A Tiny Sticker Tale Review

Don’t panic, you’ll just be in my sticker book until we get to the beach.

Oh man, stickers. Who doesn’t love stickers. I have loved stickers for a long time and as a kid I even collected stickers that I saw in stores. Of course, they had to be cute. Once I learned how to make a paper book, I started to make those and putting stickers on the pages to showcase them. Overtime, it did lessen and I don’t get stickers a lot anymore, but I still get the urge to get stickers that are cute or have designs that fall into one of my interests. And with the internet, that means I don’t have to just rely on what’s in my local stores (a blessing and a curse). I never thought about having a power involving stickers, but when I heard about A Tiny Sticker Tale, man would it be nice to be able to turn things into stickers and vice versa. No more back breaking school bags when all your schoolbooks and supplies are stickers and the ease of moving.

A Tiny Sticker Tale has a bit of a story for us to know why we’re here. The game opens up with someone sailing out alone to an island that you’ll be on for the whole game. This someone is the character you play as and he’s a donkey named Flynn (all the characters are animals, I’m not weirdly insulting the game’s characters) and he’s sailing out to Figori Island. A chick (literally) named Honey is waiting as he arrives on the island and she is not only Flynn’s friend, but also serves as your hint system for the main questline. So, why is Flynn here? Well, it turns out that he’s looking for his father. Only armed with a special sticker album, Flynn won’t leave until he either finds his father or learns the truth for why he suddenly disappeared.

The gameplay is simple, but unique. The combination of Flynn’s sticker album and being on Figori Island caused something magical to happen. It seems that his sticker album is somehow connected to the island’s environment as opening it up gives Flynn the ability to grab things and move it with ease without physically touching it. Not to mention he can store it like a sticker in his sticker album for later. This is called Sticker Mode and you can pick up a lot of objects and even the people (animals?) that you come across. There are limitations on what you can turn into a sticker, like you can’t pick up a whole building for example, but you can easily transport a bridge, trees, or people. You do need room in the sticker album’s designated page to be able to carry it around as a sticker, but it’s easy to rearrange all the stickers or put one that you feel you don’t need any more down.

Your time on Figori Island will involve helping the many characters that live there. Characters that need help will have the classic quest exclamation mark above them and you’ll hear what they need when talking to them. All of the quests you’ll get will basically involve you finding and bringing the object they’re asking for to them or picking them up and bringing them or other characters to a location. Don’t worry, that latter one is mainly used for characters that would have difficulty getting there themselves. Sometimes, it’s an easy case of just finding it, but some do have you do a quick, easy puzzle or using another item to get it. It’s pretty easy to figure out what you need to do and there are only a few quests and puzzles that can trip you up.

There is a main quest of sorts, as Flynn’s father will point you to certain characters and he does mention gathering five medallions in the letters you find. Once you help one of the main characters, a mysterious medallion that correlates with what you helped them with will appear. Symbolizing what Flynn learned, you do need to carry these with you until you find and place them at their pedastials when you’re nearing the end. Oh, and did I mention there’s a mischievous raccoon? This raccoon also has a magical sticker album, but he uses it to play pranks. Which…ends up causing some delay on your end as he ends up blocking you from going into the next part of the island (or zone).

Aside from the main quests, there is a lot of side quests you can do. These aren’t necessary to get the ending, but it does give us more to do. These side quests will grant you a gold statue once you complete them. Some are quick and easy, some will have you play a minigame like getting enough points in tennis, and some will take longer as it asks you to find a series of item objects or characters whether it be finding it in the environment or noticing and doing a puzzle. There’s even a side quests that has two ways it can end and the two stickers that will determine it become available at the end of two other side quests. This is more of a side activity, but there is even a tent you’ll come across around halfway through the game that you can decorate the inside of and carry around. You can use anything to decorate it, even use it as storage, and the carpenter you meet in the beginning of the game will make furniture if you bring him trees. I wouldn’t say this game has “a lot of replayability”, but I did enjoy these side quests and activities.

There is also a collection section of Flynn’s album which shows all the unique stickers there are on the island and which ones you already picked up with a short blurb. If you click one, you’ll also be shown where you can find that sticker on the island through your map, which is pretty cool too. Plus, there is a cute little cutscene if you 100% the collection album.

There were a few cons that A Tiny Sticker Tale has. I felt the dialogue was a bit stilted at times. This could be because the majority of the dialogue serves to purely tell you what the character needs, what you need to do, and/or whatever lesson they were created to give. It does its job and it does get less stilted as you get further in, but I wished we got fun dialogue or at least more natural dialgoue (which would also have helped put some personality in it as well). Like, I would have never guessed Honey was Flynn’s friend if it wasn’t her collection album blurb as she is just a hint system. I also did feel the game’s story could have been told a bit better; or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I wished you felt Flynn and his father’s bond more. I actually did end up liking how ambiguous the game is, which caused the ending to shock me, but it’s a bit strange how no one talks about your father and your father’s own letters are just business. Lastly, while I do like the inclusion of the map and how it can be used to pinpoint where a sticker is, I do wish it showed which tiles connected to one another.

I do want to mention that the full game is structured a bit differently than the demo. Aside from some additions, which would be expected, there is one quest that you’ll notice is different. And that is the quest that has you fishing up five fish and putting it into a cow’s pond. In the demo, all the fish can be found in the island’s first zone where you begin the game at, but in the full game they’re located all around the island. I did, admittedly, go crazy trying to find the other four fish before I took a break, returned, re-explored the area, and realized one of the quests available gave me a way to continue. A bit embarrassing for me, huh? Though, to be fair, I didn’t end up finishing the demo as I wanted to experience the full game when it released.

Other than that, A Tiny Sticker Tale has a pretty calming soundtrack, which changes depending on where you’re at and during cutscenes. The art style is also really cute and colorful. I really like how the characters and objects look like stickers even before you pick them up and the areas look like the type of designs that would be put on sticker sheets or in those sticker books that already have a background and you build a scene with the stickers provided.

Verdict

Overall, I did enjoy A Tiny Sticker Tale despite some of the criticisms I had towards it. It’s a shame that the dialogue felt stilted at times and we could have gotten more from the story (while still keeping it ambiguous) and characters, but I still honestly enjoyed my time with the game. The premise was unique, I didn’t mind how easy the majority of quests and puzzles were, I did like the idea of having the ending be ambiguous, and I really liked how cute and colorful the game is.

The price of A Tiny Sticker Tale wasn’t announced at the time of writing my review, but based on the $10 price tag on the Switch, I do feel this is worth the price tag.