Paper Mario: Color Splash

[Zero Kirby]

Well if it wants to fix the mistakes of SS it needs to be completely overhauled from what we've seen so far, including giving unique features, tattle descriptions and names to each generic Toad seen in the trailer. Along with returning FP, leveling up and badges, things that are pretty much confirmed to NOT be in the game. Also it needs to have Kammy Koopa in it, especially if Bowser is going to be the main villain again. Her absense in Super Paper Mario was tolerable since Bowser was a playable character and it would've been hard to implement her into the plot. But Sticker Star literally replaced her with Paper Kamek, and Paper Jam kept Paper Kamek instead of making normal Kamek interact with Kammy. Bring back Kammy for this one, Nintendo and Intelligent Systems. And while you're at it, bring back also the Merlon clan and Whacka.

I meant gameplay-wise. Most of what you described outside of FP, Levelling, and Badges is just fluff.

And even then, Sticker Star could've done just fine without them. Trust me, Sticker Star's biggest problem was not that each and every single stupid Toad didn't have a stupid pun for a name ending in "T."

The main problem with Sticker Star is its circular combat. You fight with stickers. Why fight? To get coins. What are coins for? Buying stickers. What are stickers for? Fighting and solving puzzles. What do you do those for? Getting coins. What are coins for... repeat ad nauseum. It's kind of pointless.

Instead, have players spend coins during battle to purchase stickers from a stock you build up over the game. You find a particular sticker in the overworld, they're like badges, you have a magic sticker book and you spend coins to buy "copies" of those stickers to use from that point onwards. That way you aren't depleting your inventory every time you get into a minor scrap. Now, getting coins for battling isn't so bad as long as the ratio of coins gained to coins lost isn't too severe. Would levelling up as a reward be nice also? Sure, but this fixes the biggest problem with the game for me. It doesn't need badges and it doesn't need Flower Points. It just needed smarter design.

What I hope with the cards mechanic is that you can actually "build a deck" where using cards doesn't mean they vanish into the ether. Finding more cards means you can build bigger or better decks. So it'll be kind of like ol' Chain of Memories except turn-based. I'm okay with that, frankly.