading Big Chain Chomps on to a platform that the lava is holding up, and fights him alone until a well-aimed stomp on the belly button makes Petey cough up Kersti, a few Jump stickers and, for some reason, a Dry Bones.

World 6: Bowser’s Sky Castle

Gate Cliff looks like a dead end. But the five Royal Stickers on the album cover begin to glow, and when Mario taps them their light jumps to five rocks on the cliff face, marking out a pentagon. He paperizes, tears the pentagon out and flips it, and behind it is Bowser’s castle, which promptly rises into the clouds. There is talk of something large seen flying over the forest; it is Wiggler, grown up into a Flutter, and he is glad to return a favour. He sets Mario down on Bowser Jr.’s Flotilla, an airship armed with Banzai Bill cannons, where Bowser Jr. is beaten for the third and last time.

Bowser’s Sky Castle has a front door shaped like Mario’s face. Kamek and his flip-flops are behind the first door, a rolling carpet over a spike pit behind the second, and at the end of the last hall Princess Peach is stuck to a chain with tape. Bowser says nothing (he does not speak a word in the whole game) and backs away down the corridor, throwing things: squads of his troops, a Whomp, Lava Bubbles and finally a Chain Chomp, which is turned straight back on him. Bowser goes over the edge.

He climbs back up the size of the building, a cardboard giant on whom every attack does a single point of damage. Kersti sees what it will take. Only the power of the Sticker Star can cancel a Royal Sticker, so she turns herself into one last sticker in the album, with a parting warning: “if you sell me at a shop, I’ll never forgive you!” Used, she gives Mario five sticker slots a turn, and is gone.

The ending

With the gold sticker off his head Bowser is himself again, and harmless. Mario frees Peach, and on her advice makes a wish on all six Royal Stickers. The game does not say what he asks for. It cuts to a new Sticker Fest on a mended stage, with the whole cast in the crowd and the comet back overhead.

The credits are a parade, as they were in the first Paper Mario, with the bosses riding floats and the Super Flags the player has earned unrolled along the route. Then Bowser, who has learned nothing, sidles up to the comet with his claw out, and a familiar voice tells him off. Kersti is alive, the wish having seen to that, and is thinking of a change of career.

Every course in Paper Mario: Sticker Star

All 38 courses in map order, with the town and the harbour first. “Second exit” means a hidden Comet Piece that opens another route on the map. Things are listed where Super Mario Wiki’s course table places them; those marked SD are behind a secret door.

1. 
   DecalburgTown · Sticker Fest grounds, shop, Sling-a-Thing, Sticker MuseumThe only town in the game, rolled up by Bowser and unrolled by its own Toads. Three Goombas at the gate are the first battle.
2. 
   Surfshine HarborPort · boss: Big Cheep Cheep (88 HP) · Thing: VacuumWarehouses, a boat with no wheel and a sailor Toad ready to retire. The gateway to Worlds 4 and 5.
3. 
   Warm Fuzzy PlainsW1-1 · Bowser Jr. (20 HP) · Things: Scissors, Thumbtack (SD)The tutorial meadow: the first Thing, the first scrap, the first paperization and the first Comet Piece.
4. 
   Bouquet GardensW1-2 · Things: Fan, Cat-o-LuckA flower garden blown about by the Fan. A wheel of five Goombas introduces the Battle Spinner.
5. 
   Water’s Edge WayW1-3 · Kamek (20 HP) · second exit · Things: Faucet, Bed (SD)Rivers and waterfalls fed by a cardboard Bowser fountain. Kamek throws the Comet Piece away as a scrap.
6. 
   Hither Thither HillW1-4 · Big Buzzy Beetle (40 HP) · Thing: Matches (SD)A windmill, a code (4123) and a cellar with a giant beetle and an HP-Up Heart. Later a Super Smash Bros. stage.
7. 
   Whammino MountainW1-5 · sticker shop · Thing: Bellows (SD)A climb under Lakitu’s Spinies. A chain reaction frees a trapped Toad and turns up the White Gate scrap.
8. 
   Goomba FortressW1-6 · red Royal Sticker · Megasparkle Goomba (90 HP) · Things: Trumpet, Squirt Gun (SD)Bob-ombs, wind vents and floors that turn when a Block Switch is hit. Luigi is on the wall by the last bridge.
9. 
   Drybake DesertW2-1 · tablet piece · Things: Soda, Car Battery (SD)Doors opened with stickers, sand geysers, and a pyramid with the Comet Piece on top.
10. 
    Yoshi SphinxW2-2 · Kamek (20 HP) · tablet piece · Things: Lightbulb, Paper Fan (SD)A sphinx with a Yoshi’s face, explored inside and out. Kamek turns the album to Sandals.
11. 
    Sandshifter RuinsW2-3 · second exit · Things: Bat, Jackhammer, Magnifying Glass, Lighter (SD)Sand slides, spikes and caskets with Dry Bones inside. The hidden exit leads to Damp Oasis.
12. 
    Damp OasisW2-4 · tablet piece · Things: Shaved Ice, Hair Shears (SD)A sandstorm to vacuum up and a pool to refill. The Oasis Toad then opens the building beside it.
13. 
    Drybake StadiumW2-5 · orange Royal Sticker · Tower Power Pokey (300 HP)A tower rebuilt from scraps, its walls alive with Mural Goombas and Koopas. Luigi is in a fourth-floor window.
14. 
    Leaflitter PathW3-1 · two Boomerang Bros · Thing: Searchlight (SD)The way into the forest, blocked by a sleeping Wiggler. First sight of the poison.
15. 
    The BafflewoodW3-2 · Wiggler segment · Things: Violin (SD), Bowling Ball, TrophyTake a wrong turning and the wood puts you back at the start. Its signposts accept stickers as markers.
16. 
    Wiggler’s Tree HouseW3-3 · two second exits · Things: High Heel, Boom BoxWiggler’s home and the hub of the world. His diary is on the third floor.
17. 
    Strike LakeW3-4 · second exit · Things: Drum (SD), Billiard BallA chase after a runaway segment, and a set of pins waiting for the Bowling Ball.
18. 
    Loop Loop RiverW3-5 · second exit · Thing: Pillow (SD)A river that runs in a ring and turns on Mario once the segment has been collected.
19. 
    Outlook PointW3-6 · sticker shop, Sling-a-Thing · Thing: Fishhook (SD)A rest stop at the forest’s edge with a view of the wreck. The only shop that sells Secret Doors.
20. 
    Rustle BurrowW3-7 · Big Scuttlebug (16 HP) · Thing: Upright Vacuum (SD)Mario loses his stickers, his Hammer and Kersti down a hole full of spiders and has to get them all back.
21. 
    Tree Branch TrailW3-8 · Things: Tape (SD), Watch BatteryHollow trunks joined by walkways, with the segment from Rustle Burrow running ahead.
22. 
    Gauntlet PondW3-9 · Wiggler segment · Thing: SpongeSwinging log platforms over poisoned water.
23. 
    Stump GladeW3-10 · Snifit or Whiffit · Things: Radiator, Square Can (SD)A television quiz hosted by a Snifit, with a Wiggler segment as the prize.
24. 
    Holey ThicketW3-11 · second exit · Thing: Balloon (SD)Pits sealed with Bowser Tape and slicked with poison. Poison Bloopers have the last segment.
25. 
    Whitecap BeachW3-12 · purple Royal Sticker · Gooper Blooper (300 HP) · Things: Pocket Watch, Newspaper (SD)A beach and a broken pier, with a shipwreck offshore that only a whole Wiggler can reach. Luigi sits on a rock.
26. 
    Snow RiseW4-1 · second exit · Things: Goat, Cell Phone (SD)Snowy slopes with Cooligans sliding down them, and a song from Birdo.
27. 
    Ice FlowW4-2 · Things: Curling Stone, Rubber Ducky, Hair Dryer (SD)A frozen river and ice caves. Snow Spikes roll boulders of snow down the slopes.
28. 
    The EnigmansionW4-3 · Big Boo (100 HP) · Things: Oven, Refrigerator, Stapler, Watering Can, CakeA snowed-in mansion with exactly one hundred Boos to round up and seal in a book.
29. 
    Shaved-Ice CaveW4-4 · sticker shopNothing but a shop, whose keeper has to be thawed out before he can serve.
30. 
    Whiteout ValleyW4-5 · Thing: Flashlight (SD)A long ski-lift ride, hopping across Fuzzies and dodging ice balls. Luigi is on a chair coming down.
31. 
    Bowser’s Snow FortW4-6 · blue Royal Sticker · Bowser Snow Statue (400 HP) and Mizzter Blizzard (100 HP) · Thing: Sewing ScissorsA mine-cart ride with missing rails to stick back, to a tune borrowed from Super Mario 64.
32. 
    Shy Guy JungleW5-1 · three Spear Guys · Things: Toy Bat, Powder Puff, Tailor Shears (SD)Man-eating flowers, a broken bridge, and a rubbish tip with letters from two old friends in it.
33. 
    Jungle RapidsW5-2 · Things: Rubber Ducky, Mini Vacuum (SD)A raft of five logs, tilted to steer, with Fish Bones biting pieces off it.
34. 
    Long Fall FallsW5-3 · second exit · Thing: Luxurious Bed (SD)More rafting, now with a Mega Cheep Chomp behind. Lose the raft and it is Game Over at once.
35. 
    Chomp RuinsW5-4 · Big Chain Chomp (99 HP) · Things: D-Cell Battery, Teapot, Air Conditioner (SD)Buzz-saws, Bomps that push from the walls, and a very large dog asleep at the top.
36. 
    Rugged RoadW5-5 · Things: Turkey, Car Sponge, Basin (SD)Lava at the volcano’s foot, to be frozen before it can be crossed. Luigi is taking the waters underground.
37. 
    Rumble VolcanoW5-6 · green Royal Sticker · Petey Piranha (300 HP) · Thing: Guitar (SD)Petey swallows Kersti on sight, and the climb to reach him is done without paperizing.
38. 
    Gate CliffW6-1 · needs five Royal StickersA blank cliff that folds back to reveal Bowser’s castle.
39. 
    Bowser Jr.’s FlotillaW6-2 · Bowser Jr. (300 HP) · the last Comet PieceAirships reached on Flutter’s back, to the airship music of Super Mario Bros. 3.
40. 
    Bowser’s Sky CastleW6-3 · gold Royal Sticker · Kamek (20 HP), Bowser (400 HP, then 500 HP)Three rooms and one very long corridor. The final course.

Two things on the map are not courses. The Decal Channel is the sea crossing between the harbour and Worlds 4 and 5, and the scene of the second Bowser Jr. fight. And the Sticker Fest grounds beside Decalburg, wrecked in the prologue, are where the Super Flags fly and where, after the credits, a Toad waits to play them again.

Sticker Star is two games taking turns. On the field it is a puzzle-adventure: Mario runs, jumps and hammers his way through compact courses, peeling stickers off every surface and working out what the scenery is missing. In battle it is a turn-based fight in the old Paper Mario manner, except that the menu of attacks has been replaced by whatever is in the album at that moment.

The two halves feed each other. Stickers gathered on the field are ammunition for battles, battles pay coins, coins buy stickers, and the really big problems on either side are solved with the same oversized Things.

Stickers and the album

Kersti’s album is inventory, spell-book and wallet-drainer in one. It opens with two pages and grows to eight as pages are handed over through the story, one after each Royal Sticker boss among them. Every sticker occupies a patch of page: ordinary ones a single square, bigger ones a square and a half or two squares a side. A full album means leaving good stickers on the wall.

The basic families are Jump stickers (Jump, Hopslipper, Line Jump, Iron Jump and rarer ones such as Clone Jump and Infinijump), which are useless against anything spiked, and Hammer stickers (Hammer, Slaphammer, Eekhammer, Hurlhammer), which cannot reach anything with wings. Fire Flowers and Ice Flowers throw a projectile at every enemy in the line. A Spike Helmet punishes anything that drops on Mario’s head, a Frog Suit helps him dodge, a Mushroom heals, and a Leaf makes every Action Command that turn perfect. Enemies drop their own weapons as stickers too: a Sombrero Guy’s sombrero, a Bob-omb’s bomb.

Each family comes in grades, from worn-out through shiny and flashy to big shiny and megaflash. The shinier a sticker is the harder it hits, and the two biggest grades hog the page. Stronger grades appear in the shops as Royal Stickers are recovered, which is the nearest thing the game has to a difficulty curve. A sticker picked for a turn is gone whether or not it lands, and if the album ever runs dry in a fight, Kersti hands over something to be going on with.

Paperization and scraps

Press Y on the field and Kersti paperizes the scene: the world freezes into a flat picture, lifts away from the screen, and Mario’s hand hovers over it with the album open. In this state a sticker can be pressed on to any spot the game has marked out. A Fan sticker in the right place sets a windmill turning; a Faucet refills a dried-up oasis; a Secret Door sticker on a faint outline becomes a real door.

Paperizing also handles scraps, which are pieces of the scenery itself. A bridge that Bowser Jr. has crumpled, a comet piece that Kamek has torn out, a mansion bookcase hung the wrong way up: each can be peeled away, leaving a purple void behind it, carried in the album and stuck back where it belongs. Some scraps have to be found elsewhere in the course before the hole can be filled.

Things and Thing Stickers

Scattered through the courses, and looking as though they have fallen in from another game, are sixty-four Things: scissors, a bowling ball, a turkey, a radiator, a lucky cat. Picked up, a Thing sits in its own section of the album and does nothing. Carried to a Sling-a-Thing stand (there is one to the left of Decalburg’s plaza and another behind the shop at Outlook Point) it can be hurled at the wall for free, and what peels off is a Thing Sticker, usually a large one.

In battle a Thing Sticker is a set-piece. The Scissors snip the whole screen; the Fan blows enemies about; anything hot melts ice and anything spongy soaks up poison. Most Things belong to a family of three that do the same job at different strengths and sizes (Bat, Toy Bat and Newspaper; Sponge, Car Sponge and Powder Puff), so a puzzle that wants one will accept its relatives. On the field, paperizing and placing the right Thing is how the game’s biggest obstacles are cleared, and the bosses are built around them: each Royal Sticker holder shrugs off half or three-quarters of ordinary damage but takes a Thing at full force.

Mario can hold only one of each Thing at a time, as an object or as a sticker. Used ones reappear where they were first found, and the Shady Toad beside the Decalburg stand will sell back any that have been collected before. That rule is the source of the game’s most-criticised habit: meeting a problem, realising which Thing it wants, and trekking back across the map to fetch it.

How battles work

Touching an enemy starts a fight. Jump on it or hammer it first and it begins the battle already hurt; let it touch Mario, or stamp on something spiky, and he is the one who starts with a bruise. Mario then picks a sticker from the album on the Touch Screen and attacks. He cannot choose his target: the enemy at the front of the line takes the hit, a hammer’s shockwave spills on to the neighbours, and if he has more than one sticker to use that turn the next goes to the next enemy along.

Action Commands are back, mostly without prompts. Pressing A at the moment of impact turns one stomp into a string of them and a tap of the Hammer into an “Excellent” wallop, and pressing A as an enemy strikes blocks, halving the damage and cancelling any status effect. The game’s status effects have a stationery flavour: enemies can be crumpled, made soggy, clipped, taped, tacked or stapled in place, sent to sleep, blinded, poisoned or dizzied, and Mario can catch several of them himself.

Win, and the reward is coins and nothing else. Clearing the field on the first turn without taking damage earns a Perfect Bonus on top, and each extra hit landed on an enemy that is already beaten squeezes out another coin. Running away is allowed, though it is not certain, and the enemy that was fled from vanishes from the course.

The Battle Spinner

One sticker a turn is not much against a line of five Goombas, which is exactly when Kersti introduces the Battle Spinner, in Bouquet Gardens. For 3 coins, a three-reel fruit machine spins on the top screen and Mario stops each reel with A. Two matching symbols let him use two stickers that turn; three let him use three and trigger a bonus besides. The price goes up each time it is used again in the same battle, and every boss fight opens with a free spin.

The symbols are a Coin (bonus coins), a Mushroom (20 HP restored), a Fire Flower (Mario throws fireballs for 3 damage), a POW Block (3 damage and a chance of crumpling), a Thunder Bolt (3 damage to everything and a chance of dizziness) and a Poison Mushroom, which poisons Mario and is best avoided. Anyone with money to burn can pay 15 coins to have the first two reels match automatically or 30 to slow the reels down. The spinner is Kersti’s gift, so it disappears whenever she does.

No levels: HP-Up Hearts and coins

Mario starts with 20 HP, double his usual opening figure in this series, and can finish with 100. The difference is made up entirely of HP-Up Hearts, each worth 5 HP, which are prizes for exploring: one is guarded by the Big Buzzy Beetle under Hither Thither Hill, another is a thank-you from the steward of the Enigmansion. Every second heart also adds a point to the damage Mario does with a first strike on the field. That is the whole of his growth. His jump and hammer are exactly as strong at the end of the game as at the beginning.

Everything else is bought. The wallet holds 9,999 coins where earlier Paper Mario games stopped at 999, and coins go on stickers, on the Battle Spinner and on bribing the enemies that ambush the Traveling Toad. Producer Kensuke Tanabe told Iwata Asks that he had wanted to be rid of experience points for years, and that the idea here was for players to take on tougher opponents by collecting stronger stickers.

The world map, Comet Pieces and secret doors

There are no chapters. Courses are dots on a world map, as in Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World, and each ends when Mario touches a Comet Piece, with bonus coins for enemies beaten in the goal sequence. Several courses hide a second Comet Piece that opens a different path on the map: Water’s Edge Way, Sandshifter Ruins, Strike Lake, Loop Loop River, Holey Thicket, Snow Rise and Long Fall Falls have one alternative exit each, and Wiggler’s Tree House has two. Director Naohiko Aoyama told Nintendo Life the structure was chosen so that a handheld player could pick the game up and put it down at will.

Courses also hide secret doors. A Secret Door is a big shiny sticker, sold only at the Outlook Point shop; paperize near a faint door-shaped outline, stick it on, and it opens on to an underground room holding a rare sticker or, more often, a Thing. Used in battle instead, a Secret Door guarantees an escape. Save Blocks and HP Blocks, usually side by side, save the game and refill Mario’s health.

The Sticker Museum, Super Flags and Luigi

Under Decalburg, behind a locked door, is the Sticker Museum. Its curator is a green Toad who gets trapped beneath the plaza fountain when the town is unrolled; paperize him out and he opens up. The museum starts empty and has a frame for every sticker in the game: 96 battle stickers in the orange wing and 64 Thing Stickers in the blue, 160 in all. Filling the battle wing unlocks an enemy gallery, where a coin in the binoculars buys a look at any enemy attacking a cardboard Mario. Filling the Thing wing unlocks a music gallery of 29 tracks, heard from a sofa.

Once the first Royal Sticker is home, eight Super Flags appear on the Sticker Fest grounds, each a long-haul challenge (they are listed under Cheats & secrets). And in five courses Luigi can be spotted loitering in the far background. Paperize, peel him out, and he looks about and hops away. A newspaper kept in the blue-roofed house on Decalburg’s east side drops hints about where he has been seen.

Controls

On the field: the Circle Pad moves, A jumps, talks and examines, B swings the Hammer, X opens and closes the album, Y paperizes, L asks Kersti for advice and START returns to the world map or tidies the album. In battle: the Circle Pad or +Control Pad moves through the album, A performs Action Commands and blocks, X starts the Battle Spinner, Y shows a sticker’s details and L and R turn the page. On the map, X opens the album and START leads back to the title screen. A enters Warp Pipes, a first for the series, which used to want a push on the stick or pad.

Regional differences

The code for the number blocks in the windmill at Hither Thither Hill is 4123 everywhere except South Korea (7942) and the Chinese-language release (9958). Those two versions also turn the Paper Fan blue instead of red and remove the kanji from it. In Japan, Korea and China the right-answer block in the Snifit or Whiffit quiz is blue with a circle on it, where the West has a green tick.

The European English, French and Spanish scripts rename a few Things (the Cell Phone is a Mobile Phone on this side of the Atlantic), revise some of the museum’s entries, and add a description to each Thing Sticker in the album. Mizzter Blizzard’s sad little poem was rewritten for British English as well, with lines that rhyme on “snow” where the American ones rhyme on “melt”.

Stickers, Things and key items

The sticker types that matter, then a selection of 16 of the 64 Things with where each is found (course numbers as on the world map), then the objects the whole game revolves around.

• 
  JumpThe basic stomp. Press A on landing to keep bouncing. No use against spikes. Relatives: Hopslipper, Line Jump, Iron Jump, Clone Jump and Infinijump.
• 
  HammerThe basic swing, with a shockwave that reaches the next enemy. Cannot hit fliers. Relatives: Slaphammer, Eekhammer (a flurry of small hits), Hurlhammer, Baahammer, Burnhammer and Chillhammer.
• 
  Fire FlowerThrows a fireball at every enemy in the line. The answer to anything made of snow.
• 
  Ice FlowerThe cold version: an ice ball for each enemy.
• 
  POW BlockThe POW Block of the old games, as a sticker. On the Battle Spinner the same block does 3 damage and can crumple.
• 
  ShellCalls in a Koopa Troopa and its shell.
• 
  MushroomRestores HP. Its relative the Big 1UP is the only ordinary sticker that comes in the Big size.
• 
  Frog SuitStraight from Super Mario Bros. 3. Helps Mario avoid enemy attacks.
• 
  TailA raccoon tail, another keepsake of Super Mario Bros. 3.
• 
  Spike HelmetHurts any enemy that attacks from above.
• 
  Secret DoorSold only at Outlook Point. Opens hidden rooms on the field; in battle it guarantees an escape.
• 
  SandalNot a prize. Kamek turns the whole album into these in the fights at Yoshi Sphinx and Bowser’s Sky Castle. They strike several times, like an Eekhammer.
• 
  KerstiThe last sticker of the game: five sticker slots a turn and 20 HP restored for the fight with giant Bowser.
• 
  ScissorsW1-1, Warm Fuzzy Plains. The first Thing. Slices every enemy on screen and helps topple Megasparkle Goomba.
• 
  FanW1-2, Bouquet Gardens. Stop its breeze by picking it up, then use it to start the windmill at Hither Thither Hill.
• 
  Cat-o-LuckW1-2, Bouquet Gardens. Collecting it opens the Sling-a-Thing stand. One of the two Things the developers name as examples in Iwata Asks.
• 
  FaucetW1-3, Water’s Edge Way. Refills the empty pool at Damp Oasis.
• 
  BatW2-3, Sandshifter Ruins. Knocks every exposed segment out of Tower Power Pokey in one go. The Toy Bat and Newspaper do the same.
• 
  VacuumSurfshine Harbor. Sucks up the sandstorm at Damp Oasis.
• 
  Bowling BallW3-2, The Bafflewood. Roll it at the pins of Strike Lake to open that course’s second exit.
• 
  Boom BoxW3-3, Wiggler’s Tree House. Its tune is a snatch of the Space Zone music from Super Mario Land 2.
• 
  SpongeW3-9, Gauntlet Pond. Soaks up Gooper Blooper’s poison and squirts it back, as do the Car Sponge and Powder Puff.
• 
  GoatW4-1, Snow Rise. A present from Birdo. Eats its way through the rubbish dump in Shy Guy Jungle.
• RadiatorW3-10, Stump Glade. One of several heaters (Hair Dryer, Oven, Matches, Lighter) for melting snowmen.
• StaplerW4-3, The Enigmansion. Pins enemies in place, as the Tape and Thumbtack do.
• 
  TeapotW5-4, Chomp Ruins. With the Cat-o-Luck, one of the two Things the developers name as examples in Iwata Asks.
• 
  TurkeyW5-5, Rugged Road. Plays what writer Taro Kudo called ’80s hip-hop when it is used.
• Paper FanW2-2, Yoshi Sphinx, behind a secret door. Red in most versions, blue in Korea and China.
• Cell PhoneW4-1, Snow Rise, behind a secret door. The Mobile Phone in European English.
• 
  Comet PieceA fragment of the Sticker Comet. Touching one ends a course.
• 
  Royal StickersSix crowns: red, orange, purple, blue and green on silver, and one of gold. They stick to the album cover as they are won.
• 
  HP-Up HeartRaises maximum HP by 5, from 20 up to 100.

Sticker Star had no cartoon and no comic of its own that our sources record, but it had one of Nintendo’s odder launch campaigns, and its places and bosses have kept turning up in other games ever since.

The New York Comic Con sticker wallNintendo of America · October 2012A wall of 493 numbered panels was put up at the show and visitors were handed matching stickers. After 43 hours the mosaic was complete and turned out to be an advert for the game. Nintendo staff also “sticker bombed” visitors’ backs and bags with giant stickers of Mario, Bowser Jr. and Megasparkle Goomba.

The diorama contestNintendo of America and iam8bit · 29 October to 7 November 2012Fans were asked to build a Paper Mario diorama, with a sample made by iam8bit. Winners received a Nintendo 3DS XL, the game, a 100-dollar eShop card and a papercraft trophy, and the chance to see their work displayed at Nintendo World in New York.

Donkey Kong: Original EditionClub Nintendo, North America · to 6 January 2013Club Nintendo members who downloaded and registered the eShop version were given Donkey Kong: Original Edition free.

Prima’s official guidePrima Games · 2012The official strategy guide.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DSNintendo 3DS · 2014The Paper Mario stage unfolds into Hither Thither Hill, with the Fan blowing in the background, and into Bowser’s Sky Castle. Kersti is a trophy under the name Paper Kersti, and Gooper Blooper and giant Bowser have trophies showing their Royal Stickers.

Super Smash Bros. UltimateNintendo Switch · 2018The Paper Mario stage returns, and Paper Bowser (Sticker Star) is a Legend-class spirit using the artwork of Bowser in his gold crown.

Mario & Luigi: Paper JamNintendo 3DS · 2015Tower Power Pokey crosses over as a boss in Doop Doop Dunes, still wearing his Royal Sticker, alongside Sombrero Guys, and the Papercraft Megacrinkle Goomba is plainly Megasparkle Goomba’s cousin.

Mario & Luigi: Dream TeamNintendo 3DS · 2013The tick and cross blocks of Snifit or Whiffit reappear as the panels of a quiz in this game.

New Super Mario Bros. UWii U · 2012The Big Buzzy Beetle, an enemy left unused in New Super Mario Bros. Wii and first seen in public here, became a regular, and Bony Beetles took their Sticker Star look.

Paper Mario: Color SplashWii U · 2016The direct sequel in all but name. Stickers become Battle Cards, Things return, and so do Hopslippers, Eekhammers, a song from Birdo and Snifit or Whiffit.

Paper Mario: The Origami KingNintendo Switch · 2020Kersti is named in a true-or-false question in the Trial of Wisdom, a photograph shows Peach surrounded by stickers, and one of the bosses is a pair of Scissors.

Mario Kart World and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie2025 · 2026Super Mario Wiki notes long-limbed Toad hieroglyphs like those of Drybake Stadium on the walls of Desert Hills in Mario Kart World, and, in the film, a book in Rosalina’s library with the Royal Stickers down its spine.

A deliberately small cast. Mario and Kersti first, then royalty and family, then the villains, then the Toads, who between them do the work that a dozen original characters did in earlier games.

Character	Who they are	In this game	Abilities & notes
MarioThe only playable character	In Decalburg for the Sticker Fest when Bowser breaks the comet.	Jumps, hammers, paperizes and fights with whatever is in the album. For the first time in a Paper Mario he has no party and gains no levels.	20 HP at the start, 100 at most Album of 2 to 8 pages Wallet of 9,999 coins No voice clips, unlike the previous two games
KerstiSticker fairy · Mario’s companion	A silver crown with blue eyes, come down from the Sticker Star inside the comet. Keeper of the Royal Stickers.	Found stuck to a Peach signboard. Provides the album, paperization and the Battle Spinner and gives hints on L. Kidnapped by Scuttlebugs in Rustle Burrow, eaten by Petey Piranha in Rumble Volcano, and spent as a sticker against giant Bowser.	As a sticker: five slots a turn, 20 HP restored Japanese name: Rūshī Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS trophy
Princess PeachRuler of the Mushroom Kingdom	Host of the Sticker Fest.	Carried off in the prologue and found at the very end, taped to a chain in the Sky Castle. It is she who suggests the wish that closes the story. Not playable, for the first time in the series.	Appears in the prologue and the finale only
LuigiHidden in five backgrounds	Mario’s brother, who has no lines at all in this game.	Lurks in the distance in Goomba Fortress, Drybake Stadium, Whitecap Beach, Whiteout Valley and Rugged Road. Paperize him out of each and he leads the closing parade, where a green Toad would otherwise march.	Five sightings Tracked by the Decalburg newspaper
BowserVillain · wearer of the gold Royal Sticker	King of the Koopas, made near-invincible by accident.	Breaks the comet, wrecks the festival and takes Peach to his Sky Castle. Fought in a five-stage running battle and then as a cardboard giant. Never speaks.	400 HP; halves all damage except Things Giant form: 500 HP; all damage reduced to 1 until Kersti is used Attack 10 Voiced by Kenny James
Bowser Jr.Villain · first Paper Mario appearance	Bowser’s son, in his Junior Clown Car, with a collector’s eye for rare stickers.	Tries to take the Scissors in Warm Fuzzy Plains, ambushes the boat in the Decal Channel and makes his stand on the Flotilla, where the Clown Car gains a shield.	20 HP, then 100 HP, then 300 HP Voiced by Caety Sagoian
KamekVillain · first Paper Mario appearance	Bowser’s Magikoopa, in the job Kammy Koopa had in the first two games.	The busiest villain in the game. Tears out a Comet Piece, folds up a stadium, pulls Wiggler apart, lets a hundred Boos loose, and turns Mario’s stickers into Sandals in two of his three fights.	20 HP in each of three battles (Water’s Edge Way, Yoshi Sphinx, Sky Castle) Flies on a broom, out of reach of Hammers
WigglerAlly · World 3	A childlike caterpillar who lives in a tree house and keeps a diary.	Split into five by Kamek. Once his four runaway segments are home he carries Mario to Gooper Blooper’s wreck.	Each segment: 15 HP when it has to be subdued Diary: five entries, one compulsory
FlutterAlly · World 6	Wiggler, grown up and winged.	Flies Mario and Kersti from the tree house to Bowser Jr.’s Flotilla.	Appears once World 5 is finished
BirdoCameo · Snow Rise	The pink egg-spitter of Super Mario Bros. 2, here a singer.	Appears in Snow Rise to perform a song for Mario, and gives him the Goat.	Gives the Goat Thing
Troublesome ToadRed Toad with a creased cap	A sticker collector forever being chased by somebody.	Drops the Scissors in Warm Fuzzy Plains and hands over an album page at Water’s Edge Way. Something useful comes of every meeting.	Told apart by the crease on his head
Traveling ToadRed Toad · one ambush per world	A tourist with terrible luck.	Found surrounded by enemies in each world. Mario can fight them off or pay them off. Each rescue produces a postcard to a friend.	Bribe or battle
Crybaby ToadGreen Toad · Hither Thither Hill	Lost and sobbing in a walled garden.	Walk him back to Decalburg and he gives a Mushroom and the clue to the windmill code. Writer Taro Kudo told Iwata Asks that he held the green Toad back to be the forest ranger.	Reward: Mushroom and a hint
Sling-a-Thing ToadPurple Toad · Decalburg	Proprietor of the stand that flattens Things, and by his own account a marketing genius.	Turns any Thing into a Thing Sticker, free of charge, once the Cat-o-Luck has been found.	Second stand at Outlook Point
Shady Toad and Swindler ToadDecalburg traders	Two Toads on the make.	The Shady Toad, left of the Sling-a-Thing stand, sells back Things that Mario has found before. The Swindler Toad, freed from Bowser Tape in the prologue, later offers supposedly rare stickers at a steep price.	Shady Toad stocks only Things already collected once
Oasis ToadRed Toad · Damp Oasis	A traveller who has walked into a sandstorm to find a legendary oasis.	Dismayed to find it dry when the storm lifts; opens the nearby building once the Faucet has refilled it.	Needs the Vacuum, then the Faucet
The stewardPurple Toad · The Enigmansion	Heir to a mansion he cannot get into.	Asks Mario to seal away a hundred Boos, and pays with tea, an HP-Up Heart and the Forebear’s Portrait. Ends the game as the forebear’s contented servant.	Gives the Forebear’s Portrait scrap
The forebearSepia Toad · a portrait	The Enigmansion’s former owner, who exists as a painting.	Paperized into a gap at Whiteout Valley, he steps out of the frame and runs the ski lift, then takes his house back.	Starts the chairlift to Bowser’s Snow Fort
Host SnifitQuiz master · Stump Glade	The masked compere of Snifit or Whiffit.	Runs a true-or-false quiz with a Wiggler segment as first prize. One question claims that Peach is Bowser Jr.’s mother, a nod to Super Mario Sunshine.	Snifits make their Paper Mario debut in this game Voiced, like the Shy Guys, by Nate Bihldorff

Bosses & enemies

Every boss in story order with HP, attack and defence as given in Super Mario Wiki’s tables, then all the regular enemies. There is no bestiary in the game itself and no enemy is new as a species: the bosses are bigger or shinier versions of Mario regulars. “Halves” and “quarters” mean that ordinary stickers do a half or a quarter of their usual damage; Things are not reduced.

• 
  Bowser Jr. (boss)W1-1, Decal Channel, W6-2Three fights: 20 HP (attack 3, defence 2), 100 HP, and 300 HP with attack 6 on the Flotilla, where the Clown Car is shielded.
• 
  Kamek (boss)W1-3, W2-2, W6-320 HP each time; attack 4, then 6. On his broom he is out of a Hammer’s reach, and from the second fight he swaps the album for Sandals.
• 
  Big Buzzy Beetle (boss)W1-4, Hither Thither Hill40 HP, attack 3, defence 999 until it is flipped on to its back. Guards an HP-Up Heart.
• 
  Megasparkle Goomba (boss)W1-6 · red Royal Sticker90 HP, attack 5, halves damage. Leaps, rolls up into a tube, folds into a spike. Scissors or a Fan while the sixteen Goombas are flipping brings the lot down.
• 
  Tower Power Pokey (boss)W2-5 · orange Royal Sticker300 HP (head 100, four segments of 50), attack 7, quarters damage. Spins, topples, calls Green Pokeys and heals 10 HP under its crown. A Bat clears every exposed segment.
• 
  Wiggler Segment (boss)World 315 HP, attack 5. The runaway body parts, which put up a fight before they will follow.
• 
  Big Scuttlebug (boss)W3-7, Rustle Burrow16 HP, attack 8. Lord of the burrow where Mario loses his album, his Hammer and Kersti.
• 
  Gooper Blooper (boss)W3-12 · purple Royal Sticker300 HP, attack 4, quarters damage. Slaps in rhythm, then dips in the sea and sprays poison. A Sponge fires it back, blinding him for four turns and stripping his defence.
• 
  Big Cheep Cheep (boss)Surfshine Harbor88 HP, attack 4. Has to be beaten in the water off the harbour before the boat can sail.
• 
  Big Boo (boss)W4-3, The Enigmansion100 HP, attack 10. A hundred sealed Boos, screwed into one by Kamek.
• 
  Bowser Snow Statue (boss)W4-6 · blue Royal Sticker400 HP, attack 10, quarters damage except from fire and Things. Stomps and breathes frost; every 100 HP lost cracks it open to show a smaller statue.
• 
  Mizzter Blizzard (boss)W4-6, inside the statue100 HP. The snowman at the core, who can only throw snowballs. Ice attacks heal him.
• 
  Big Chain Chomp (boss)W5-4 and W5-699 HP, attack 10, defence 999. Woken and fought on top of the ruins; in the volcano, Big Chain Chomps serve as ballast.
• 
  Petey Piranha (boss)W5-6 · green Royal Sticker300 HP, attack 4, quarters damage. Body-slams and spits goo that leaves Mario soggy; his spin attack makes him dizzy, and a jump on his exposed belly button frees Kersti. Bites three times for 7 each below 100 HP.
• 
  Bowser (boss)W6-3 · gold Royal Sticker400 HP, attack 10, halves damage; then 500 HP as a giant, taking 1 damage a hit until Kersti joins the album.
• 
  WhompBowser’s helper, W6-350 HP, attack 10. Everything but a Thing does 1 damage.
• 
  Chain ChompBowser’s helper, W6-3100 HP, attack 10, cannot be hurt. The trick is to send it back.
• 
  Lava BubbleBowser’s helper, W6-3Attack 2. Fireballs that leap during the corridor battle.
• 
  GoombaHP 5 · attack 2Decalburg, World 1, Drybake Desert, Leaflitter Path, the Flotilla.
• Paper-Cone GoombaHP 7 · attack 3A Goomba folded into a point, proof against jumps. Early World 1.
• 2-Fold GoombaHP 10 · attack 4Two Goombas folded together. Bouquet Gardens, Water’s Edge Way.
• 
  Koopa TroopaHP 8 · attack 3World 1. Tucks into its shell.
• Buzzy BeetleHP 7 · attack 5 · defence 1Hither Thither Hill, Drybake Desert and Stadium.
• 
  SpinyHP 8 · attack 5Whammino Mountain, Drybake Desert, Yoshi Sphinx. Not to be jumped on.
• 
  Bob-ombHP 7 · attack 3Goomba Fortress and the Flotilla. Arrives by parachute.
• ParagoombaHP 6 · attack 3Goomba Fortress and World 2.
• 5-Fold ParagoombaHP 40 · attack 5Five Paragoombas in one. Drybake Desert.
• SwoopHP 9 · attack 4The caves and tombs of World 2; Bowser’s Sky Castle.
• 
  Sombrero GuyHP 15 · attack 4World 2. Drops its sombrero as a sticker. Maraca Guys and Accordion Guys (15 HP each) make up the band at Yoshi Sphinx.
• 
  PokeyHP 16 · attack 6Drybake Desert, Damp Oasis. The Green Pokey has 20 HP.
• 
  Hammer BroHP 22 · attack 7Yoshi Sphinx, Sandshifter Ruins, the jungle, the Flotilla, the Sky Castle.
• Dry BonesHP 13 · attack 7Yoshi Sphinx, the caskets of Sandshifter Ruins, Rumble Volcano.
• Koopa ParatroopaHP 10 or 14 · attack 5World 2 and the Sky Castle.
• SpikeHP 16 · attack 6Sandshifter Ruins, Drybake Stadium. Throws spiked balls.
• 
  Mural GoombaHP 13 · attack 4A long-legged wall painting come to life. Drybake Stadium, with the Mural Koopa (13 HP).
• 
  SnifitHP 16 · attack 3Throughout World 3; Bowser’s Snow Fort.
• NinjiHP 9 · attack 5World 3. Appears in a puff of smoke.
• 
  Shy GuyHP 12 · attack 3World 3 and Bowser’s Snow Fort, where one has 120 HP. Clip Guys and Paint Guys (12 HP) carry stationery.
• 
  Boomerang BroHP 24 · attack 6 · defence 2World 3, Shy Guy Jungle, the Flotilla, the Sky Castle.
• 
  Piranha PlantHP 25 · attack 7Worlds 3 and 5, the Sky Castle. The Fire Piranha has attack 10.
• 
  Poison BlooperHP 14 · attack 4Strike Lake, Gauntlet Pond, Holey Thicket, Whitecap Beach.
• 
  ScuttlebugHP 11 · attack 5 or 7Rustle Burrow, Tree Branch Trail.
• Spike TopHP 13 · attack 6 · defence 1Rustle Burrow, Holey Thicket, World 5, the Sky Castle.
• Cheep CheepHP 8 · attack 3Whitecap Beach.
• 
  Shiny GoombaHP 7 · attack 4 · halves damageWorld 4 and the Flotilla. Shiny Paragoombas (7 HP), Shiny-Cone Goombas (8 HP), Shiny Koopa Troopas (9 HP), Shiny Bob-ombs (8 HP), Shiny Paratroopas (11 HP) and Shiny Buzzy Beetles (8 HP) follow the same rule.
• 
  Snow SpikeHP 18 · attack 20Snow Rise, Ice Flow. The hardest hitter among ordinary enemies.
• 
  Ice BroHP 28 · attack 10 · defence 2World 4, Rugged Road, the Flotilla.
• Scaredy RatHP 10 · attack 5The Enigmansion.
• 
  BooHP 18 · attack 10The Enigmansion, with Gold Boos (18 HP) and the Boo Stack (82 HP, takes 1 damage a hit).
• FuzzyHP 6 · attack 3Whiteout Valley.
• 
  Spear GuyHP 12 · attack 9World 5. Hammers bounce off a level spear.
• 
  Fire BroHP 26 · attack 10 · defence 2Rugged Road, Rumble Volcano, the Flotilla.
• Bony BeetleHP 13 · attack 6 · defence 1Rugged Road, Rumble Volcano, the Sky Castle.
• Rocky WrenchHP 15 · attack 5Bowser Jr.’s Flotilla.
• BroozerHP 21 · attack 6Bowser Jr.’s Flotilla.

Key staff

Two companies made Sticker Star under Nintendo’s producers: Intelligent Systems, the series’ home from the start, and Vanpool, the studio run by Taro Kudo. Names and roles are from the game’s credits.

The making of Sticker Star is unusually well documented, because Satoru Iwata sat five of its makers down for an Iwata Asks interview and they told him, with some relish, how often Shigeru Miyamoto had sent them back to the drawing board.

Late 2009: a Paper Mario for 3DS, and “just a port”

According to Kensuke Tanabe, the idea that Paper Mario would suit Nintendo’s forthcoming 3D handheld dates from the end of 2009. The first version was a straightforward RPG that used the stereoscopic screen, and pictures of it were shown at E3 2010, before the 3DS itself was on sale, under the bare title Paper Mario. Those screenshots show Goombas, Koopas and Pokeys drawn as they were in The Thousand-Year Door, a many-segmented Wiggler, a battle against a king-sized Monty Mole and, at Mario’s side, a Chain Chomp partner.

Then Miyamoto played it. Director Naohiko Aoyama’s summary of the verdict, in Iwata Asks, is that he “said it was just a port of the GC version.” Tanabe conceded the point: Miyamoto had at first said that something like an RPG would do, and the team had taken that as leave to make another Thousand-Year Door.

A second prototype, shown to him in the spring of 2011, went down only slightly better. “He said it was boring,” Aoyama recalled.

Miyamoto’s two requests

Beyond wanting the atmosphere changed, Tanabe said, Miyamoto had insisted on two things from the outset. The first, in Tanabe’s telling: “It’s fine without a story, so do we really need one?” The second: “As much as possible, complete it with only characters from the Super Mario world.”

Tanabe backed the first with a statistic. Club Nintendo had surveyed players of Super Paper Mario, and by his account “not even 1% said the story was interesting”; far more had enjoyed flipping between dimensions. Taro Kudo, who wrote the script, agreed that a handheld game played in short bursts needed no more than a goal at the end and plenty of small episodes on the way.

The second request meant no new enemy species and no allies except Toads. Kudo claimed to have enjoyed it (“the more restrictions there were, the more excited I got”) and set about giving each Toad a slightly different character. Iwata tied the rule to something Miyamoto had said about Super Mario Galaxy, that Mario designs follow from function: a spike means do not jump here.

Going all out with stickers

Stickers began as a puzzle idea for the field. In the search for the big change Miyamoto wanted, the team decided to, in Tanabe’s words, “use stickers for the whole thing, including battles”. Iwata called it a policy of going all out with stickers.

The rest followed from that. The early version had a party of individual allies, like any RPG; once stickers took over, that system and its characters were thrown out and the game was begun again. Tanabe later told Nintendo Life that partners had clashed with stickers in both puzzles and battles: “For Sticker Star we decided to prioritise the sticker theme and so remove the partners.” Experience points went too. Tanabe had wanted to drop them for years, he said, and pointed to his earlier Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland, in which the hero never grows and money solves everything.

A new team, an old hand and a company president

Miyamoto’s wish for a change of air extended to the staff. A few programmers stayed on so that old material could be reused, but of the planners and designers, project manager Kenji Nakajima said, “about 90% were participating for the first time.” The director’s chair went to Naohiko Aoyama, who as a new recruit in 1997 had drawn, in his own time, the picture that defined the series: 3D polygons arranged like a picture book, with paper-thin characters. Iwata, looking at it during the interview, read out its date: 5 March 1997.

Tanabe himself was tied up with Donkey Kong Country Returns until early 2011. His first act on arriving was to ask Taro Kudo, president of Vanpool, to join as a member of staff, because he needed someone good with words making decisions on the spot. The two had history: Kudo had been at Square for Super Mario RPG when Tanabe was Nintendo’s contact for it, and Tanabe had later sent him to observe the making of the first Paper Mario.

A real kettle

Things came from another corner of Intelligent Systems, where a group had written a program for throwing a 3D object at a wall so that it stuck and became a picture. Asked for examples of the results, Nakajima named the Teapot and the Cat-o-Luck. Aoyama’s team resisted: a photo-real kettle or lucky cat plainly did not belong in a paper world. That was the attraction for Tanabe. “I had a hunch that the incongruity of a real kettle would serve as a hook,” he said. Miyamoto approved.

Miyamoto’s taste was not always for restraint. For the ruins of World 2 the character designers drew tall, long-limbed Toads and Koopa Troopas as ancient murals. The staff called them gross, Kudo thought they looked like shiitake mushrooms, and Miyamoto asked for them to be more disgusting still. “You never know until you show Miyamoto-san!” said Tanabe.

Two and a half years of trailers

The game was in public view for a long time. After E3 2010 it reappeared in trailers at Nintendo World in January 2011 and at E3 2011; in those early builds the Battle Spinner was still the Battle Chance and some stickers were hexagonal. The name Sticker Star came at E3 2012, Nate Bihldorff of Nintendo of America demonstrated it live at a Nintendo 3DS showcase that June, and a final trailer was shown in the Nintendo Direct of 25 October 2012. North America had the game first, on 11 November, sold on a game card or as an eShop download.

Some things did not make it. Super Mario Wiki records that Bowser’s Sky Castle was to have had minigames, cut for want of time, and that the game’s files still hold graphics for a spiked Green Pokey and a Ptooie, hurt frames for Lakitu and Fish Bone, who can no longer be fought, and early versions of the festival ground and the museum.

New and unusual things

None of this was a surprise to anyone who had read the fine print. In 2007, asked by Nintendo Power where the series would go after Super Paper Mario, Tanabe had said, as quoted by Super Mario Wiki, “I don’t think we’ll ever go back to the exact same game style as before”.

Later in the Iwata Asks session he admitted that Miyamoto had been angry with him more than once, over the handling of Bowser for instance, and by defending the approach anyway. Super Mario has a main line that Miyamoto built and that has to be respected, he said, but in Paper Mario “there is a point to tackling new and unusual things.” To Nintendo Life, in November 2012, he added: “I am personally interested in making a new game in the series.” It would be Color Splash.

What Sticker Star did first, checked against Super Mario Wiki’s comparison with the three games before it and against the ones that came after.

There are no codes. The secrets are the kind a strategy guide exists for: which Thing each boss fears, where the second exits are, and where Luigi has got to.

Hidden Luigi

Goomba Fortress: on the fortress wall where the bridge to the tower ends. Drybake Stadium: in a window on the right of the outdoor part of the fourth floor. Whitecap Beach: on a far-off rock at the end of the broken pier. Whiteout Valley: close to the top of the ski lift, on a chair travelling the other way. Rugged Road: past the Save Block, let the falling rocks blast a hole in the floor; he is in one of the hot springs below. Paperize each time. All five put him at the head of the credits parade.

What to bring to each boss

Megasparkle Goomba: Scissors or Fan, used while the Goombas are flipping over. Tower Power Pokey: Bat, Toy Bat or Newspaper, and never a Hammer on an exposed segment, because the spikes hurt Mario. Gooper Blooper: Sponge, Car Sponge or Powder Puff when he turns dark purple. Bowser Snow Statue: anything that burns. Petey Piranha: Jump stickers for the moment he is dizzy. Bowser: turn the Chain Chomp back on him, and save the best stickers for after Kersti joins the album.

The windmill code

The four number blocks in the windmill at Hither Thither Hill want 4, 1, 2, 3 (the Korean release uses 7942 and the Chinese one 9958). The Crybaby Toad gives the clue if he is walked home, and the cellar below holds the Big Buzzy Beetle and an HP-Up Heart.

The eight Super Flags

Heartthrob: every HP-Up Heart. Honorary Curator: every type of sticker. Covert Doorman: every secret door found and opened. Comet Repairman: every Comet Piece. Super Shopper: 10,000 coins spent in Toad shops. Speed Star: 500 Perfect Bonuses. Mr. Excellent: 1,000 “Excellent!” Action Commands. Spin Doctor: three of a kind on the Battle Spinner 50 times.

Second exits

Water’s Edge Way, Sandshifter Ruins (the way to Damp Oasis), Strike Lake (take the Bowling Ball to the pins), Loop Loop River, Holey Thicket, Snow Rise and Long Fall Falls each have a second Comet Piece. Wiggler’s Tree House has two.

Secret doors

Buy Secret Door stickers at Outlook Point, the only shop that stocks them, and paperize wherever a faint door outline shows. Most of the rooms behind them hold a Thing. Keep one spare: in battle it is a guaranteed escape.

Filling the museum

Free the curator from under the Decalburg fountain. The museum wants 96 battle stickers and 64 Thing Stickers; when the album holds one it lacks, the matching wing lights up. Complete sets open the enemy gallery and the 29-track music gallery, and make Mario Honorary Curator and Kersti his deputy.

Wiggler’s Diary

The diary on the third floor of the tree house has five pages, and only one fills itself in. For the others, take a Wiggler segment sightseeing before delivering it: to The Bafflewood, Outlook Point, Tree Branch Trail, the audience of Snifit or Whiffit and Surfshine Harbor. Once Wiggler is whole again, blank pages stay blank.

Spin for free, or pay to win

Every boss battle starts with a free go on the Battle Spinner. Otherwise it costs 3 coins, rising with each use in the same fight; 15 coins lines up the first two reels and 30 slows them down. Three Mushrooms heal 20 HP, and when Mario is weak the Mushroom and Coin symbols may swap places to make that easier.

Coins from the fallen

Keep stomping an enemy after its HP has gone and each extra hit shakes out a coin. Finishing a fight in the first turn without a scratch adds a Perfect Bonus.

Lost a Thing?

A Thing that has been used up goes back to where it was first found. If that is a long walk, the Shady Toad to the left of Decalburg’s Sling-a-Thing stand sells any Thing collected before.

Letters in the rubbish

Before clearing the dump in Shy Guy Jungle with the Goat or the Vacuum, search it. There is a letter from Parakarry and a memo from Goombella, still at the University of Goom and researching the Chomp Ruins.

Kersti in the last battle

When Kersti appears in the album during the fight with giant Bowser, using her restores 20 HP and gives five sticker slots every turn from then on. Super Mario Wiki notes that Bowser can be beaten without her, and that the ending is the same either way.

Shops restock with stronger stickers each time a Royal Sticker is recovered, so it pays to revisit the Decalburg shop after every boss.

A tidy game by Paper Mario standards. Super Mario Wiki documents a handful of bugs, one of them able to stop the game dead, and some interesting leftovers on the cartridge.

Through the floor at Yoshi Sphinx

In the battle at Yoshi Sphinx, if a Koopa Paratroopa and a wall strike Mario at the same instant, the wall shoves him through the floor of the battlefield. When the fight ends the game treats him as lost and gives a Game Over.

The Bowling Ball crash

Certain Thing Stickers used against Mizzter Blizzard can crash the game outright. The Bowling Ball is the one Super Mario Wiki names. Save before the mine-cart ride.

The silent album

Pick up a sticker and open the album straight away and its sound effects go quiet, apart from page-turning and sorting. They come back when play resumes.

Kersti for sale

In normal play the Kersti sticker can never leave the final battle, which makes her threat about being sold at a shop an empty one. Hackers who have moved her elsewhere report that she fetches 15 coins.

Left on the cartridge

The music gallery plays 29 tracks; a thirtieth, “Scary Story”, is in the files and cannot be selected. Also unused are a spiked Green Pokey, a Ptooie, damage frames for Lakitu and Fish Bone, several scraps meant for World 1, and early rooms for the festival ground, Decalburg, the museum and the harbour warehouse.

Nintendo of America’s own trailer from October 2012, and the most-cited dissenting review of the day.

• In Japan the game is Pēpā Mario: Sūpā Shīru, “Paper Mario: Super Seal”, shīru being the everyday Japanese word for a sticker. The Chinese titles follow the Japanese; only the Korean one translates “Sticker Star”.

• 

  The Paper Mario lettering in the Sticker Star logo contains the outline of the logo of The Thousand-Year Door.
• A Toad rescued early in Decalburg complains that Bowser crumpled him up 256 times. That number is a running joke in Super Paper Mario, where Dimentio boasts of attacks made 256 times more powerful.
• Megasparkle Goomba and Mizzter Blizzard are the only bosses who talk in full sentences. Petey Piranha manages one intelligible line under the sticker’s influence, which Super Mario Wiki counts as the only time he has ever spoken.
• In Japanese the Royal Sticker bosses are plainly Boss Goomba, Boss Pokey and Boss Mr. Blizzard. “Tower Power” is the English localisers’ pun on flower power, a nod to the pink flower under the Pokey’s crown.

• 

  Gooper Blooper is lilac with purple spots here, to match his Poison Bloopers; his usual spots are blue. When his own poison blinds him, the battle music turns into a jazzy take on the ground theme from Super Mario Bros..
• The soundtrack is full of borrowed tunes. The mine-cart ride plays Slider from Super Mario 64, the ski lift has the athletic theme of Super Mario Bros. 3, the Flotilla has that game’s airship music, the Enigmansion quotes the Ghost House of Super Mario World, and swinging the Bat plays the Course Clear fanfare on a ballpark organ.
• The Yoshi Sphinx resembles the one in the background of Yoshi Desert in Mario Kart: Super Circuit, and it has a voice, supplied by Kazumi Totaka.
• Mario’s look of alarm on first seeing a Boo is the face Doopliss pulls in The Thousand-Year Door when his name is guessed.
• When Mario’s HP falls to 30 per cent or less, the battle music switches to a weary arrangement of itself. Earlier Paper Mario games sounded an alarm.
• There are three save files where the earlier games had four, and they cannot be named.
• The Big Chain Chomp has 99 HP and a defence of 999, and the Big Buzzy Beetle has the same defence until it is on its back.
• Played in numerical order, the fifth boss is a Piranha Plant that you take on in a volcano, exactly as in the first Paper Mario.

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  Before the Things there was a Chain Chomp. Screenshots from E3 2010 show one fighting at Mario’s side as a partner.
• Tanabe recalled in Iwata Asks that Square’s first pitch for Super Mario RPG showed Mario in a cape, on horseback, holding a sword. Miyamoto’s response, as he remembered it: Mario would not have a sword, though he might have a hammer.
• Asked by Nintendo Life for a favourite Thing, Naohiko Aoyama chose the baseball bat. Kudo chose the Turkey, for its music.
• Tanabe told Nintendo Life he expected the game to take 30 to 40 hours to finish.
• Kersti’s entry in the album reads: “Sacrifices herself to give Mario all her power, leaving everything to him.”
• The game ends without saving the state of the album, which is why Kersti can never be put in the Sticker Museum. Neither she nor the Sandal has a frame there.
• In the Korean and Chinese versions the Paper Fan is blue and has no writing on it.

Every region used the same key art of Mario brandishing his album, with local logos and age ratings. Eleven covers are shown, including the Nintendo Selects reissues.

More of the papercraft Mushroom Kingdom, from the first field to the last float of the parade.

Official artwork, concept art, sprites, stickers and a few pictures of the game before it was finished.

Sticker Star has never been remade or ported, and its critical standing is low. Its influence on the series is another matter: it is the model for everything after it.

Announcements, releases and re-releases

• Development begins End of 2009Planned as a stereoscopic RPG for the coming Nintendo 3DS.
• E3 2010 June 2010Revealed in a trailer as Paper Mario, with a partner system on show.
• Nintendo World 2011 and E3 2011 January and June 2011New trailers; stickers and the Battle Chance appear.
• E3 2012 June 2012Named Paper Mario: Sticker Star and demonstrated on stage.
• Nintendo Direct 25 October 2012Final trailer.
• Nintendo 3DS (North America) 11 November 2012First release, on card and on the eShop.
• Nintendo 3DS (Japan) 6 December 2012As Paper Mario: Super Seal. 36/40 in Famitsu.
• Nintendo 3DS (Europe) 7 December 2012With revised English, French and Spanish text.
• Nintendo 3DS (Australia) 8 December 2012Australian release.
• D.I.C.E. Awards 2013Handheld Game of the Year at the 16th annual awards.
• Nintendo 3DS (South Korea) 6 June 2013Korean-language version, with its own windmill code.
• Nintendo 3DS (Hong Kong, Taiwan) 6 December 2013Chinese-language version.
• Nintendo Selects (Europe) 24 June 2016Budget reissue.
• Nintendo Selects (Australia) 11 May 2017Budget reissue.

Re-releases

The only reissues have been the Nintendo Selects reprints of the 3DS card in Europe and Australia. Super Mario Wiki lists no version for any other system.

The template

Paper Mario: Color Splash (Wii U, 2016) is Sticker Star rebuilt at home-console scale: a world map of courses, one-use attacks (now cards), Things, a talking companion, Toads everywhere, no experience points. The Origami King (Switch, 2020) keeps the craft-table world, the absence of levelling and the limits on original characters that Tanabe was still explaining to interviewers in 2020. Super Mario Wiki’s own summary is that the changes made here became the template for the games that followed.

The fans who wanted the old template waited until 2024, when The Thousand-Year Door was remade for Switch.

Where its cast went next

Kersti has not returned, except as a Smash Bros. trophy and a quiz answer. The bosses have done better. Tower Power Pokey and the Sombrero Guys cross into Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, Gooper Blooper is back as a Paper Macho boss in The Origami King, and the Big Buzzy Beetle went straight into New Super Mario Bros. U. Of the two newcomers to Paper Mario, Kamek was back in Color Splash, and he and Bowser Jr. both return in The Origami King. And Hither Thither Hill, of all places, is preserved in Super Smash Bros. as part of the Paper Mario stage.

Sales figures

Sticker Star sold 402,000 copies in Japan in what was left of 2012, a figure reported by GamesIndustry.biz in January 2013 and cited by Wikipedia. Nintendo’s own list of top-selling Nintendo 3DS software, as it stood on 31 March 2013, gave 1.97 million worldwide (again by way of Wikipedia), and the same investor-relations page a year later, archived and cited by Super Mario Wiki, gave 2.21 million to 31 March 2014.

That is the last figure we could trace to Nintendo’s own pages. Nintendo’s page now shows only the ten best-selling 3DS games, down to Tomodachi Life on 6.73 million as of 31 March 2026, and Sticker Star is not among them. It sold well enough in Europe to be reissued in the Nintendo Selects budget range in June 2016, and in Australia in May 2017.

• 2.21mworldwide, to 31 March 2014 (Nintendo IR)
• 1.97mworldwide, to 31 March 2013 (Nintendo IR)
• 402,000Japan, 2012 (GamesIndustry.biz)
• 75Metacritic, 69 reviews
• 36/40Famitsu
• 5.5Metacritic user score

Reception and review scores

Metacritic’s average is 75 from 69 reviews and GameRankings closed on 75.97 per cent from 49, the lowest of the four Paper Mario games to that point. The scores below are as listed by Super Mario Wiki and Wikipedia.

Most of the professional reviews liked it, with reservations. Famitsu’s four reviewers gave it nine apiece and called the sticker system unique. IGN’s Cam Shea enjoyed the humour and the invention and concluded that the game was notable as much for its failures as its successes. Edge admired how well the RPG had been reshaped for a portable, and The Escapist’s Mike Wehner went furthest: “The experience is high on satisfaction and low on frustration”, he wrote.

The complaints were consistent, and they were about design, not polish. Battles gave nothing but coins, so there was little reason to fight them. Bosses were walls unless the right Thing was in the album, and nothing said which Thing that was, or where it could be found. GameSpot’s Carolyn Petit, who liked the writing, said the game “falls into a rut at times”. Eurogamer’s Rich Stanton saw two games, a delightful world and a set of pared-back systems that swung between easy and tedious. Electronic Gaming Monthly disliked the dependence on sticker-gathering and the backtracking, and Joystiq thought it would be better played with a walkthrough open.

The harshest verdicts foreshadowed the fans’. GameXplain’s André Segers called the loss of story “one of the biggest and most unfortunate changes” and found the battles a chore; Metro’s David Jenkins called the game “a horrible disappointment” and Kersti an “unlikeable nag”. Metacritic’s user score settled at 5.5, far below the critics’, and Super Mario Wiki sums up the general view, among reviewers and players alike, as the weakest entry in the series. That reputation has shaped the reception of every Paper Mario since.

Honours

Paper Mario: Sticker Star has yet to receive a community review on Super Luigi Bros.

If you’ve played Paper Mario: Sticker Star and would like to submit a review, please get in touch.

Every fact on this page was checked against the 43 sources listed here.