He knows about timed hits! Let's play Super Mario RPG!

Um...

My Geno Boosted regular attacks were doing roughly 100-150, incidentally.

I think about it from time to time too, and it's interesting to see definitely. Everyone has their own playing style and its interesting to see how it plays out in LPs because you can learn so much from how differently a person plays through a game. It can also go beyond risk vs. reward as well - a person's focus on story vs. gameplay is also very telling, as it gives a little insight into what a person looks for in a game. Do they play for the story and the world the developer's built? Do they play because they just want to have fun?

It's a fascinating topic to look into, to be sure, and is one of the main reasons that LPs can be so fun to read at times.

So do I. So long...(chumps)!

Y'all are just pervs who like her for her tah-tahs.

They didn't look like they were jiggling in the picture.

I consider myself something of an art buff!

I'm not sure how much you know about art (I'm an expert), but...
Someone had to do it.

When we last left off here at Let’s Play Super Mario RPG, Mallow’s parents celebrated their reunion with their long-lost son by telling him to go jump in a volcano. And so we shall! But not right away. I smell treasure!



The woman outside the Nimbus Land inn will report any interesting visitors to the area. According to her, Croco has been spotted nearby.



And so he is!



Croco has come up with big plans since last we saw him: Hearing rumors of vast amounts of treasure to be found in Nimbus Land, he’s appeared to clear the place out with the help of his new tool, the Signal Ring.



Unfortunately for him, Croco drops the Signal Ring on the way out, and we grab it for ourselves. I have a feeling that Croco will be so disillusioned by this latest failure that he’ll go straight. You know, just a hunch.

As for the Signal Ring itself, if you equip it on Mario a tone will sound whenever you enter a room that has a hidden treasure chest in it. Sadly, it doesn’t get any more specific than that, and we’ve got all but one of them anyway, so… yeah. Useless.



Remember back in Nimbus Palace when I mentioned that the game wasn’t done with that “Walk on an invisible path out into the void” trick? Well, it isn’t. This might look like a perfectly unremarkable area, but…



If you press against the “wall” here, a hidden walkway is revealed.

You know, thinking about it, this is really horrid game design. This secret is in no way hinted at anywhere else in the whole game, so the only way to find it is to stumble into it by pressing up against a random wall at just the right space.

Anyway, although Valentina and Dodo have evacuated to parts unknown, Shy Away apparently decided that running fifty feet away from the scene of the crime would be enough to keep the authorities off his tail.



He attempts to buy our silence with a bag of Fertilizer. Although this doesn’t seem like much of a bribe to me, this is actually the very Fertilizer that the Gardener in Rose Town is in the hunt for, so we take it and let Shy Away off with a warning.



Garro is happy to see Mallow restored to his proper place, but doesn’t have anything else to give.



While Valentina controlled the city, a few Nimbus Landers mentioned the royal bus, which is evidently the very height of transportation among cloud people. No, I don’t get it either, but when we pester the operator for details he merely tells us the bus is undergoing repairs. Fine, then…



We’ve got the Fertilizer, and the Seed is waiting right where we left it in Bean Valley. With both in hand, we pay another visit to the crazy old man of Rose Town.

The Gardener is so excited to see the Seed he’s toiled for so long to get that he starts running around in little circles, talking a mile a minute.



There is such a thing as decaf, you know.



And then when he spots the Fertilizer, he goes right into it again.



We’re talking gardening here, not missiles, governor.



Really? I never would have guessed.



With his characteristic subtlety of action, the Gardener immediately jumps on the table and works his botanical magic.



After a few seconds, a beanstalk stretches towards the sky. I’m not too clear on the science here, but doesn’t it take a little longer than that, normally?



The sudden appearance of the beanstalk sets the Gardener off again, talking so fast that my picture-taking finger couldn’t even keep up. There was something about falling out of an airplane, and a gaggle of geese, and some gardening rag that he subscribes to…



Mario’s priorities are in order, though. He knows that beanstalks exist for one purpose, and one purpose only: Climbing. He leaves the Gardener to his prattling and makes for the clouds.

Don’t let their identical names fool you: One of these Lazy Shells is a weapon, and the other is an armor. The first is Mario’s strongest weapon, and single-handedly transforms him from a middling character into a giant-killer, our best attacker versus single enemies.

The armor can technically be worn by anyone, but functionally only the Princess can make good use of it. It skyrockets the wearer’s defense and special defense and gives them complete invulnerability to status effects, fire, ice, and lightning, making them functionally invulnerable. (The most damaging attacks in the game deal around 25 damage to a character wearing the Lazy Shell, and most attacks will do no more than a single point of damage.) The price of such an effective defense, however, is steep: The Lazy Shell also administers crippling penalties to attack, special attack, and speed, completely destroying any offensive potential the wearer may have had. The Princess doesn’t have any offensive potential anyway, so the Shell is well-suited for her, but it’s nigh-useless on anyone else.



Back on point: The only entrance into Barrel Volcano is through its, uh, spout. You know, the top. And the only way to get there is via the Nimbus Land hot springs which overhang it. You’ll recall that these guards mocked us mercilessly before, but Mallow exercises his birthright in the best way he knows how: By pulling strings for his friends.



According to Wikipedia, a hot spring is produced when groundwater that has been geothermally heated is released from the earth’s crust. I’m not sure how one ended up here in the clouds, but it completely heals all characters, so I’m not complaining.



Now that we’re all refreshed from the springs, the logical next step would seem to be jumping into the molten depths of an active volcano.

Also, sorry to disappoint you, but this volcano is definitely not going to erupt. Totally. It will remain disappointing inert for the entire time that we are in and around it.



Barrel Volcano is an annoyingly straightforward area. No tricks, no traps, no puzzles, just a lot of lava and a lot of enemies. Even the lava is more an annoyance than an actual hazard: It doesn’t hurt you; it just sends you back to the entrance of whatever room you’re in.



This room, reached by jumping across some small platforms in the first room and containing nothing but a pair of flowers, is the only room that’s even off the beaten path. Otherwise, it’s a straight shot.



As you might expect given that we’re in, you know, a volcano, pretty much all the enemies here are invulnerable to fire. This disappointed the eight-year-old me to no end, because he figured that since Ultra Flame was the last spell Mario learned, obviously it was the most powerful, and thus used it in every fight. In the volcano, though, this results mostly in rows of zeroes appearing.

Level ups… Now that we’ve learned all the spells, nothing too interesting to talk about here. I’m mostly still showing them just as a way to measure my progress.



I’ve always liked this Frog Coin. You can’t jump to it, so picking it up requires a bit of trickery with the game’s engine. See, whenever you jump into lava, you get bounced back to the beginning of the room, with “beginning” being defined as the door you entered by. So what you do is poke your head into the next room…



…Then head back and jump into the lava, which will scorch you right to the Coin. I felt so proud of myself when I first figured it out.



Most of the enemies here die in one shot of Geno Blast, but there are a few “large” ones in forced fights along the path. Enemies like this Stumpet, which is a volcano-like enemy that… erupts, I think? I just Geno Whirl them out of the way on the first turn.



…and like this Corkpedite, which is actually two enemies in one. If you destroy the body, the head will die automatically, but if you kill the head, the body will use a suicide instant-death attack called Migraine, so be prepared.



Towards the end we encounter the guy Mallow’s mom told us about: Hinopio. Hinopio, it turns out, is a hipster Toad with a goatee, shades, and a funky flame pattern on his cap. He also runs a special store right in the heart of the volcano, so we can overlook his oddities.



Hinopio’s place has an item shop (which sells basic consumables), and armor shop (which sells the Fire line, which directly replaces the Fuzzy armors on Mario, Mallow, and Geno)…

…and an inn. The inn is stunningly expensive at 30 coins, but you get to sleep on a pile of boxes! You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t brave the depths of a volcano for that kind of service.



Hinopio has decorated his pad with Arwings and F-Zero racers, though, so he’s all right by me.



Just beyond Hinopio’s place is the most difficult platforming challenge in the game. Crossing this long chain of donut lifts while dodging the leaping Pyrospheres can be problematic, especially given that you don’t want to get into any fights with a boss just beyond.



In the next room, a swarm of Pyrospheres congeals into the dread Czar Dragon!



The Czar Dragon is surprisingly easy to defeat. Geno Boost yourself up, then go to town with regular attacks. The Czar uses fear and has a few fire spells, but we know how to deal with those, don’t we?



Occasionally the Czar will pound the ground, creating four Helioses to attack you. The Helioses use suicide attacks for a fairly decent amount of damage the first chance they get, so kill them if you can.



…With spells like Mallow’s Snowy. The Czar is obviously weak to ice, but I find that Snowy doesn’t deal that much more damage than Shocker. So, I like to use Shocker if the Dragon is alone, and Snowy if he’s summoned Helioses. (Mario and Geno, obviously, are sticking to regular attacks.)

Incidentally, this is probably the last fight in which I’ll use Mallow, so, uh, take a good look, I guess.



After a surprisingly short amount of time, the Czar sinks back into the lava. Suspiciously short, you might even say…



Only to rise again as a hideous bag of accursed bones called Zombone. Just like our Lord Jesus!



Zombone is quite a bit stronger than the Czar offensively, using powerful spells like Boulder and Blast (seen here), but its physical defense drops like a stone. As a result, physical attacks can deal 300-400 damage a shot, allowing you to take down the skeletal dragon before he can hurt you too badly.

After a bit of pummeling, Zombone sinks below the lava once again, for good this time.



Whoo! Star Piece time! Only one more to—



Huh? What the…







Oh, no! Our Star Piece has been swiped by a team of bizarre cosplayers! After them!



The Axem Rangers are, I think, the first thing I ever saw that I recognized as direct parody. I’m sure I saw some random cartoon or something that did a similar type of thing, but if I did it went straight over my head at the time. This was the first story where I saw it and said “Hey… they’re making fun of the Power Rangers!” It was the first time I ever saw someone play someone else's ideas for comedy. And a whole new world opened up to me as a result.

(Okay, so they’re actually making fun of Super Sentai. I’m an American, though, dammit!)

Anyway, after cruelly mocking Mario’s majestic ‘stache for a bit, the Rangers take off, dragging our Star Piece behind them.



…But not without a few false starts. Fun fact: Axem Red is evidently more sensitive than he looks, because if you read his mind with Psychopath, he says “I’m all thumbs today.” And that… is the only Psychopath reading that I remember.



We finally catch up to them on the rim, where the Rangers are whining about their tardy airship, the Blade. The Blade, you’ll remember, was late to pick up Yaridovich as well, giving us the time we needed to pound him into the pavement.



Not this time, however. The Rangers are relieved to see their ride finally show, but Mario jumps aboard as well in hot pursuit.

The Axem Rangers are a five-man band, each with a different specialty. Axem Pink is the girl, and the team healer. Axem Black is the sneaky speedster, attacking four times a round for each of the other characters’ one. Axem Green is the nerdy, physically weak guy who attacks with powerful hit-all magic like Meteor Blast and Solidify. Axem Yellow is the glutton and uses brute force, and Axem Red is the leader and has the strongest defenses.



The Rangers are a tough fight because they attack so often. It’s the first fight in the whole game where you really need a dedicated healer standing by — hence, the first appearance of the Princess in this playthrough. Your best bet is to spam Geno Flash with Geno while Mario brings down the Rangers one at a time with the Lazy Shell. In order of danger, the Rangers go like this:

Pink
Green
Black
Red
Yellow

…But you’re likely to defeat Black as collateral damage from your Flashing, so ignore him.



The best part of the Axem Rangers fight, by far, though, is how when you defeat one, he or she will begin bitching to Red about how they can’t fight anymore.



As mentioned, Black was actually the second Ranger to go down, even though I never specifically targeted him.

When three Rangers remain, Axem Red uses Vigor Up to raise his attack power.




Axem Red is by far the funniest Ranger, I think you’ll agree.



Even after defeating all five Rangers, we’re still not done. To finish this fight and win back our Star Piece, we’ll have to bring down the Axem Rangers’ Zord-esque mech, called simply “Axem Rangers”.



“Axem Rangers” has exactly 999 HP. Once again, the best method of defeating it is regular attacks, backed up by item fire from the Princess. It only attacks every other turn, but…



That attack is the mighty Breaker Beam, which deals well over 100 damage to all characters. There’s no way to prevent or blunt this attack, so your only recourse is to use the Princess’s Group Hug to heal yourself and brace for the next attack. Have Mario and Geno continue to focus on attacking.

Evidently so.



Our team abandons ship, leaving the Rangers to their fate.



And with only 17 experience points to show for it, too! What a rip!



The Blade is grounded in a cloud of explosions, but…



…at least the Star Piece made it out okay.



Where indeed? Hint: It’s the last place on the map.

Next time: Koopa Castle (second time)

Thanks for spoiling it, jerkwad.

Also I forgot how awesome Hinopio is, but now that I remember him I'm sure the Internet has made disgusting pornography of him.

The Axem Rangers are tops -- and, despite their foibles, so unequivocally evil. "We like what we do!"


I'm going to choose to believe Woolsey deliberately slipped this in to mean "shit for brains."


Mokura?


For those who don't know, Hinopio is "hi" (Japanese for fire) mashed against "Kinopio" (Toad's Japanese name). Like Yaridovich, it's odd that he didn't get a name-change in the English version.

*choke* Wow, that was unexpected. XD

Same here. That line just slays me every time.

I think I do.

Go, Go, Axem Rangers!
Go, Go, Axem Rangers!
Go, Go, Axem Rangers!
You Mighty Fightin' Axem Rangers!

Jesus Christ that was great! Makes you wonder...

Yeah, I loved the Axem segment. Fun characters, cool parody, and...well, one of the better reasons to call for a sequel to this game.* Too bad that's nigh impossible.

MIGHTY FIGHTIN' AXEM RAN-AN-GERS!

Man, remember the Everyone Loves Raven boxsets? Fun times, fun times; now I wish I was good with Paint or photoshop or such

*Paper was a semi-sequel at best. Okay, so maybe I STILL don't see what's wrong with the graphics. Then again, that might be nostalgia talking. I loved this game!

Last time here on Let’s Play Super Mario RPG, we threw down with the Axem Rangers to win the sixth Star Piece, but we’ve reached the end of the line. There is nowhere new to go. At a bit of a loss as to what to do next, we head back to Nimbus Land to have Mallow’s mom tousle our hair and bake us cookies.



Queen Nimbus points out that there is but one location we have yet to scour for Star Pieces, and it’s the very first: Bowser’s Keep. Mallow is a negative nelly and whines about the bridge being out, but the royal parents have an answer for that, too…



That’s right: Our days of walking from place to place are behind us. Now we’re traveling in style!

Before we go check out our sweet new ride, we have one more thing to take care of.



The asshole who runs the Miner’s Store back in Moleville has been gradually revealing his inventory bit by bit as the game progresses. Now that we have six stars, he’s offering his third and final item for sale: A “Metal Plate”, at the low, low price of 300. That’s a bit steep, but when we take it home and unwrap the packaging we find that it’s not actually a Metal Plate at all…



…It’s the Frying Pan, the Princess’s best weapon!

So why was the Frying Pan going by the alias “Metal Plate”? Some would say that the game was just being obtuse, trying to obscure the location of one of the better weapons with doubletalk and wordplay. But other men — older men, wiser, perhaps — might tell you that perhaps the Frying Pan was on the run. Perhaps the Frying Pan did some things that it wasn’t proud of, and needed a place to hide out. Perhaps the Frying Pan wanted, nay, needed to escape from the horrors of its past, and found that escape in the dreary, workaday life of Metal Plate. But perhaps the Frying Pan could never truly escape who it was, and his existence became unfulfilling and tiresome, each day more of a torment than the last.

But perhaps somewhere in its shriveled, blackened soul, the Frying Pan cried out for redemption. Perhaps the Frying Pan realized, in a moment of personal clarity, that the only way for it to atone for its crimes was to throw in with us in our righteous quest to save the world. Perhaps then, only then, might it find the peace it was looking for, and rest easy at long last. Perhaps we could learn something from his struggle. Perhaps there is, in fact, a little bit of the Frying Pan in all of us.

Perhaps.



Back in Nimbus Land, the Royal Bus is evidently up and running again, just as Queen Nimbus promised.



It’s, um, weird-looking, though.



But Mario and Mallow look thrilled to be on their way!



We soar towards the Keep without a care in the world. After we enter for the first time, we’ll be able to get to the Keep from the map, without having to take the Bus.



Meanwhile, it seems as though the people of Mario’s world have finally noticed, hey, gigantic sword from another dimension is attacking us, and have appeared at Vista Hill to gawk. Never fear, though, Mario is here!



Bowser is happy to finally be home, even if he did have to take the long way around and ride on a flouncy cloud car to get here.

Bowser’s Keep is filled not with the extraterrestrial horrors you’d expect, but rather brainwashed versions of Bowser’s former minions, like Goombas, Sky Troopas, and Terrapins. Most of these die to Geno Blast, but if you’ve got Bowser in your group, they’ll flee as soon as they’re able.



Yup…



This bridge collapsed, you’ll recall, during our first pass through Bowser’s Keep back at the beginning of the game. Smithy’s Gang has evidently repaired it with Donut Lifts.



The next room is shrouded in shadow, but for a circle of light around Mario. Enemies try to jump out and catch you buy surprise here, but if you look around, you can find a mushroom to heal your party.



The next room has a hidden treasure chamber ensconced in the corner, as well as…



…a Save Block, and… Croco!?



Croco offers some sage advice for the road ahead. He also sells items, but it’s mostly just common stuff you can get anywhere…



The most challenging segment of Bowser’s Keep is this Mario World-esque gauntlet of six doors. When we complete the obstacles behind a door, we’re warped back to this room and forced to select another, until we’ve completed four doors. Of the doors…



By “action courses”, read “platforming stages”. These are fairly difficult, but they’re lousy with rare items, and Mallow’s best weapon awaits us at the end of one of them.



The battle courses require us to win 12 fights in a row to proceed. Taking both of these is an absolute necessity, as Geno and Bowser’s best weapons are at the end.



The puzzle courses contain brainteasers that are more tests of logic and memory than your typical environmental or “round peg into round hole” video game puzzles. Most of these are pretty easy, but the rewards at the end are the weakest; just Rock Candy.

In the battle courses, a brainwashed Magikoopa warps in groups of enemies to bar your path. These are typically the strongest version of most of the common monster types in the game… and when those aren’t strong enough, they’re supplemented with stronger “guardian” enemies from Nimbus Palace, Barrel Volcano, or Bowser’s Keep.



This is probably my favorite fight in the battle courses. These are Amanitas, enemies from way back in the Forest Maze. Yeah, you’re really trying to slow us down, aren’t you, Magikoopa?



Ha! You’re not so tough now that I’ve got about ten more levels and a shell that’s bigger than you, are you, Greapers?



It was actually this fight that clued me in to the fact that Lakitus could be attacked. I thought they were just scenery my first time through the game.



At the end of the line, we find a chest containing the punderful Star Gun, Geno’s strongest weapon. Huzzah!




Onwards…



The last fight of the other battle course is against the final chest monster, Chester. Chester’s got some decent moves — he can use Sand Storm, so watch out for that — but the same tricks that work against the other chest monsters work against him.



Gratuitous Square cameo!

At the end of this course, we pick up the Drill Claw, the best weapon for Bowser. Irritatingly, it has the exact same animation as Bowser’s unarmed attack…

The puzzle courses are run by a green Hammer Brother by the name of Dr. Topper. He’s a bit of a smartass, but you can totally snark him when he asks if you want instructions.



In Coin Collecting, you have a box with 21 coins in it, and you and Dr. Topper take turns taking coins. You can take up to four at a time, and whoever ends up with the last one loses. The best way to approach this game is to take four every time until you start getting close to the end. Stopping on either 15 or 20 guarantees a win, but any number in between those puts you into a position where Dr. Topper can beat you.



Magic Buttons can be either the easiest puzzle in the game, or the hardest. Whenever you press a button, all the buttons directly adjacent to that button reverse their state, becoming pressed if they’re unpressed, and unpressed if they’re pressed.



You can win this puzzle in four moves no problem, but making any move other than those four turns things into a challenge.



Ball Solitaire is like those games you see in restaurants sometimes, where you have to jump one pin with another until there’s only one left.



My dirty little secret: I have been playing this game for twelve years, and I still cannot consistently beat Ball Solitaire. There are solutions, but they’re too long and complicated to remember, so I just say fuck it.



The cool thing about the action courses is that they’re littered with chests containing rare items like Bombs, Royal Syrups, and Kerokero Colas. You can really stock up in these rooms if you’re careful. You get ten “tries” while in an action room; hit any sort of hazard and you have to try the room again.



At the end of one of the action courses, you can find a Sonic Cymbal, Mallow’s best weapon. (The other has the Super Slap, the Princess’s second-best.)



The other puzzle course starts out with a quiz. Some of these questions are incredibly easy, but others require that you talk to random NPCs and examine every object in the game in order to pick up random, useless trivia. For example…



Well, Talking Time? The answer to this question was revealed, somewhere in this LP.

The barrel-counting puzzles in the next room are more tests of multiplication and geometry than actual counting. I find that the simplest way to figure out this puzzle is to work out how many barrels are in the “base” rectangle, then count up all the extra barrels and add them to the total.



The final puzzle requires you to quiz four characters as to their placement in a triathlon, then report the correct placement to Dr. Topper. You know, were I Smithy, I think I would guard my castle with rabid attack dogs and combination locks, not quizzes ripped from the SATs.

For the record, the answers are:

1st Place: “I outrode [whoever] on my bike, and [whoever] was never able to catch me!”
2nd Place: “I came in third during the bike race, but finally ended up in the same place as I did in the swimming event.”
3rd Place: “I placed the same in the swimming and cycling events, but two others beat me in the marathon.”
4th Place: “I came in 3rd for swimming…”



Mario, of course, is a cocky motherfucker. I bet he got a 1400 on his SATs.



In the final treasure room, rather than returning us to the room with the doors, the path veers off into uncharted territory.



No turning back now…



In the next room, the Magikoopa who antagonized us during the battle courses returns to confront us directly. And you know what that means…



Boss fight!

Okay, the thing about Magikoopa is that he is a complete pussy. His physical defenses are total crap. He has only 1000 HP, and your regular attacks will do 300+ to him no problem, and will sometimes approach 400. Just pound on him. Sure, he’s got powerful spells, but if it takes you six turns to beat him you’re not doing it fast enough.



One thing to watch out for is that Magikoopa will sometimes summon a stronger monster to hide behind, like Bahamutt, a Jinx Clone, or the King Bomb that Punchinello summoned way back in the day. Chances are you’ll kill him before he ever tries this, though: I had to deliberately stall the fight just to get the screenshot.



Anyway, after facesmashing Magikoopa, he turns blue again, stops being evil, and has a nice chat with us.

Magikoopa offers to make up for all the attacking and enemy-summoning and stuff by making a treasure box that allows you to generate infinite coins… one coin at a time. Okay, so technically we’ve been able to do this since the second update, but whatever… Magikoopa also decides to stand by in case we ever need healing.



Also hanging around is Croco, and he’s got the best armors in the game for sale. We buy one each of all the armors he’s got on hand except the Royal Dress (the Princess, being outfitted in the Lazy Shell, obviously doesn’t need it). Incidentally, with our purchase of the Heal Shell, we have finally retired all three pairs of Work Pants that we bought way back in Moleville. Roll on, Work Pants. Roll on.



You can skip most of the fights in the penultimate room of Bowser’s Keep by riding a rising Thwomp to the top of the room, allowing you to travel along the ceiling. With back-to-back boss fights in the next room, the ability to scrape through without battling is much appreciated.



As Mario charges through a familiar-looking room, he hears an evil-sounding laugh coming from the rafters.



It’s Boomer, Smithy’s robotic samurai minion!



Um.



Boomer isn’t quite as easy as our last chandelier fight with Bowser back at the beginning of the game, but he’s still pretty damn easy. He’s got Johnny Jones’s Skewer attack, a few other things…



Boomer’s gimmick is that as the fight goes on, he constantly switches between red and blue, each of which has different attacks. The red version is weak to specials and the blue version is weak to regular attacks, but I just pummel him with regular attacks no matter what color he is. Watch out for the blue version’s instant death attack Shaker, however.



After being defeated, Boomer bitches for a while about how wretches like us couldn’t possibly defeat him…

…fakes a heart attack…



…and finally commits honorable seppuku, splattering his brains on the tiles below. Um, whatever.



Our chandelier is a nice guy, and offers to carry us to the top to confront Exor.



Mario and friends celebrate by dancing in circles for a while to the Midas River music. No, I don’t get it either.



Well done, Chandeli-Ho.



So. We’ve finally come face to face with the giant sword whose grim visage has confronted us every time we booted up the game. Perhaps Exor is grinning because he’s got a ton of powerful magic and isn’t afraid to use it. Perhaps Exor is smirking because he thinks he’s got us right where he wants us. Perhaps Exor is smiling because he thinks we’ll never find his weakness. But he is wrong. We are going to kill Exor dead, and it’s going to take us less than a minute.



See, the real Exor is actually the sword’s little skull-shaped pommel-stone, and it’s completely invulnerable for as long as both eyes and the mouth (inexplicably called Neosquid) are functional. We can attack those parts and disable them for a while, but Exor will be able to revive them before we could finish it off with spells or regular attacks. But Exor has a hidden weakness, and it is this:



It’s vulnerable to fucking Geno Whirl. The only boss in the game who is, in fact. Kill the left eye on the first turn, Whirl Exor on the second, and we are done, ladies and gentlemen.

Most of my Mario RPG stories are from when I was a dumb little kid, but this next one is from just last year. My roommate at the time was also a gamer, and he and I had basically the same taste in games. We’d both grown up on the SNES and N64 as kids, and liked the same genres: platformers, RPGs, and strategy games. I walked him through the Baten Kaitos games, he lent me his copy of Ogre Battle 64 so that I could finally finish it. It was a perfectly satisfactory arrangement 95% of the time.

The only time it backfired on us was when we felt the gamer’s clarion call towards e-penis measuring. We couldn’t really show off in front of each other because we knew all the tricks — it was, to quote Jerry Seinfeld out of context, like two magicians trying to impress each other. (“Look! A rabbit!” “So? I believe that’s your card?” “Look, let’s just saw each other in half and call it a night.”) It was like being in the same room as that guy you know who keeps telling you “You know that Mario 2 isn’t the real Mario 2, right?” as though it’s the secret of the millennium, only all the time.

So about a year ago, I’m playing Mario RPG. He’s in the room, half-assedly working on homework or something and watching me play out of the corner of his eye. I’d reached Exor, and as is my usual practice I Whirled him to death, at which point my roommate suddenly spun around in his chair and pointed at the screen, scaring the crap out of me.

“What the hell was that?” he said in a hysterical tone of voice, pointing one trembling finger at the screen as though I’d just made Mario smash the Ten Commandments.

I was nonplussed. It seriously had not occurred to me that someone familiar with Mario RPG could not know that Exor could be Geno Whirled — in my mind, I had somehow elevated it to revive kills zombie or Dodongo dislikes smoke levels of fame.

“Exor is vulnerable to timed Geno Whirls”, I explained. Then, just to rub it in, I said casually “What, you didn’t know that?”

He turned back to his computer in a huff, muttering about my being a dirty cheater.



Anyway, Exor proceeds to eat us. That’s it, game over. It’s been a good LP, and… Huh?



Hello, what’s this?

Exor drops us into a dark, swirling void, which Geno identifies as Smithy’s home dimension. Geno is all for following the road and finishing the job, but Bowser steps in.



Now that Exor has been dealt with, Bowser is all about going home and getting back to his villaining business again. Mario is at a loss, but Geno knows where Bowser’s buttons are:





The Big B quickly rallies, however, coming up with the perfect excuse:



With our resolve strengthened, we begin to explore the dark depths of Smithy’s world… in the next update.

Next time: Weapons factory

My head asplode

Dr. Topper, as his name implies, is also tops; the in-game trivia questionnaire is my favorite of all the challenge rooms. But did I blink, or did you not show the room that's a recreation of Donkey Kong?


"JB" stands for "Jugem Bus," Jugem being Lakitu's Japanese name. This isn't important in the slightest, but I ache to point these things out.


Aw, I forgot about this. It's one of those minor details you'd think, "Man, it would be cool if they'd thought of this," but in this case, they actually did.


More Mario nerd stuff: Bowser's relationship with this Magikoopa seems to imply he's that one Magikoopa -- that is, the one from Yoshi's Island. American fans know his proper name to be "Kamek," but that's really just the Japanese name of all Magikoopas. Localization differences would explain why he (if it is him) is using the more recognizably generic name (which is actually no more generic than the other one) in this appearance.


Your indifference to Boomer's plight reveals you as the heartless monster you are. Then again, I might not be so invested if the sad music that plays while he laments his fate (which is literally entitled "Sad Song") weren't so insanely good at getting me.


This is one of my favorite jokes in the game (which is hard to convey in screenshots): the chandelier stops ascending very suddenly, flinging the party right off the screen. Funny, as slapstick goes -- but the real punchline is that your Experience and Coins from the Boomer fight, along with the victory fanfare, are only displayed afterwards, with the focus still on Chandeli-Ho, hanging by himself in the dark.