I’ll give credit where credit is due, however, this game has much better writing, a more interesting world, and is nowhere near as tedious to play as its predecessor. You fill in colorless spots in the world in order to progress, but this is no real obstacle as paint can be obtained anywhere. Locations in this game have been sucked dry of color and it’s Mario’s job to fix it.Īgain there is no incentive to battle other than to get coins and more paint, which the game gives you so much of that you will never run out. Stickers were the gimmick of Sticker Star and just like the name suggests, Color is the gimmick of Color Splash. Paper Mario: Color Splash is higher on the list because it takes what Sticker Star does and improves on certain aspects, while also painfully leaning even more into the things that made it bad to begin with. Sticker Star is without a doubt, the worst Paper Mario game. There are no interesting characters to interact with, it doesn’t have a good story to be apart of, and the world just isn’t fun to explore. It tries to implement things that people used to like about the older games but does it so watered down that it’s a chore to play. The best way to describe Sticker Star is that it’s a shadow of its former shadow. But what’s the point in that when you don’t want to battle to begin with? In Sticker Star, you get coins that you use to buy more stickers to use in battle. What’s the point in having a battle system when there is no incentive to fight? In a typical RPG, if you do random battles, you get more experience points, items, or maybe even gear that your party can use.

The issue is that this game tries to have RPG mechanics without being an RPG, and gives players no sense of reward or accomplishment for engaging in battles. And the game is filled to the brim with jokes that are just about paper.

Even battle status aliments are paper-based puns like Mario getting soggy, clipped, or tacked. You gather stickers to use in battle and to solve puzzles like building a bridge/gate. While in past games the paper aspect of Paper Mario felt like nothing more than an aesthetic/art direction, Sticker Star leans hard into making sure every aspect and mechanic has something to do with paper/stickers. Paper Mario: Sticker Star is on the bottom of this list for one simple reason: none of its mechanics complement each other and the game feels like one big gimmick.

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