Paper Mario Sticker Star

If you expect a follow up to Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, then you'll be severely disappointed.
If you expect another spin off game like Super Paper Mario, then you'll be okay with it.
If you expect a Paper Mario game that is almost entirely Adventure oriented, then you'll love this game.

There are no RPG elements, other than turn based combat. Your character does not progress besides increasing health similar to any Zelda game.

The puzzles are excellent, and it has an oldschool adventure feel to it, where you can become completely stumped by a particular puzzle or enemy, and need to think outside the box (or at least think like the designers.)

An excellent Mario game as long as you don't consider it a Paper Mario, or Mario RPG.

The game should be called: "Paper Mario's Sticker Star Adventure"

GOOD:
Variety of types of stages
Immersive world
Funny,clever dialogue
Fun new battle style
Option to collect items
Well done 3D

NOT SO GOOD:
Confusing series of events, not enough hints (a walkthrough is helpful at times!)
No explanation of absence of leveling up

Paper Mario Sticker Star has a lot of cool features. The worlds are beautiful and explorable (not side-scrolling), and the character dialogue is very well written (the Toads are hilarious). The battle style is really cool- you pluck stickers on your journey and add them to a sticker album, and in battle you can use the stickers to make an attack that you can make more effective by timing and blocking during execution. Players who like to collect things will have a good time finding every type of sticker and "thing" (objects which can be turned into stickers and used for special purposes in the game). Collected items can be added to a sort of museum in the game, so it becomes addicting to collect them all. The stages of the game are not monotonous, because there different twists thrown in here and there, so you aren't constantly engaging in battle after battle.

The 3D in this game is one of the best utilizations of the 3D I've seen so far on my 3DS. Cut scenes are good to watch with 3D, as things really pop. Also, I was surprised when playing a wintery level and snowflakes began falling in believable 3D.

My only complaint about this awesome game is that there are not enough hints for you to know what to do. Often there is a very random task that needs to be completed, and without a walkthrough to read you might wander around aimlessly for a long while in frustration. "Secret" rooms are often NEEDED to progress in the game, and you often need to carry with you a specific, one-of-a-kind sticker to beat a level with no hint that it would be needed (so you need to backtrack and find it before you can complete the level). Your guide, Kersti, will give you hints, but they are often vague and unhelpful. Also, some players might be confused to find that there is no real leveling system for Mario- instead, you collect HP up (heart) pieces to increase your health-bar, and as you progress you also get new stickers that make your attacks more powerful.

Overall, the good very much outweighs the bad in this case. Paper Mario Sticker Star is one of my favorite Mario games. Full of funny surprises and cool stuff to collect, I highly recommend it.

Everyone has already said that this is not an RPG, but the lack of character advancement is core to its failure.

The main mechanic of the game is obtaining stickers which represent attacks, healing items, etc. They're everywhere in the world, and you can also buy them. Money comes from battles, but that's ALL that comes from battles. Without any XP system, and HP upgrades found as items in the overworld, battles become a waste of time; they use up stickers with the only reward being the funds to buy replacement stickers, and on top of that, the combat system is poorly designed. You can't select which enemy you want to attack, and instead have to feed coins into a slot machine that will allow you the privilege of attacking enemies beyond the first. Since the battles are optional, it quickly becomes more efficient to simply avoid them, as you're not actually missing out on anything by skipping them. And the game realizes this, because as it goes on, it introduces enemies that go out of their way to engage you in battle. When a game gives you no incentive to partake in its core mechanic, and instead ends up FORCING you into it against your will, something is terribly wrong.

It also does a terrible job of explaining secondary mechanics. I won't give spoilers here, but my breaking point was when I came to an area that could only be passed through the use of a mechanic the game hadn't indicated was available to me, and even when I figured it out, it gave no indication that the solution only worked for a limited time. That was in November. I haven't played the game since.

An abysmal product for $40.