Album

This article is about Mario's inventory in Paper Mario: Sticker Star. For a list of officially released albums and soundtracks related to the Mario franchise, see List of albums.

“Not bad, huh? Any sticker you find, you just pop it in the album.”

—Kersti, Paper Mario: Sticker Star

The album, also known as the sticker album,^[1] in Paper Mario: Sticker Star is an item serving as a menu and the inventory. Its primary function is holding all the stickers that Mario collects throughout the game. Once obtained, the album takes up the bottom screen for the remainder of the game. The album can be opened and accessed anytime outside battle by either tapping the bottom screen or pressing the 👁 X Button
button. The album's pages can be flipped through by scrolling to the edge of each page, using the 👁 L Button
and 👁 R Button
buttons, or tapping the arrows of the user interface on the edges of the bottom screen. When the player opens the album, the top screen darkens, a pointing glove briefly appears to direct the player to the bottom screen, and Mario looks at the album on the top screen. The album can be closed using the 👁 X Button
button, returning to normal gameplay with a pointing glove briefly appearing to direct the player back to the top screen. Despite the terms "open" and "close" being used, the album is always visibly open on the bottom screen. When Mario is not holding the album directly, such as for his pose when receiving especially important items, the album is represented as a three-dimensional object.

Mario obtains the album extremely early in the game. When the player first collects a sticker while exploring the grounds of the Sticker Fest and the rest of Decalburg, Kersti points out that Mario cannot "jam something as important as a sticker in [his] pocket" and gives him the album to hold stickers. The player cannot proceed to the first battle of the game without this event occurring, as the player must round up every Toad across Decalburg so that they can "un-burrito" the town's plaza. One of those Toads has a sticker stuck to their head that must be peeled off in order to get them to join the other Toads, and the first battle occurs when the player attempts to leave Decalburg through its plaza.

In Water's Edge Way, album pages are noted as being rare. Kersti says the one Mario receives from a Toad in the course must have fallen from somewhere. Given that stickers fall from the sky, album pages likely come from the same source as stickers.

The album has four sections: Status, Stickers, Scraps, and Things. While all of the sections appear to be present from the start of the game, as per the bookmark-themed user interface, only Status and Stickers are available upon the player receiving the album. Scraps and Things are unlocked after the first item that goes in them is obtained.

• Status: Shows general information such as playtime, current HP, location, coins, Comet Pieces collected, and Royal Stickers collected. Pressing 👁 R Button
  lets the player see the controls, and pressing 👁 L Button
  takes the player to the cover of the album, where the collected Royal Stickers are placed. The album cannot be left to this section when it is closed, automatically flipping to the Stickers section if this happens.
• Stickers: Shows all the battle stickers and thing stickers the player possesses. This portion of the album has two pages by default, but a Toad in Water's Edge Way gives Mario another page and collecting a Royal Sticker from a boss also adds one page to the album without any in-game explanation. The Royal Sticker that Bowser has is an exception to the second clause, as collecting it does not grant another page. This means this section can have a maximum of eight pages. Each page has 60 spaces in its grid. The smallest battle and thing stickers take up a 2×2 space, so each page can hold fifteen such stickers at a time for an endgame maximum of 120 stickers. Some stickers are larger than others, complicating the numbers. When a sticker is obtained, it is placed on the page that is currently open if there is space on that page. If there is no space, or the sticker cannot fit in the remaining space of the page, the sticker is placed on a different page. If there is no space on any album page for a sticker, Mario fails to collect that sticker. The player can read descriptions for each sticker, excluding thing stickers, with the 👁 Y Button
  button.

• While in the field or on the world map, the player can drag and drop stickers with 👁 Stylus
  to move them across a page or to different pages. The player can also press 👁 Start Button
  to automatically sort all stickers in the album. The album briefly closes, then reopens with the stickers put in their new positions. The automatic sort favors putting stickers on pages of lower numbers, fills in pages from top to bottom and left to right, and favors not leaving gaps between the edges of the pages and the stickers and between each sticker. The player can "toss" any sticker they have through a menu for that sticker, permanently deleting it. The "Cancel" option in this menu is called "Keep."
• During battles, the player can access only this section. If another section is selected when a battle starts, the game automatically flips to this section. The player cannot turn pages during battle except when they are looking for a sticker to use. As such, after selecting the maximum number of stickers they can use in a given turn or selecting the final sticker in the album, the player is unable to turn to a different page until they confirm their selection, finish attacking, and start their next turn.

• Scraps: Holds all the scraps the player finds in the environment or removes from the environment through Paperization. There are nine pages. New scraps always go in the earliest available page of the album regardless of what page the player has open. While scraps have a variety of shapes and sizes, since the vast majority of scraps must be used in order to progress through the game, it is impossible to have enough scraps in the album to prevent Mario from collecting more scraps. Some scraps rotate or flip over automatically when they are placed in the album, which affects them when they are placed back into the environment. Scraps cannot be moved around in the album.
• Things: Holds all the things the player collects. The album can hold any number of things at the same time, with each page containing up to five things. Since there are 64 things in the game and the only way to collect a thing a second time is to use up the thing, this section has a maximum of thirteen pages. Pages past the first page do not appear unless Mario has enough things to require the additional page, and vanish when they are not necessary. When things are converted to thing stickers at Sling-a-Thing, they are moved to the Stickers section of the album. The player cannot create a thing sticker if it would not fit in the album's Stickers section. When the first thing is collected, Kersti notes that it can be "crammed" into the album, implying that the album is not designed for carrying things.

Using Paperization in most cases opens the album for selecting a sticker or scrap, with the album moved to the Stickers section automatically in most cases but moved to the Scraps section if the player is near a space a scrap can be placed in or near a place where an object can be removed from the course and stored as a scrap. If the player is selecting a sticker or a scrap, Mario has the album open while the player makes this selection.

The first time Mario attempts Rustle Burrow, there is an event in the course where he falls down a hole and bounces off several webs. He loses all of his stickers in the process, and they are scattered across the course.

The album can be affected during events in battle. At the start of Kamek's battles in Yoshi Sphinx and Bowser's Sky Castle, he casts a spell that converts every sticker in the album into a sandal sticker until the battle ends. In Bowser's Sky Castle, the spell further makes all the sandal stickers appear normal even if they are Shiny or Flashy stickers. During the final battle against Bowser's giant cardboard form, when Kersti determines that beating Bowser with normal stickers is impossible, she puts herself into the album as a battle sticker so that Mario can use her. These events have the album float up above Mario for their respective scenes, and Mario panics as though Kamek's or Kersti's powers are levitating the album away from him.

During battles, Mario can lose stickers for reasons other than using them. Scaredy Rats have an attack where they steal a sticker from the album, but guarding it forces them to take a weak sticker if available. In Bowser's Sky Castle, Kamek has an unblockable attack where he removes stickers from the album. This also uses the album levitation animation. Bowser's giant cardboard form's Fire Breath burns a number of Mario's stickers if the attack is not guarded, deleting them. This has an animation where the fire temporarily envelops the bottom screen, rising and receding from the bottom right corner. All of these effects can affect only the currently selected page.

Gallery[edit]

• 👁 Artwork of Mario holding the album
  

  Artwork of Mario holding the album

• 👁 Pre-release version of the prior artwork
  

  Pre-release version of the prior artwork

• 👁 Mario looking through the album in battle, with a variety of stickers present
  

  Mario looking through the album in battle, with a variety of stickers present

• 👁 The cover of the album with all of the Royal Stickers
  

  The cover of the album with all of the Royal Stickers

• 👁 The "Status" section of the album
  

  The "Status" section of the album

• 👁 The "Things" section of the album
  

  The "Things" section of the album

Names in other languages[edit]

References[edit]