How would you change a game?

[MrYoshbert]

Paper Mario: Sticker Star: too many things to count.

• Beef up the plot.
  Shigeru Miyamoto requested that the guys at Intelligent Systems to dial the storyline down a tad, but apparently they followed this advice too extremely, and watered it down to "get these Royal Stickers AND NOTHING MORE THAN THAT EVERYONE GO HOME... oh yeah and save Peach from Bowser too".
  
  It doesn't need to ramped up to the point of fan fiction-esque melodrama like in Super Paper Mario (in my opinion, what with the Blumiere and Timpani love story and the "prophecy of four heroes" and the Queen Pixl and all that crap). I'd make it more like the first Paper Mario or even Super Mario RPG: simple yet substantial, but not heavy-handed.
  
  Kersti talks about stuff like the Royal Stickers causing trouble in the past and learning about their origins in some "Sticker School" or something along those lines. She also mentions that there are dozens of other crown-shaped sticker fairies like her; why don't we get to see them floating around? I really would've loved it if the game went more in-depth into stuff like that.
  
• Revise the battle system, in a way that you won't be screwed over if you run out of stickers.
  
• Retain more of the RPG elements. I don't know how FP would work with the new sticker mechanics, but stuff like badges and leveling up would add lots more depth to the game.
  
• Add more variety to the cast of characters. Ooh, this is a long one. For this game, Miyamoto told Intelligent Systems to use only characters who were "already established in the Mario universe" (i.e., no new characters), barring Kersti. The Mario franchise has 25+ years of unique and interesting characters to choose from, but all IS could think of was Kamek, Bowser Jr., a Wiggler, a Snifit with a bowtie, and a bunch of generic Toads. Good lord, they could have done a better job on capitalizing on that.
  
  IS even had the gall to say that as far as friendly characters go in the series, there's only Toads of different colors (I'm dead serious, they actually said this in an Iwata Asks interview). They must have been high on some really dank shit then, because I'm pretty damn sure Mario has a lot more allies than that. What about the Toad characters with actual identities, like Captain Toad and his brigade, Toadsworth, and Toadette (who also appeared in a Paper Mario game before this)? What about Yoshi and his friends? Professor E. Gadd? Rosalina? Nabbit? How about every damn NPC from all the 3D games combined (e.g., Piantas, Nokis, Bob-omb Buddies, Penguins, Lumas, Whittles, and lots more I'm sure)? I'm sure these guys would make great supporting characters.
  
  
• Better boss choices. Jumping off from the above, many of the bosses in this game felt just phoned in to me. You'd think that with the aforementioned limitation, Intelligent Systems would take the time to look at past Mario games and bring back a couple of bosses from those. Well, they did... for only two of them. Aside from Petey Piranha, Gooper Blooper (who were actually pretty good choices, imo), and Mizzter Blizzard (who surprised me a lot), we got giant sparkly Goomba, big Buzzy Beetle, big Scuttlebug, big Chain Chomp, paper ball Boo, giant Pokey with a crown, and big Cheep-Cheep. No sir, that is just lame.
  
  I would've taken the opportunity to go off the goddamn wall with the bosses; perhaps Hookbill the Koopa instead of a generic giant Buzzy Beetle, or Big Bob-omb (the SM64 boss) or something instead of some giant Pokey. I'd rather fight Boom Boom, the Reznors, Eyerok, Gobblebut, and Marching Milde than these pitiful characters they gave us. And how could they put Bowser Jr. in there and forget all about the Koopalings (especially when the NSMB games just made them relevant again in the eyes of fans and Ninty themselves)?
  
  See, that's a whole bunch of characters right there, and I didn't even have to resort to the obscure characters like Wart and Tatanga.
  
  Hell, Miyamoto's restriction doesn't really seem that burdening: I'd just flat out re-use a bunch of characters from Paper Mario 1 and 2 (maybe just the former, since Sticker Star also takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom); wouldn't you consider Goombario, Parakarry, Jr. Troopa, and all of those other guys to be "already established in the Mario universe"? They aren't new characters, after all. Hooray for loopholes!
  
• Give Luigi, Peach, and Bowser more screentime. Luigi got demoted to pitiful Easter Egg status, and Peach only appears at the beginning and end, same with Bowser. That just isn't goddamn right. I would've added post-chapter intermissions with Peach trying to help Mario out by sending information while she's waiting to be rescued (like in the first game) and Luigi going on his own solo quest to get the Royal Stickers in an attempt to beat his brother to the punch for once.
  
  Also, the fact that Intelligent Systems didn't consider throwing in cutscenes in which Bowser's hanging out with his own son or bossing Kamek around boggles my mind on so many levels. The dude doesn't even get any lines. Seriously, he's always a treat in the RPGs and it's a shame that we don't get the pleasure of hearing some of his funny-ass dialogue. What a criminally wasted opportunity.
  

All of this stuff they could have done makes me think that Sticker Star's shortcomings wasn't entirely Shiggy's fault; it was all on Intelligent Systems. Actually scratch all of this, what I really would have done was reject some of Miyamoto's suggesstions and make the game how I and my team wanted to make it... just like how Mario & Luigi: Dream Team ended up being.