Free Paper Mario Star Nova ROM Hack Hits PC With 8 Chapters

A solo German modder named NicTube spent more than four years rebuilding Paper Mario from the inside. The result, Paper Mario: Star Nova, dropped on NicTube’s itch.io download page for Paper Mario: Star Nova on 5 May 2026 as a free 5.5 MB BPS patch. The mod ships eight chapters, a brand new main villain, more than 70 fresh star pieces, and a kingdom called Stellaria stitched on top of the 2000 Nintendo 64 original. PC players can grab it now.

The catch sits in plain view. Star Nova ships as a difference patch, never a finished game. You supply the original Paper Mario ROM. The patch rewrites it.

NicTube has been clear about that rule. The dev does not host the base ROM. Without a clean copy of the 2001 cartridge, nothing boots.

How To Patch And Launch Star Nova

The install path is short if you’ve patched a ROM hack before. If you haven’t, plan ten minutes of reading. NicTube recommends Floating IPS, an open-source patcher maintained by Alcaro on the Floating IPS GitHub repository for BPS and IPS files that handles both formats cleanly.

The five steps:

1. Dump a clean US copy of Paper Mario from a cartridge you own.
2. Download Floating IPS for Windows or Linux.
3. Grab the PMSN_1.1.2.bps file from the Star Nova itch.io page.
4. Open Flips, point it at your ROM, then apply the BPS patch.
5. Load the patched .z64 output in any standard N64 emulator.

The 1.1.2 patch number signals two quick revisions since launch day. Bug fixes and balance tweaks are expected to keep landing through the project’s Discord channel, which NicTube links from the same itch.io page.

What’s Different In The World Of Stellaria

Stellaria replaces the Mushroom Kingdom’s overworld with a sacred kingdom built around a cosmic, star-themed cosmology. Mario lands inside it through a story NicTube wrote from scratch. Bowser is not the headline villain. A new antagonist anchors the entire eight-chapter arc.

The partner roster has been rebuilt. NicTube ported partly new abilities onto fresh companions, including a Chain Chomp partner the dev resurrected from cut Sticker Star beta material. The Monty Mole King, another Sticker Star reject, appears as a chapter boss.

“I revived most of the Sticker Star beta including the Chain Chomp partner and the Monty Mole King and made it playable in one chapter of Paper Mario: Star Nova,” NicTube wrote on X in late 2021, when the dev first showed off the recovered assets.

Combat keeps Paper Mario’s turn-based action-command ring, but every encounter has been retuned. New badges introduce moves the base 2000 engine never shipped. New items shift the loot economy. Seventy-plus star pieces are scattered across Stellaria as the core collectible. Music gets a partial overhaul, with remixed tracks rather than entirely new compositions, layered through chapter zones.

Original textures and dialogue framing stay close to the 2001 source. Players who logged hundreds of hours on the original say the camera angles and tone don’t break the illusion. That fidelity is what keeps the mod from feeling like a graft.

One Developer, Four-Plus Years, Eight Chapters

NicTube announced the project on X on 1 November 2021, listing the eight-chapter scope, sidequests, new villain, new partners, and remixed soundtrack. Four years and six months later, all of it shipped.

https://x.com/NicTube/status/1455259617903185923

Aside from a handful of contributed art assets, NicTube wrote, mapped, scripted, and balanced the entire mod alone. Solo work at this scope is rare on the Paper Mario 64 mod scene. Most full conversions ship from teams of five to ten contributors.

“There’s a brand new Paper Mario mod called Star Nova that released today, it’s at least 4 Chapters long,” wrote streamer Getlucky on X on 5 May 2026, posting a part-one walkthrough that pulled tens of thousands of views inside its first 24 hours.

The four-chapter figure in the streamer’s post reflects how far early playthroughs reached on day one, not the full content. NicTube’s release notes confirm eight chapters plus optional sidequests, with hidden bosses scattered across the back half.

The Nintendo Takedown Shadow Hanging Over Every Patch

Nintendo’s legal team has a long memory and a bigger budget than every fan dev combined. The company pulled 379 Mario, Pokémon, and Zelda fan projects from Game Jolt in a single sweep in December 2020. More waves followed in 2024 against the Yuzu and Ryujinx Switch emulators, then again in early 2026 against open-source forks of those projects on GitHub.

Star Nova ships as a BPS patch precisely to dodge the line Nintendo enforces hardest. Distributing the original ROM is a clear copyright violation. Distributing a difference file that contains zero Nintendo code occupies legal gray space the company has rarely tested in court.

The decompilation work that made mods like Star Nova technically possible lives on GitHub. The pmret/papermario decompilation repository for the Nintendo 64 original hit 100% completion on the US version in 2024 after roughly three years of community labor. Nintendo has so far left the project alone.

That doesn’t mean the silence holds forever. High-profile fan releases tend to attract takedowns within months of any review-cycle attention. Anyone planning to grab the patch should download it sooner rather than later.

Why The Mod Won’t Run On Real Hardware Yet

Hardware compatibility is the one obvious gap. Star Nova boots in software emulators like Project64 and Mupen64Plus. It does not run on EverDrive Flash Carts, 64Drive units, or FPGA systems including the Analogue 3D. The RetroAchievements catalogue page for Paper Mario: Star Nova currently lists emulator-only support and no published achievement set.

The cause is technical, not philosophical. NicTube used engine-level changes that depend on emulator quirks rather than strict N64 timing. Real hardware refuses the boot. The fix would mean reauthoring core systems the dev did not plan to support in version one.

Practical setup for a US reader: install RetroArch or Project64, point it at the patched ROM, and start chapter one. Mobile users on iOS can run Delta. Star Nova is not yet built for the N64Recomp pipeline that has produced standalone PC ports of other Nintendo 64 classics, though community ports may follow.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Much Does Paper Mario: Star Nova Cost?

Nothing. NicTube released the BPS patch as a free download on itch.io. You still need a copy of the original Paper Mario ROM, which the dev does not provide. The legal path is dumping your own cartridge with a USB N64 reader. The patch alone is 5.5 MB and the itch.io project page handles future updates through the same download link.

Will Star Nova Work On Nintendo Switch Online?

No. The Switch Online N64 app does not let users sideload custom ROMs at all. Star Nova runs only on PC and mobile emulators that accept patched .z64 files. RetroArch, Project64, Mupen64Plus, and Delta on iOS handle it well. Real Nintendo 64 hardware through a Flash Cart or FPGA system also will not boot the patched build right now.

Is Downloading Star Nova Legal?

The BPS patch itself contains no Nintendo code, only the difference between the original and the modded version, which keeps it inside legal gray space. Downloading or distributing the original Paper Mario ROM is copyright infringement under US law. Owning the cartridge does not change that. The cleanest path is dumping your own legal copy with hardware like the Retrode 2 or a similar reader.

How Long Does Star Nova Take To Finish?

NicTube designed Star Nova for an 8-chapter main path plus optional sidequests. Day-one streamer playthroughs suggest 15 to 25 hours depending on completion focus, sidequest pickup, and difficulty preference. The original 2001 Paper Mario takes about 30 hours for a thorough run. Expect a long weekend at minimum, longer if you chase every star piece across Stellaria.

Star Nova lands at a strange moment for the series. Nintendo’s mainline Paper Mario games have drifted far from the turn-based RPG template the 2000 original built. The Origami King and Color Splash split fans, and the recent Switch remake of The Thousand-Year Door brought back the GameCube entry while skipping the N64 chapter entirely.

A solo dev just delivered the chapter Nintendo never wrote. The patch is small. The itch.io page is open. The clock is whatever DMCA letter arrives next.

Disclaimer: This article describes a publicly released fan modification and a general patching workflow for informational purposes only. Copyright law on ROM files varies by jurisdiction, and downloading commercial ROM files is illegal in most countries including the United States. Readers should consult qualified legal counsel for specific guidance on personal use and ROM dumping rights. Project details and download figures cited reflect the status of Paper Mario: Star Nova as of 6 May 2026.