Paper Mario: Sticker Star - The Complicated World of Stickers

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Paper Mario’s transition to the Nintendo 3DS - his first ever foray into the realm of portables - is merely replicating the flat plumber’s console escapades. On the surface, the game’s basic aesthetic would seem to indicate that resemblance, with turn-based battles, time-based action prompts and a sharp 2D style (now in 3D!) that toys with the notions of a paper-based life. You might then think that applies to every aspect of the game - and yet you’d be wrong, despite the fact that this game does actually retain all the previously mentioned characteristics. Like so many Nintendo sequels, Paper Mario: Sticker Star keeps the core essence of its franchise safe while finding new avenues for innovation. In this case, that innovation comes through the battle system.

Playing this latest iteration of Paper Mario quickly proves that its turn-based mechanic is unlike anything the franchise has attempted before. Allies are gone, as is the weaponry that Mario used to employ. This time, your entire offensive capability is provided through stickers that are acquired during the exploration of stages or purchased with coins earned in battle. These stickers will still enable familiar attacks, like Mario’s jump or his trusty hammer, but then they’re gone. Your offense is now a finite resource that must be collected or earned. The fact that your weaponry is entirely disposable, and can now be collected at different strength levels, immediately changes the entire premise of Sticker Star. You must now measure the effectiveness of your offense, as foolishly wasting overpowered attacks will deprive you of that resource in the future.

Yet battles aren’t as simple as placing stickers into “move slots.” This isn’t an arbitrary substitute for selecting menu options. Developer Intelligent Systems actually introduces a great deal of complexity by boldly introducing significant restrictions - and enticing players to then step beyond those boundaries.

The restrictions are these - Mario must attack his opponents in a sequential, front-to-back order. The second in line can only be targeted directly once the first is defeated. Mario can also, by default, only make one attack per turn, despite the fact that he no longer has his friends to help him against what could be 4:1 odds.

What comes next is the clever part. The game takes what would be considered stifling limits and flips them into strategic elements. Sticker Star rewards you if you can pull off a “Perfect” battle, meaning you eliminate all of your foes before the start of your next turn. The financial rewards can be great, which pushes you to be less conservative with your stronger stickers. Yet just one attack, no matter how powerful, is unlikely to take our several enemies. Enter: The Battle Spinner.

Mario can activate the Spinner, which is basically a 3 category slot machine, to not only win substantial rewards but more moves (he’ll get 1 extra slot for a double match and 2 for a triple). Mario can even spend quite a bit of money to “rig” the Spinner, making this mini-game just a bit easier. And the goal here isn’t necessarily just to achieve that “Perfect” rank. Imagine a boss fight and the advantage of getting in as much offense at once becomes clear.

Whether or not the risks and rewards of Intelligent Systems’ new battle mechanics will continue to be entertaining throughout the entirety of this Paper Mario adventure remains to be seen. The game will need to challenge players to risk using the Battle Spinner, through a certain level of difficulty as well as increasing rewards.

And while the battle mechanics are by far and away the most curious, and recurring, element of Sticker Star, they are not at all the only changes being introduced. In a first for the ‘Paper’ series, Mario’s adventure is now positioned in a familiar world and level-based structure, with each stage then introducing various puzzles, battles and challenges. It actually feels right at home for a portable game, and it’s easy to see how a lengthy RPG would be more digestible in this form.

Stickers aren’t the only thing Mario can collect. There are ‘Scraps’ to find, which are pieces of the world that must be replaced through a ‘Paperize’ ability in order to keep moving. Likewise ‘Things’ - real world objects that exist within this paper-based land - can be tracked down and eventually converted into giant stickers (which, incidentally, take up a larger portion of your limited, grid-based inventory), which then will have a variety of effects.

Playing through just a couple opening stages of Sticker Star revealed all of these ideas, and it’s easy to get the sense that they are just the surface of what ought to be a lengthy RPG. We’ll be playing more Paper Mario in the very near future - so keep an eye on IGN for more details soon.

Rich is an Executive Editor of IGN.com and the leader of IGN's Nintendo team. He also watches over all things WWE, Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed and much more. Follow @RichIGN on Twitter, if you dare!

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New Super Mario Bros. 2 DLC - To Buy or Not to Buy?

Today Nintendo released its first ever bit of paid DLC, in the form of three new Coin Rush packs for New Super Mario Bros. 2. They each feature new levels to rush through, and will run you $2.50 per pack ($7.50 for all three - yay for math!).

Interested? Skeptical? Confused? Then take a look at the guide below for everything you need to know to decide whether you want to throw a few extra bucks Mario’s way.

Who is Mario?

Really? Well, I guess if you really don’t know...

What is Coin Rush Mode?

Coin Rush mode is a feature of New Super Mario Bros. 2, where you’re challenged to collect as many coins as possible as you race through three randomly chosen levels. The catch is that you only have one life for all three levels - if you die, you have to start all over from the beginning. If you’re into bragging (and you know you are), you can activate StreetPass for Coin Rush mode, allowing you to share and receive Coin Rush Challenges from friends. Keep in mind that these DLC packs feature three levels in a specific order, rather than three random levels. You still only have one life though, so good luck with that.

Which DLC Pack is For Me?

If you’re looking for some extra levels to master in New Super 2, one or all of these packs are probably right up your alley. The three choices offer a range of options, so check out the details below to decide which one is right for you. Keep in mind that these new courses are only available in Coin Rush mode - you cannot play them in the main game. And you while you can use the funds from your eShop wallet to pay for them, you cannot purchase these packs through the eshop. To download these packs, go into your game, select Coin Rush mode, then click the Shop icon on the bottom of the page.

Gold Rush Pack

Difficulty: 1 out of 5 stars

Target: 30,000 coins

Price: $2.50

The Gold Rush Pack, as you might expect, is all about the coins. There’s not much challenge here, so it will likely bore anyone looking to really flex their jumping skills. But if you delight in nabbing as many coins as humanly possible, these levels present plenty of opportunity for that, with more coins for the taking than probably any level yet. Golden Flowers, Golden Mushrooms and Golden Loops are all over the place, so if you buy this pack, prepare to go for the gold.

Coin Challenge Pack A

Difficulty: 3 out of 5 stars

Target: 10,000 coins

Price: $2.50

This pack offers more of a challenge than the Gold Rush Pack, but still nothing too crazy. The levels here a bit larger, with more enemies and obstacles to get through. These courses are also more of a scramble for time. You'll need to grab as many clocks as possible to extend your time so you can grab more coins and make it to the end. The cool thing about this pack is that Nintendo will be tracking scores on the New Super Mario Bros. 2 website, so if you get it you'll be able to see how your coin count ranks against the rest of the world.

Nerve-Wrack Pack

Difficulty: 5 stars out of 5 stars (!!)

Target: 15,000 coins

Price: $2.50

This pack is deliciously merciless - definitely not for the faint of heart. Seasoned gamers will love the wicked challenges these levels offer, as each requires spot on platforming and forward thinking to even make it to the end (much less come close to the target coin count). Seriously, one mistake and it’s all over. Just make sure you don’t throw your 3DS in a Mario-fueled rage. You would regret it.

That’s it for the first set of DLC for New Super Mario Bros. 2. Do any of the new packs strike your fancy? Which, if any, do you plan on buying? Tell us all about it in the comments below! And if you can’t get enough New Super, remember that more DLC packs are on the way at the end of October and November.

Audrey Drake is an Associate Editor at IGN and a proud member of the IGN Nintendo team. She is also a lifelong gamer, a frequent banisher of evil and a wielder of various legendary blades. You can keep track of her wild adventures by following Aminka on IGN or @GameOnAminka on Twitter. Game on!

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Star Fox's GameCube Adventure

Let's focus on a failure. The recent avalanche of notable Nintendo anniversaries have almost all been cause for celebration, as Mario, Zelda and Metroid turned 25, Kirby hit 20 and the Big N's various home consoles all ticked off another half-decade apiece each in the past year or two. But today it's time to reflect on a milestone for a moment that should have us hanging our heads instead of jumping for joy – because today it's been 10 years since the Star Fox series took its first wrong turn.

Well, 10 years since this past Sunday, technically. Because September 23, 2002, was the day that Nintendo launched Star Fox Adventures.

Lost Planet

Late in the life cycle of the Nintendo 64, the developers at second-party Rare Ltd. were hard at work on an ambitious adventure. They'd already brought N64 fans a wealth of great 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. They'd produced incredible 3D shooters like GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. They'd even merged both platformers and shooters into Jet Force Gemini, and given us the adults-only, uncensored antics of a foul-mouthed squirrel in Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Rare was flying high, releasing hit after hit. And Dinosaur Planet looked likely to best them all.

Dinosaur Planet was a work-in-progress meant to be Rare's answer to the 3D Zelda titles. It copied its focus on exploration and puzzle-solving from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, and even cloned signature aspects of those games' controls – like not allowing the hero to jump except when nearing a ledge. More than just rehashing what Nintendo's first-party developers had already achieved, though, Rare took new steps with DP's design – like automating the targeting of nearby enemies in combat, and introducing two different playable characters that gamers would have been able to dynamically swap between at will.

It all looked incredible. And followers of the Nintendo scene roughly 12 years ago, here on IGN and elsewhere, couldn't wait to get our hands on what looked like it was shaping up to be the N64's true epic swan song.

Unfortunately, Shigeru Miyamoto got his hands on it first.

A Tea Table Wrongly Toppled

Mr. Miyamoto has a reputation for being right. He's infamous for his ability to see a game in development, quickly assess what's working for it and what isn't, and redirect straying creative teams back onto the path to success for their projects. He's known for getting forceful about his opinions, too – "upending the tea table," other Nintendo employees have said. It sounds a little harsh, but it's an effective approach, since Mr. Miyamoto almost always gets it right.

He got this one wrong.

Nobody's perfect, and it's time to just admit that Miyamoto screwed up with Star Fox Adventures. What happened was a normal behind-the-scenes scene, as Nintendo's legendary designer was shown an in-development build of Rare's Dinosaur Planet. He offered his sage advice on how to improve this, how to enhance that – taking his normal role as a mentor presenting his insight.

But then he got fixated on the foxes. Rare's Dinosaur Planet was set on a planet full of dinosaurs, naturally, but for the game's two playable heroes – Sabre and Krystal – the developers had decided on using anthropomorphic foxes. They could have been humans, sure. They could have been any other kind of animal. But because they were foxes, Miyamoto stared at the screen and made a simple remark.

"He looks like Fox McCloud, doesn't he?"

A Hero's Lost Identity

It's hard to imagine how awkward it must be for designers working in Shigeru's shadow. Here is a man who always get his way – always. And his suggestions almost always make for better final products, which must just make it even more aggravating on the rare occasions when he sets his mind to something that might not be in a game's best interest.

Apparently no one did for Dinosaur Planet. Mr. Miyamoto's off-hand remark about the game's fox hero looking like his own Fox hero was enough to completely change the direction of the project, as Dinosaur Planet was fully converted into a Star Fox title.

The result was a mess of a game. Star Fox Adventures launched to fair acclaim – Matt Casamassina's IGN review even scored it a 9 out of 10 at the time – but, a decade later, it's much easier to see its flaws.

Fox McCloud just felt shoehorned in. You could tell it was a mismatch from the start, as Fox pilots his Arwing down to the planet's surface and promptly hops out to explore on foot. Then General Pepper forbids him from wielding his blaster, forcing him to take up a staff instead. Then he runs around fetch-questing items and spirits and magical who-knows-whats, all to ultimately save the life of a blue-furred she-fox he falls in love with at first sight.

Strike 1. Strike 2. Strike 3. All of those elements could have worked wonderfully if an original character had been kept as the game's hero, but instead they all felt contrived with Fox pressed into the role. They went against everything we knew about Fox from previous games – he was a pilot first and foremost, and never left his cockpit on a mission (only in the just-for-fun Star Fox 64 multiplayer mode). He was a loner with daddy issues, the type of character an in-game love interest was never meant for (the girls hit on Falco in Star Fox 64.) And he wouldn't have just left his blaster behind because Corneria's General asked him nicely too – he would have blasted everything in sight and sent Pepper the bill for his destructive services. (Again, as in Star Fox 64.)

In fact, that bit with General Pepper ordering Fox – an independent mercenary – not to wield his own weapon on a mission seems, in hindsight, a bit too eerily similar to Adam commanding Samus not to use her equipment in Metroid: Other M. Think about that connection for a bit.

The Downward Spiral

Star Fox Adventures' problems continued beyond the damage done to Fox McCloud as a character, as the conversion of Dinosaur Planet from a late-generation N64 masterpiece into a first-year GameCube position filler clearly took its toll in other ways too – the storyline was convoluted, and entire gameplay sequences were left unfinished in the final product. Remember General Scales, the game's main antagonist? The whole single-player quest builds up to one last decisive fight with the T-Rex-esque villain, but just as you're about to attack him, the game crazily shuts down.

Seriously – I thought my personal copy had glitched out when I came to that moment myself, 10 years ago. But no, it was actually deliberate. You get into the battle with Scales and start preparing for an epic fight, and then the combat sequence just abruptly ends – since a full fight was never actually finished in development, and the game has to scoot you on to the "real" final battle with a ridiculously nonsensical version of old Star Fox nemesis Andross instead.

What's worse, the poor decisions heaped upon Star Fox Adventures then rippled out to bring down the series' next installments, too. Nintendo next tossed the reigns of the franchise over to Namco for Star Fox Assault, which was weighed down by having to integrate characters like she-fox Krystal into the on-going series storyline and was crippled by poorly executed on-foot missions – neither of which would have been there if Dinosaur Planet had just remained as Dinosaur Planet. 2006's Star Fox Command brought the series' gameplay back to an earlier era and was more successful, but, again, Krystal had to be accounted for – her weird relationship with Fox ended up stealing way too much of the spotlight as the game went in the odd direction of presenting multiple different possible endings, most of them concerned with whether or not the two foxes ever got busy making babies.

It was all, and still is, ridiculous. And it's all Star Fox Adventures' fault.

Hope for the Future

Star Fox Adventures was the last game Rare ever developed as a Nintendo second-party – after its release, they were purchased by Microsoft. Some Nintendo fans minimized that loss, pointing out Adventures as evidence of the company's poor output – but that was mostly just self-protection, fans walling themselves off from the realization that the excellent artists who brought us Banjo-Kazooie, GoldenEye and Conker were forced to compromise their vision on what could have been their best Nintendo title ever.

But, at least from the perspective of the Star Fox franchise, things here 10 years later are once again flying right. Someone at Nintendo finally figured out that Adventures had been the point when the brand veered off, and the wise decision was made to reboot and redirect the series by revisiting its best game – Star Fox 64. 2011's Star Fox 64 3D remake for the 3DS was exactly what Star Fox needed, to get refocused on what made the series great in the first place – intense shooting action, in vehicles, with a team of chatty wingmen offering criticism, advice and pleas for help with no blue-furred love interests in sight.

With hope, Star Fox 64 3D will be used by Nintendo as a new starting point for Fox McCloud, and the past decade of missteps will be ignored by any future sequels that come along. Let's just hope whatever's next will be an original adventure this time around – not another unrelated work-in-progress ruined by having Fox shoehorned into it.

For those interested in more about the original version of Dinosaur Planet, click here to read IGN64's archived coverage of the game and watch this recently-released video playthrough of the title's first sequence:

Lucas M. Thomas recognizes that the graphics of Star Fox Adventures, including Fox's fur, were pretty good. (He disowns the rest of the game, though.) You can follow him on his IGN blog and Twitter.

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Check Out This Rip Off of Super Mario 3D Land

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so this iOS rip off of Super Mario 3D Land, '3D Cartoon Land: Safari' is basically an obsessive love letter to Nintendo's iconic plumber.

First spotted on NeoGAF, 3D Cartoon Land: Safari is available for $0.99 on the Apple App Store and is described as 'very simply yet very addicting [sic].'

The screenshots below speak for themselves.

'This unique game requires you to quickly jump over obstacles and collect coins,' the game's description continues. 'But you are not secure in this beautiful cartoon world. An angry tortoise could bite you. An easy and smooth control makes it very funny and to jump or run.'

How the game's creator could describe 3D Cartoon Land as 'unique' and still sleep at night is anyone's guess, but you've got to give him credit for his gumption. For a full description of 3D Cartoon Land: Safari's 'incredibly fun' features, check out the Apple App Store link.

Lucy O'Brien is Assistant Editor at IGN AU. Find her on IGN here,Twitter here or meet the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.

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