Sunday, November 11, 2012

Paper Mario: Sticker Star -- Save the Princess. Save the Kingdom. With Stickers!

A book opens to tell us a tale.
"Ahem! Today's story begins one evening during a holiday called Sticker Fest. The Sticker Fest is a celebration of stickers that occurs every year in the Mushroom Kingdom. On the special night, a Sticker Comet falls from far beyond the sky. If everyone concentrates and wishes on the Sticker Comet... It's said that all of those wishes will come true."

Mario and many Toads are gathered at an outdoor theater. The curtain opens to reveal Princess Peach. A sparkly comet floats down to the stage and is roped off, while everyone cheers. Bowser appears onstage and Koopas and Goombas run amok through the audience. Three Toads grab Bowser's tail as he approaches the comet, only slowing him down a little. They manage to pull him back, but let go and Bowser flies forward, reaching out and touching the comet. The comet and Bowser fly off. The comet flies into the sky and splits into six colorful glowing orbs that scatter across the kingdom. Pieces of paper rain down on the crowd, while Peach, Mario, and Bowser look up. A crown then lands on Bowser's head, turning him holographic and shiny. He unleashes a dark whirlwind that blows some Toads away. He turns to Peach and Mario, who jumps towards him to stop him.

"Wake up..." says a voice. "Wake up..." Mario is rolled up on the ground. "Oh, come onnnnnn..." Looks like Mario lost that fight. "WAKE UP!" Mario must jump three times to unfold himself. He looks around, seeing the outdoor theater has been trashed and caution tape with Bowser's name on it is plastered all over. "Hey, you... come over here a minute." Mario looks puzzled, but can now wander around. Go over to the sign with Peach on it, which has a new silver crown on it. The sign talks to us, saying "Hey, you made it... finally. You sure took your sweet time, huh? But whatever. It's fine. In case it's not obvious, I'm stuck here and can't move. Hurry up and peel me off this thing! Just get close to me and hold down (A). You can handle that, right? Now PEEL!" Mario approaches the sign and peels the crown off of it. Turns out the crown was the one giving Mario an attitude. "Phew... That was unpleasant. Hey, wait a minute. You... WHAT'S YOUR DEAL?" Mario looks confused, so the crown continues, "You! YOU'RE the one who touched the comet! What is WRONG with you?! It's a saying from the beginning of time: 'Never, EVER touch the Sticker Comet!' You must have heard it a million times! You don't think a comet packed full of people's wishes might be the teensiest bit dangerous?" Well, maybe, but probably not THAT fragile. "Noooooo... You, in your infinited wisdom, had to lay your grubby little hands on it, and KERBLAMMO! Total chaos! And do you even realize what blew off to who knows where in the blast? The Royal Stickers! Yeah, THOSE ROYAL STICKERS. This is all your fault, pal! You're taking full responsibility for all of this!" Mario says something and the crown says, "Huh? Someone named Bowser touched the Sticker Comet... and you're Mario? HOW DARE YOU?! Pinning the blame on someone else? Talk about cowardly! Talk about completely unpaper-like! A lady is in serious trouble here! Ask yourself: what would the famous Mario do at a time like this, hmmm?" Mario jumps up and down, and the crown calms down, saying, "Huh? Really? You'll really help? Thanks! In that case, I'll introduce myself. I'm Kersti! I came from the faraway Sticker Star to grant everyone's wishes at the Sticker Fest. It's not me who grants them, mind you. No, the stickers who wield the mystical superpowers to grant those wishes are known as the Royal Stickers. Now they're scattered all over... As their caretaker, it's my duty to find all of them or else I can't return to the Sticker Star! So yeah... That's why you have to help me find the Royal Stickers! It looks like they fell outside of town, so first we need to find out how to get out of here!"

With that, Mario can start exploring. First, we're going to free the Toads from the Bowser tape. Peeling off Bowser tape also makes objects pop up, like a nearby stand. Bowser tape seems extremely strong. Near the stand is an Eekhammer sticker. Kersti tells us, "Huh? Hey, that's a sticker, isn't it?! Lucky you, picking up something that great. Well, you can't jam something as important as a sticker in your pocket, so let me give you an album to keep that in. Not bad, huh? Any sticker you find, you just pop it in the album. Trust me, you're going to need as many of those as you can find later on, so take good care of them!" The album is now on the Touch Screen. The Toad stuck to the stage says that Bowser pasted the Toads up all over the place. He's got something to help us, the Hammer! We can use it with (B). There is a Jump sticker attached to a Toad running around, so we peel that off his head. A Hammer sticker is stuck to a nearby stand. Once we free all the Toads, we find we can't leave the area. The path is blocked by a brick block. It's hammer time! Use the hammer to break the brick block, then peel off the Bowser tape on the ground. The path unfolds, so we can leave.

The path leads into the main part of town. There are quite a few stickers here. Item blocks may have them, as well as coins. Go behind the buildings to find more. On the right side of town is a scrap of paper hopping up and down on a wood awning. Hit the awning from below to unfold it into a Toad, who was apparently folded 256 times, as apposed to Mario's eight. There's an item block on the roof of the red house. It's doormat says "OW!" when you step on it. Use the hammer nearby to flip it over and peel the Toad stuck to it. Inside the circular blue house is a cabinet. Jump on the cabinet and jump above it for an invisible block with a coin. Open the cabinets to make Toads and sheet music fall out. In the purple house is a Jump sticker above the bed, and a Toad in the trashbin. In the red house is a Toad hiding behind a picture frame between two Mushroom photos. Now that Bowser's gone, he leaves, along with five of his friends hiding behind him. If you break the brick blocks you used to reach the roof, you'll find a Baahammer sticker. We go to the left out of this part of town.

There are two rows of Toads trying to roll out a large roll of paper. Apparently, Bowser rolled up the town's plaza like burrito. Talking to the Green Toad, we find out that we still haven't found everybody in town. We need them to help us. There's one stuck to a shrub in the residential district. The last one we missed is in the outdoor theater area, behind the sign. Hit the sign to knock it down. Now that we have all 27 Toads, we can unroll this town. The Green Toad hops on the roll and tells the other Toads to push. They unroll the town, with Green Toad trapped underneath. The town pops up and the Toads run around, happy. One Toad says we probably have a Princess Peach to save, which means Bowser kidnapped her, again. Kersti's happy because we can now leave town. If we want to talk to her, push [L]. A Toad in town tells us that some other Toads went sticker hunting on the Warm Fuzzy Plains, which is the holiday's leisure activity. We should engage in sticker hunting as well. The plaza has a shop for stickers and a locked red house. We try to leave town through the front road, but are ambushed by three Goombas. Kersti tells them that we're going to attack them, but she won't be involved.

Battle time! The Goombas say they aren't ordinary Goombas because they have the backing of Bowser. Kersti senses sticker power from them, but we have sticker power, too. Kersti says we don't have enough, despite having 13, so she gives us four Jump Stickers, four Hammer stickers, and two Mushroom stickers. We choose the sticker we want and stick it in the outline over Mario's head. We use a Jump sticker for the first Goomba. If you hit (A) before you land, you can jump multiple times. If you lower the enemy's HP to zero and keep executing hits, you'll get coins. Hit (A) just before the enemy lands an attack to block it and reduce the damage you take. With three Jump stickers, we defeat the Goombas and they run off. The area to the left of town is deserted, so we heal using the Heart Block and leave town. We can choose from four areas to go to outside of the town, called Decalburg.

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