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

Are you going to wait to get the Lazy Shell and the Frying Pan until later? I guess you're strong enough that you really don't need them.

That Shaman looks just like the fortune tellers from the Paper Mario games.

Tanto, you seem to know about weird things like this: is this game where the design originated? Since it seems most of the other original monster/characters created for this game didn't make it out, that would make it something to note.

I'm not Tanto, but I play one on TV. I recall that Nintendo worked with Square on an early version of the sequel to this, and it was during that time that they decided on the paper aesthetic. Nintendo and Square then fell out, leaving it to Intelligent Systems to finish the game.

It seems likely that a lot of these enemies would have made it into the Paper games, but instead fell into the same copyright limbo that Geno and Mallow are in.

The shaman's resemblance to Merlon isn't that close in the first Paper Mario, but each subsequent iteration of his design has been a bit closer to it. It's fairly generic, though.

…And we’re back. I recently finished my schoolwork for the semester, so I can begin giving this oft-neglected LP my full attention* once again. I have to admit that juggling school, LPing, and other stuff has been more complicated that I expected, but I’m back in the saddle — we’re finishing this fucker before the end of the year, come hell or high water.

*Warning: Author may not actually give LP his full attention

So where were we? Oh, yes, the Sunken Ship.



You see, the thing about the Sunken Ship is that it is arguably the most challenging dungeon in the game. It has dangerous combat, puzzles, and platforming where most dungeons in the game have only one of the three. Once we’re out of here the game’s challenge takes a nosedive (for reasons I will explain in a bit), but we’ve got to get through it first. Onwards, then.

The first section of the ship is littered with notes from it’s long-since lost crew, telling you of the history of the ship.



Seems the ship was carrying an extensive treasure horde when suddenly it was set upon by a giant squid and dragged to the bottom of the ocean. Fascinating… I suppose it doesn’t matter to us, though!



Meet the Greaper, the most dangerous minor enemy in the game.

Greapers are extremely fast – only Geno acts before them under normal circumstances – and they attack with powerful magic and they can use Fear. On top of that, they show up as part of nearly every single enemy group in this area, often in pairs, so you’re guaranteed to face a bunch of them before you’re through. The most irritating part of them, however, is that unlike most of these fast-but-fragile enemies, Greapers have enough HP to survive two regular attacks before going down, meaning they’ll almost always get a chance to rip you a new one. Barring Pure Water (which OHKOs ghosts) or some lucksackery with the Masher, you have no options except to weather the storm.



Literally — Lightning Orb and Blizzard do nutty damage for this stage in the game. The Sunken Ship is basically the only area of the game where you can’t get by on the healing the game provides you — you’re almost required to dip into your items or healing spells to make it through unscathed.



Oh, and they dodge with irritating regularity as well.



Weeding our way through the first few ghoul-filled rooms gets Geno up to level 12 and Bowser to level 11. Pretty boring levels, all told, but we’re one step closer to gamebreakery.



The drowning pirates somehow had enough time to lock the door to the cellar with a password, then scatter a bunch of vague clues around the ship before the waves finally took it. What is this, the Andrea Doria?

(I think that’s my third Seinfeld reference this week. Score!)



There are a lot of enemies in this area. Note the Dry Bones — they can’t be killed permanently. Beating them in battle just causes them to fall apart, but they reassemble after a few seconds, so hoof it once you’ve won.

Speaking of Dry Bones, in this game they can take infinite amounts of damage from regular attacks. You have to use magic to dispatch them permanently, but any amount of magical damage will do…



…Which makes Mallow’s increasingly-useless Thunderbolt handy for stopping them.



The sailors… want the giant squid what destroyed their ship to be released back into the world? They’re surprisingly charitable.



Clearing out another room of ghosts (however temporarily) moves Mario up to level 12.



There’s a flower hidden between this “M”-shaped stack of crates and the wall.

Note also that this room is filled with Alley Rats. The Rats are quick and can poison you with astonishing regularity, but…



They drop “Once Again!” bonuses, which allow you to attack twice, quite often, speeding up battles significantly.



We continue down the stairs, passing up on the treasure box. It contains nothing but coins, and we’re full up.



The Experience Booster is doing good work — Geno is already up to level 13; one away from facesmashing time. It helps that there are a lot of enemies in this area, but the Experience Booster really jump-starts a character’s development.



The next room is filled with Greapers, each of which blocks a door leading to a puzzle room. Solving the puzzles therein is completely optional, but doing so grants us the six hints mentioned earlier (as well as a few extra prizes) allowing us to piece together the password to the cellar.



The first room contains a Paratroopa, a cannonball perched precariously on a pillar of crates, and an airborne switch. The Paratroopa follows Mario wherever he moves in this room, so the trick is to get it to push the cannonball onto the switch…



…Like so…



…Granting us a mushroom and the first hint, courtesy of Magellan.



The second puzzle room requires you to use the three blocks to stop these rapidly-moving springs in just the right position so that a falling cannonball will bounce to another floating switch.



Here’s the solution, for the record…

Magellan offers us a clue that is… surprisingly irrelevant, given that an NPC will give us virtually the same clue for free a few minutes from now.



Beating the guard to the next puzzle room pushes the Princess to the precarious position of power proofed level 11. Penguin. Pie.

It also teaches her the fine art of Sleepy Time, a spell which is, well… completely useless. A surprising number of foes (including a few bosses) are vulnerable to it, but that would require actually bringing the Princess, so never mind.

Her other status effect spell is much more useful… More on that much later, though.



GAH MOTHERFUCKING THREE-DIMENSIONAL MAZE

…Ahem. Sorry. The next puzzle room is evidently where some programmer decided to take out a lifetime of frustration on the player, as it is a three-dimensional maze. Given that you can’t see Mario, this “maze” basically amounts to rotating the Control Pad a lot and jumping randomly, hoping to fall ass-backwards into the correct path. There’s no real advice for it either — the best I can give you is walk, don’t run, as running makes it more likely that you’ll miss a slight variation in the path.



If you get to this place, you’ll know you’re on the right track, as it’s just a hop, a skip, and a jump from here to the switch.



For all that, the prize here is… Well, not anything too exciting. The Royal Syrup completely restores FP, but we can swim in it later on if we so desire, so it’s not really worth the frustration. The clue is worthless in that it is merely the logical extension of another, easier-to-get clue. And thank god – if the clue had actually been necessary for something, I would have long since been driven mad by this room. Let us never speak of it again.



The next room is a break room, featuring a treasure box (which is just bait — all it contains is coins, and you’ll likely have to fight the Dry Bones twice to get to the chest and back) and the Shaman we ran into earlier in the Sea. He’s still got the same stock of items for sale if we need anything, and he also offers us a clue as to the password (although why he won’t just tell us is beyond me).



I can only assume that “deduce” is in quotes because it’s code for “brute-force”.



The fourth puzzle room, in the hallway beyond, is reminiscent of the coin snakes from Mario World. You have to tail the lead coin around the room while collecting the coins it leaves in its wake. If you miss one, or collect the lead coin prematurely, you have to start over. It’s not too difficult (although a few of the later jumps can be difficult to do on command, and there’s no margin for error), though. Winning nets you the total value of the collected coins (if you mess up, the coins don’t count) and another clue:



Boo 3-D Maze!



Beating more Greapers in the main hallway pushes Bowser up to level 12, where he learns his second spell, Poison Gas. It’s about as useful as you’d expect: I can’t even remember the last time I cast it. (I have vague memories of it working well on the Axem Rangers?) But at least it’s better than Bowser’s last two spells.



The fifth puzzle room is pretty simple. Hit a block to cause the first cannon to fire, then bonk the cannonball at the right time so that it hits the next block, repeat. You only have to do it a few times, and the cannonballs move slowly.

Winning here nets us a Mushroom (the regular, restore-30-HP kind, not the completely-restore-all-members’-HP-and-FP kid) and another clue.



Geno Blast time! Geno Blast time!

Geno Blast is the best spell in the game by an enormous, crazy, unbelievable amount. More on it after the impending boss fight.



The final puzzle room, occurring right before the password room, is a little tricky. It contains two switches, but they don’t stay pressed when you step on them.



So, instead, you have to knock lose a barrel from a nearby pile, roll it over to one switch, then step on the other yourself.



Doing so nets a mushroom (the good kind) and the final clue. Note that unlike all the other puzzle room prizes, this mushroom regenerates if you leave the room and come back, allowing you to collect it as often as you wish. Good for leveling in this area, if you feel compelled to do so. If you’re hurting when you first enter the hall of puzzles, you might want to rush forward to this room, collect the mushroom, then go back and do the puzzles.



Each of the boxes in the password room has five or six letters, and you have to select the correct ones to open the door and move forward…

I’ve only called the Nintendo Help Line (Remember those? Ha, and what about Pogs, weren’t those wacky?) twice in my life. One was to find the location of the Wing power-up in Milky Way Wishes in Kirby Super Star — the thought of checking all those doors never occurred to me.

The other was for this password. Remember, eight-year-old Tanto was very bad at video games, and he lacked both the dexterity to solve the puzzles and the patience to brute-force all the available options, so he caved and begged his parents for the five dollars (or whatever it was) to ask a professional for help. It does not help that the password blocks contain two red herrings (“corals” and “oyster”), that seemed like they could be it, and made me feel like a genius when I first spotted them, only to have my self-esteem crushed under the game’s scathing mockery.

So what is the password?




The giant squid, King Calamari, which is evidently still alive, beckons us forward to challenge him.



(Check out this weird shot I got while trying to capture Geno Boost.)

King Calamari used to scare me. He’s an epic, three-part battle in which you have to destroy all eight of the King’s tentacles, while being bombarded all the while with poison, fear, and powerful magic.

However, slowly, over a few years, I began to put together a really awesome strategy for fighting him. First, I learned that he was weak to fire. Then, I stumbled across the Yoshi Candy trick, and in the course of implementing it I discovered that it was an easy way to farm Fire Bombs, which can destroy the tentacles in a single hit and take a big chunk out of the King’s HP. Entering this fight with three Fire Bombs turns King Calamari into a joke.



First wave down in a single round!

I used to break out the Princess for the first time in this fight, because the tentacles have an annoying ability that causes fear even if you’ve got Fearless Badges equipped, and the Princess’s Therapy and Group Hug abilities can cure it. Using Fire Bombs, however, destroys them so quickly that they don’t have time to use it, mostly obviating the need to use her. Not that the third character is of much use in this fight anyway…



A third Fire Bomb wipes out the final two tentacles and puts King Calamari himself within striking distance.



We keep the fire assault going with Mario’s Super Flame, putting an end to the squid’s dastardly ship-wrecking operation.

I skipped virtually nothing of that fight, by the way. I Geno Boosted both Mario and Bowser, but that’s about it.



The next room is filled with cannons firing Bullet Bills every which way. The Bullet Bills don’t damage you, but they do force you down into this little depression, forcing you to try again. However, from down here you can hit the Bills from below, knocking their respective cannons out of commission. Not that this is that useful, since I usually fight my way through, but it can help if you’re looking to avoid combat.



Here’s the version of the Hurly Gloves that plays if Mario has a status effect. It doesn’t change the damage at all, but half the fun of this weapon is watching Mario’s shocked expression whenever Bowser uses it.



Mario and Mallow both reach level 13 as a result of fighting in this room. Now that we’ve got Geno Blast, I like to pass the Experience Booster around between Mario, Geno, and Bowser to keep their overall fighting strength high.

And speaking of Geno Blast…



Best. Spell. Ever.

Geno Blast is another one of those charge spells, but it hits all enemies for heavy damage. So heavy, in fact, that it kills virtually everything that isn’t a boss in a single hit, and unlike spells like Thunderbolt it retains its power for the majority of the game. Geno Blast turns random fights into a breeze — since Geno usually goes first, you can wipe out all the enemies on the first turn except the very toughest, which you can then finish off with regular attacks or Whirl at your leisure.

I can’t emphasize this enough. It kills absolutely everything. Even elemental resistances don’t stop it, because Geno’s magic is non-elemental. It’s worth buying the Experience Booster just to get this as soon as possible.

It’s a little expensive, at 12 HP, but mushrooms are plentiful for the latter half of the game and Maple Syrups are cheap, so you can usually power your way through any given dungeon with no trouble.

Geno’s final spell, Geno Flash, is similar to Blast, but it’s more expensive and deals more damage. However, it’s not as useful because most of the things Geno Blast can’t kill, Flash can’t either. That’s not to say it’s useless — it’s awesome in multi-part boss battles like the Axem Rangers or Culex — but Blast is just better.

Put it this way: Remember all that griping about Greapers I did back at the beginning of this update? Geno Blast wipes them out (as well as everything else in this dungeon) in one hit, on the first turn. If you’re not Blasting every chance you get, you’re not really living.

We Blast our way through the next few rooms with no trouble, getting Bowser and the Princess up to speed in the process.



These chests just contain coins, but they can be tough to get to. You have to make a running jump off that pile of barrels in the corner.



In the next room, a clone of Mario appears, mirroring our every movement.



Hidden treasure chest count: 23/39

Jumping here reveals a hidden treasure chest, but to open it…



…We have to manipulate the Mario duplicate so that we can jump on its head.



Talking to the fake reveals its secret: It’s actually a Greaper. One with a fairly rare enemy set, as well, although Geno Blast clears it out well enough.



This enemy group is the most common one you encounter when you fight Dry Bones. Pre-Blast, this can be a drawn-out fight, but Blast again clears the room.



Anyway, the reason we were fighting that Dry Bones was to get to this hidden room, behind a wall of crates, which contains a Frog Coin.



A few fights later, Geno and Bowser rise another level.



In this room, the second chest monster, Hidon, pops out.



Hidon is supertough for an enemy who isn’t a boss. His Carni-Kiss attack deals heavy unblockable damage, and he’s invulnerable to all elements except jump. That would be easy enough to deal with if that was all there was, but Hidon can also…

…Summon a swarm of Goombettes to aid him. Do not be fooled by their small size and cute appearance: These guys are absolute bastards, dealing heavy damage with their normal attack, and if you kill them off, Hidon will just summon more.



To beat Hidon without sustaining heavy damage, you really need Geno Blast, which is why I made such a huge deal of getting it before now.



You always want to beat Hidon, though. He coughs up a Safety Badge when defeated. The Safety Badge is like all of the status effect badges combined into one: It has the defensive bonuses of a Fearless Pin but protects the wearer from all status effects instead of just one or two. It’s a mainstay of my team, equipping either Mario or Bowser, until the very end.

Warning: Wankery about my approach to video games follows. If you don’t want to read it, skip to the next picture, where I’ll be back on track.

I actually learned of the magic of the Experience Booster and Geno Blast as a direct result of Hidon. After I had beaten the game several times, I began looking for ways to improve my game—cutting out time doing side-trips, less level-grinding, that kind of thing. Before, I would always pass on Hidon during my first pass through the Sunken Ship, then come back once I’d picked up Geno Blast to kill him and get the Safety Badge. I began to wonder if there was any way to cut out that extra side-trip and beat Hidon on the first trip without resorting to naked grinding. This led me to the Experience Booster, an item that I had previously overlooked: You could probably get Geno up to level 14 by the end of the Sunken Ship naturally with a little bit of luck or grinding, but the Experience Booster makes it much more reliable and saves a ton of time.

This is actually consistent with the way I play games in general. Kishi (among other people) has scolded me for this tendency before: After I’ve beaten a game a few times, I always begin to look for more efficient ways to play the game: beat it quicker, figure out the best equipment or party setups, do the sidequests more economically, spend less overall time blundering around or backtracking, etc. A number of years ago, I actually wrote out a checklist of what I believe to be the most efficient way to complete Ocarina of Time while still getting 100% completion, but I lost it when I switched computers. (I could probably reproduce it if anyone cared, though. I believe it was in preparation for writing a walkthrough of the game, but then I decided that the world had enough Ocarina walkthroughs already and switched my focus to something that was, we can only assume, much less productive.)

It’s a bit of an odd place to be, because I don’t know anyone else who shares my approach. I’m not really a dedicated speedrunner — I don’t time myself (unless the game does it for me), I don’t like sequence breaking, and I hate using glitches — but I do get a tiny little visceral thrill out of doing a “normal” run that’s just a tiny bit improved in some way from the last time I tried. What I normally do is figure out everything I want to do in a game, then work out some kind of a route that lets me do all that in the best way possible. I hate backtracking. I hate wandering around aimlessly trying to figure out what I should be doing. I hate putting the main quest on hold to do sidequests; so when I replay a game, I try to integrate those things as tightly into the main playthrough as possible.

I may have developed this attitude because I replay my old games more than I buy new ones; I don’t know. It’s just a quirk of mine. Tangent over.



The room that contains Hidon also contains a mushroom. You’ll probably need it after getting mauled by the box guy.



The next several rooms in the ship are submerged, with fish, Zeostars, and Bloopers replacing the undead brigade from previously in the ship. You can kill these guys with Geno Blast no problem, but…



…Watch out for these guys, Leukos. If you hit these enemies with a magic attack that doesn’t kill them outright, they counter with the powerful Solidify spell, so don’t go too crazy with your newfound Blast powers.



Backtracking a room from the whirlpool area reveals four Frog Coins.



Clearing out the underwater foes earns us a whole gaggle of level ups. First, Mario makes it to level 14, at which point he learns Ultra Jump, the final stage of the Jump line. Ultra Jumps are easier to time, but after the first every target it selects is random, so it may not deal the damage you need to the enemy you need.



Mallow makes it to level 14 as well, and learns Snowy, a thumb-killing ice attack that hits all enemies.



Finally, the Princess hits level 13 and learns Come Back. Alone, this spell is a Pick Me Up; timed, it’s a Pick Me Up that restores all HP. Obviously a very handy spell for tough fights.



It’s hard to see behind the Mario 3-esque Blooper Babies, but there’s actually a door underneath that pile of barrels in the corner. Investigating reveals…



The Safety Ring, the most kickass accessory in the game. Like the Safety Badge, the Ring prevents all status effects… and it prevents instant death, and it completely nullifies fire, ice, and lightning magic! Slap it on Geno when he’s not using the Experience Booster and forget about it; it’ll serve you well.

I don't think I ever used Geno that much on my previous plays of the game.

Clearly that has to change.

The Safety Ring is the most game-breakingly powerful accessory I think I've ever seen.

After you make it to the surface of this big pool room, check the corner for another Frog Coin.



Hmm. It would seem we’ve encountered these pirates I’ve heard so much about.



The pirates don’t seem to be too inclined to let us walk away with their star. And you know what that means…



For all their big talk, these Bandanna Reds go down like chumps to Geno Blast. Even Thunderbolt takes them out in two hits.



Thoroughly routed, the pirates bail in search of backup.







Heh.

Following the pirates up the stairs leads us into the face of another angry mob.



“So, seen any good movies lately?”



Bested, the pirates decide to let Johnny Jones take care of us himself.



Why does it always come down to violence?



The Bandanna Blues Johnny surrounds himself are a little tougher than the Bandanna Reds we fought outside, but…



Geno Blast takes them out just as easily.



After the flunkies are cleared out, we begin waling on the pirate captain with Geno Boosted regular attacks and Mallow’s Shocker spell, shown here. Johnny, for his part, doesn’t resist too much — his attacks consist of a regular attack, the “Skewer” attack (which is his regular attack in all but name) and the Mega Drain spell, which does negligible damage.



After a while, Johnny opts to “Get Tough!” turning red and increasing his offensive and defensive abilities. He then approaches Mario with an interesting proposal…

Mario eagerly accepts the fishman’s challenge.



With that, Geno and Mallow step aside, and Mario faces Johnny one-on-one.



This duel can actually be prevented… Johnny won’t challenge Mario unless all his flunkies are dead, so if you kill all but one, he won’t do it. This hardly seems necessary, however…



The duel is super-hard if you’re underleveled… If Mario isn’t at least level 12 or so, his attacks do almost no damage after Johnny Gets Tough, so it’s a battle of attrition. I recall working my way through my entire store of items in this fight alone before.

If Mario is properly leveled, though, Johnny is the one who deals very little damage, and you can easily defeat him with a few swings of the Masher.



Johnny cheerfully hands over the Star Piece once we’ve beaten him, then heads over to his corner to sulk.



Two more to go!



Minor detail… or something that we should possibly remember for much later on? I’ll let you guys decide.

There’s a spring just past Johnny’s room that returns us to the world map. No new locations have opened up, so I guess we’re going to have to head back to Seaside Town to get “tricked” by that obviously fake Elder.

Oh, yes, totally.



Whatever you say, chief.



Um… okay…



You’re actually given a choice on whether to hand over the star. You have to do it eventually (it’s a but thou must situation), and you’re actually rewarded later on for giving it up nice and promptly (Nintendo advocates the “lie back and enjoy it” philosophy?), but if you refuse…




Oh! Poor Elder… I guess the good really do die young…



That bastard!



Anyway, I restore state (to get my reward!) and hand over the Star.

Your “ride”? What are you, going to the mall?



So… let me get this straight, Yaridovich. Your entire grand plan of treachery and deceit can be unraveled by your “ride” showing up five minutes late and Mario choosing to follow you instead of weeping in the corner over how you tricked him?

You probably should have thought this through a little more.



Yaridovich proposes taking to the water, but he’s forgotten who lives there…



Johnny seems to have gotten over his disappointment in a hurry, as he shows up to back us up.



As a kid, I always hated this pirate. No! I need his help! Don’t you see?



The fake townsfolk begin to combine, Voltron-style, into…



Yaridovich’s true form!

Yaridovich is a gigantic bastard. He has a wide array of powerful spells that can devastate an unprepared party. You should never let your HP drop too low when dealing with Yaridovich…



…Because he’s as likely as not to drop your party in one fell swoop with a single shot of Water Blast. Don’t be afraid to dip into your items to keep your HP up.



Speaking of items, we break out Rock Candy and Fright Bombs to take huge chunks out of Yaridovich’s health…



And follow it up with a stream of Geno Boosted Shockers and regular attacks.



Occasionally, Yaridovich uses his Mirage Attack to split into two. Each form has its own separate statistics and attacks. If you attack the fake, you can destroy it, but Yaridovich himself remains unharmed. Every guide I’ve read says something to the effect of “When he uses Mirage Attack, use an attack that hits everything! The Yarid that takes the least damage is the real one!” While true, this advice is also completely unnecessary, because your targeting cursor always starts on the correct one anyway, so as long as you don’t move it, you’ll continue to damage the real one.



After a hard-fought fight, Yaridovich finally goes down…



…kicking Geno up to level 16.



That’ll teach you to take my stuff!

(Notice that we didn’t get the black screen the first time we won the Star, a signal that the chapter wasn’t yet over.)

Next time: The road is full of dangers

Is Yardiovich supposed to change into anything in particular, or is his true form just a big robot-y thing?

Like the other Smithy Gang members, he's an anthropomorphic weapon. Mack was a knife, Bowyer was a bow, an Yaridovich is a spear.

I forgot to mention that he actually takes off his head and uses it as his spearpoint for his regular attack.

I found that fighting Yaridovich clones in the factory was a really easy way of building up exp. super-quickly. Each gave you 60 exp. every time!

mostly useless Japanese lesson: 'yari' means 'spear'!

Yaridovich made so much more sense when I learned this.

So, you have to bite and scratch and claw your way past Hidon to get the Safety Badge, but the even stronger Ring is just "in that door over there"?

I'm guessing he uses both, with the ring going on Geno and the Badge on someone else.

Bingo. Having both the Badge and the Ring means you never have to worry about status effects again.

I used to spend a lot of time playing Deadly Rooms of Death, and they made a bit of a business model out of optimisers like yourself. Each room in the game kept a count of how many steps it took you to complete it, and each room has a global highscore table associated with it. And access to this system (as well as a couple of other online features) was a paid service.

So, no, it's not necessarily that rare.

I take the Tanto approach to games I replay, as well. I did this in Super Metroid for years before I realized I was speed running it, and somewhere I still have the Efficient Recruitment Checklist I wrote in order to complete the Clive sidequest in Suiko2.

At least the door's kind of hidden. Once you beat Johnny, you can actually use the pipe in his room to spy on the other pipes throughout the ship. If you didn't catch that room your first time through, that would be your first clue that it existed.

Also, be sure to stand on Johnny's head.

If you continue to refuse Yaridovich, the tickling gets worse. Much worse.

The battle with Yaridovich was always really long for me. At one point, it went long enough that he had no more Flower Points and I just wailed on him with normal attacks.

Do you go in for other challenge runs, like no damage and all the rest of it? You mentioned quite a few of them in your Fire Emblem LP.