Comet piece

This article is about the goal collectibles in Paper Mario: Sticker Star. For the scrap collectable in Water's Edge Way, see Comet Piece (scrap).

“That's a piece of the Sticker Comet that I rode in on! Remember, the one that got broken up?”

—Kersti, Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Comet pieces are fragments of the Sticker Comet. They are the goal of each course in Paper Mario: Sticker Star. When Bowser touches the Sticker Comet at the start of the game, causing it to break, the comet's pieces are scattered across the Mushroom Kingdom.

Comet pieces are found floating above areas with a black and white checkered pattern, which are sometimes located past an strip of terrain with that same pattern to indicate the end of the course is close. Comet pieces glow and flash between different colors but their base color is yellow. Once collected, the game enters a special sequence where the player is taken to a golden platform set against a blue background with stage lights and confetti. The comet piece flies up and off the screen, and coins rain down onto the platform. More coins will appear if more enemies were defeated during the course, up to 300 in total. Five Coins and 10-Coins can also appear. Mario has a limited amount of time to collect the coins before an iris out ends this sequence and returns Mario to the world map. Kersti pops out when a comet piece is collected, then floats back and forth during this sequence. If the player returns to the place where they collected a comet piece, the comet piece will be faded and remain yellow but still glow. Fewer coins will appear in the sequence that occurs after collecting the comet piece.

Since comet pieces are parts of the Sticker Comet, and the Sticker Comet and the Royal Stickers are drawn together by the power of their shared origin of the Sticker Star, obtaining comet pieces guides Mario and Kersti toward the Royal Stickers. Gameplay-wise, this is shown when the player exits a course by collecting a comet piece for the first time. The comet piece rises from the course on the world map, moves in a direction, then comes down on another portion of the world map. This reveals a new course, as well as the path to that course.

There are 38 comet pieces in the game. The player can track the number of comet pieces they have collected in the Status section of the album. The player can collect every Royal Sticker and therefore complete the game without collecting every comet piece, in part because not every course is required to be completed to achieve that goal, but collecting every comet piece in the game is required to unfurl the Comet Repairman Super Flag.

All courses have at least one comet piece, with the exception of Outlook Point, Shaved-Ice Cave, and courses with a Royal Sticker. If there is more than one comet piece in a level, the second piece usually serves as the level's secret exit. Wiggler's Tree House is unique in containing three comet pieces.

After defeating Kamek in Water's Edge Way, he tears the comet piece out of the course via paperization. This transforms it into a scrap, and he tosses it away. It must be retrieved from another section of the course and paperized back into place in order to collect it.