Pokemon Legends Arceus: The 'Paper Mario Sticker Star' of Pokemon

Recently I finished the latest game in the Pokemon franchise: Legends Arceus. Arguably the most ambitious Pokemon game in decades, Arceus marked a change for the series that many wanted, myself included. Inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Arceus features a world consisting of various open areas that you can navigate however you'd like. Not only that, but with it comes a brand new system of gameplay, one that offers various ways to navigate its world and interact with and catch Pokemon in all sorts of ways before you even battle them.

With such a break from the series tradition, I was excited to dig into the game. Yet the more I played it, the more I noticed a disconnect. I had four friends also anticipating the game. As we played it, all of them, from longtime Pokemon fans to ex fans who wanted to get back into the series, had a blast. They flew through it, clearing most of its content, and told me it is likely one of their favorite Pokemon games.

However, the more I played, the more I felt the opposite. My motivation for the game began to dwindle the further I got in, I began finding the overall gameplay uninteresting and repetitive, and now that I have finally finished it, while also completing the post game quest to collect all the elemental plates, I can say that this is probably one of my least favorite Pokemon games.

Yet all was not cause for disappointment. The more I played and understood Arceus, the more I came upon a shocking revelation: Legends Arceus reminded me of one infamous game in the Paper Mario series, one that most people dislike while I, ironically, love it.

Yes, the controversial title that is Paper Mario: Sticker Star, a game I could write tons on, popped into the back of my mind the more I played Arceus. Part of why I enjoyed Sticker Star so much was because I had not played a game like it, and here, now, I found an unlikely companion to it in Legends Arceus.

This begs some questions. First, is Pokemon Legends Arceus actually similar to Paper Mario Sticker Star? When I proposed this theory to one of my friends, he couldn't have been more confused. Why do these games remind me so much of each other?

Second, if they are so similar, then why did Sticker Star resonate with me, where most fans disliked it, while Legends Arceus lost me, where most Pokemon fans praised the overall package? For this write up, I plan to answer these and more. So I hope you enjoy reading why I consider Pokemon Legends Arceus the 'Paper Mario Sticker Star' of Pokemon.

To start, I'd like to talk about Paper Mario. Paper Mario: Sticker Star launched in 2012 for the Nintendo 3DS. It was the fourth entry in the Paper Mario series, and marked a serious departure from previous entries, a bold title that aimed to create a new kind of Paper Mario. Sound familiar?

Fundamentally, while the many changes made to their series by both Sticker Star and Legends Arceus don't totally overlap, I want to focus on a few particular differences that each title made, and how they impacted the overall feel of the games.

The first of these changes is the diminished emphasis on the story, characters, and overall narrative component of the game. This was a large reason for fan outcry in response to Paper Mario: Sticker Star. The previous Paper Mario games featured a more complex and engaging story than what you'd typically expect from a Mario game. They had far more characters and dialogue than what Mario games had ever seen. Various towns populated their worlds, bustling with characters that would join your team, grow and develop, or visit you at various points in the story.

In Sticker Star, much of that was stripped away to create a simple quieter story that felt more like that of a typical Mario game. Bowser was once again the main villain, partners that could fight alongside Mario were totally gone, and the amount of characters, towns, and dialogue was kept to a minimum. Throughout the entire world of Sticker Star there was only one central hub town in the entire game, no better sign that this was a new kind of Paper Mario, one with much less emphasis on its story and character components.

For players of Legends Arceus, having only one central hub town should sound familiar. In the world of Legends Arceus, Jubilife village stands as the only town across the entire game's world. Sure there are the Diamond and Pearl Settlements, but they pale in comparison to the worlds of previous Pokemon games. These always had at least nine cities sprawling their worlds, bustling with characters that might give you items, explain more of the story and world, etc. Not only that, but often the towns were framed in a way to reflect the element of their gym leader, providing a variety in the various locations you ventured to, making the overall world feel colorful and alive.

This isn't the only sign that the narrative component has been diminished in Legends Arceus. One of the biggest changes the game makes, and I'll get back to why this is so big later, is the near elimination of Pokemon trainers to battle across the world. This leads to many of the series' most endearing character types being vacant. There is no evil team full of grunts, admins, and a leader to be defeated, no gym leaders with their own families and story, no elite four and champion, a single rival with little presence compared to previous rivals in the series, and the many many trainers that you would encounter on each route, in each cave, are gone, in a way that reminded me of the complete lack of partner characters in Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

The amount of dialogue in Legends Arceus is kept to a minimum, which meant that the character and charm of Pokemon games was largely absent. There were few trainers to tell you little secrets about the world, provide some funny pun, or make each part of the world feel unique and charming. That was the thing, the more I played Legends Arceus, the more I found the world lacking life and personality, and that was because the towns, characters, and charm of Pokemon was scaled back dramatically, in a way all too similar to Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

A second large change Paper Mario: Sticker Star brought to the series was a dramatic overhaul of the core gameplay loop. Battles were still turn based, however, the action command element that the series was known for was reduced to a more simple button pressing system.To make up for this, instead of taking actions each turn, Mario would use a sticker. Once a sticker was used, it was gone forever. If one wanted to use multiple stickers on a single turn, which would be the optimal way to perform battles, than coins were required to spin a battle spinner. How would one obtain stickers and coins for battles? 

By exploring the less linear overworld and winning battles. An often forgotten component of the structure of Paper Mario: Sticker Star is that it is a more open game compared to its predecessors. While the world is traversed through levels as opposed to an interconnected world, these can be done out of order. 

World 1 has a level that branches out into two separate levels, which one you go with is up to you. World 2's final level can be unlocked fairly quickly by zooming through each level, but the end reveals that you must fully explore previous level to find specific pieces to have full access to the finale. You can go about exploring the previous levels in any way you'd like. 

This open ended design even leads to completing the worlds themselves. At the start of the game the player will be directed towards World 1. After clearing it, the player will have the tools to access both Worlds 2 and 3, and which one they go about first is up to them. This happens again when the player collects all the essential stickers they need to progress further, stickers spread out across Worlds 1, 2, and 3, as it will unlock the ability to access both Worlds 4 and 5 at once. This sort of exploration driven gameplay was new to the series, as previous titles were more linear.

Sound familiar? Yes, just as Arceus is all about exploration, Sticker Star is similar, placing more emphasis on exploring their worlds outside of battle.

Returning to the central mechanic, stickers that are used once in battle and then must be found and collected again in the overworld: this sticker system, while overwhelming for players unfamiliar with it, can work as a brilliant push and pull system. You explore to collect coins and stickers, then use them in battle to gain lots of coins, then can go to shops to exchange coins for stickers, and through all this, continue to experiment and explore to find the best way of using stickers and coins to make up for whatever losses you encounter and master the sticker system. It creates a fun economy of sorts in which micromanagement of your stickers and coins is key to progression. This sort of system wasn't present in previous Paper Mario games. What's significant however, is that this new system put a greater emphasis on out of battle gameplay, as opposed to the skill based battle system.

What this meant in practice was that, where in previous titles winning difficult battles came down to mastering the intricacies of the turn based battle system, in Sticker Star, difficult battles were won moreso by whether you had enough coins and had the right stickers to deal with the boss. Exploring and finding the right items was just as important to winning battles as being good at the battle system, if not more.

The bosses were a great example of this. Some required a specific sticker to be defeated, so winning came down to whether you had explored well enough to find the one sticker necessary to defeat it. Other bosses required a certain kind of sticker to expose their weakness, but in general, exploring, collecting, and organizing stickers was key to mastering the gameplay loop of Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

Boss battles with less focus on turn based battles should sound familiar for players of Legends Arceus. In Arceus, the boss battles aren't against trainers with a large collection of different Pokemon to strategize around, but against a single large volatile Pokemon. Players must defeat them using primarily the action based gameplay used to explore the world and interact with Pokemon. You do gain the ability to battle the Pokemon in the traditional sense at certain points, but because it is against a single Pokemon, it is simple and short, and isn't even necessary to defeating them. For that, mastering the out of battle gameplay is the key.

One of the starkest differences Arceus has with previous games is just how much less time you spend battling. In previous titles, all bosses were fought during turn based combat, and all Pokemon were caught through similar means. 

Arceus's creation of a new kind of gameplay system, one that sees you exploring and catching Pokemon in real time, while fundamentally satisfying, means that being skilled at the turn based battle system the Pokemon series is known for, isn't that significant when it comes to completing the game. What really drives this home however, is the lack of trainers. In previous titles, Pokemon trainers would populate the world, offering a way for you to show your stuff, learn the battle system, and ultimately, train and work at creating a strong harmonious Pokemon team that could win any kind of battle.

However, because there are so few trainer battles in Arceus, because most boss battles are fought outside of turn based battles, and because Pokemon can be caught without battling them at all (this is even the better way to do so), it all combines to create a clear change. The battle system loses much of its importance in Arceus, as the out of battle exploration gameplay takes complete control of the core gameplay loop. This is eerily similar to the effect that the changes of Paper Mario Sticker Star had on its core gameplay loop. It makes sense, if you want to give players a more open experience about exploring a vast world, they should spend more time exploring said world rather than taking part in turn based battles.

So, if this result is a logical effect of the move towards exploration based gameplay, and if both Sticker Star and Legends Areceus are so similar, than why did I fall in love with Sticker Star, but had the opposite response to Arceus? Well, remember how I said the coins, stickers, and exploration systems of Sticker Star can all flow together to create an economy of sorts that you must micromanage?

The more I played through Arceus, the more it dawned on me that I was raising my Pokemon like I had in previous entries, but that wasn't the way to do it in Arceus. Previously I would spend much time thinking and creating a team of 6 Pokemon that meshed well together, changing their moves to compliment each other, learning about each move, etc. However in Arceus, because so little time is spent in turn based battles, and because most of them will be against a single Pokemon, I found it didn't really matter if I had a team of Pokemon that meshed well together.

I used to have my Pokemon learn moves that did damage alongside moves that raised or reduced stats, or inflicted status effect. But in Arceus, I realized that because the few battles that take place are so short, there's no reason to have moves that don't do damage, since stat changing moves only work in long battles. I'd keep a few status inflicting moves for making Pokemon easier to catch, but even then, since the best way to catch Pokemon is to do so before battling them, these moves became pointless as well. The overall effect of this was: the more I played Arceus, the more I realized that battling is.....kind of pointless....

This was where Arceus really fell apart for me. Where Sticker Star I would argue has a gameplay loop that works, with all its different elements feeding into each other, the gameplay loop in Arceus just doesn't work as cohesively. Once I realized battling was pointless, I would try to catch all Pokemon without getting into battle. If I was noticed by a Pokemon, I would simply run away. But if battling in Arceus is pointless, than that would mean that raising and teambuilding Pokemon is pointless, since the main motivation for doing so is to get good at winning long tough turn based battles. And if raising and training Pokemon is pointless, than this would mean that catching Pokemon, the main activity you do in the game.....is pointless......

When this realization hit me, the entire game collapsed, because I realized that there's virtually nothing to do outside of catching Pokemon, and once you catch those Pokemon there's nothing to really do with them. There are no trainers to fight with your Pokemon, no towns to spend time in learning about the world, even the overworld is lacking any sort of complex puzzles or dungeons that lasted more than a few minutes to get through, something like the team rocket hideouts or ice caves of previous titles. Pokemon Legends Arceus, at its core, is a Pokemon game that puts a huge amount of emphasis on the exploration and catching Pokemon aspects of the series, but in a way that is detrimental to every other aspect the series is known for.

This is core to understanding both games. Paper Mario: Sticker Star did something similar, it diminished many other aspects the series is known for in favor of honing in on a complex new type of gameplay surrounding stickers. This is the core reason both Sticker Star and Legends Arceus felt so similar to me. They took series that were known for having a significant narrative component and a complex battle system, and greatly diminished the importance of both in favor of a new kind of gameplay that encouraged and rewarded exploration.

So, if that is what both games did for their respective series, than why was Sticker Star universally disliked, while Legends Arceus was generally beloved?

The conclusion I have reached is that it comes down to the differing perceptions of both series. 

Let me explain. When it comes to video games, especially a series, you can't narrow down what makes a series great into one simple sentence. Video games are complex, consisting of a graphical style, music, a story and characters to interact with diplomatically, enemies to deal with through battle, etc. Certain aspects will resonate with players more than others, which creates different perceptions of what makes a video game series great, and what sort of game it should try to be.

If you were to ask Paper Mario fans what they liked about the series, what made it special before the release of Sticker Star, they would probably say the complex story, characters, and gameplay. Compared to other Mario games, the Paper Mario series stood out for having a more engaging story and a slower gameplay system based around turn based battles as opposed to running and jumping through a vast world. For many, the identity of the Paper Mario series was known for how different it was from traditional Mario games. So when Paper Mario Sticker Star simplified the story and characters, and created a new gameplay system that put less emphasis on turn based battles and more emphasis on running and jumping through a world, it felt like a betrayal to what the series is known for.

Now, ask that same question to Pokemon fans: What makes the Pokemon series special? What I concluded from discussing this with my friends is that, for many, Pokemon is about exploring a vast world, encountering various kinds of Pokemon, and interacting with and catching them in a fun engaging manner. This just so happens to be the one aspect of Pokemon that Legends Arceus hones in on, so for many it was what they always wanted the series to be.

So while both Paper Mario Sticker Star and Pokemon Legends Arceus honed in on a similar aspect of their respective series to the detriment of others, the perception of whether that one aspect was core to the series' identity or not was what determined the success of one, and the lukewarm reception of the other.

So why then did I feel different in both cases? After much introspection I've come to the conclusion that I am in the minority and have a different perception of both series compared to the average fan. In the case of Paper Mario, while I enjoyed the story and characters and battles, what I really loved about the previous entries was the fun and unique kind of gameplay systems they produced by combining traditional RPG elements with Mario elements. I enjoyed playing them for the games aspect first and foremost, so when Sticker Star introduced another new kind of gameplay system, I was happy to dive in and learn how the game flowed, not as bothered by the diminished story and characters.

But Pokemon, Pokemon to me was different. Legends Arceus made me realize that while I also love exploring the vast world of Pokemon and encountering different kinds of creatures, what I love even more than that and is core to my love of the series is: exploring and encountering different kinds of characters that populate the Pokemon world. I love meeting all the gym leaders, seeing how they stand out from each other based on their typing, and having a climactic battle against them. I love rival characters that you frequently run into and battle; seeing how their Pokemon teams change and evolve as they develop as characters always endeared them to me. I love getting to know all the important characters in their world, who they are, how they view Pokemon, etc., and there's no better way to get to know them than through battling them. Climactic battles against characters I have known for much of the game remain many of my fondest memories with the series.

So when Legends Arceus greatly diminished the importance of battles, and reduced the number of characters in its world, I can understand why the game just did not click with me.

This concludes my thoughts on Pokemon: Legends Arceus and the importance of how you perceive a series, and what kind of game you're looking for. If you're interested in Pokemon Legends Arceus, I would ask you, what to you is the essence of Pokemon? What is the part you value the most and would miss the most from a Pokemon title? If the answer is the idea of exploring a vast world full of different kinds of Pokemon and catching them, than Legends Arceus is the title for you.

However, if like me, your favorite aspect of the series is the battle system, the many fun and charming characters you meet and battle, than Legends Arceus will likely not tickle your fancy the way previous games did. Sometimes games hone in on a particular aspect of a series, redefining and polishing it in a way that puts it far ahead of previous entries. While Arceus might not be for me, I still respect the ambition the Pokemon team had with this game. Just like with Sticker Star, I respect when development teams choose to create a different kind of game for a long running series. It is not easy to do, change is hard, and it often leads to some of the most interesting titles from a video game series, which then often leads to some of the most interesting discussions of said series. Pokemon Legends Arceus wasn't for me, but damn did it lead me down some deep introspection about what Pokemon means to me, and for that, I will always be grateful I gave the game a shot.