Paper Mario: Sticker Star

4 cert, Nintendo, 3DS ***

While the attention may all be on Mario’s outing on the Wii U, you shouldn’t overlook his newest 3DS title either. Paper Mario: Sticker Star is Mario with a twist; like the other Paper Mario titles, he’s in a different world. A papercraft-y, sticker-y world that you can interact with.

The back story for this particular adventure is that Mario has to recover the six Royal Stickers that have been scattered throughout the Mushroom Kingdom.

In Sticker Star, as the name implies, stickers are the currency of choice. Hunt them down, peel them off the background, earn them, win them; the more you have, the better. You need them to do the fun things that in regular Mario games you do as a matter of course. Beating enemies for example. Stickers will give you extra attack skills in battles, which can be handy. And you can also alter environments with them if the need arises.

Objects can be turned into ‘Thing Stickers’, which are an important element of solving puzzles and beating bosses. But you need to be clever about your sticker strategy for two reasons: firstly, you can’t carry an unlimited amount, so use your space wisely; and secondly, when you use a sticker it disappears, so you have to think about what you’re doing.

The environment isn’t the only thing that’s different. Combat is turn based, so you can’t just wander around stomping on enemies as you feel like it. It may not be the regular Mario way but is the method of choice for most of the Paper Mario titles.

As a 3DS title, this really works. There’s plenty to do and finding the stickers is half the entertainment.

It won’t challenge Mario’s regular environment for sheer fun and chaos, but if you’re new to this particular version of Mario, it’s a nice change of pace.