In the game, the protagonist Mario and a new ally named Kersti travel across the Mushroom Kingdom to retrieve the six Royal Stickers scattered by Bowser.

Unlike the previous Paper Mario games, Sticker Star uses a distinct papercraft visual style, which is heavily incorporated into its gameplay mechanics.

A sequel for the Wii U, Paper Mario: Color Splash, carried over many ideas introduced in Sticker Star and was released in October 2016.

Allies alongside Mario were cut due to complications with sticker mechanics and there was an extreme decrease in characters with unique designs.

The player controls a paper cutout version of Mario in a 3D papercraft world, with landscapes ranging from snowy areas and forests to volcanoes represented as the Mushroom Kingdom.

[8] The player can enter a state called "Paperization", which will lay the screen down flat to reveal additional secrets not visible regularly.

[8] For example, a Fan Thing Sticker can be placed in strategic areas in the environment and, when activated, creates wind that moves or destroys obstacles.

[11] The turn-based battles in Sticker Star also reiterates combat in previous games, and are initiated when Mario comes into contact with enemies in the overworld.

Megasparkle Goomba took the first Royal Sticker as a crown and calls himself a king; Tower Power Pokey was sealed by Kamek; Gooper Blooper was a music-lover uncontrollably releasing poison; Mizzter Blizzard wanted to control winter in order to never melt; Petey Piranha simply accidentally ate his Sticker.

[17][18] The game and its full title was announced during Nintendo's E3 2012 press conference, alongside New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, with a release window sometime during the 2012 holiday season.

[20] The partner system prevalent in previous Paper Mario titles was removed by the developers because it would often conflict with the sticker-focused gameplay and mechanics.

[21] Producer Kensuke Tanabe further elaborated on how less than one percent of players found the storyline in Super Paper Mario interesting, according to a survey on Club Nintendo.

[23][24] In developer interviews for the 2020 title Paper Mario: The Origami King, Tanabe stated that starting with Sticker Star, they were told from Nintendo that they were not allowed to graphically represent Toads with individual characteristics such as age or gender.

[30] The characters were also praised for their charm and "offbeat" naturalism,[10][36] however they were also criticized for lack of variety in visual design as well as the abundance of Toads instead of the diverse fictional races the series had been known for.

[41] Many critics were negative towards the removal of multiple role-playing game (RPG) elements,[10][32] of which a lack of character progression, such as experience points (XP).

[10][31] Critics found regular encountered battles to have little to no difficulty at all, with Eurogamer reviewer Rich Stanton believing that they "don't think I was killed by a normal enemy once".