A promise of what is something more than this

[shamanicshaymin]

Sticker Star takes the idea of "paper-thin characterization" to its logical conclusion by including excessive self-aware humor about the characters being two-dimensional, visual gags like characters stacked like sheaves of paper, or having various models become bent or creased. Truth be told, the characters and setting played with the paper theme from the beginning — North American ads for the N64 game featured Bowser dangling Peach above a paper shredder, and The Thousand-Year Door even had Mario fold himself like origami. The first two games were considered charming and clever for their use of the paper theme, but Sticker Star's explicit comments on it went past the point of being irritating. It was also only starting with Sticker Star that characters were actively aware they were made of paper in the game's world, whereas the previous games were simply depicting an adventure of Mario's differently than normal.

Good god, Sticker Star was Marvel Phase 4-brand humor before Marvel Phase 4-brand humor.

Reading all the YMMV pages for the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi games makes me depressed and cynical. Mario RPGs have been screwed over so much and I fucking hate it. I'll still give Origami King a chance and maybe Color Splash (haven't finished Inside Story yet, I have Dream Team and Paper Jam waiting in the back of the queue), but every time I see those color-swapped Toads, I'm reminded of a time when each Toad had an individual design and personality and just get furious because of what we used to have. Sticker Star will forever be the game I'll never play that I despise to the very core of my fucking being, because of everything it represents. I'm not asking for carbon copies of SMRPG, Paper Mario 64, and Thousand-Year Door - I just want to not be disappointed anymore.

Comments

[shamanicshaymin]

You could do lots of clever things with meta humor! Hell, remember Excel Saga? Now that was a show that embraced how absolutely batshit it was. Current meta humor in bad shows feels like the writers being smug and like, "Haha, we're so much smarter and better than you!"

[sarajayechan]

Excel Saga was brilliant, I have the whole series on DVD. :D They just wanted to mess around, have fun, and parody various tropes. (The first Menchi episode never mocked the "heartwarming animal journey" trope, for example.)

Project A-ko is another parody anime that did what it did out of love for the genres. Same with Dragon Half. They don't spell it out that Mink's not your typical half-dragon heroine, they just have her do silly things.