Chapter 3, for many, is when the game gets really good. I look at this chapter, though, and wonder if this is more of a sign of the game firmly picking a side on what it wants to be good at.
We start, right away, with Tippi being taken away from us by Francis, which leaves Mario without a voicebox. Tippi should feel like more of an absence than she is, as a critically important story character and the one thing in our party that is always present onscreen, but really... most players weren't exactly leaning on the Tattle. Arguably, it's something they'll miss when they get to the nerdy setpieces in 3-4, but it's hard to use a Tattle in a game with the fast-paced action of a platformer even if it wasn't triggered by moving the controller against the normal grip.
The four levels found here are a nostalgia level culminating in Bowser's big arrival, a water level culminating in the game's only true miniboss, an ascent up a vertical level with a matchup against a Team Bleck goon, and finishing with a dungeon crawl through the nerdiest dungeon to every meow and a boss fight with a surprisingly tricky geek to get the Tattle ability back. Said aloud, I'm surprised how many bosses Chapter 3 throws at us compared to the rest of the game. The fact that I said Big Blooper is the only real miniboss in the game should tell you loads about who else we're fighting- lots of Team Bleck and few other bosses. Chapter 4 will have no bosses outside the one guarding the Pure Heart. This increase in bosses is accompanied by more chances for dialogue, which helps support the fact the only NPCs in the entire chapter were Francis's maid robots. This game loves it its funny dialogue, but it only gets to use it when there are people to speak.
Mechanically, we have added Bowser, Thudley and Carrie to the team. These three additions have one thing in common: Damage. Double damage, a more precise way to deal double damage with Mario and Peach, and a refinement to the game's controls to make landing damage in the first place easier than ever. If you were having trouble with the game's mechanics, this chapter will cover you, and there are even more Pixls that make the game even easier for the situations we're currently not equipped for. Between these and Catch Cards, it's rather difficult to feel engaged with the combat system- which makes sense, because platformers are a difficult genre to fit combat systems to, often encouraging you to move along at a rapid pace. But oh boy, the boss fights either sideline your combat skills or turn into "win as soon as you get on top of them". Or fire breath them.
A lot of people seem to point at this chapter as either a high point of the adventure, or where the game really starts to kick into high gear. And honestly... I'm not 100% convinced. Between the trivial combat, the frustration of the Dotwood Tree, the swimming level that is 3-2, and the mostly jocular tone of 3-1 and 3-4, I feel like this is the game firmly establishing that there won't be much of a game here, purely a light-hearted adventure while it's not being serious with Bleck, Dimentio, and the Blumiere/Timpani plot thread. No, by this point, the game has locked in its aesthetic, and that aesthetic truly is unlike any other Paper Mario game, and even farther removed from Super Mario. You play this game to see what is going to happen next: Very rarely, if ever, do you care about how you're getting there. In some ways, this is a consequence of a very RPG-heavy company trying their hand at a platformer game. In other ways... these are the roots from which Sticker Star's flaws grew. That inability to secure Super Mario's essence, and that disregard for mechanics in favour of narrative- and in particular, comedic narrative.
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