Video Game / Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Time to... PAPERIZE!

A Paper Mario game for the Nintendo 3DS, released on November 11, 2012 in North America. The game returns to the series' RPG roots, as opposed to Super Paper Mario's platforming-RPG hybrid approach, although it's not what you would expect with the first two Paper Mario games. The game makes use of the system's 3D effects, as expected on the system.

In this game, Bowser attempts to seize the power of the wish-granting Sticker Comet, but the Sticker Comet shatters and scatters across the land. With the help of the sticker fairy Kersti, Mario sets out to recover the 5 Royal Stickers and rescue Princess Peach, who has been once again kidnapped by Bowser, now empowered by the Royal Stickers. He must also use stickers he finds throughout the environment for battles and puzzle solving, which are stored on the bottom screen. Real-world objects, called Things, can be found and turned into stickers as well.

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This game provides examples of:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: During the final battle, Kersti has Mario use her as a sticker for a massive powerup, which involves breaking through Bowser's defense and giving him 5 sticker slots if the wheel results in a jackpot...but it also involves sacrificing Kersti in the process.
• Absurdly Short Level:
  • Outlook Point is mostly just a shop and another area outside of Decalburg to convert Things into stickers. There are no enemies, and instead of getting a Comet Piece, Mario just has to talk to a Toad and the level is considered cleared.
  • Shaved-Ice Cave is the shortest level in the game, consisting entirely of a shop.
  • Gate Cliff, 6-1, is less of a "level" and more of a single cutscene to open up the route to Bowser Jr.'s Flotilla.
  • Bowser's Sky Castle consists of three short hallways, one last encounter with Recurring Boss Kamek, and the final fight with the Koopa King himself. The developers wanted to add mini-games to the castle to lengthen the trek, but ran out of time (evidence of this can be seen in the second hallway, in which Mario must navigate a moving carpet over a pit of spikes while dodging small obstacles).
• Accordion to Most Sailors: The musical theme for Surfshine Harbor is a variation of the theme for Decalburg, except slower, in 3/4 time, and with accordions among the instruments.
• Action Commands: Par for the course for Paper Mario, but this game also has action commands when using mushrooms, where success results in restoring more HP. Although it doesn't look like it, the Thing stickers have Action Commands too, ranging from Button Mashing to timed presses. Some of them won't even work unless you perform Action Commands.
• Actually Four Mooks: As in other Mario RPGs. Often, one enemy on the overworld will be joined by two or three others who leap in out of nowhere to battle alongside them once you enter combat.
• A Dog Named "Dog": New characters of old species are subject to this. Wiggler in both his forms, the Snifit host, and the many Toads are among them. Taken to a head with a letter to Toad from Toad in 5-1's junkyard.
• Affably Evil: Kamek is always sure to congratulate Mario and Kersti on their progress before each fight with them. By their final battle, he's developed enough respect for them to suggest skipping their taunting banter and get on to the fight.
• Alas, Poor Villain: All Mizzter Blizzard really wanted was a body that couldn't melt. He even apologizes after you beat him.
• An Ice Person: The Ice Flower and Chillhammer stickers have ice properties, as well as the Refrigerator, Shaved Ice, and Air Conditioner.
• Anti-Frustration Features: If you run from a boss, then go back to it, Kersti will give you hints as to what Thing to use and when.
• Anti-Villain: Can we really call Mizzter Blizzard a villain? All he wanted was a body that couldn't melt.
• Anvil on Head: The Basin, Square Can, and Drum stickers fall on the enemy's head.
• Art Evolution:
  • The environments seem to be even more paper-y than usual, and several enemies have been updated to resemble their designs from New Super Mario Bros. and onwards.
  • The paper-y parts extend to gameplay: one of the Things is Scissors.
  • The whole game seems to revert to the original's more story-book like presentation and combines it with Super Paper Mario's graphical fidelity and platforming.
• Artifact of Doom: The Royal Stickers bestow both power and insanity upon their wearers.
• Attack Reflector: The recommended Thing to bring to the battle with Gooper Blooper is the Sponge. Use it directly before he does his poison spit attack and the sponge will absorb it and spit it back at him. This not only poisons him for 30 damage per turn, but it also blinds him, making him miss with all of the numerous attacks he launches.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Using an Infinijump Sticker on an enemy with 100 HP or less is a guaranteed kill if you can nail the Action Command... But do you really want to press the A Button 100 times?
  • Big and Megaflash Infinijumps can deal up to 200 (Big) or 300 (Megaflash) damage... but here's the catch. There are no regular enemies with more than 100 HP, and bosses quarter all damage dealt to them, rounding down, to a minimum of 1... which means a Megaflash Infinijump can deal a maximum of 100 damage to a boss. Which means you may as well just use regular Infinijumps, which take up much less room in your sticker album.
• Back from the Dead:
  • The Toad who runs the Whiteout Valley lift is apparently brought back to life from his picture through the power of paperization.
  • Also, Kersti is brought back to life at the end of the game when Mario wishes on the Royal Stickers.
• Badass Bystander: While the standard procedure Toads go through in most Super Mario Bros. games is to run away from danger and cower in fear, the intro cutscene shows several Toads actually yanking Bowser back from the Royal Stickers by his tail the moment he shows up. They don't actually manage to stop him, but they get points for trying.
• Bad with the Bone: Dry Bones, as usual, attack by throwing bones at Mario. They sometimes drop the Bone sticker, so Mario can do that, too!
• Batter Up!: Both baseball bat Things (the Toy Bat, and the standard wooden Bat) and the Newspaper Thing. This is the secret to beating Tower Power Pokey: you have to hit his segments with a baseball bat. The intro to the battle even says "PLAY BALL!"
• Berserk Button:
  • Wiggler did not take kindly to his home forest being covered in poison, preventing him from eating any food.
  • Kersti is easily irritated whenever she interacts with Kamek.
• Big Bad: Bowser. While he's only seen at the beginning and ending of the game, his presence is greatly felt as all of his minions talk about him and the Toads are terrified of his rampages throughout the levels.
• Blow You Away: The Fan blows enemies into the screen.
• Bomb Whistle: The drop hammer, the Square Can, and the Basin make such a sound when they are falling on Mario's enemies.
• Bookcase Passage: Paperizing one of the bookshelves in The Enigmansion opens a hidden passageway to the basement.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: Some of the Thing Stickers can have unique effects during boss battles.
  • If you choose to use the Bat during the Tower Power Pokey battle when all five of its body segments appear, it will knock away every one of the segments, leaving the head vulnerable.
  • Any heat-related Things, like a Hairdryer, deal extra damage against the Snow Bowser Statue.
  • If you use a Stapler, Tape, or a Thumbtack during the first phase against Bowser in the Sky Castle, it will seal the doors shut, preventing Bowser from summoning minions.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Fights that play regular enemy music include a Nigh-Invulnerable Boo Stack that just begs to be Infinijumped and two Shy Guys that are possibly a nod to Anti Guy of the first Paper Mario game. The Boo Stack is required, the Shy Guys are optional.
• Boss Remix: Kamek's battle theme.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Mizzter Blizzard and possibly Tower Power Pokey are not normally evil, but the influence of the Royal Stickers made them crazy.
• Build Like an Egyptian: The Drybake Desert has a large pyramid as well as a Sphinx designed like a Yoshi.
• The Bus Came Back: The Ninjis from Super Mario Bros. 2 came back after their last appearance being in Mario Party Advance. Snow Spikes from New Super Mario Bros. make a comeback, and Bony Beetles make a reappearance for the first time since Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 with a new design that would later be used from this game onwards.
• But Thou Must!:
  • If you attempt to use one of the alternate exits to Wiggler's tree house after getting the scrap to place it, but before getting the segment, Kersti will say something along the lines of looking through too many parts of the forest would get you lost, and Mario will automatically jump back.
  • Lampshaded and played for laughs by Kersti when first learning about the Battle Spinner; if Mario keeps saying "no" when Kersti asks him if he would like her to teach him about it enough times, this is her answer.
  Kersti: You know what? Forget you! Here — pick one of these answers so we can move on. (Your answer choices are "Yes" and "Yeah".)
• Call-Back:
  • When you find all of Luigi's hiding places, he leads the credits parade like in Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario 64. This also references his cameo in TTYD, but he was a shadow that time, like everyone else in the credits.
  • In the final battle, one of Bowser's attacks is throwing a Chain Chomp at you by swinging it like a ball-and-chain, just like he did in Super Mario RPG.
  • In Shy Guy Jungle, a paper from Goombella can be found, which states that she's been observing the ancient civilizations of Chomp Ruins.
• Cap:
  • Damage is capped at 99 per hit, which can be reached with powerful stickers and status effects.
  • The coin cap now has an extra digit and stops at 9999.
• Captain Obvious: When you lose Kersti and try to talk with her:
  Kersti's not here. You can't talk to someone who's not here.
• Carrying the Weakness: Piranha Plants, which are weak to fire, drop Fire Flower stickers.
• Cave Behind the Falls: In Water's Edge Way, the hidden Comet Piece opening the path to Whammino Mountain is hidden in a cave hidden behind a waterfall.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Remember how Wiggler dreamed about wanting to grow up? When it's time to go face Bowser in his Sky Castle, he'll have grown into a Flutter and will fly you up there.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Many of the Paper Mario-original cast were excised for this game. Although you can find some research notes left by Parakarry and Goombella among the trash in Shy Guy Jungle.
• Co-Dragons: Bowser Jr. and Kamek.
• Collection Sidequest: The Sticker Museum. Getting all the battle stickers opens the enemy gallery, and getting all the Thing stickers opens the music gallery.
• Combat Exclusive Healing: Mushroom stickers can only be used in battle.
• Combat Stilettos: One of the Thing stickers is a pair of high-heel shoes that crush foes under their heels. On jazz music.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When Mario powers up for the final stage of the boss fight with Bowser, the score switches to an arrangement of the Yoshi's Island invincibility theme, mixed with Kersti's leitmotif.
  • Super Mario Bros. 2: Snifits, Ninjis, and even green-colored Pokeys make an appearance. The main title theme is also a remix of the Super Mario Bros 2 credits theme.
  • Super Mario Bros. 3: Several powerups from the game return, like Goomba's Shoe (which takes the form of the Super Boot and Clone Jump stickers) and the Frog Suit.
  • Super Mario Sunshine: Gooper Blooper and Petey Piranha are bosses in the game. Bowser Jr. also makes his Paper Mario debut as one of the Co-Dragons, and the whole "Peach is his mother" thing is referenced in Snifit or Whiffit.
  • Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins: The boom box plays a version of the music from Space Zone 2.
  • Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga: To get to Bowser's Castle, you must go to a previous ally who can fly you there.
  • Mario Bros.: Mural Koopas are depicted crawling on all fours, like Shellcreepers.
• Cool Airship: Bowser Jr.'s Flotilla.
• Cool Crown: The Royal Stickers look like crowns.
• Copy Protection: Parodied. In World 5-1: Shy Guy Jungle, one of the things Mario can find in the pile of trash is a serial key: "XD3R-B8HH-9ZR2-FL16".
• Cosmetic Award: The eight banners in the Sticker Fest plaza. Each one unfurls upon completing a certain task.^note On the other hand, they appear in both the ending scene and the parade...including the ones you didn't get.
• Creepy Jazz Music: The evil wizard Kamek has a jazz theme called "The Blue Wizard". Its Boss Remix has a similar style.
• Crown of Power: The Royal Stickers are six crown-shaped stickers with Reality Warping powers. All of the bosses in the game are regular enemies who have put on a Royal Sticker, granting them immense power.
• Death Mountain: Whammino Mountain.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: Averted in the actual battles, but afterwards the enemy flops over and explodes on the field.
• Demoted to Extra: Luigi, who was a very important character in the previous Paper Mario, is only a background character in this one.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Try tilting the 3DS up and down while having your shiny stickers showing in the touch screen.
  • Additionally, when a health bar is visible (say, in a battle), try giving your 3DS a little shake.
• Disc-One Nuke: Paperization Blocks can give you some really powerful stickers as early as World 1-1. What you need to do is Paperize when you see a stump or a ring of 6 flowers, then stick a sticker on the red square containing the Paperization Block, then hit the block to give you either a different sticker than the one you paste, or an upgraded version of that sticker. With enough patience, getting flashy stickers to trounce the first few levels isn't too hard.
• Disney Death: Mizzter Blizzard asks Mario to rebuild him next winter and make this his fate instead of being Killed Off For Real.
• Disney Villain Death: Using a Tail or Baseball Bat to knock the Chain Chomp at Bowser in the last phase of the first battle leads to it knocking him off a cliff.
• Drop the Washtub: The Basin Thing.
• Easter Egg: Each world in Sticker Star has Luigi hidden in one level. Paperizing allows you to remove him, but this doesn't seem to affect anything except a count given just before the finishing credits.
• Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: In contrast to its predecessor Super Paper Mario, which was the inverse, Sticker Star has fairly large areas without many dangers or difficult places, and the lack of Experience Points means that normal battles can be easily skipped without any consequences. Most of the difficulty comes from the boss fights themselves, where the difficulty is mostly about finding out which sticker or Thing is the most effective and exploiting the boss' weakness by using the correct one.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Some stickers give Mario the ability to summon friendly mooks, like a Koopa to kick into enemies.
  • Even though partners don't exist in this game, an enemy does help you out: the Wiggler/Flutter flies you to Bowser's Castle.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Even Bowser, who tried to touch the Sticker Comet again!
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: The end result of the Soda Can.
• Excuse Plot: This game isn't plot-driven, with all of the story delivered in cutscenes at the start and end of the game.
• Expy: Due to enemies unique to the Paper Mario series being exiled from use in this game, some enemies from the platformers take their general roles. Interestingly, some replacements even do this to enemies who were already expies of them, making this a recursive example.
  • Coned Goomba to Spiked Goomba
  • Spike to Clubba
  • Scuttlebug to the Pider and Arantula
• Exposition Fairy: Kersti.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Implied when Mario and Kersti are riding Flutter to Bowser's Castle towards the end of the game. During the flight, Flutter reminisces about the adventures he had with Mario back when he was just a Wiggler. Kersti remarks that those adventures only happened "a little while ago".
• Fake Longevity: While most of the Super Flags can acquired prior to completing the game (including the "50 Battle Spinner Jackpots" Super Flag), at least three may require both farming (the "Spend 10,000 coins" Super Flag), and grinding (the "1000 Excellent Attacks", and "500 Perfect Bonuses" Super Flags).
• Final Boss Preview: At first, it looks like this will happen as with the first game, when Bowser wears the Royal Sticker and Mario jumps at him. Then the game flashes ahead to the aftermath.
• First-Person Shooter: The game turns into this with the Squirt Gun Thing.
• First Town: Decalburg.
• Friendly Enemy: Taken farther than usual with Bowser this time — while he's not a full-on Enemy Mine like he was in Super Paper Mario, after his defeat, Peach still tells Mario after his defeat not to worry about him, and he'll probably be fine after the Royal Sticker is gone.
• Game-Breaking Bug: As documented by Chuggaaconroy in Part 3 of his “Chugga Sticks It to Sticker Star” series, the game can potentially crash if the bowling ball is used against Gooper Blooper. It seems to only affect early copies of the game and was quietly fixed in later revisions, since he wasn’t able to replicate the bug.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: The first phase against Bowser involves four segments in which he uses different moves, all the while backing away as he takes damage.
• Giant Mook: Big Buzzy Beetle, Mega Cheep Cheep, Big Scuttlebug, and two of the main bosses (Megasparkle Goomba when joined by his minions, and Tower Power Pokey).
• Gratuitous Disco Sequence: Upon discovering the Boos hidden in the frame in the Enigmansion, both the Boos and Mario start disco dancing for no reason. The disco music persists throughout the following battle.
• Green Hill Zone: Warm Fuzzy Plains.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • All Things have action commands, but the game never tells you this. Some require blowing into the microphone, and will fail entirely if you don't, when nothing indicates blowing into the mic is even an option. (Every other action command uses the A button)
  • For Gooper Blooper, you have to equip the sponge before the boss uses his poison spit. The sponge will absorb the poison and then shoot it back for a lot of damage, in addition to blinding the boss, making all of his attacks miss.
  • Bowser: In order of the phases: stapler or tape, Eekhammer (or two regular hammers) with any scissor Things, freezing Things plus Fan Things, and either a Raccoon Tail or a bat-type Thing.
  • Wiggler's diary in world 3. The only hint at its existence is that there is a blank book in Wiggler's house and one entry is automatically gotten when you find the last segment. However, the game doesn't tell you that you got the entry. The rest of the sidequest isn't better: you need to go to certain places with a Wiggler segment following you: A dandelion at the end of world 3-2, the poisoned hot springs in world 3-8, the cliff with a view of the ship in world 3-6 and the game show in world 3-10. There is no hint that these places mean anything and to top things off, the sidequest is permanently missable if you don't do it soon enough.
  • The entire intended purpose of standard battling can come across as this. As you defeat enemies in a level, a hidden counter increases that affects the amount of coins you get when you find a Comet Piece. The only indication that this is even a thing is one throwaway line from Kersti near the start of the game.
  • There are two places to get Big Shiny 1UPs. One is in Rumble Volcano and you'll come across it during normal gameplay. The other is that you have to go into Ice Flow, get to the second frozen river, collect 100 coins, and then wait for it to come sliding down. Nothing in the game says you can do this.
  • A bunch of secret sticker spots require you to jump behind, or into, random walls that have no indication there's anything behind them.
  • The sticker upgrade sequence is baffling. There's nothing in-game that explains what you can get from it, or how it works, but you can easily use it to grind for overpowered stickers early on if you get lucky.
• Heart Container: The HP-Up Hearts increase Mario's health by 5 per Heart. They also increase the power of Mario's first strikes, making it possible to attack an enemy and defeat it without entering battle.
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": The Toad Mario keeps saving during his travels sends some embellished stories back to his house-sitter in Decalburg.
• Here We Go Again!: Subverted. Bowser tries to snatch the Royal Stickers again at the second festival, but Kersti chastises him for trying to pull the same stunt as he did at the beginning, and Bowser just laughs sheepishly.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Kersti in the final battle. The wish Mario makes on the Royal Stickers revives her shortly afterwards.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Gooper Blooper's weakness is having his own poisonous ink sprayed back at his face with a sponge.
• Hub Under Attack: The game starts with Bowser's troops invading Decalburg, crumpling up Toads, completely rolling up the town, and demolishing the Sticker Fest grounds. Once Mario rescues the Toads, they help unroll Decalburg and restore the town. The sticker shop and Sling-a-Thing stands then open up. However, the Sticker Fest grounds are still a wreck, and if Mario goes back to them after recovering a Royal Sticker, they're slowly cleaned up and repaired until it's all better by the end of the game.
• Ill-Fated Flowerbed: A hapless Toad can be seen in Bouquet Gardens bawling over the loss of his precious flower parterre, courtesy of heavy winds. Fortunately, Mario can restore them with Fire and Ice Flower stickers.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • There are Shy Guys that will attack you with paper clips, paint buckets, and sombreros.
  • Most of the Thing Stickers would qualify as well: high heels, fans, faucets, soda, trumpets, balloons, and trophies are all viable options for battle.
• Inevitable Waterfall: In Long Fall Falls, predictably enough. Mario rides on a raft over jungle rapids while pursued by a giant Cheep Chomp, and the chase only ends when the raft plummets down the titular falls.
• Interface Screw:
  • If you fail to repel a Shy Guy carrying a paint bucket, he'll cover the screen with paint.
  • Gooper Blooper's poison also has this effect, effectively meaning that it damages you, seriously harms your aim, and makes it hard to block other attacks.
  • Kamek turns all your stickers into flip-flops. This doesn't affect their strength, but it makes it hard to see which sticker you're attacking with, which may lead to accidentally using a rare sticker.
• Inventory Management Puzzle: The sticker album. New pages and a sorting feature help with organization problems.
• Invincible Minor Minion: Chain Chomps are impossible to defeat in battle, and must be dealt with through other methods.
• Invisible Block: Mario can reveal invisible blocks by jumping or hammering them. Mario may use these blocks to reach secrets or new areas. One level is impossible unless the player looks for invisible blocks (or hits them by accident). The best way to tell if there's an invisible block nearby is to look for blue flowers.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: Goomba's Fortress.
• Jump Scare: At one point in The Enigmansion, a stapler crashes through the window with a loud clacking sound. When it stops clicking, Mario can pick it up as a Thing.
• Jungle Japes: World 5 starts with Shy Guy Jungle, a jungle infested with Spear Guys and Piranha Plants. There are large flowers that swallow Mario if he jumps on them.
• King Mook: Every world boss besides Bowser:
  • Megasparkle Goomba is a sheet of Paper Goombas combining into one.
  • Tower Power Pokey is an abnormally large Pokey who can summon smaller Green Pokeys.
  • Mizzter Blizzard is a slightly bigger-than-usual Mr. Blizzard, despite them not appearing as enemies in the game.
  • Gooper Blooper and Petey Piranha, despite being pre-existing characters, are a big Blooper and a big Piranha Plant.
• Kill It with Fire: Ice-themed enemies and bosses, such as Ice Bros., Snow Spikes, and Mizzter Blizzard, are weak to fire-themed stickers like the Fire Flower and the Radiator Thing.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Kamek, but not before delivering a lengthy tirade about how glad he is that Mario will suffer at Bowser's hands.
  "KING BOWSER WILL DESTROY YOU! KING BOWSER WILL DESTROY YOU! KING BOWSER WI—"
• Ladies and Germs: The "Snifit or Whiffit" host, as part of his introduction.
• Lead the Target:
  • Out of battle, some enemies are surprisingly good at predicting where the player will be based on the direction you're moving.
  • This also needs to be done with the giant Cheep Chomp at the beginning of the 2nd visit to World 5-3 onwards, or Mario will be defeated in one gulp, and even then, there's still the raft.
• Leitmotif upon Death: During the final boss battle against a giant Royal Sticker-powered Bowser, Kersti decides to sacrifice her power to Mario by having him use her a sticker in combat to defeat Bowser. "Kersti's Plead", a music box rendition of Kersti's theme, plays when she says her goodbyes to Mario as she's being used up. However, her death is undone when Mario wishes her back to life after defeating Bowser and rescuing Peach.
• Lethal Lava Land: World 5 goes from Jungle Japes to a fire-themed area in Rugged Road and Rumble Volcano. Lava spouts, cracked boulders, and lots of fire-themed stickers to be found.
• Lighter and Softer: Compared to The Thousand-Year Door and Super Paper Mario, this game is lighthearted and breezy.
• Lilypad Platform: A variation appears in Loop Loop River, where Mario rides giant fallen leaves to drift around the poisonous waters.
• Limit Break:
  • The Thing stickers are very much like this, as they are usually very powerful attacks beyond the majority of the normal battle stickers and are limited by the fact there can only be one of each Thing in Mario's possession, either as a Thing or a sticker, at once.
  • Also, Infinijump and Megaflash stickers are extremely powerful. And, yes, there's a Megaflash Infinijump sticker. Unlike Thing stickers, you can have multiple Megaflash stickers at once, but they have to be farmed (each sticker has a single location it can be found, and getting another one means restarting the level).
• Living Drawing: In Drybake Stadium, the Mural Koopas and Mural Goombas are living wall engravements of the normal Koopas and Goombas from the Super Mario Bros. series. While initially immobile, they will detach from the walls and attack Mario after a certain point in the level has been reached.
• The Load:
  • The Wiggler segments tend to be as unhelpful as they possibly can, by virtue of being, well, separate parts of an already simple-minded and careless character. You're supposed to save them by going all over the forest, but every single one of them runs away from you after being rescued from the mess they mindlessly put themselves in, and then attack you when you come all the way to save their ass from some more trouble. And if you try to use the Bowling Ball sticker to open the second exit of one of the levels with a segment following you, it will get in the ball's path and deflect it for no reason.
  • There's also a Toad you have to escort to safety in World 1, who runs back to his hiding place if you jump over anything, if he touches an enemy, etc.
• Long Song, Short Scene: Can be either Played Straight or Averted depending on how you handle the final boss. If played normally you'll only get to hear the Phase Two theme for a little under a minute, but if you skip the powerup, you'll find it's both a good tune and a good mood-setter for doing it the hard way.
• The Lost Woods: The Bafflewood is a level in the third world where Mario must navigate a forest. If he takes the wrong path, he gets sent back to the beginning, but he can use stickers to mark which path is correct.
• Make a Wish: The Sticker Comet grants whoever touches it a wish. At the end of the game, Mario wishes on the royal stickers to revive Kersti and return everything to as it was before.
• Matryoshka Object: The Bowser Snow Statue. As you lower its HP, shells keep breaking off of it, revealing smaller shells, until what's controlling it is ultimately revealed to be Mizzter Blizzard.
• Minecart Madness: Bowser's Snow Fort has a segment where Mario rides a mine cart and must hop over obstacles before the boss fight.
• The Monolith: One gameplay segment shows a giant paper electric fan slowly rise up and blow away a large stack of Goombas as what sounds a lot like Also sprach Zarathustra plays.
• Musical Gameplay: Gooper Blooper claps to his boss music. You the player can also use it to anticipate his attacks in time to block.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Many of the Thing stickers are everyday objects that are played up as weapons of mass destruction.
• Ninja Log: Ninjis can do this to dodge your attacks.
• Non-Indicative Name: The Infinijump stickers have a cap of 100 jumps.
• Nonstandard Game Over:
  • If you happen to initiate a battle while on quicksand or a pool of poison, taking too much time deciding what to do will result in this. Sinking in quicksand in the overworld will also do this.
  • The giant Cheep Chomp in World 5-3 can eat Mario, instantly killing him.
• Noodle Incident: According to the Sticker Museum's description of the Pocket Watch:
  While this thing can theoretically manipulate time, every effort to use it to go back and avert that unfortunate chowder incident has failed.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Goombas and Koopas have skills to back up their words this time around, and gleefully mock Mario as they show off their sticker power.
• Ocular Gushers: Crying Toads do cry that way.
• Oddball in the Series: Perhaps the strangest of all five Paper Mario games, with notable mention being the ability to attack with Things like faucets and goats.
• Off the Rails: It's actually possible to defeat the final boss without using Kersti. Granted you have to do enough Scratch Damage to wear down that monstrous 500 HP, but it can be done. It doesn't change much, although you can check to see that Kersti is indeed in the sticker album before triggering the ending, complete with a description.
• One of These Doors Is Not Like the Other: Variant in The Bafflewood, where you have to keep track of the correct/incorrect paths yourself (likely by placing stickers on signs). It's played straight at both ends of the path - one's exit is the only one lacking a ring of flowers, the other exit is the only one which has a ring of flowers.
• Permanently Missable Content: The Wiggler diary pages, other than the last one which you get automatically, can't be obtained after you return the Wiggler segments to the head.
• Playing with Fire: The Fire Flower and Burnhammer stickers, as well as the Oven, Lighter and Matchbox Things.
• Point-and-Click Map: Instead of being one giant world to trek across, much like the other Paper Mario games, this game uses a world map system that is like a mix of Super Mario World and Super Mario RPG, because of the fact that each level has tons of exploration, secret exits, and some levels can be entered early (although you cannot progress any further if you do not have certain moves/items).
• Pop Quiz: Sniffit or Whiffit is a quiz game with high stakes. For every wrong answer Mario makes, the room fills with more toxic gas.
• Port Town: Surfshine Harbor is a small one, and this is where Mario can access the last three world of the game by sea.
• Punny Name: Kersti. Sti-cker. Get it?
• Puzzle Boss: Each boss (excluding Petey Piranha) has a weakness to one particular Thing, and not using it will result in a very long if not impossible fight.
• Ret-Canon: The Bony Beetle's design in this game (going from helmets with eyes and shoes to skeletal Buzzy Beetles) and Flutter having a brown nose instead of a red one would become permanent for all their other appearances.
• Rhymes on a Dime: The endings for each world have a story-like portion that details what happened before the bosses got the crowns in the first place, all the while rhyming.
• Save the Princess: Peach is kidnapped by Bowser as he rampages through the Sticker Fest.
• Scenery Porn: It's Paper Mario in 3D. This is inevitable.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Megasparkle Goomba's cohorts decide this when they're on the ropes, realizing With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
• Serial Escalation:
  • The enemies and bosses in this game have considerably more complex paper constructs than its predecessors, and they get more complex as the game goes on until you eventually reach the final boss made of cardboard.
  • The enemies also have more HP compared to previous games, but special mention should go to the bosses, who all have at least 100 HP, with the final boss having 500! For comparison, the second game's Superboss had 200 HP. The damage you do is generally higher as well (the normal jump stickers found from the start of the game can do up to 11 damage). Coins are escalated as well; both the amount you make and the amount you need to buy things.
• Scratch Damage: Attacks do 1 damage when the enemy's defense should cover the attack yet have a special defensive perk. However, if the attack actually is below the defense value, then it does no damage. This allows for some impressive feats like one-shotting the Nigh-Invulnerable Whomp mini-boss with an Infinijump sticker.
• Scrub: Bowser Jr. is an in-universe example of one, calling Mario's Scissors sticker "cheating" and "overpowered" when neither knew what it did before it was used. Ironically, Bowser Jr. also uses "cheap" tactics such as fully healing himself that make it impossible for Mario to beat him for the first time without using the Scissors.
• Shear Menace: The Scissors Things, when used, effortlessy dice Mario's enemies into confetti.
• Shifting Sand Land: The Drybake Desert. Of course it also has a Egyptian flare with a Yoshi Sphinx and a tall tower of ruins.
• Shock and Awe: The D-Cell and Watch Batteries, when used, will strike your foes with lightning.
• Shoe Slap: Kamek turns all your stickers into sandals in battles with him. You then beat the crap out of him with them.
• Silent Antagonist: Bowser doesn't have any dialogue in this game, only Voice Grunting, possibly to make him more menacing and less of a whimsical Badbutt compared to the other RPG games in the series.
• Sizable Snowflakes: Big starry single snowflakes fall in the foreground in snowy levels.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Snow Rise, though the second level of the world (Ice Flow) fits the "slippy-slidey" part better.
• Snowlems: The Bowser Snow Statue is one big snow-Bowser. Its true form is a Mr. Blizzard (enemy snowmen from previous Mario titles) named Mizzter Blizzard.
• Snowy Sleigh Bells: Most of the musics playing during the icy World 4 feature jingle bells in their instrumentation.
• Star-Shaped Coupon: The Sticker Comet, which Bowser steals, is a star-shaped comet.
• Surplus Damage Bonus: Every extra point of damage done to an enemy beyond its max HP nets you a coin. This gets added to the automatic coin and sticker reward for winning the battle itself.
• Tactical Suicide Boss:
  • The boss of World 5, Petey Piranha, would take much longer to fight if he didn't use his spin attack, as using it makes him dizzy, allowing you to knock him over and attack his weak spot.
  • The third time you fight Bowser Jr., he boasts a monstrous 300 HP! How do you beat him? By using Tail stickers to reflect the spike balls he fires right back at him for 50 damage each.
• The Maze: One wrong turn in the Bafflewood will send you back to the beginning. Fortunately the maze is quite small and there are plenty of blank signs to place a sticker on as a reminder of where you've been.
• Theme Music Power-Up:
  • During Gooper Blooper's boss fight, a jazzy version of the classic Super Mario Bros. theme begins to play if you use the Sponge Thing to absorb his poison blast and shoot it back at him.
  • Also occurs during the final boss battle, after Kersti gives her power to Mario. The music is a remix of the Super Mario 64 hat powerup theme.
• Third-Person Person: Wiggler/Flutter.
• Too Awesome to Use:
  • To an extent, everything, since the entire combat system revolves around consumable items. In a lot of cases it's easier to just avoid battling whenever possible and save your stickers for scripted battles and boss battles when you'll need them the most.
  • Megaflash Stickers inflict tons of damage but take up 16 spaces on a sticker album page and cannot be bought at stores.
  • The objects that you use to make Thing Stickers are also expensive and can set you back on a lot of coinage for each use. Alternatively, you can go back to the place you originally found them, every time you use one.
  • Infinijump Stickers are very rare and overpowered in the hands of precision players. The two stronger variations are both found at the ends of a level that gets much harder after getting the secret exit, making them more valuable than most Megaflash stickers (which generally don't require that much effort to reach if you're good at avoiding battles).
• Took a Level in Badass: Goombas and Koopas trash talk Mario and have the skills to back it up, even early on.
• A Twinkle in the Sky:
  • If you get an Excellent with the Bat Thing.
  • Bizarrely enough, this happens also the giant Cheep Chomp from Long Fall Falls. Instead of falling down the falls, it simply flies away, cue this trope.
• Unable to Retreat: The game lets you run from every boss fight...except the final battle against Bowser, meaning that if you don't have the right stickers to take him down, you've got to either reset the software or intentionally lose the fight.
• Underground Level:
  • The caverns between Warp Pipes take place underground. You can encounter Buzzy Beetles.
  • A level in World 2 has Mario going underground and into a sand maze.
• Unique Enemy:
  • There's only one Accordion Guy and one Maraca Guy in the game, and both are fought at Yoshi Sphinx.
  • The only time you fight any Broozers is during an encounter with a Boomerang Bro at Bowser Jr.'s Flotilla.
• Variable Mix:
  • As Mario's health gets lower in battle, the music begins to drown out.
  • The world map music changes depending on the area.
  • In 4-1 and 4-2, the music changes slightly depending on whether or not Mario is in danger of being run over by Cooligans.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Tower Power Pokey. 300 HP, 10 Defense, can deal 5 to 10 damage per turn (sometimes stunning the player and doubling the damage you take for at least a turn), and can heal. Unless you're well-prepared, he will wreck you. He also introduces the fact that unless you use the bosses' weaknesses, you're not going to get far.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Most bosses become pushovers once you figure out their weaknesses. Petey Piranha plays with this, as while his weakness is incredibly common, he isn't rendered powerless by it.
• Windmill Scenery: Hither Thither Hill has a quaint windmill. It is completely empty save for a pipe leading underground, so its purpose solely is to impede Mario's quest with one its sails blocking its entrance.
• Wish Upon a Shooting Star: The annual Sticker Fest in Decalburg revolves around making a wish upon the passing of the Sticker Comet. Usually, it will make a brief stop right on the festival stage, allowing Bowser to touch it and inadventantly wreak havoc in the Mushroom Kingdom. Many bosses have their wishes granted by the Comet, and the endgame has Mario's wish granted.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: What happens to the bosses wearing the Royal Stickers.
• Wrench Whack: Rocky Wrenches return in the game, and so does their favorite attack. They can also drop a Wrench sticker that Mario can use to throw wrenches at his enemies too.

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