Paper Mario: Sticker Star is a bad game, and here's why

I guess I need to explain why Sticker Star is factually lame all over again.
You see...
First, the story.
Ahem... Star festival rip-off of Galaxy, Bowser destroys a big star, gets power, Peach gets kidnapped, Mario has to collect shit and hear annoying paper jokes along the way. The end.
Really that's it. No penguin murder, no computer love, no Majora's Mask moon in the end, nothing. It's NSMB all over again.
Next...
Sticker Star uses that sticker system, right?
Nothing wrong with that if used right. You could've used them as a power-up for your regular attacks...
But they didn't. They had to make them to be used as the only attack option.
That's a big issue for the boss fight at the very end of the ski lift fight.
Since the stickers have a very limited storage number, you can sometimes get stuck on the boss and only hope to get falling stickers from the sky. Yes, if you're low on stickers, stickers can fall from the sky but when you actually need them (e.g. the snowman fight) they just won't appear or the game knows you still have stickers (like a door sticker or something) and actually thinks you still have something to attack with but... you don't. Have fun wasting all of your thing stickers and then get stuck at like 40/600HP of the boss because then, you have to grind for stickers all over again. Then we have the thing stickers that also have the same problem in Color Splash and then some. You see, sometimes, bosses require you to use the thing sticker. Otherwise, you can't reach the boss or get to the boss fight. That'd be fine if that'd be it.
BUT! If you take to long to screw around in the boss to figure out what to do, the boss kills you instantly. That's very, VERY rude to the player. You could've just made the player realize themselves that you just can't kill the boss without punching you into the mouth. What's wrong with making the player feel a little explorative during battle, Ninty? I thought your games were always either really easy or hard but fair. This is just rude and confusing! Speaking of confusing... You also have to use thing stickers in the overworld.
Isn't that nice? You probably have to do very simple puzzles like... putting a fire out with a bucket of water or something like that... right? Wrong!
It's instead some stupid confusing stuff like...
Put out the snow with:
A) A fire flower
B) A lighter
C) A radiator
...JUST KIDDING! You can only use option C!
What, did you expect a Nintendo game to be polished and make sense? Yes? What kind of an idiot are you? This is the reboot that Paper Mario deserves after all those 2 full games! Right guys? No? What do you mean no? My ears must be non-functioning, let's make Sticker Star 2 on Wii U. Hey, wouldn't flicking cards onto the TV screen be fun? I'm doing it right now! flicks a wii-mote into the television "Fun. Hey, do you know what else is fun?
Looking for secrets.
And I do mean that. The Paper Mario games do have quite a lot of secrets with their badges and optional side quests... Well, in this game, you have to find them and if you don't, you're stuck. Yup, we have the Shattered Crystal method of gameplay but this time, it's 100% more cryptic. Okay, get this.
You have to buy door stickers. Sounds easy, right? Well, it's not because you have to get to a hidden shop in the woods and only there you can buy those stickers.And no, the door sticker won't suddenly appear in the main shop in the town. You always have to go to that very specific shop. And that's not all! You have to see door marks on walls that can be almost invisible to the player! That's right. The developers not only made the door buying mechanic clunky but searching for where you have to use it is another problem as well. Walking in an area with a bunch of pretty lighting and shadow will make you very easily miss some of those MANDATORY doors.
Because sometimes these doors have that very special thing you need to proceed in the overworld or defeat the boss. And no, no one is helping you. Not even your trusty Goombario partner-ish character. And your only partner, Kersti. Kersti is the worst character in Mario. Ever.
I see what the developers were wanting to do. Create a Starlow rip-off. A character that has magical powers and is often rude and easily upset. However...
At least Starlow had a more direct way of showing what the character can do. Weaken Bowser, attacking with magic, teaching the player...
But Kersti doesn't have that.
The very least they did do was make her rude and indirectly show the other new mechanic in Sticker Star.
Paperization.
But before I'm talking about that, let me say a few things about Kersti. She always skulls you even though the player does the right thing.
It's like teaching a dog to sit and when the dog finally learns it, you say "Bad dog!". What? Why bad dog? It's what you wanted right? Screw you, game. Anyways, paperize is... kinda a cool concept but at the same time... not really. You often pick up some chunks of the level and place it down somewhere else. That might be cool if you only need that level piece in the same level that you're in but you often have to carry that piece into another level. And that makes the whole thing confusing.
And no one is going to help you. Not even talking to Kersti in the overworld will help you. She only bitches around about the level that you're in and that's it. That's why I like the mansion level. It uses the paperize mechanic well and you only have to use the pieces in the same level that you're in. It kinda makes it like a puzzle game and not a where-the-fuck-do-I-go game. Plus, the mansion just looks nice. Really good decorated and doesn't look boring or bland at all. Speaking of looks...
Let's talk about that. Paper Mario: Sticker Star is what I like to call "New Super Mario Bros. 2": The RPG. Why's that? Well...Very often, I have the same thoughts in visualization as I do with NSMB2. It's boring, bland and plays way too safe. You have the generic grass world, the generic desert word, the generic snow world (with 2 good levels), the generic wood world, the generic mountain world and the generic lava world. All populated with boring, dull, ugly Toads.
Don't tell me "But A Blob, memory limitations."! The developers chose to limit themselves. They made that choice conciously. Also, speaking of the visuals, what happened to the fluid animations?
Paper Mario had some really expressive and fluid animations but in this game, they're 2 frames on loop. The 3DS isn't the N64, people. Look at how good Luigi's Mansion 2 or Kid Icarus: Uprising looks. Even Color Splash has that animation problem. And that's on the Wii U! At least the music got improved in Color Splash... Oh, yeah. The soundtrack... Lots of people say Sticker Star has a great soundtrack. I think it's a pretty well composed soundtrack. But bad sounding. What do I mean? Compare the Sticker Star theme from E3 to the final one. The charming, Paper Mario-ish instruments got replaced with jazz instruments.
And I don't mean just one track. Every single track has jazz instruments. From 1-1 to the final boss. From picking up an item to the failure jingle. It gets annoying really quick. Variety is a good thing, Ninty. Learn that lesson with your Toad obsession too. Some minor nitpicks are with how Paper Mario controls in the overworld. While I know that Paper Mario games are more slow games, that doesn't mean that Paper Mario himself should walk at a snails pace or jump with a delay. Other stuff that I really don't like are the insta-death sequences. Not only in bosses, but in other parts of the game too. There's this Cheep-Cheep boss that gets harder the more you repeat it (yes, it doesn't get easier) and if you lose to that minigame, you don't get kicked back to the start to retry quickly. Nope, you get a Game Over and have to enter the level, walk a path, get to the minigame, watch the intro and THEN you can try again. What's wrong with just kicking the player to the start again. The old Paper Mario games did that. No one complained "WAAAA! YOU KNOW WHAT THIS GAME NEEDS?! INSTANT GAME OVERS SO I GET FRUSTRATED! WAAAA!".  There's also an insta Game Over if you wait too long in battle in desert areas. Thought you can strategize your moves in Paper Mario? HA! DIE! Game Over! Hope you have fun earning all your coins back~
And now we come to the part where I have to tell you guys why all of this mess happened. This game isn't a true Paper Mario game. It was going to be a successor to Paper Mario 2 but then Intelligent Systems gave the prototype to Miyamoto. He said "This game is too much like Paper Mario 2.". A sane human being would respond with "No shit. Look at what the Mario & Luigi-series does. They do the same game technically all over again too and it sells well enough.". But Intelligent Systems got convinced that they had to change the game after Miyamoto showed Super Paper Mario's Club Nintendo poll that reads that there was about 1% that actually cared for the story. After a number of changes happened, including 90% of the original Paper Mario developers being swapped out with new people who don't know Paper Mario at all, we got to what we have today and also in the future for Paper Mario. And unless Nintendo gets convinced by sales for a remake of Paper Mario 2 (that may or may not happen; Nintendo's developers are very blind and deaf), Intelligent Systems will only continue with its flawed Sticker Star system. If you think I'm talking lies, go read the Iwata Asks about Sticker Star again. It's a great read about what happened to the development of the game. With all of that... would I recommend Paper Mario: Sticker Star?
No.
Never.
Don't ever play it.
I didn't even mention some of the rediculous ways to beat a level yet... Like jumping behind a background bush, walking behind a wall or jumping into a hole that looks like poison in 2D... And I'd also recommend for everyone to be careful for what comes next for Nintendo's games. Because Sticker Star convinced me to be careful what Nintendo games I should pick up. Sticker Star is pretty much the point were Nintendo dropped quality.
That's all. Stay Cautious. Ciao!