History YMMV / PaperMarioStickerStar

* TheScrappy: Kersti is widely considered to be the worst partner character in the Paper Mario series, with some going as far as to call her the worst character overall. This is due to the fact that she's a [[{{Jerkass}} jerk most of the time,]] constantly belittling and yelling at Mario (and by extension the player) for things that aren't his fault, or for solving problems in a way she didn't like. Furthermore, despite being your ExpositionFairy, the banter with her almost never actually gives helpful hints, even in situations where [[GuideDangIt the player could really use them]]. If you manage to defeat a boss without using it's intended weakness, she'll call you out for not doing things the "correct" way, which given how rarely she actually helps, doesn't exactly make her any more endearing. Not helping matters is she's also an UngratefulBastard most of time, immediately yelling at Mario and insulting him for taking so long as soon as he rescues her from being kidnapped, and being more worried over him losing/wasting his stickers rather than his well-being, leaving a bad taste in players' mouth, even for those who tolerated her up to that point.

** Oddly enough, basic combat has become this. Due to removing experience points and levels, most battles do not offer a real reward and as a result, feel like {{padding}}. Even ''Super Paper Mario'', which was more of a platformer and the RPG elements were greatly reduced, had EXP in some way, and in that case EXP took the form of points, as with every 10000 points, the characters level up and become stronger and with more HP. Battles in ''Sticker Star'' can offer you coins, and occasionally health and stickers, but you find the latter two in the levels themselves usually and you can find the former at the end of every level. Also, there's a limited amount of stickers that you can carry, and fleeing can fail randomly, especially when Mario has low HP, which causes him to lose his turn and punishes the player for taking part in battles. All of this results in making battles pretty much useless.

* {{Sequelitis}}: ''Sticker Star'' is widely seen as the weakest of the series, due to its revamped, overly simplified ''and'' overwhelmingly obtuse battle system, ExcusePlot, {{Flat Character}}s, generic locations, unoriginal character designs,GuideDangIt puzzles, and several other reasons.

* SoOkayItsAverage: Many elements of the game, including the dumbed-down gameplay, the [[{{Pun}} paper-thin]] characterization, the "have the right item on you or die" mechanics behind most of the bosses, a grand total of one new character, and the handling of Bowser's characterization (or lack thereof) add up to the response from those who don't hate the game being a resounding "meh." This wouldn't otherwise be notable if it weren't an installment in the highly acclaimed ''Paper Mario'' series. Overall, those who don't hate the game consider it okay when judged on its own, but it [[ToughActToFollow does not fill the shoes of]] the first three games, escpecially the second one.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: See [[AwesomeMusic/PaperMario here]]. The soundtrack is widely regarded as one of the best things about the game, with every track being a lovingly written, appropriate, and above all else jazzy track.

* BestBossEver: Bowser Snow Statue, the boss of World 4. Its LogicalWeakness to fire attacks means you don't need to get carried by [[ScrappyMechanic Thing stickers]] to win, [[https://youtu.be/dfyOEmijVEk?si=zm3MM_Cx5r9aQzld the music]] for this fight is [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic really nice]] and then there's the reveal of [[spoiler:Mizzter Blizzard, the real boss inside of the statue, who wished for a body that wouldn't melt at the end of Winter]]. The fact this is the only boss with a fleshed out backstory, and said backstory makes for one of the game's most emotional moments, is what turns this fight into one of the few parts of the game most players actually loved.

** Boss fights have a big problem: being {{Puzzle Boss}}es with too much emphasis on "puzzle". Either you don't have the appropriate type Thing sticker, making them wipe the floor with you unless you prepared heavily, or you do have it and use it, weakening them so heavily that [[CurbStompBattle victory is nigh-guaranteed]], thus making the boss battles very unbalanced: too easy with the right Things and hair-tearingly difficult without said Thing. Essentially, having skill and strategy to defeat bosses has been replaced with having the right item to win, and can make getting high-level stickers pointless. Also, with the exception of two bosses (one of which doesn't have a Thing weakness at all), there's only one type of Thing that can exploit the weaknesses, which compounds on the GuideDangIt. What makes matters worse is that even if you ''do'' go for a SelfImposedChallenge and try to beat a boss without using their weakness, [[WhatTheHellPlayer the game will basically note that you wasted a number of stickers and brings up that you should have used their weaknesses anyway, curtesy of Kersti]].

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Kersti is often portrayed as rude and rash, but it's implied that she is acting that way because she is stressed and/or frustrated because she can't return to the Sticker Comet unless the Royal Stickers are gathered. However, it's shown in the opening cutscene that she did ''nothing'' to stop Bowser from splitting the Comet in the first place, with even some Toads trying harder than her, and after the damage is done, the [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first thing she does is blame and yell at Mario.]] The whole situation is on her almost as much as it is on [[BigBad Bowser,]] and combined with the fact that she spends most of her other scenes yelling at Mario or getting him into otherwise-avoided trouble, it's hard to find people who sympathize with her.

* BestBossEver: Bowser Snow Statue, the boss of World 4. Its LogicalWeakness to fire attacks means you don't need to get carried by [[ScrappyMechanic Thing stickers]] to win, [[https://youtu.be/dfyOEmijVEk?si=zm3MM_Cx5r9aQzld the music]] for this fight is [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic really nice]] and then there's the reveal of [[spoiler:Mizzter Blizzard, the real boss inside of the statue, who [[WellIntentionedExtremist wished for a body that wouldn't melt at the end of Winter]]]]. The fact this is the only boss with a fleshed out backstory, and said backstory makes for one of the game's most emotional moments, is what turns this fight into one of the few parts of the game most players actually loved.

* BestBossEver: Bowser Snow Statue, the boss of World 4. Its LogicalWeakness to fire attacks means you don't need to get carried by Thing stickers to win, the fight is accompanied by {{SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic}} and then there's the reveal of [[spoiler:Mizzter Blizzard, the real boss inside of the statue, who [[WellIntentionedExtremist wished for a body that wouldn't melt at the end of Winter]]]]. The fact this is the only boss with a fleshed out backstory, and said backstory makes for one of the game's most emotional moments, is what turns this fight into one of the few parts of the game most players actually loved.

* BreatherBoss: Bowser Snow Statue, the boss of World 4. Due to its LogicalWeakness to fire attacks, it's one of the few major fights in the game that doesn't force you to rely on Thing stickers to have a chance at winning, and the boss's own attacks are relatively simple to deal with, especially after it goes into ClippedWingAngel form.

* BestBossEver: Bowser Snow Statue, the boss of World 4. Its LogicalWeakness to fire attacks means you don't need to get carried by Thing stickers to win, the fight is accompanied by {{SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic}} and then there's the reveal of [[spoilers:Mizzter Blizzard, the real boss inside of the statue, who [[WellIntentionedExtremist wished for a body that wouldn't melt at the end of Winter]]]]. The fact this is the only boss with a fleshed out backstory, and said backstory makes for one of the game's most emotional moments, is what turns this fight into one of the few parts of the game most players actually loved.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Along with ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', it's one of the games in which some fans aren't pleased with the gameplay changes, though this case was worse because what remained of the RPG elements, which were still present in ''Super Paper Mario'', although noticeably toned down, was completely removed, and the minimal story, the severe lack of variety in character designs, especially with NPCs, the gimmicky combat system, the confusing puzzles with Kersti rarely giving suggestions and a humour with an obsession on paper puns, were also hated. Interestingly enough, one of the major motivations for the development team after Miyamoto insisted on no story (or at the very least, minimal story) was to survey Club Nintendo members to see if they liked the story in the previous games. Not even 1% responded that they liked the story or that they considered it interesting, and the response generated led the team to moving in more of the emphasis on paper. However, [[FridgeLogic many have gone on to point out]] the many problems with this survey process, with the biggest offender being that the survey was limited to members of (and who regularly check) Club Nintendo. And considering that ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' has a bit of a PeripheryDemographic to begin with, it's not very surprising that most fans of the series claim to have never heard of this survey even ''existing''. For that matter, it's reasonable to say that people who did do the survey thought it wasn't much more than a joke, considering how ridiculous the answers seem in context. The fact ''Sticker Star''[='s=] surveys [[note]]which players likely would have filled in and more carefully worded in light of the above information[[/note]] were never mentioned in the lead up to ''Color Splash'' further cast doubt on whether ''Super Paper Mario'''s surveys were really the crux of the issue.

* AssPull: [[spoiler:Kersti's HeroicSacrifice, in which she gives herself up as a usable sticker to give Mario the power he needs to beat Bowser,]] comes out of nowhere and only serves as an attempt to add some last-minute drama to the climax of an [[MoodWhiplash otherwise lighthearted]] and [[ExcusePlot by-the-numbers "Mario saves the Princess" story.]] Some have wondered why not harness the power of the {{MacGuffin}}s you've spent the entire game gathering, as per the previous games, to vanquish Bowser instead of [[spoiler:sacrificing Kersti, who was given no prior indication that she had royal sticker power of her own.]][[note]]It becomes even funnier when you realize you don't need to actually [[spoiler:use her]] to defeat Bowser as the game doesn't force you to, and [[TakeAThirdOption it's very possible to beat him using just infinijump stickers instead.]] For added insult, you can [[spoiler:[[TakeThatScrappy unceremoniously throw Kersti away after the battle is won.]]]][[/note]]

* AssPull: Kersti's HeroicSacrifice comes out of nowhere and only serves as an attempt to add some last-minute drama to the climax of an [[MoodWhiplash otherwise lighthearted]] and [[ExcusePlot by-the-numbers "Mario saves the Princess" story.]] Some have wondered why not harness the power of the {{MacGuffin}}s you've spent the entire game gathering, as per the previous games, to vanquish Bowser instead of sacrificing Kersti, who was given no prior indication that she had royal sticker power of her own.[[note]]It becomes even funnier when you realize you don't need to actually use her to defeat Bowser as the game doesn't force you to, and [[TakeAThirdOption it's very possible to beat him using just infinijump stickers instead.]] For added insult, you can [[TakeThatScrappy throw Kersti away after the battle is won.]][[/note]]

** [[spoiler:Birdo appearing on a swing in World 4 and giving you the Goat after serenading Mario.]]

** Oddly enough, basic combat has become this. Due to removing experience points and levels, most battles do not offer a real reward and as a result, feel like {{padding}}. Battles can offer you coins, and occasionally health and stickers, but you find the latter two in the levels themselves usually and you can find the former at the end of every level. Also, there's a limited amount of stickers that you can carry, and fleeing can fail randomly, especially when Mario has low HP, which causes him to lose his turn and punishes the player for taking part in battles. All of this results in making battles pretty much useless.
** In combination with the two examples above, there is no option to skip your turn. This gets especially annoying in battles where you can't hurt the enemy that turn, boss battles, and the battles where your stickers are all turned into Sandal stickers that deal fixed 1 damage and are useless against everyone but Kamek. This leaves you with two choices, either waste a sticker or use the closest thing to a skip button, running away and hoping it fails. And because whether the mechanic works or not depends entirely on how the RandomNumberGod is feeling, you can accidentally flee from boss fights. Running away successfully in a boss fight ends up infuriating because not only have you wasted any stickers you used, you have to do the entire battle over.

** Boss fights have a big problem: being {{Puzzle Boss}}es with too much emphasis on "puzzle". Either you don't have the appropriate Thing sticker, making them wipe the floor with you unless you prepared heavily, or you do have the appropriate Thing sticker, which weakens them so heavily that [[CurbStompBattle victory is nigh-guaranteed]], thus making the boss battles very unbalanced: too easy with the right Thing and hair-tearingly difficult without it. Essentially, having skill and strategy to defeat bosses has been replaced with having the right item to win, and can make getting high-level stickers pointless. Also, with the exception of two bosses (one of which doesn't have a Thing weakness at all), there's only one type of Thing that can exploit the weaknesses, which compounds on the GuideDangIt. What makes matters worse is that even if you ''do'' go for a SelfImposedChallenge and try to beat a boss without using their weakness, [[WhatTheHellPlayer the game will basically note that you wasted a number of stickers and brings up that you should have used their weaknesses anyway]].

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Along with ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', it's one of the games in which some fans aren't pleased with the gameplay changes, though this case was worse because what remained of the RPG elements, which were still present in ''Super Paper Mario'', although noticeably toned down, was completely removed, and the minimal story, the severe lack of variety in character designs, especially with NPCs, the gimmicky combat system, the confusing puzzles with Kersti rarely giving suggestions and a humour with an obsession on paper puns, were also hated. Interestingly enough, one of the major motivations for the development team after Miyamoto insisted on no story (or at the very least, minimal story) was to survey Club Nintendo members to see if they liked the story in the previous games. Not even 1% responded that they liked the story, and the response generated led the team to moving in more of the emphasis on paper. However, [[FridgeLogic many have gone on to point out]] the many problems with this survey process, with the biggest offender being that the survey was limited to members of (and who regularly check) Club Nintendo. And considering that ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' has a bit of a PeripheryDemographic to begin with, it's not very surprising that most fans of the series claim to have never heard of this survey even ''existing''. For that matter, it's reasonable to say that people who did do the survey thought it wasn't much more than a joke, considering how ridiculous the answers seem in context. The fact ''Sticker Star''[='s=] surveys [[note]]which players likely would have filled in and more carefully worded in light of the above information[[/note]] were never mentioned in the lead up to ''Color Splash'' further cast doubt on whether ''Super Paper Mario'''s surveys were really the crux of the issue.

** Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto may have gotten the game's most noticeable restrictions on characters and story set into stone, saying that this game didn't need a complex story and advising to only use pre-existing characters, which is a good part of what caused people to think that he's anti-story. However, what many people may not realize is that the one responsible for generic Toads being the only recurring friendly species and the paper theme being overemphasized was actually the producer, Kensuke Tanabe, who later stated in an interview that since ''Color Splash'', his team had complete creative control, and that at this point, Miyamoto barely had a role behind the development of the games by now, only coming a couple of times to check the builds and approve them. One more thing to notice is that Miyamoto did play the later build with the stickers and wasn't impressed by it, saying that it was boring, which led the developers to increase the stickers' role, making it part of combat instead of just puzzle solving. Thankfully, more and more people are becoming aware of this as of late, and now one is more likely to point the finger at Tanabe for ''Stickers Star'''s shortcomings, keeping the things that fans disliked in the games after it and not satisfying their demands than Miyamoto.

** Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto may have gotten the game's most noticeable restrictions on characters and story set into stone, saying that this game didn't need a complex story and advising to only use pre-existing characters, which is a good part of what caused people to think that he's anti-story. However, what many people may not realize is that the one responsible for generic Toads being the only recurring friendly species and the paper theme being overemphasized was actually the producer, Kensuke Tanabe, who later stated in an interview that since ''Color Splash'', his team had complete creative control, and that at this point, Miyamoto barely had a role behind the development of the games by now, only coming a couple of times to check the builds and approve them. Thankfully, more and more people are becoming aware of this as of late, and now one is more likely to point the finger at Tanabe for ''Stickers Star'''s shortcomings, keeping the things that fans disliked in the games after it and not satisfying their demands than Miyamoto.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Along with ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', it's one of the games in which some fans aren't pleased with the gameplay changes, though this case was worse because what remained of the RPG elements, which were still present in ''Super Paper Mario'', although noticeably toned down, was completely removed, and the minimal story, the severe lack of variety in character designs, especially with NPCs, the gimmicky combat system, the confusing puzzles and a humour with an obsession on paper, were also hated. Interestingly enough, one of the major motivations for the development team after Miyamoto insisted on no story (or at the very least, minimal story) was to survey Club Nintendo members to see if they liked the story in the previous games. Not even 1% responded that they liked the story, and the response generated led the team to moving in more of the emphasis on paper. However, [[FridgeLogic many have gone on to point out]] the many problems with this survey process, with the biggest offender being that the survey was limited to members of (and who regularly check) Club Nintendo. And considering that ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' has a bit of a PeripheryDemographic to begin with, it's not very surprising that most fans of the series claim to have never heard of this survey even ''existing''. For that matter, it's reasonable to say that people who did do the survey thought it wasn't much more than a joke, considering how ridiculous the answers seem in context. The fact ''Sticker Star''[='s=] surveys [[note]]which players likely would have filled in and more carefully worded in light of the above information[[/note]] were never mentioned in the lead up to ''Color Splash'' further cast doubt on whether ''Super Paper Mario'''s surveys were really the crux of the issue.

* CriticalBacklash: Has been seeing this more over time. While many would agree ''Sticker Star'' is the weakest title in the series, some people feel the hostile reception to it is overly exaggerated as the game has good ideas and qualities that are paired with notable problems and design choices. These people often feel the game is just [[SoOkayItsAverage alright]] and wouldn't receive the amount of hate it gets if it didn't influence [[VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash future]] [[VideoGame/PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing titles.]]

* FranchiseOriginalSin: The "inventory items as attacks" concept that the despised Stickers use can actually be traced back to a game in the other ''Mario'' RPG series, ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime''. However, its Bros. Item system isn't nearly as hated because that game still allows you to use basic Jump and Hammer attacks to save items for later, they can sometimes be dropped by defeated enemies other than just finding them in blocks throught the game or buyable in shops and the inventory limit is much more generous (99 for each item).

* HilariousInHindsight: Before this game was released, people were making jokes about how Mario would be the final boss, because Bowser was in the first game, a possessed Peach was in the second game, and [[spoiler:a possessed Luigi]] was in the third game, therefore making Mario the only main character of the series not to get this role. In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'', Mario ''is'' a boss -- one of the first boss fights in the game.

** Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto may have gotten the game's most noticeable restrictions on characters and story set into stone, saying that this game didn't need a complex story and advising to only use pre-existing characters, which is a good part of what caused people to think that he's anti-story. However, what many people may not realize is that the one responsible for generic Toads being the only recurring friendly species and the paper theme being overemphasized was actually the producer, Kensuke Tanabe, who later stated in an interview that since ''Color Splash'', his team had complete creative control, and that at this point, Miyamoto barely had a role behind the development of the games by now, just coming a couple of times to check the builds and approve them. Thankfully, more and more people are becoming aware of this as of late, and now one is more likely to point the finger at Tanabe for the game's shortcomings than Miyamoto.

* TheScrappy: Kersti is widely considered to be the worst partner character in the Paper Mario series, with some going as far as to call her the worst character overall. This is due to the fact that she's a [[{{Jerkass}} jerk most of the time,]] constantly belittling Mario (and by extension the player) for things that aren't his fault, or for solving problems in a way she didn't like. Furthermore, despite being your ExpositionFairy, the banter with her almost never actually gives helpful hints, even in situations where [[GuideDangIt the player could really use them]]. If you manage to defeat a boss without using it's intended weakness, she'll call you out for not doing things the "correct" way, which given how rarely she actually helps, doesn't exactly make her any more endearing. Not helping matters is she's also an UngratefulBastard most of time, immediately yelling at Mario and insulting him for being slow as soon as he rescues her from being kidnapped, and being more worried over him losing/wasting his stickers rather than his well-being, leaving a sour taste even for players who tolerated her up to that point.

** Oddly enough, basic combat has become this. Due to removing experience points and levels, most battles do not offer a real reward and as a result, feel like {{padding}}. Battles can offer you coins, and occasionally health and stickers, but you find the latter two in the levels themselves usually and you can find the former at the end of every level. Also, there's a limited amount of stickers that you can carry, and fleeing can fail randomly, especially when Mario has low HP, which causes him to lose his turn and punishes the player for taking part in battles. All of this results in making battles a chore and pretty much useless.

** Boss fights have a big problem: being {{Puzzle Boss}}es with too much emphasis on "puzzle". Either you don't have the appropriate Thing sticker, making them wipe the floor with you unless you prepared heavily, or you do have the appropriate Thing sticker, which weakens them so heavily that [[CurbStompBattle victory is nigh-guaranteed]], thus making the boss battle very umbalanced: too easy with the right Thing and very difficult without it. Essentially, having skill and strategy to defeat bosses has been replaced with having the right item to win, and can make getting high-level stickers pointless. Also, with the exception of two bosses (one of which doesn't have a Thing weakness at all), there's only one type of Thing that can exploit the weaknesses, which compounds on the GuideDangIt. What makes matters worse is that even if you ''do'' go for a SelfImposedChallenge and try to beat a boss without using their weakness, [[WhatTheHellPlayer the game will basically note that you wasted a number of stickers and brings up that you should have used their weaknesses anyway]].

* {{Sequelitis}}: ''Sticker Star'' is widely seen as the weakest of the series, due to its revamped, overly simplified ''and'' overwhelmingly obtuse battle system, ExcusePlot, {{Flat Character}}s, generic locations, GuideDangIt puzzles, and several other reasons.

** Kamek, especially the last fight against him. He transforms all of your stickers into flip-flops, so you better take note about which sticker was what, lest you use up some really valuable ones here. The first fight's not too bad, since he's alone. Come the second time, where he creates two clones of himself to ensure you need to get three sticker slots from the Battle Spin, can change altitude so ''no'' attack will hit, and will make a random sticker of yours disappear.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Along with ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', it's one of the games in which some fans aren't pleased with the gameplay changes, though this case was worse because the RPG elements, which were present in ''Super Paper Mario'', although noticeably toned down, was completely absent, and the minimal story, the severe lack of variety in character designs, especially with NPCs, the gimmicky combat system and a bad humour with an obsession over paper, were also hated. Interestingly enough, one of the major motivations for the development team after Miyamoto insisted on no story (or at the very least, minimal story) was to survey Club Nintendo members to see if they liked the story in the previous games. Not even 1% responded that they liked the story, and the response generated led the team to moving in more of the emphasis on paper. However, [[FridgeLogic many have gone on to point out]] the many problems with this survey process, with the biggest offender being that the survey was limited to members of (and who regularly check) Club Nintendo. And considering that ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' has a bit of a PeripheryDemographic to begin with, it's not very surprising that most fans of the series claim to have never heard of this survey even ''existing''. For that matter, it's reasonable to say that people who did do the survey thought it wasn't much more than a joke, considering how ridiculous the answers seem in context. The fact ''Sticker Star''[='s=] surveys [[note]]which players likely would have filled in and more carefully worded in light of the above information[[/note]] were never mentioned in the lead up to ''Color Splash'' further cast doubt on whether ''Super Paper Mario'''s surveys were really the crux of the issue.

** In combination with the two examples above, there is no option to skip your turn. This gets especially annoying in battles where you can't hurt the enemy that turn, boss battles, and the battles where your stickers are all turned into Sandal stickers. This leaves you with two choices, either waste a sticker or use the closest thing to a skip button, running away and hoping it fails. And because whether the mechanic works or not depends entirely on how the RandomNumberGod is feeling, you can accidentally flee from boss fights. Running away successfully in a boss fight ends up infuriating because not only have you wasted any stickers you used, you have to do the entire battle over.

** Boss fights have a big problem: being {{Puzzle Boss}}es with too much emphasis on "puzzle". Either you don't have the appropriate Thing sticker, making them wipe the floor with you unless you prepared heavily, or you do have the appropriate Thing sticker, which weakens them so heavily that [[CurbStompBattle victory is nigh-guaranteed]]. Essentially, having skill and strategy to defeat bosses has been replaced with having the right item to win, and can make getting high-level stickers pointless. Also, with the exception of two bosses (one of which doesn't have a Thing weakness at all), there's only one type of Thing that can exploit the weaknesses, which compounds on the GuideDangIt. What makes matters worse is that even if you ''do'' go for a SelfImposedChallenge and try to beat a boss without using their weakness, [[WhatTheHellPlayer the game will basically note that you wasted a number of stickers and brings up that you should have used their weaknesses anyway]].

* SoOkayItsAverage: Many elements of the game, including the dumbed-down gameplay, the [[{{Pun}} paper-thin]] characterization, the "have the right item on you or die" mechanics behind most of the bosses, a grand total of one new character, and the handling of Bowser's characterization (or lack thereof) add up to the response from those who don't hate the game being a resounding "meh." This wouldn't otherwise be notable if it weren't an installment in the highly acclaimed ''Paper Mario'' series. Overall, those who don't hate the game consider it okay when judged on its own, but it [[ToughActToFollow does not fill the shoes of]] the first three games.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Along with ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', it's one of the games in which some fans aren't pleased with the gameplay changes. Interestingly enough, one of the major motivations for the development team after Miyamoto insisted on no story (or at the very least, minimal story) was to survey Club Nintendo members to see if they liked the story in the previous games. Not even 1% responded that they liked the story, and the response generated led the team to moving in more of the emphasis on paper. However, [[FridgeLogic many have gone on to point out]] the many problems with this survey process, with the biggest offender being that the survey was limited to members of (and who regularly check) Club Nintendo. And considering that ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' has a bit of a PeripheryDemographic to begin with, it's not very surprising that most fans of the series claim to have never heard of this survey even ''existing''. For that matter, it's reasonable to say that people who did do the survey thought it wasn't much more than a joke, considering how ridiculous the answers seem in context. The fact ''Sticker Star''[='s=] surveys [[note]]which players likely would have filled in and more carefully worded in light of the above information[[/note]] were never mentioned in the lead up to ''Color Splash'' further cast doubt on whether ''Super Paper Mario'''s surveys were really the crux of the issue.

* HilariousInHindsight:
** Before this game was released, people were making jokes about how Mario would be the final boss, because Bowser was in the first game, a possessed Peach was in the second game, and [[spoiler:a possessed Luigi]] was in the third game, therefore making Mario the only main character of the series not to get this role. In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'', Mario ''is'' a boss -- one of the first boss fights in the game.
** [[spoiler:Mizzter Blizzard, who despairs over the inevitability of melting once winter is over,]] is essentially Olaf from ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'' if he was PlayedForDrama rather than laughs.

* FranchiseOriginalSin: The "inventory items as attacks" concept that the despised Stickers use can actually be traced back to a game in the other ''Mario'' RPG series, ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime''. However, its Bros. Item system isn't nearly as hated because that game still allows you to use basic Jump and Hammer attacks to save items for later, and the inventory limit is much more generous (99 for each item).

** Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto may have gotten the game's most noticeable restrictions on characters and story set into stone. However, what many people may not realize is that the one responsible for generic Toads being the only recurring friendly species and the paper theme being overemphasized was actually the producer, Kensuke Tanabe. Thankfully, more and more people are becoming aware of this as of late, and now one is more likely to point the finger at Tanabe for the game's shortcomings than Miyamoto.

** Oddly enough, basic combat has become this. Due to removing experience points and levels, most battles do not offer a real reward and as a result, feel like {{padding}}. Battles can offer you money, and occasionally health and stickers, but you find the latter two in the levels themselves usually and you can find the former at the end of every level.

* {{Sequelitis}}: ''Sticker Star'' is widely seen as the weakest of the series, due to its revamped, overly simplified battle system and ExcusePlot, {{Flat Character}}s, generic locations, GuideDangIt puzzles, and several other reasons.

* TheScrappy: Kersti is widely considered to be the worst partner character in the Paper Mario series, with some going as far as to call her the worst character overall. This is due to the fact that she's a [[{{Jerkass}} jerk most of the time,]] constantly belittling Mario (and by extension the player) for things that aren't his fault, or for solving problems in a way she didn't like. Furthermore, despite being your ExpositionFairy, the banter with her almost never actually gives helpful hints, even in situations where [[GuideDangIt the player could really use them]]. If you manage to defeat a boss without using it's intended weakness, she'll call you out for not doing things the "correct" way, which given how rarely she actually helps, doesn't exactly make her any more endearing.

** The Frog Suit, on the other hand, doesn't apply Iron to your jumps, but boosts ''all'' damage done that turn - ''even from Thing Stickers.'' Combine this with the Crumpled status, which causes affected enemies to take double damage and is easily spread through [[BoringButPractical POW Block stickers]], and the [[StatusBuff Boom Box Thing]], and let the destruction begin.

** POW Blocks are another way to make bosses, and most Mook fights, [[OffTheRails super easy]]. Like the other examples, its shtick - the [[StatusEffects Crumpled status]] - makes grounded enemies (which every boss is) into spikeless sitting ducks and causes them to take double damage. The best part is that POW Blocks are fairly common and easily bought in bulk, and it's also a bonus on the Battle Spin, meaning you always have access to one if you're good.

** Before this game was released, people were making jokes about how Mario would be the final boss, because Bowser was in the first game, a possessed Peach was in the second game, and [[spoiler:a possessed Luigi]] was in the third game, therefore making Mario the only main character of the series not to get this role. In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'', Mario ''is'' a boss - one of the first boss fights in the game.

* HarsherInHindsight: Given how this game, ''Paper Jam'' and ''Color Splash'' made use of generic Toad [=NPCs=] instead of the more colorful casts of the previous games or any other friendly mainline species, fans of the older games and others who aren’t Toad fans criticized the newer games about their overuse, if not making memes about the whole situation. In ''The Origami King'', [[spoiler:King Olly takes the dislike of Toads a step much further, seeing the "scrawlings" on his body by his Toad creator as grounds for a FinalSolution.]]

** The Giant Cheep Cheep at Surfshine Harbor. It starts off easy, but then the Cheep Cheep dives into the water and recovers ALL its health and remains in the water. At this point, you ''must'' use the Fishhook Thing (which happens to be decently well-hidden) to reel it out. Then, the Cheep Cheep will start puffing up until it pops and kills itself, killing you too if you don't have armor.