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

We continue to chase Booster through the Tower… but first, a detour.



It wasn’t until I received the Nintendo Power Player’s Guide that I learned how to get to this chest. I had figured out the gist of it—you have to jump from the high ledge onto the seesaw, launching yourself up to the chest—but if you don’t hit the seesaw just right, it doesn’t work, and it’s hard to hit it in the first place. I figured there had to be some kind of trick to it, but I was just overthinking it.



Anyway, the chest contains a Masher.

The Masher is a pretty interesting weapon… It’s more powerful than both Mario’s current Punch Glove and the next weapon available to him in shops, but it has some quirk of programming that makes it a high-risk, high-reward type weapon. Sometimes it’ll “critical” and do 100 damage, but others it’ll whiff and do 20. It’s still strong enough to be a worthwhile weapon, but its unreliability is irritating. Later in the game, in fact, we’ll buy a weapon that has the exact same attack power as the Masher, but deals its damage more consistently.



After climbing back up to where we were, we find a room containing a switch. Jumping on it prompts the game to tell us of momentous events in Booster Pass, which we’ll check out when we get a chance.



The next room contains this infamous curtain, which temporarily transforms Mario into his 8-bit counterpart, complete with 1-1 music. Both Paper Mario and Thousand-Year Door retained this tradition… Thousand-Year Door’s even transformed Mario’s allies.

If you try to leave the room, though, Mario will rush back and change himself back, looking quite disturbed at the whole experience.



After a bit of platforming and Spookum-smashing, we encounter Snifit #3 firing Bullet Bills at us. We reach the end and challenge him.

If you leave this room without fighting and come back, Snifit #3 will discuss the weather with you. I told you he was the best.



The experience from the fight, though, gets Bowser up to level 9 and Mario to level 10, at which point he learns Super Flame, the pumped-up Fire Orb.



Remember this spot… We’ll be back here much later…



A few fights later, Mallow joins Mario at level 10, learning the single-target lightning spell Shocker in the process.

Remember when I told you to pay attention to Booster’s portraits? Here’s why. It’s hard to tell if you haven’t been paying attention, but these portraits are actually out of order—you have to look at them in the correct order to get the key to the locked door down the hall.



If you mess up, you have to fight, and the portraits reset.



Anyway, the correct order is 6-5-3-1-2-4, where 1 is the portrait on the far left. Doing it correctly causes Booster himself to hand over the Elder Key.



Inside the locked door, we find a trapped Chain Chomp. She’s not too friendly with Mario, but we spot a gleam of recognition when she sees Bowser.



Heh.

It turns out that the Chomp is none too friendly with Booster, and she’s willing to help us out as Bowser’s first weapon.



I don’t think it gets any better than this.



Hidden treasure chest count: 18/39

With the help of a Thwomp-seesaw combination, we jump to the higher levels of the tower, where we’re greeted by parachuting Spookums. A bit of exploration nets us a hidden treasure chest. (There’s also a hidden Frog Coin in this room, but I forgot to grab a shot of it.)



The enemies just get weirder and weirder… Sure, Spookums are just Snifit repaints, but you’ve also got the bizarre animate staffs known as Orb Users, and the deranged puppet Remo Con.



Geno makes it up to level 10 as a result of our fights on this level.

Another weird room… This room looks normal, but coins scatter the surface…



…As do trap tiles, which send you into battle against these annoying guys, known as Fireballs. They have an extremely high dodge rate and always go first. They do drop “Lucky!” bonuses at a fairly high rate, however.

Anyway, the way to negotiate this room without getting into any fights is to stay close to the Frog Coins, as they’re never near trap tiles.



Speaking of Frog Coins, I’ll like to pause and take a moment to point out that we currently have all we’ll ever need. Not that this will stop the game from throwing them at us, but still.



There’s also another key in this room, the Room Key, which unlocks the door to the north. Inside are the Zoom Shoes, an accessory which raises the wearer’s speed.



In the next room, we find a few Chain Chomps who are evidently a bit more loyal to the master of the Tower than the one we saw earlier. They’re fairly unremarkable enemies, all told—the only reason I’m mentioning them is to point out the Chomp-on-Chomp action we’ve got going here.

Continuing on, in the next room Booster stops us again. This time, though, he’s got a question.



Um.



Booster isn’t too happy with this new revelation, and begins chucking bombs at us. We’re not required to stand and fight, though, so we take off, resulting in…



You guys are so right to love Booster.



“You can find the top / That’s what I tell ‘em / I think I’m insane in the cerebellum…”

Hidden treasure chest count: 19/39

The penultimate room of the Tower contains a Save Point, a mushroom, and an easy-to-find hidden treasure chest.



Hidden treasure chest count: 20/39

It also contains a not-so-easy-to-find treasure chest, on top of one of the visible ones. This one contains a unique item called the Goodie Bag, which grants you one coin when used, and never runs out. It also sells for 555 coins, so I think we’ll go for the easy money instead of thinking long-term. Hey, if it screws up the Mushroom Kingdom economy, they can just petition the Princess for a bailout, right?



We’ve finally happened upon Booster’s inner sanctum. It’s not as insane as I had been anticipating.



The Princess is thrilled to see us, but we’ve still got a problem: The door is locked.



The Princess realizes that we’re going to need Booster to open the door.

Conveniently, Booster takes this moment to appear.



Mario takes to the curtains, guessing that Booster and his cronies won’t bother to look there. Foolproof plan, right?

As for this next part… Well, it speaks for itself, I think. I should just get out of the way and let it take over.

The Snifits only make it one sentence into rehearsal before another crazy thought enters Booster’s head…

You see, this kind of foresight is why Booster is in charge. Of… whatever he’s in charge of. You know, that thing.

After scurrying around the room for a few seconds, the Snifits dutifully report that the Mario doll is nowhere to be found.



Booster isn’t having any of that, however, and turns his attention to the curtains.

In this minigame, Booster sends first one, then two, then all three Snifits to check behind the curtains, and it’s your job to dodge. At first it’s fairly simple, but as more Snifits are added, their strategies become more devious, switching curtains at the last second to try and catch you off guard.

There are two ways this minigame can go. Thankfully, due to the magic of savestates, we’re able to bring you both legs of the Trousers of Time. First, the “dodge the Snifits” ending…



The Big B gets more and more frustrated as the Mario doll continues to make itself elusive. Eventually…



…The idea of checking all four curtains at once finally arrives in Booster’s mind.

Booster finds Mario, but he’s more interested in the Mario doll, which is situated on the top shelf.



Heh.



Mario, kind soul that he is, knocks the doll back down to the floor. Booster is so thrilled that he forgets his animosity for the plumber.

So, um, how did the Mario doll get up there in the first place?



As a reward, Booster gives us an Amulet. It’s a pretty solid accessory, but I can’t think of a situation where I would ever actually wear it, you know?



Booster cancels rehearsal and decides to head straight for the main event. This is where the timelines merge.

…But not before Snifit #3 doubles back to take a second look, a suspicion faintly playing at his mind. The best one, I say.

Enough of this. Noticeably F.A.T., rewind the state!



The Snifits always check the same curtains in the same order — apparently OCD is one of the myriad of psychological disorders to be found in the House of Booster — so if they trip you up with one of their fake-outs, you can dodge it the next time.



You’ve got three chances to hide from the Snifits.



If they catch you all three times, however…



We go straight into battle!

Booster is a little unusual in that even though he’s on the field, we can’t attack him until we’ve dealt with his Snifits.

The Snifits are much more dangerous as a group than they are singly, but we can still take them.



Occasionally you can get a “Lucky!” bonus from defeating them as well. More on this in a bit.



Once all three Snifits are gone, Booster deigns to fight us himself.

He’s not that tough, though — only 500 HP and weak defenses. A barrage of regular attacks should be sufficient to bring him down in no time.



Watch out for his powerful Loco Express attack, however.



I like to fight Booster not just for the experience, but because he’ll occasionally leave behind a Flower Box instead of that Mushroom. This time it was not to be, however.

Because we got a “Lucky!” bonus during the fight, we’re also given the option to play this shell game, in which we can bet our experience or coins from the fight. You’ve got a 66% chance of coming out at least even, so play if you dare…



Sadly, beating the crap out of Booster isn’t enough to stop his mad rampage. He uses his strangely derivative-sounding password to open the door, grab the Princess, and make for Marrymore.

I just noticed that Booster leaves via the top floor of the Tower. Does he always do that, I wonder?



When we try to follow (pausing, of course, to save our game in the previous room and equip Wake Up Pins), we’re ambushed by Booster’s clown guy enforcers, Knife Guy and Grate Guy.



The Guys are a pretty tough boss. Knife Guy doesn’t do much except juggle and throw knives for a little physical damage…



But Grate Guy is more dangerous, tossing these sleep bubbles, Echofinder, and the powerful Meteor Blast spell at us.

You know, given the music, and the high amounts of Booster, Booster Tower is easily the best part of the game.

Both Guys have an Achilles Heel, however. Remember when I said that Bowser’s spells are useless?

Well, I lied. Certain bosses, like the Guys, are weak to status effects, so scaring them with Bowser’s Terrorize spell makes this battle a snap.



Knife Guy is weak to fire, and Grate Guy to lightning. If they’re scared, Mario’s Super Flame can do 500+ damage to Knife Guy.



Occasionally the brothers will jump on one another’s shoulders, which, in the art of clown assassination in which they were trained, gives them access to a wider array of attacks. The Guys were near death when they tried this on me, though, so they didn’t much profit from it.



Winning the battle pushes Bowser up to level 10 and nets us a Flower Jar.



The Guys out of the way, Mario jumps back down to the entrance and follows Booster and his goons to Booster Hill, the pathway to Marrymore…

The happy couple evidently isn’t making very much forward progress, because we catch up with them easily.



Booster invites us to catch him if we can, and the Booster Hill barrel jumping event begins.



Booster Hill is a bit of an odd one. We’re chasing Booster and the Princess up the Hill, but we can’t move vertically or speed up. We can only move horizontally or jump. If we land on a barrel or a charging Snifit, we bounce ahead, but if we run into one, we fall back by a roughly equal amount.

You can’t win the race, and it ends after a predetermined amount of time anyway. The object is to hit the target (in this case, Booster/Princess) as many times as you can before time runs out.



The course starts by rolling one barrel at you, then two, then three. Then the Snifits join in. Jumping on a Snifit launches you further than a barrel, but colliding with one knocks you back further, as well, so good timing is required. You’re constantly drifting back to the default position, so you need to keep jumping if you want to stay ahead.



If you hit the Princess, she gives you a flower.

Later in the track, the barrels stop coming and the Snifits begin moving horizontally as well as vertically.



This is a pretty difficult event. There’s a lot of moving pieces and it can be hard to keep your eyes on everything at once. I’m happy to report that I played excellently, however, smashing my previous Booster Hill record by three flowers.



Once the event is over, we automatically enter Marrymore, the matrimonial capital of the world. Booster has already reached the wedding hall, so in our next update, we’ll have to put an end to his plans to get his game on once and for all.

Next time: The merry marry bell rings

All told, Booster's Tower is easily my favourite part of the game. Best gags, strangest situations, and good ol' lovable Booster. The only sticking points I have are the trap floors and the Booster chase, but otherwise? A+++, would play again.

Wait, what? You can fight Booster!? Why didn't I know that? Why didn't I ever try that?

I love how the Snifits lift their "skirts" when they run.

This was a major revelation for me, too.

Excellent work on the LP, Tanto.

Who knew that domestic abuse could be so useful?

Obviously Bowser believes in that. I mean, look at how often he kidnaps the princess, frequently tying her up in a very uncomfortable fashion. Mario has clearly been taking lessons from him at least since he joined the party.

My favorite part of Booster's introduction is how he just leaves his Cookie Monster-like mouth hanging wide open as he rides away. Combined with his ever-vacant stare, it makes for quite a first impression.

I much prefer the music on the lower floors of the tower, though. I hum it all the time when I think about this game.


Note the creepy birdhouse shaped like Mario's Pad, though.

Also, the Samus action figure, which is insanely awesome.

You will be spending time as a bellhop, yes?

Yes, but not in the next update. I'm saving it for the second-to-last update, where I'll be running around the world to show off all the weird stuff the game has to offer. The bellhop thing is one of the better ones, but you have to spend all your money to do it, so I'm going to hold off on it until later.

Booster is exactly as fantastic as I remember. I wish they could get past all the legal nonsense associated with this game so they could bring him back. can you imagine him in Mario Kart, riding a kart shaped like his little train? can you imagine it?

I am excited for GROTESQUE MONSTER CAKE EATING times.

I don't know why, but I only just noticed that when I re-played the game on VC. It's an adorable detail.

I always felt bad for that bird. I wouldn't want to be owned by Booster.

Nice, I didn't notice that. But what's the pair of eyes between Samus and Toadstool?

Looks like a Goomba to me.

EDIT: ladies and gentlemen, my first video game related post in, what, three years?