Sticker

"Hey, that's a sticker, isn't it?! Lucky you, picking up something so great."

- Kersti

Stickers are important elements in Paper Mario: Sticker Star. They serve as Mario's main method of attacking, and as such there are a wide variety of stickers to attack with. They are also used to solve puzzles and unlock pathways.

Background
Stickers come from the Sticker Comet. Once every year, they rain down on the Mushroom Kingdom during the Sticker Festival. After Bowser accidentally shatters the Comet and scatters the Royal Stickers, Mario is forced to retrieve them with the help of Kersti, a sticker being who is the caretaker of the Sticker Comet. Along the way, stickers are used to solve puzzles and battle enemies.

Stickers can be found almost everywhere. Battle/item stickers are sorted into 7 different categories by strength; Worn-Out, Normal, Shiny, Flashy, Big, Big Shiny, and Megaflash. They are sometimes dropped by enemies, found on walls, found in ? Blocks, bought at shops, etc. Collected stickers are kept in Mario's sticker album, and each page in the album is 6-by-10 spaces (which can hold 15 small stickers in a 3x5 arrangement). Stickers can only be kept as long as there is space in the album, and certain stickers take up more room than others. In order to maximize usage of space, it may be necessary to rearrange stickers or even remove them. Pressing while looking at the sticker album will automatically re-arrange all stickers to maximize free space. This setup usually consists of two large stickers in a corner surrounded by smaller ones, though it varies depending on the size of the stickers collected.

The Sticker Album is grouped into different tabs:


 * Stickers - This section of the album holds all battle/item stickers and Thing stickers.
 * Things - While not technically stickers themselves, Things can be converted into Thing stickers at a shop in Decalburg or at Outlook Point (World 3-6).
 * Scraps - These are obtained from removing environmental objects from a Paperized scene. They can be re-pasted later to alter a new environment, either by simply filling voids or revealing new objects and paths. Some levels require the player to do this in real time, like Bowser's Snow Fort.

Stickers vary in size. The three different sizes stickers come in are:


 * Small (1x1) takes up exactly 1 full square in the Album.
 * Medium (1.5x1.5) takes up 1 full square and 3 half squares in the Album.
 * Large (2x2) takes up 4 full squares in the Album.

Battle Stickers
There are 96 battle stickers in the game.

Other Stickers
These stickers are plot-related, and are only available in certain battles. These two stickers are not required for the Sticker Museum.

Things
Things are objects that can be found within the game. They are named such because, unlike most of the denizens in the game, the items are not actually made out of either paper or similar material such as cardboard. There are a total of 64 things throughout the game, each with a different purpose. Mario finds them as actual objects, and they cannot be used in this state. Although they aren't made out of paper, as noted before, they can be rendered into stickers by flinging them onto a special board. In addition, a specific Toad in Decalburg will sell things in a manner that is implied to be illegal. The player can then take the sticker and either paste it on the environment to cause events or use them in battle. A little-known feature of these stickers is that when used to battle, Mario can indeed execute Action Commands up to "Excellent" on most things by pressing or use the touch screen at a specific time.

Scraps
Scraps are pieces of the environment that can be pasted into a certain location later on. They can either be obtained on their own or by peeling a certain piece of the environment off by paperizing, and can be placed back in their proper location with the same process. Removing something from the environment results in a void appearing in its place, which shows where the removed scrap or even another scrap is to go.

Trivia

 * No matter how big, powerful, or valuable a Thing is, in sticker form, they will always sell for 20 coins.
 * When Mario jumps on the Bed in its Thing form, he will rest on top of it and eventually be healed. This happens only inside the Secret Door where the Bed is found.
 * The Soda and D-Cell Battery things make a cameo during the Bat animation in-battle. They appear as pictures on the scoreboard.
 * If the 3DS system is tilted when the Sticker Album is open, the shine of the Shiny, Flashy, Big Shiny, Megaflash, and Thing stickers will shimmer.
 * The Basin thing attack is most likely a reference to the common anime gag involving basins falling onto characters' heads.