Last night, Nintendo’s second E3 press conference took place, held exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS. While nothing new was shown or announced, they did reveal a bit more on the lastest installment in the ever so popular Paper Mario series, Paper Mario: Sticker Star for the Nintendo 3DS.
After forgoing the classic battle system in favor of a sidescrolling platformer-style system in Super Paper Mario, Paper Mario: Sticker Star returns to the turn-based system from the first two installments. Partners also return after being replaced by the Pixls. A new feature includes a “Battle Spin” slot machine, which is similar to Bingo! in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door; it allows Mario to get set of extra stickers or coins, and boy did they take great pride in explaining the coins.
Like in the past games, primarily Paper Mario 1, and Paper Mario Thousand Year door, the game again will return to its rpg roots with the classic turn-based gameplay we are all familiar with. Though this time around there is no menus or attacks for the battle, the game instead adopts a new ‘command-based’ function. The game features the classic theme of all Paper Mario games with foldable characters and pop-up scenery. Stickers will be shown on the bottom sceen, and players can choose from the following options: Status, Sticker, Scrap, Things.
Before E3, Nintendo said ‘stickers’ will play a huge role this time around, emphasis on the subtitle. As seen in the gameplay footage they showed off, a realistic (non-paper) fan was shown, which Mario shut down and later turned into a sticker. Experience will be earned (but not from battles) and there will still be RPG elements. Players will solve puzzles in the environment and scour areas to find experience points. For example, placing stickers in the environment can affect the world, such as placing the fan and using it to blow wind and turn a windmill. There are even Larger stickers that will eat up inventory space, but with much more rewards in store for you.
Paper Mario: Sticker Star will be released this holiday season.
