There’s a lot of anger about Sticker Star. We all know it was supposed to be closer to the first two Paper Mario games before Miyamoto interfered. Some people blame the series’ decline on Miyamoto, painting him as someone bent on taking all the creativity else out of the series. Others point the finger at Intelligent Systems, saying they could’ve done much better with the restrictions placed on them and they did a lazy job with what they had. So what really happened? When did the game change? And who was to blame?

IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS PAPER MARIO 3DS

According to the Iwata Asks interview, Paper Mario was an early candidate for the 3DS. Development on the game began in late 2009.

Iwata: We imagined rather early on that Paper Mario would be a good match for the Nintendo 3DS, and the papercraft atmosphere of the actual prototype was good.

Tanabe: That was about three years ago, at the end of 2009.

Aoyama: At the beginning of development, we were simply incorporating an idea making use of the stereoscopic display function. Then at the 2010 E3, before release of the Nintendo 3DS, we revealed several images. […] After E3, Miyamoto-san played the prototype and said it was just a port of the GC version.

[…] Tanabe: I had heard that at first Miyamoto-san said that something like an RPG would be fine, so for a while I thought that something like the previous one would be fine.

Iwata: That must have meant that you hadn’t done much that was new.

Tanabe: Right. So we wondered what to do. Then the idea of using stickers came up. Originally, the plan was to use stickers here and there for solving puzzles on the overall map […]

[…]

Tanabe: That’s right. At first, we were making a lot of individual allies as in a regular RPG, but when we decided to focus on stickers, in order to make a clear change with previous games in the series, it was like we started all over again by throwing out the system—including those characters—that we had made up to that point.

This is the version of the game, the infamous “TTYD port” that got canned early on by Miyamoto. The only images we have of this version are the few that were revealed at E3 2010, alongside shakycam footage of a promotional video.

From what we can tell, the game was supposed to be a return to form: “something like the previous one.” It also sounds like Miyamoto was okay with this direction at first: “at first Miyamoto-san had said that something like an RPG would be fine.” The battle system would therefore probably be similar to the old one, with experience points. We can imagine that the rest of the game would follow.

The project seemed to be composed of a new team from the beginning. “Previous assets” were used. Miyamoto seemed to want to change Paper Mario from the beginning of the project, as well.

Tanabe: I think that made a strong impression on Miyamoto-san. After the Nintendo 64 version, Aoyama-san was away from the series for a while, but then he got appointed as project director for this game.

Iwata: Ah, I see. And Miyamoto-san said he wanted the visuals to follow Aoyama-san’s sensibilities.

Tanabe: I believe so. In that respect, this project started with a near complete renewal of the staff.

Nakajima: A few programmers continued on in order to make use of previous assets, but in planning and design, about 90% were participating for the first time.

Iwata: In some ways, I think that meant a return to Paper Mario’s origins, but was there a reason for that renewal?

Tanabe: The biggest reason was that Miyamoto-san said he wanted us to make a big change in the atmosphere for Paper Mario this time. I heard that Miyamoto-san was really thinking for a while about how to handle the Super Mario series and pondered over a number of things.

Interestingly enough, the infamous restrictions on both story and characters seemed to be in place from the beginning of the project. Perhaps part of the reason the first draft was axed is because it didn’t stick to Miyamoto’s restrictions closely enough?

Iwata: Miyamoto-san really persevered with Paper Mario this time. Exactly what was he particular about?

Tanabe: Aside from wanting us to change the atmosphere a lot, there were two main things that Miyamoto-san said from the start of the project—"It’s fine without a story, so do we really need one?“ and "As much as possible, complete it with only characters from the Super Mario world.”

It also seems that the game was never going to feature references to prior Paper Mario games. This decision reverberated further when the battle system eventually departed from series standard. From Nintendolife:

Kudo: This is the first time I’ve been fully involved on a Paper Mario game and seeing as none of the characters from those games will appear in this title I specifically decided not to bring in elements from previous Paper Mario games. However, I did work on the SNES Super Mario RPG and I wrote a lot of Toad dialogue for it, so I think that some of the essence of that project must have found its way naturally into Sticker Star.

Here are the only images that exist of this “TTYD port.”

In the final version of the game, Whomp only shows up during one of the phases of the final boss fight.

Every Paper Mario needs to start in a grassland!

This Wiggler has a lot of segments! The idea of a poison (?) swamp type place seems to have been there from the beginning.

The mysterious house of cards level that never appeared in the final product.

There’s two very interesting things to be gleaned from this picture. One, look at the artstyle of the enemies. The Goombas and Koopa Troopa have the same style as in Super Paper Mario! Compare the Goombas and Koopas in the Super Paper Mario column with the Sticker Star column. Super Paper Mario recycled art assets from Thousand Year Door, so it’s clear that Paper Mario 3DS was going to do the same. It’s harder to tell if the Chain Chomp is also recycled or the slightly modified Sticker Star design.

The second thing to notice is the squares above Mario’s head. What are those? If the Sticker Star devs are to be believed, stickers were originally not involved in combat. But those squares look just like the empty squares you stick stickers in in Sticker Star battles. The hammer, moreover, is slightly folded. The green boot looks like a Paper Mario badge, suggesting that badges were still in the game. The battle system looks unlike the prior Paper Mario games, so I don’t know what the meaning of this is.

In Sticker Star, when you defeat an enemy, they fly off as opposed to spinning around and then disappearing like in Thousand Year Door. This aspect appears to date back to the earliest known build.

An example of using stickers to solve puzzles in the overworld. Notice the overworld doesn’t look like it’s made of paper or cardboard like in the final version.

The requisite desert level. Pokeys have their old design, not the new one.

The mysterious Monty Mole boss attacks with a boulder, causing Mario 5 damage. It seems he would’ve been a boss of some sort in the early grasslands level. He doesn’t appear in the final game.

This is the only video of the early build of Paper Mario 3DS. I highly recommend watching it at 0.5x speed because the shakycam makes it hard to see anything.

You can see at the beginning Wiggler walking with a sort of bounce to his step. He enters a hole at the bottom right of the screen and then exits through a hole in a tree at the top right.

Then we see Mario walking right in a forest and breaking a crate with his hammer. Note the two-frame walking animation you see that shows up in Sticker Star as opposed to the fluid walking animation of TTYD and SPM.

Third, you see a Whomp throw himself down and Mario jumps around a bit.

Finally, you’re in the forest again. You see Mario point towards a series of crates and the Chain Chomp partner destroys them. Functionally, the Chain Chomp seems similar to Kooper or Koops on the overworld. The pointing sprite you see is used in the final game when Mario turns the wheel of the boat in Sunshine Harbor.

That’s it. That’s all we have of this very early version. It was very promising. Unfortunately, Miyamoto thought it was too similar to Thousand Year Door, and this version of the game was swept away from our lives.

PART TWO: PAPER ALL THE WAY

Development on the totally-not-TTYD-game seemed to really take off in the beginning of 2011.



Tanabe: Later, Donkey Kong Country Returns was done and the new year began, and I was allowed to really dig into development at the beginning of 2011. The first thing I did was to ask Kudo-san to participate in the project.[…] Then about spring of 2011, we had Miyamoto-san look at a prototype.



Iwata: Uh-huh. How was it?

Tanabe: Personally, I thought it was better than before, but it turned out to be no good.

Aoyama: He said it was boring. I remember that clearly.

Iwata: Listening to you talk, it sounds like Miyamoto-san was a scary presence for the team.

Aoyama: Yeah, he was! (laughs)

Tanabe: We have no shortage of the anecdotes in that nature. What we can reveal today are only a fraction of them!

After Miyamoto trashed the Thousand Year Snore “”port””, the sticker mechanic became expanded to cover the battle system.



Tanabe: Originally, the plan was to use stickers here and there for solving puzzles on the overall map and so forth, but then we thought, "If we’re gonna do that, then we might as well use stickers for the whole thing, including battles,” and we decided to begin rethinking the game mechanics.

As stickers became more prominent, partners became more redundant until they were axed. There are no partners in any of the January 2011 images. From the Nintendolife interview:

Tanabe: That’s right. As we were working on using stickers in battles and in puzzles the things you could do often seemed to conflict with the use of partners. For Sticker Star we decided to prioritise the sticker theme and so remove the partners.

It seems this is when the whole “paper” theme took on a life of its own. Prior Paper Mario games never had so many paper jokes, nor did it seem that the characters were literally made of character. Sticker Star establishes that Paper Mario is a literal moniker and ramps up the paper puns. From Nintendolife:

Tanabe: The Paper Mario series started when we introduced RPG elements as a means of differentiating the game from the platformer series. Through the inclusion of this story and the characters we wrote to fit that story, we ended up giving the game a unique character. However, for Sticker Star, Mr Miyamoto asked us to create a game using only characters already found in the Mario world rather and not any of our own. So instead of focusing our attention on the story or characters we focused instead on paper. We tried to add as many creative uses of paper as we could to the game. The theme of the game is stickers and we also put a lot of effort into this (including paperisation).

Another paper quote:

Kudo: Tanabe-san said, “Use as many paper ideas as you can!” IS has made several titles with this atmosphere in the series, so I think they may had something of a fixed concept, but it was the first time in over a decade for me, so I think I was able to bring out lots of fresh ideas.

Remember this is the first time in a while Miyamoto had been involved in the Paper Mario series, and he had a new image of it. There seemed to be a conscious moving away from series history at this point. From Nintendolife:

Tanabe: We tried to move away from the old Paper Mario series and establish a game with its own unique battle system instead. Although we tried to keep the part of the Mario & Luigi battle system which emphasises well-timed button presses, we didn’t really draw any ideas or inspiration from those games.

Kudo: This is the first time I’ve been fully involved on a Paper Mario game and seeing as none of the characters from those games will appear in this title I specifically decided not to bring in elements from previous Paper Mario games. However, I did work on the SNES Super Mario RPG and I wrote a lot of Toad dialogue for it, so I think that some of the essence of that project must have found its way naturally into Sticker Star.

We have a video of early footage from January 2011, as well as some screenshots.

Notice that Decalburg seems pretty expanded in this video. There’s a house with a Mushroom sign outside it; this was the sign of the Toad Houses in Paper Mario that would heal your HP. In Sticker Star, there are no Toad Houses, just HP Blocks.

Dry Bones now have their New Super Mario Bros design.

EVERYTHING IS PAPER! Compare the tree in the background to the trees in Wiggler’s forest in the first batch… This was when the decision to make everything out of paper happened.

The Toad House. You can also see more paths and a residential house. In the final build, the fountain was next to the shop and sticker museum.

YOU HAVEN’T EVEN SEEN MY TRUE FORM YET!

A third iteration of Sticker Star came into being after spring of 2011. Iwata Asks doesn’t make it entirely clear, but it appears Sling-a-Thing became a thing during this point.

Nakajima: In addition, when it came to players creating their own stickers, we were fortunate to be able to use a program that a different group within IS was experimenting with. Like Teapot and Cat-o-Luck.

[…]

Tanabe: Using the Wii console, IS was experimenting with a program for throwing a 3D object at a wall and having it stick and turn into a picture, and they let us use it. If you take a 3D “thing” that you find in the field and throw it at a wall, you can make a “thing sticker.”, but at first the team was really against it.

Iwata: Why was that?

Aoyama: We made 3D “things” look like real objects. Tanabe-san was constantly saying, “That incongruity is great!” But we didn’t know how to handle it and didn’t understand at all at first. Normally, the Kettle and Beckoning Cat wouldn’t seem to fit into the Super Mario world.

Kudo: That’s serious. (laughs)

Tanabe: But I had a hunch that the incongruity of a real kettle would serve as a hook. If you took things that already looked like they belonged in the Super Mario world and turned them into stickers, there wouldn’t be much of a change, right? I showed that to Miyamoto-san, and he was like, “I guess that’s all right.” (laughs)

Even Miyamoto didn’t like Things, lol

Miyamoto wasn’t entirely a bad guy during development. He defended the weird mural versions of Koopas and Toads.

Igata: Yeah. Let’s see… World 2 has a desert and tower, and in order to make an impression of ancient ruins, we discussed putting in a mural. And to make it look more that way, we drew Toad and Koopa Troopas that were taller than usual.

Tanabe: There’s a human like Koopa Troopa with long arms and legs that comes along on all fours. It’s really creepy.

Igata: When I had that checked, they said it was “gross,” and we thought, “Yes!”

Aoyama: At first, we took that as praise, but unfortunately, they meant exactly what they said!

Igata: After that, we put forth all kinds of designs, but the more Super Mario-like it became, the less it seemed ancient, and if we got realistic, it turned out to be something totally different.

Kudo: When they were realistic, those Koopa Troopas just looked like shiitake mushrooms!

Igata: Yeah. (laughs) In the end, while we made various designs, we showed the original design to Miyamoto-san, and he was happy, like, “Why don’t you make it even more disgusting?” So in the end the original design was ok.

This is the nexus of Birdo’s cameo. Anyone know what anime they’re talking about? I’m guessing xxxx is the swing?

Kudo: A goat figurine appears as one of the “things” that can become a “thing sticker.” Goats are known to eat paper, which would make them an object of absolute fear to paper. But in order to get that “thing” in the field, I wanted to put in something funny.

Tanabe: Then I thought of that one anime. I won’t say which one here, though.

Iwata: Yeah. (laughs)

Igata: Then Kudo-san jumped in, saying, “That anime would have ××××,” Then we got the idea of having Birdo come up riding ×××× and carrying a goat figurine.“

Iwata: (laughs)

Igata: For a moment, we abandoned consistency and everyone got into it and added ideas and all of a sudden light comes from above and a spotlight hits the mountain and…

The Sticker Museum seemed to be an idea since the second draft (the red house is also unavailable there) but there was controversy about it for a while.

Nakajima: Yes. But we debated it until everyone said it was fine. There was a camp that agreed with the museum and there was one that was against it.

Igata: Those for it derive great pleasure from storing their stickers. (laughs)

Nakajima: The two really did clash. […]

These images emerged in July of 2011. This is the draft that really led to what we know as Sticker Star today, the one Miyamoto did not find “boring.”

An early version of the shop. Notice the red house next door - in the final game, the house is further away, a different shape, and the door - which leads to the Sticker Museum - is not boarded up.

Goombas have their Sticker Star design now. We can also see the weird camera angle they used in the final version - this camera angle doesn’t show up in all the screenshots.

‘Battle Chance’ became the Battle Spinner.

The mysterious S gauge. It’s empty now, it seems. Notice there’s no dotted square to place the stickers in - the Jump sticker just appears in perspective. The battles are still viewed from the side at this point, not the weird angle you saw above and in Sticker Star. Koopas have their NSMB design at this point.

S gauge is filled up now. We have no clue what it would’ve done.

Early paperization. Stickers seemed to be hexagonal. This seems to be the early grasslands area where you find the fan, which had blown this poor Toad’s flowers everywhere.

Mysteries don’t show up in the final game.

Scissors are cyan here.

MISCELLANEOUS QUOTES

The final iteration of Sticker Star, which was a conscious departure from form, was meant to become the template from which future Paper Mario games would be made.

Kudo: Well, as mentioned before, the mechanics present new challenges and the gameworld represents a new start. We worked hard so that this game would become the new standard for future Paper Mario games, so please play it to the fullest!

Since Color Splash will be released soon, this quote might be of some interest to sleuths. From Nintendolife:

Tanabe: I am personally interested in making a new game in the series. However, I can’t give you any more details than that at this time [November 2012]



Concerning Miyamoto:

Iwata: Listening to you talk, it sounds like Miyamoto-san was a scary presence for the team.

Aoyama: Yeah, he was! (laughs)

Tanabe: We have no shortage of the anecdotes in that nature. What we can reveal today are only a fraction of them!

In fact, Miyamoto got really angry at Tanabe about Bowser… we don’t know what exactly was the thing that ticked him off, but it is worth noting Bowser doesn’t speak a word in Sticker Star final whereas he was a blabbermouth in all the prior Mario RPGs all the way up to Super Mario RPG. He goes back to talking in Paper Jam, so his silence is very odd.

Iwata: I suppose that’s true. (laughs) But it seems like a part of you enjoys putting something edgy out there and seeing how much you can get away with.

Tanabe: No, there were times when Miyamoto-san has really gotten angry at me! (laughs) Like about treatment of Bowser. But the Super Mario games have an orthodox lineage that Miyamoto-san thought up as its creator. So while Paper Mario, as part of that, must preserve certain things, I think there is a point to tackling new and unusual things.

Oh, and I want to clear something up. I’ve heard people say that the letters from Goombella and Parakarry in the trash heap in world 5 were added in during localization. The Nintendolife interview suggests at least one of them was present in the Japanese version. Why would Kudo know about the English localization?

Kudo: The main story in Sticker Star doesn’t have any links like this [with the previous games]. However, there is a rumour that there is a letter hidden somewhere in the game that was written by one of the characters from an older game. Maybe you’ll be able to find it.

IN CONCLUSION????

After meticulously chronicling the images we have with dates given in the Iwata Asks interview as well as key points (stickers became a battle mechanic AFTER the TTYD port, Things were created AFTER the second prototype was shown to Miyamoto), I think we can come up with some conclusions about Sticker Star’s development.

First, it was clear that Miyamoto was involved from the beginning. Unusually so, since the interview suggested Miyamoto had been fairly hands off for the entirety of the console Mario RPGs. His only point of contention with Super Mario RPG was that Mario should use a hammer, not a sword. He also seemed to be somewhat involved with the paper aesthetic of the Nintendo 64 Paper Mario, but not much else.

Tanabe: I remember how the first thing (Shigeru) Miyamoto-san said when he saw thatHe was, "That’s not right.” He started with how Mario wouldn’t have a sword, but might have a hammer.

Iwata: I suppose that when Super Mario became an RPG, Miyamoto-san had an idea in his head from the start about what he wanted to make use of and what couldn’t budge.

Tanabe: But that was Miyamoto-san’s only specific request. My impression is that Square understood the rest and turned it out nicely.

Starting with this game in 2009 (Super Paper Mario came out in 2007, Thousand Year Door in 2004, and Paper Mario in 2001, for reference), Miyamoto got very involved. He had apparently been thinking about the nature of the Super Mario universe. He came in from the beginning wanting to change the nature of the Paper Mario series. The restrictions on characters and story were in place from the beginning. Moreover, the decision to move away from using prior Paper Mario characters was there from the beginning as well, so the game was always supposed to be “separate” from the rest.

The sticker idea was there from the beginning, but it only applied to the overworld. Since the paper aesthetic was being emphasized a lot more in this game, it makes sense that you should be able to alter a paper world with stickers.

The two-frame walk animation was there from the beginning. Sorry guys, you can’t pin this one on Miyamoto. It seems to be harking back to Paper Mario 64, since some of the team had worked on that game’s graphics and it seems Miyamoto was really struck by that game’s aesthetics.

Miyamoto saw Iteration One of Paper Mario 3DS and said it was too similar to TTYD. We don’t know exactly what he meant by that, but we do know what changed after that first version:

- The battle system started to incorporate stickers after that, and became increasingly differentiated from the Paper Mario one.

-The role of stickers expanded so much that partners became unnecessary, and they were cut.

- As a consequence of being unable to focus on story and character, there was an increased focus on the paper-ness of the world.

- The design for enemies changed from being ported directly from the old games to being slightly redesigned to be in line with NSMB designs

- Any ‘original character’ was gone. There was no precedent for the Monty Mole king, so he was cut. (It was likely the game was never going to feature a lot of original characters, though; note how the Chain Chomp partner is identical to the generic enemy sprite)

- “Things” were added.

Some folks said that Intelligent Systems should’ve stood up to Miyamoto and held their ground, like Alphadream apparently did when making Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam. But it seems like they conflicted with Miyamoto a lot. He’s a “scary presence.” Most of the team was new to the series and therefore had no seniority. Moreover, it seems Miyamoto really stood his ground regarding his vision for Paper Mario this time around. It seems like a lot of the changes that we don’t like are either a direct result of Miyamoto’s influence (no original characters, no story, moving away from original Paper Mario) or an indirect result (increased focus on paper due to being unable to focus on story/character, stickers being introduced to battle due to wanting to move away from old system, partners being cut due to stickers making them redundant).

I think the original iteration looked a lot more interesting than what we got, and I would have loved to play it. It is nevertheless false to assert that the game would have been “just like TTYD” before Miyamoto criticized the first prototype. The game was never supposed to reference past Paper Marios. The game was always going to feature that weird walk cycle. The game was always supposed to have overworld stickers. The game was always going to be light on characters (although not to the extent Sticker Star was light on characters). It would definitely have been different from what we expected, and who knows in what other ways it differed that we’ll never know about?

I also think the Sticker Star team… isn’t that bad. They really did try their best. The Toads can be recognized by dialogue and location… it’s just not enough to make me care about them. They are correct in asserting that in traditional Mario games, Toads are the primary helpful species - Goombas and Koopas are only friendly in the Paper Mario games, not the mainstream ones, and Miyamoto specifically wanted to break away from Paper Mario. It sounds like they butted heads with Miyamoto a bunch, like over Bowser, but ultimately he is the boss. The focus on paper happened because, writing-wise, they weren’t allowed to focus on anything else!

I must conclude by saying that Sticker Star was never going to be that TTYD follow-up everyone dreamt of, but it was definitely going to be a lot closer than the final product we got. Miyamoto came into the project wanting to distance the series from its roots, so change was inevitable, and he did seem to be the driving force behind most of the change. I don’t think he’s the bad guy… He recently started thinking seriously about how he wanted Super Mario to be and realized “hey, these RPG games don’t fit my vision!” and stepped in to make his vision a reality. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the vision we wanted.

I am disappointed we’ll never see that early Sticker Star. Maybe it would’ve been a solid follow-up to Super Paper Mario despite a lesser emphasis on story. Maybe it would’ve sucked all the same. But even with the limited amount of data we have on it, I feel confident in saying I’m pretty sure that it would’ve been more interesting than what we got.

