Super Mario RPG! (Part 11—The Beast Belome)

Heeeeey everybody! Welcome back to our playthrough of Super Mario RPG! I am your host, Caprizant (thank you, thank you), and last time around... We chased Croco through Bandit's Way, and finally chased him to a dead-end!

And in this update, our first order of business is tooooooo...



Run away, actually :V



Yeeeah, um, not to spoil anything but we totally have a fight with Croco coming up, because why wouldn't there be?



But y'see, the problem is, I already had a couple runs of this fight, and I failed. Heavily. :U



And that's when I realized: The Item Shop sells armor!! And I never bought it!! So yeah, huuuuuuge tiny little slip-up from me there.



...I also forgot about this cutscene! Geez maybe I am not cut out for this whole game-playing business. :U



Oh gee uh, I was just um, walking along the road and uh you'll never believe this A GIANT DRAGON CAME ROARING OUT OF THE SKY and then he



Oh um








Why do I always get myself roped into these things



...Completely ignoring the totally radical vernacular there, why the heck did this dude install his shop with a counter that's as tall as he is? He is literally just peeking over the counter. Why would you do this to yourself.



And as I learned the first couple times trying to fight Croco, it's dangerous to go alone, so he's giving us a thing!



OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THAT IS A REALLY GOOD ITEM

It is essentially a complete revive! Use it on a fallen party member in battle, and they come back with all of their HP! Really helpful item.

Unfortunately, you can't use it as a full heal outside of battle, because fallen party members recover 1 HP as soon as the battle is over. So you have to use a different healing item on them.



You love standing at a really tall counter all day getting essentially no customers besides us? Okaaaaaaaay.



Just gimme da goods!



Here's the shop menu. When you hover over an item, it gives you details about it on the left. Tells you what the item does, what price it's going for, how many coins you have, and how many of the highlighted item you have.

I believe the only item we haven't seen so far (besides the equipment) is the Able Juice, which heals any status condition.



As you can see, equipment can be exclusive to certain party members. The Shirt is for Mario, and the Pants are for Mallow. I bought both.



This Shirt raises Mario's Defense and Magic Defense.



See? These are Mario's stats without the Shirt on.

...Was Mario shirtless before?



...MALLOW PUT YOUR PANTS ON



Mallow's stats while Pants-less.

Aside from the Shirt and the Pants, I also bought a couple Pick Me Ups and Honey Syrups. I think I have enough Mushrooms.

I didn't buy the Jump Shoes or the Antidote Pin because... because? I don't really know why.

I mean, by the time I was done buying my items, I had 56 Coins left. Jump Shoes cost 30 Coins, while the Antidote Pin costs 28... I could've either bought one pair of Jump Shoes or two Antidote Pins, and honestly? Either option would've been good.

The Jump Shoes are exclusive to Mario and let you use his Jump attack on spiked enemies. It's kind of situational, but it's better than nothing, right?

But on the other hand, the Antidote Pin prevents you from being Poisoned, which could be really useful for an upcoming area... And I had exactly enough to buy both Mario and Mallow one. So I don't know why I didn't? I guess I thought it was too expensive? But it's not, really. Hm.

Color me vexed.

Well, whatever! Let's talk to a random person we've never talked to before.



Behind this house, there's someone hidden who... makes a rather disturbing point, actually. What the heck, Croco?

I might be remembering this wrong, but I think if you look in the game's code, there actually isn't even a sprite for this guy. He's just a dialog box in a small corner of the Mushroom Kingdom.



Anyway, back to work!



On the way back, I went to grab the Coin I missed, and it actually turned out to be three! :O



There were also a couple of level-ups on our way back! Here's Mario's.




Bonus to Magic for Mario this round, because his Magic Attacks are going to come in really useful for the coming fight.



They grow up so fast ;w;




Updated Mallow's physical stats because... sure?



And with all that, we've finally progressed to exactly the point we were at for the end of the previous update!

So now, let's...



ATTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAoh.



Guys. Guys my FP is pretty darn hurtin' after that there battle.

Good thing I forgot to use this Flower Jar! :D



There we go, that's all nice and tidy.



So the main objective of the next couple minutes of our lives is to catch this guy off-guard. He'll be hiding in a few different spots in this area with four hills. You gotta sneak up behind him so he won't hear or see you coming.



Like so.



Not really? You're in plain sight, dood.



Really? Crap. Guess I can't really finish this game. Oh well LP over guys that was fun glad to have you!!!!!!



Okay no not really. He's a-lyin'.

I said a-lyin', not a lion. He's a crocodile, not a lion.

This joke would be so much funnier in a video LP. Which is to say not funny, not funny at all. :V



Look away please sir I'm trying to sneak up on you



Well that's quite mean >:C



Crap, it's been 50 years already? I missed college! And a few other things!



I'm not sure why I took this screenshot! But it's here! So here you go!



Gotcha!



WHAT? WHAT. WHAT

YOU GUYS SAW THAT RIGHT OF COURSE YOU DID I HAD HIM

Wehhh. ;.;



Finallyyyyyy

Ur getting old



MALLOW ANGRY. CROCO GIVE COIN TO MALLOW



Why the heck is he going through all this trouble for a single Coin anyway?




WOW EXCUSE ME SIR BUT RUDE



So yeah, starting off this fight with Croco! You will IMMEDIATELY want to use Fire Orb on him, becaaaaause...



He's actually weak to it! When you use Fire Orb on him, he has to skip his turn to douse a tail fire.

That's what you get for being cold-blooded, in more ways than one. >:C

So yeah, sorry if this fight is a little GIF-heavy; this is likely how all the boss battles will be done from now on. It's just so much easier to capture dynamic attacks this way, rather than finding the perfect frame to screenshot to illustrate the point.



Mallow can't really do much damage with his physical attacks, so his only real option is Thunderbolt here. It's good I have a lot of FP healing items, because you really do need all that FP for Fire Orb.



By the way, I figured out how to tell if you did the Thunderbolt timing right! If you press Y after the final bolt, you'll hear another crack of thunder. I actually didn't know that second crack of thunder indicated you got the timing right. It's just so easy to get the timing right on this move that I've never gotten it wrong before, until I purposely did it to check!



If he can get a hit on you, then he'll throw a bomb! Watch out for that, because as you can see, it can actually be pretty devastating. He took out, like, half of Mario's health there. That's why you want to pretty much spam Fire Orb as much as you possibly can.



Yeah, FP vanishes pretty fast in this fight.




Luckily, we came prepared!



After you get him down to fairly low health, he'll use a healing item. But it's alright, because Fire Orb does a little more damage than he heals.



Mario actually got preeeetty hurt out there, so I used a Mushroom on 'im. And luckily, we got a freebie!

Look at Mallow, fulfilling his duty as healer already. So proud.




And that's it!



DAAAAAAAANG FLUFFBOY'S GOT A MEAN FIST




Well, a shovel goes for about 125 Bells at Re-Tail, sooooo...



Oh. Spades.




Well golly! Thank you, sir! So generous.



He even called us his friends! In Spanish, no less! Maybe he ain't so bad after all.



...Okay, no, he is still a jerkwad. He was just trying to be a tough guy. But tough guys don't get scared off by marshmallow men so boo on him. :V



Can I just mention that this spelling of this particular phrase is vastly inferior to the word "alright" I mean come on




Neato!




So you have no need for me anymore right
Right



OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO



Identity theft ahoy >:D



Oh um sure



And of course, a magic spring back to the start of this area falls from the heavens. How convenient!



Well I'm not one to question ze gods. Up we go!



By the way, this is the description of the wallet. A fat wallet means it's fat with money! :D

Actually, this is used for something later, which I will be going over at an appropriate time.



Anyway, back to the MK!



Ah... yeah.



So! As you can see, the Mushroom Kingdom is a... little bit preoccupied right now! Or, well, occupied. By a hostile pogo-stick Shy Guy army. So we'll be figuring out what the heck this is all about next time! See you guys then!

Hey everybody! Welcome back to Super Mario RPG! Last time around, we took down the crooked croc Croco and got Mallow his Frog Coin back.



And when we came back to the Mushroom Kingdom, we found that it has been invaded by Shy Guys on pogo sticks. How unfortunate.

We get some nice stuff if we help the townspeople who are being chased by Shy Guys, so leeeeeet's...



RUUUUUUMMMBLEEE!! >:D



These guys are called Shysters! They have 30 HP, which means you should baaaarely be able to take them out in one hit at this point.



...If your timing doesn't suck as bad as mine.



For their regular attack, they just bop you on the head with their pogo stick. Not that hard to block, just press A as the pogo stick compresses on your head.

Now, if you're fighting a lot of them at once, and just want them all gone...



Mallow's Thunderbolt works wonders!



See? Wonders! (aka dealing out exactly as much damage as they can take :U)




For helping this dude out, you get...



Dangit, I was hoping for his bazooka.



Now let's go shopping in a crisis~! :D



As you can see, the shopkeeper is quite distressed.



Princess?



Because I got my priorities in order.




Dang, this guy is trusting. Soooo tempting to just steal his entire shop.



Except the game doesn't let ya.

Anyways, I finally bought the Jump Shoes and two Antidote Pins. Equipped the Jump Shoes on Mario and an Antidote Pin on Mallow.



HYAAAAAAAAAAA



Um sir I'd like to keep my hand thank you



OH SHOOT WE'VE BEEN FOUND OUT



Soooo you can actually say no to this, buuuuuut I just can't do that because I would feel guilty and could not live through the rest of my life knowing I picked the mean branch in some random NPC's dialogue tree. So we're gonna be boring. :V



What is iiiiiiit



Neato!

Funny thing, you can actually SELL that wallet at the shop for, like, 123 Coins. And this guy gets sooooo mad if he figures out you sold the wallet. I've never actually seen it. Maybe at some point I'll come back here and show you guys what happens. :B

But in any case, I personally think that a boost in our FP is worth more than coins anyway, because let's be honest, we can grind coins quite easily.



Jumping on people's houses is quite rude, you know.

So rude, it's punishable by DEATH. So um, yeah, sorry about that duders.



Oh no sir, you're not allowed to impress her with your jumping! Only I can impress her with my jumping! >:C



Hmph.

Does she have anything new to say?



Uh




Wow OK no she doesn't.

I just saved your life from someone who wasn't being threatening at all! Be more grateful. >:C



Invisiguy actually has a fairly good tip that you should keep in mind! I... don't know what compelled him to tell us this or how he figured this information out, but we shall run with it.



Now if you go up to the castle door, you can see that these Shysters actually infinitely spawn, so there's no use in battling them besides grinding, because they'll never go away.



Anyway, let's head in this house!



Noooo! They'll break the dishes!



I see at least a table, a sink, a plate, a cupboard... many things. Oh yeah and malicious intruders on pogo sticks I guess they're here too



PROTAGONIST DRIVE A-GO!



I like how this room has its own custom battle background. I don't think we actually see this again.

At least these Shysters were kind enough to move the table out of the way of the battle!
...And make the room larger!
...And add a rug!
...And buy different furniture entirely!
...And completely change around the window layout!
...And put the door in a completely different place!
...And completely change the shape of the room!

...Yeah, we just took the rumble to another venue. Didn't want to ruin the decor. :U



No prob, Bob





...

HOW DO YOU FORGET ABOUT YOUR SON



This dude's a grown man and he's scared by a gyroid dressed like Little Red Riding Hood hopping on a pogo stick.



Aw but guys look at these two having fun together!! They're so cute!! LET'S KILL HIS FRIEND :D

And... the bedsheet transformed into the rug.



It's nada, dada



Is it for Chuck E. Cheese's?



Nope. Laaaaame.



Sorry bucko, only the red-clad ones can do that. Greenie here lucked out.



Well it sure seemed to get him pumped anyway!



Ohhhhh poor kid. The crushing weight of his failed dreams have yet to assail him.



ANYWAYS, onward!



There's a Shyster chasing that Toad across the hallway, as well as an infinite line of Shysters running a column down the middle. Don't go down to the vault until the very end; do all the other rooms (besides the throne room) first.



I WILL SAVE YOU TOADSTER!

...Crap, which one of these activated the battle?



Well anyway, this guy showed off his special attack during the battle, so I guess I should talk about it!

Drain is a fire-based move that has a base magic power of 4. It's impossible to block, so don't even try.

I'm... not sure why it's called Drain? As far as I can tell, it doesn't actually drain HP or anything of the sort. It's just a fireball. In fact, the Japanese name is Fire Orb, while Mario's Fire Orb was called Fireball. But for whatever reason, they changed Fireball to Fire Orb and then Fire Orb to Drain. It's weird.

But I digress!



Mario can now be chosen as our starter Pokémon!



Nice, nice.



I went for physical because Mario's magic attacks really aren't going to be especially useful in the coming fight.



...Crap, I fought the wrong one.



DOING IT RIGHT THIS TIME!



Oh, hey! I've been meaning to slip this in somewhere. You know those bonus flowers we sometimes get?

Well, enemies have a specific type of bonus flower that they can drop. For example, Shysters have a chance of dropping HP Max flowers. Not all enemies drop flowers, however.

So yeah, that's something I'll be including in my enemy bios from now on.



Does she know you're in there?



Everyone's dead bub. Sorry



And as you can see, this guy is once again stuck.

By the way, I like how the URL of that screenshot says "jerk." Because that's just who this guy is, getting stuck all the time and whatnot. What a jerk. :B



Yeah yeah whatever I'll save ya



CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE



Our local Froakie is now ready to be given away by Professor Sycamore!




Giving our magic stats a buff for the upcoming fight! Mallow will come in reeeeally useful, trust me. It's not often that I get to say that.



You could avoid getting stuck again that would be nice



I LOVE HOW HE JUST SIDLES UP THE STEPS BECAUSE I DIDN'T CLEAR THE OTHER ONE OMG



Let's stomp this one, just to be thorough!

image:

Oh uh hello sir nice weather we're having eh



UM NO PLEASE DON'T DO THAT NO NO NO NO NO



AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHaaaand these guys are no different at all from any other mook we've fought in this place, so I'm cutting this fight out. :V

Speaking of cutting, if you look closely you'll see that their pogo sticks are actually swords. Hmmmmmmmm...

Nope! Not important. Nope.



Huzzah for recycled dialogue!



Oh uh thanks for caring about—



Oh okay no one cares



YOU COULD START BY NOT RECYCLING YOUR DIALOGUE



Does the Chancellor even do anything in this kingdom?



"The fair and righteous leader of our entire country is being held captive!"
"Oh... that's terrible."



I,... don't know,... about that.



Ehhhh sure why not.





...I'M NOT TOO SURE ABOUT THAT TOAD WHAT IS IT YOU'RE GIVING ME



Oh... carry on.



Next destination! The right door in the long hallway, which will lead us back to the vault. Let's help this poor guy out!



That's an odd... place to put an ellipsis.



Wow uh. That's kinda terrible? Great vault guard you got there, guys.



Anyways! Let's head into this northern room, because it's actually faaaairly important.



What's the vault guard doing in this room, huh?



So the vault guard is not only a coward, but a thief. GREAT.



And now he's bribing us not to tell.



I ACCEPT THIS BRIBE GOOD SIR



The Wake Up Pin prevents the wearer from being put to sleep or muted! Yeah, pretty nifty.

Sleep will, of course, put you to sleep, causing you to lose a few turns.
Muting will make it impossible for you to use magic attacks.

Also, remember earlier, when we ran into the Fear status? The one where your character becomes scared and starts shaking? Not sure if I mentioned, but Fear halves your attack and defense. So yeah, bad.

Anyway, we'll equip the Wake Up Pin to Mallow, since he most needs it. As our designated healer and AoE attacker, it'd be pretty bad for him to be muted. Especially since that'd force him into physical attacks, which he ain't exactly stellar at.



Down in the vault, the treasure chests are restocked! So let's make like a vault guard aaaaand...



Steal!



FP up by one!



Aaaaand a full heal! Yeah, this is why you want this to be the last room you visit.



Anyways, I think now's as good a time as ever to use up all our Flower Tabs!



There we go! All nice and dandy, if I may say so.



To the throne room!



Just try to get in between these two ah crap.



Awwwww shoot. Well, looks like we're going into the boss at not-quite-full-health.



Welp, I think this has gone on long enough! Gotta leave you guys in suspense, y'know.

Next time, we'll be opening that door and seeing what lies ahead! See you guys then.

Hey guys, welcome back to Super Mario RPG! Last time around, we ran around Mushroom Kingdom, saving several upstanding Toadizens from Shy Guys on pogo sticks.

This time around, we're going to have a quick word with their leader about this mess! So let's head through the door into the throne room.



What are these guys so worked up about? Oh, right, we've been kicking all their asses. That might be it.



The Princess' bedroom, of course. Because if you're being held hostage, you might as well find a room with a bed.



Uh... I think the Homeowners' Association may have something to say about that. Not to mention the police.



Well, to be fair, if they're standing in your way, you can just bounce over them



What a bright time, it's the right time~ To rock the night away~ ♪



PARTY CRASHER TIME



Reused dialogue time...



Did they seriously reuse an entire conversation?



OKAY OKAY I'LL STOP MAKING FUN OF THE SOMETIMES SLIGHTLY LAZY SCRIPT IF YOU WILL NOT BOUNCE ON ME WITH YOUR SWORDS



How high is our fricking ceiling
(By the way I love this guy's name)



YEP. This guy is literally Mack the Knife.
I freaking love this game.



Well I just wanted to join I mean if you're going to invade my country at least let me have this dance



Not my favorite clown in the world



Actually, I think I'm still "it" from a game of tag somewhere



It's not my fault I can't afford/can't legally buy a pogo knife :(



Hey guys... so you're on pogo sticks... and you want to keep me out of your party...

Guess you could say you're all bouncers?



Oh come on, the pun wasn't that bad.



Anyway, starting off this fight with Mack! (By the way, I love the boss music in this game, you should check it out.)

You might think at first glance that this dude is a living sword. His eyes are above the yellow part of his hilt, and the spring is sort of like his mouth, right? Wrong. The red dude with the jack-o'-lantern face and cape is actually Mack.

However, the sword does actually have eyes, which is... kind of strange. Is it part of Mack? Is it a separate being? Who knows.

Mario doesn't see much utility in this fight, he's just good for dishing out some extra damage per turn.



As you can see, he deals a decent amount of physical damage—40 HP out of 480, so 1/12 of Mack's health—but Mack's high physical defense holds him out from his full potential here.

Now, Mack himself doesn't really do much damage, especially if he uses his magic attacks. But notice, he has four Bodyguards with him. The Bodyguards are actually a different enemy from Shysters, with sliiiightly higher stats and they don't give out the HP Max Bonus Flower. With these guys out, Mack essentially has 5 chances to attack per turn.

Fortunately, just like the Shysters...



Mallow's Thunderbolt makes quick work of them. :D



BOOM!

Not only did that take out the Bodyguards, but just like Croco with Mario's Flame Orb, if you hit Mack on the first turn with Thunderbolt you can make him skip a turn.



And here's the first of Mack's magic attacks! Both of his magic attacks are fairly weak, due to his low Magic Attack stat (15), but they're also both unblockable. Flame Wall hits all party members.

Only his physical attack is blockable. He jumps in the air, and you're supposed to press A just after he lands on the ground. Unfortunately, he didn't do that attack in this fight, so I can't show you what it looks like. He has an Attack stat of 28, though, so his physical attack hurts quite a bit more than his magic ones.



And here's his other magic attack! Unlike Flame Wall, Flame just hits one party member. However, it's also slightly more powerful (Flame Wall has a base power of 8, Flame has a base power of 12).

Not that that matters because a) Mack's low Magic Attack, and b) ...he missed. :V



After awhile, his Bodyguards will respawn, so make sure you have the FP to take care of them immediately on Mallow's turn!



KRA-KOW!!



And there you have it!

Hey guys... it's a spring of coins!



Also known as 20 Coins. :V




Star Piece get!



1/7 of the way through the game!




No, that is not a repeat image. They really did recycle a line within a single conversation.




Who's got an ugly 'stache now, huh!? HUH!? >:c



At this point Mario's only sensible move is to bonk these guys in the head.



Mario



is not sensible. :V



How did this guy not notice I was here? There was just, like, a huge event where I vanquished a jack-o'-lantern on a pogo sword. That's gotta catch your attention.



Please hire a police force.




Who WERE those Chancellor... such mystery

Toad wrote:all right

Buy me a hover car.



Obviously the guy with the bazooka at the border is not doing his job properly.



MALLOW'S A GHOST

HE DIED SO YOUNG



Oh nevermind he was just in my pocket



That's a fair question.



This game really likes its ellipses... even when they're out-of-place...



Maybe that's why Bowser can kidnap the Princess so often. I mean, they go kart racing together, Mario and Bowser are basically friends right?



YOUR BORDER GUARD HAS A BAZOOKA USE HIM



It's not like she really does anything, though.

image:

Guys this boy is gonna kill me




Wait, so the official text called him a "sword-like monster"... does that mean Mack really is the sword?



Okay, I kind of find this piece of text weird. That is where we're heading off next, but the Kero Sewers were never mentioned? The Kero Sewers literally never came up until this point in the game. Mallow says we're going to Tadpole Pond.

I feel like they could've worked it into the dialogue somehow, like, "Let's head to Tadpole Pond! The quickest way to there is through the Kero Sewers." But nope, Mr. Omnipresent Narrator is the first to bring it up.

So yeah, extremely minor gripe with this game that I just felt like bringing up. :V



Seems Mario is cool with it!



Before heading to the Kero Sewers, you want to stop by the Item Shop, because if you remember...



Mallow has business here!



Excuse me, that was mostly Mario.



We're getting a thing what's the thing




...



Well, to each their own!



I'm gonna buy a few items for our journey.



...Okay, that may be a bit overboard. :V



Yeah, I'm gonna sell a few things back so we have room for any items we find along the way.



Look at that!! A new spot on our map!! :O



Not only that, but we have an entire new area! Don't it look dandy.



Probably no one plot important.



Sure thing, Sting



Look at him. He's so happy to be sliding into the sewer in what is probably a sewer pipe.



Welp, hold your nose!



Here we are! We're gonna be exploring this place in the next update. See you guys then!

Hey everybody! Welcome back to Super Mario RPG! Last time around, we crashed the party of Mack, a sentient knife(?) and received instructions to head to Kero Sewers.

And this update, we'll be exploring said sewers in all their stinky glory! So let's get started.



When you save after you get a Star Piece, your save file will update to show you how many Star Pieces you have in total. Kinda nifty.



Now, if we head into the water...



We can see that the acidic properties of the sewer water causes Mario's lower half to dissolve!



Nope! Nevermind, he's fine.

By the way, that sign on the wall is just instructions on how to go down a Pipe. Which, if you've forgotten, we had to do to get into this place. :U



Now, the Kero Sewers can be a biiiiit confusing at first, because there's a lot of branching paths. For the record, I am going to be going to my left here, ignoring that lower Pipe. We'll see where that lower Pipe leads at a later point.



At the end of the left path, there's this Pipe!



Taking it leads you to this ledge and some new enemies.



Looks like they brought a friend along.



These rats are called Rat Funk. They're a reference to the (extremely weird) character Rat Fink, whose dad is named "Rat Funk." They're known for being on hot rods and the like.

Rat Funk (the enemies) are pretty harmless. They have 32 HP, which should be quite easy to take out in one hit at this point. They don't do much damage, and their Magic Attack stat is 0. That's right. Zero.

They're weak to fire (not that you'd need that information to take them out), and there's also a very likely chance that they will run away from battle. They drop Once Again Bonus Flowers, which let you attack twice in one turn, at an extremely high rate. Something like 80% of the time you kill one of these, you'll get a Bonus Flower.



The Hobgoblin is barely more threatening. It has 22 Attack, compared to the Rat Funk's 20. It has decent defenses (22 physical and 12 magic, and 50 HP).

They have 8 Magic Attack, which isn't much, but their special move Elegy can Mute a party member, preventing them from performing magic attacks.

This is good for them, especially if they get it off on Mario, because...



Hobgoblins are extremely weak to fire. :D



Rat Funk can poison you, but poison isn't too threatening in this game. It does a few HP of damage every turn. These guys also drop Able Juice, which can cure poison. Kind of a dumb move on their part. :V



Hey, it does more damage than Tail Whip in Pokémon. :B



But not as much damage as MAH THUNDAH!



Similar to the Rat Funk dropping the Able Juice, Hobgoblins drop Pure Water. We'll get into what that does in a minute.



If you want to advance, hop over this Rat Funk on the ledge, so you can get to that Pipe peeking out of the bottom right corner of the screen.

The Pipe I'm standing next to leads to an area we'll get to later.



Hup!



Safe!



Gee, I wonder if the giant green switch with an exclamation mark on it is important?



Pro-tip: Don't jump on that spring. It just takes you back outside to the entrance.



Good, I don't even want to think about what I just had to swim in. e_e



Okay this guy is making funny faces at me. That cannot stand.



Now to show off what the Pure Water does!



By the way, for whatever reason, the regular-sized Boo is called The Big Boo in this game. There is a smaller Boo later in the game, but this is the regular sized one, and real Big Boos only make a cameo.



Pure Water defeats undead enemies like Boos and Hobgoblins instantly!

It's not the most useful item in the world, since undead enemies really aren't that hard to take out. Kinda makes you wonder why Hobgoblins carry them, though.

If you find your inventory full, this is honestly the first thing you should get rid of. Especially considering that Pure Water sells for 75 Coins each.

Boos are fast, have high Magic Defense, and your Jump attack does squat to them. However, their physical Defense is 0. Yep, another zero.

They have a rare chance of dropping the Defense Up Bonus Flower, which increases your defense power by 50% for the rest of the battle. They can also drop Pure Water and, rarely, Honey Syrup.



As for Nightmare Knight here, Shadows have high HP (85, to be exact). They also have decent Attack, Magic Attack, Magic Defense, and Speed. However, their physical Defense is...



A pitiful 5. :V

They can use Endobubble to induce Fear, halving a party member's attack and defense. Like the Boo, Jump attacks won't do much to them.

However, they're susceptible to Pure Water, and will sometimes drop a Pick Me Up, which is quite awesome. They can drop a Lucky Bonus Flower, but we'll get into what that does when we get one.



Early game enemies' attacks are kinda weak, to be honest. Even the supposedly strong ones.



...Okay, how does that even do damage at all?



The Boos' magic attacks honestly hurt quite a bit, though. They specialize in lightning magic. For some reason.



Water drained!



If you want to progress right away, go down this Pipe!



But I personally will not be doing that, because there's some collectibles I still want.



In here, for instance!



If you go up these steps...



You'll find a treasure chest!

But this isn't an ordinary treasure chest, because...



THIS ONE FIGHTS YOU.



This is a Pandorite! It's a unique enemy, of a special subset of enemies that hide inside treasure chests. It has 300 HP, so if you're not healed up and you hit that treasure chest hoping for an item, you're in for a nasty surprise!

It's extremely slow (Speed is 1), but it has 20 in Defense, Magic Attack, and Magic Defense, and 30 in physical Attack. And don't think about setting this thing on fire just because it's made of wood. It's immune to all magic attacks except for Mario's Jump.



Luckily, Jump is about all you need. :V



Mallow's really only good for chip damage and healing here.



Just like Mack, this thing has Flame Wall. Pandorite's a bit more adept at using it, though.



OH SHOOT I SHOULD'VE HEALED



Well um guess we're gonna see the Pick Me Up in action guys!! Yay!!



Nice time to get a freebie!



And that's it! Your reward is a Flower Jar, which gives you 3 more FP and completely restores your FP!



You also get a Trueform Pin, which is a neat bit of equipment that will come in handy very soon.



It protects you from being turned into a Mushroom or a Scarecrow. We'll... get to that when we get to that. :V



If you want to skip some wandering around to find the Pipe that goes up to this level, you can trick out this jump from the stairs!

The Pipe to get up here is actually the one we ignored to jump over the Rat Funk to reach the water-level switch.



Rat Funk run out of these holes in the wall, so jump over them.



FP in this chest is nice!



When you reach the top, you find yet another stinky sewer Pipe!



Which leads toooooo...



INVINCIBILITY!







This is around the level you want to be coming to the end of the sewers! Becaaaause...



No, not because of stat changes, though they are nice. :V



You learn an extremely useful new attack! We'll get into what that does later.



Gonna put the bonus in magic this time around, because that's gonna be really helpful coming up.

I should mention, there's actually an interesting mechanic to the level up bonus. For each level up you get, there is a different stat which will receive an especially good level up bonus.

For example, on one level, Mario might get an increase of 4 in HP (which is not unusual), an increase of 1 in Magic Attack and Magic Defense, but an increase of 3 in Attack. So it's actually a pretty good strategy to look at what gets the most bonus points for a particular level, and then choose that for the level up bonus.



Onward!



And this is the right path that I never took earlier! Just another way you could've navigated this place.

By the way, while it's on-screen, I guess I should go over that Cheep-Cheep enemy, because I never actually fought it while getting the gameplay for this update.

It's fast, does a pitiful amount of damage, is weak to electric damage, and goes down easily. Oh yeah, and for some reason, it has 100 FP, even though it has 2 Magic Attack... and no magic attacks whatsoever. Yeah, it's weird.

Oh yeah, and for whatever reason, it's mistranslated to Goby. Even though it shares its Japanese name with the Cheep-Cheep.



On the way back to that Pipe that was previously underwater, Mallow gained a level!




Psychopath is a really interesting move. It tells you how much HP an enemy has left, but if you get a Timed Hit, it does something interesting that I'll go over soon.



Went with magic for this one.



PROGRESSION!



TREASURE



In the very few steps to that treasure chest, I ran into a Boo, who happened to bring this guy along. So let's check out Psychopath!



If you press Y every time a light shines on the enemy, you can read their thoughts! It's pretty interesting, and there are some funny Psychopath thoughts. I won't be doing this for every enemy, I'll just mention the ones I find particularly funny. Or useful, as sometimes enemies give away weaknesses in their Psychopath thoughts.

I'm... not entirely sure why they chose this particular Psychopath thought for this particular enemy, but okay. :V



By the way—no matter how much you jump, no matter how fancy your acrobatics are, no matter how much you search the Kero Sewers for the Pipe that leads there, you cannot get the treasure chest on that upper ledge yet. That's something for much later in the game.

There is a way to trick it out by running away from a Boo and using the invincibility frames to jump on the Boo like a platform. But the developers thought of that, so opening the chest at this point will give a different item than it would if you opened it at the correct time.

But enough of that, we have a different treasure for now!



Full heal!

Hmm... We have a full heal... and a save block...



I think you guys know what's coming up next! So, next time on Super Mario RPG, we're gonna be taking a peek at what's through that Pipe. See you guys then!

Mario and Mallow are gonna need a good wash-up before they can visit gramps in Tadpole Pond. :U

Hey guys, welcome back to Super Mario RPG! Last time, we cleared our way through Kero Sewers and found this ^~*_~m^ys_te^ri_ou^s~_*~ Pipe next to a Save Block. Spooky.

In this update, we'll be confronting whatever ghastly ghoul is through here! So without further ado...



Onward!



OH MY GOD IT'S A SPRING WITH A FACE
Oh yeah and there's the giant monster freakazoid there.



It's lucky he's only a statue, huh?



It's obviously a fire hose, just in case there's a fire in the sewers.



Hey you didn't tag m—



Oh, fight time! Well, first of all, let's show off Mario's Super Jump here.



...That was terrible.

I think you get the point, though. It's basically like Jump, except you can hop on the enemy as many times as you want, as long as you are good at Timed Hits.



As you can see, Belome has a lot of HP. 500 before that Super Jump.



But at least he's got his priorities straight, right? :V

Anyway, he doesn't really do much damage. The only damaging attack he has is...



...Gross.

But anyway, he doesn't do much damage and you can easily block that attack by pressing A just before he curls in his tongue. He also has two magic attacks, one of which he didn't do while I was battling him: Sleep-Sauce. It just inflicts Sleep, which will put a character out of commission until they wake up.

Funnily enough, he did do it when I was doing a practice run of this dungeon, and he kept using it on Mallow... who had the Wake-Up Pin on him. Yeah, he's stupid. :U



13, 14, 15! That's a much better combo. :V

So yeah, to get the Timed Hit on that, you're supposed to press Y just before you stomp on the enemy. But the thing is, Mario moves so fast that by the time you see Mario on the screen, it's too late to press the button. So the best way to do it is just to count your combo out loud, and your brain will work out for itself when you need to press the button.

By the way, Belome is weak to Mallow's Thunderbolt. Jussoyaknow.



I don't know why, but I really like that little rhyme he does for this attack. :V



So yeah, this is an example of an attack that turns you into a Scarecrow! (Or, it would be, if he wasn't such an idiot going for Mario, who has the Trueform Pin on. :U)

When you're turned into a Scarecrow, you can't use your physical attacks or your items. However, you can defend and use magic attacks.



Running a bit low on magic now, so I had some syrup. Without pancakes. :V



After you get a decent amount of damage on him...



I don't remember this scene from Apocalypse Now. :B



HEY
JUST BECAUSE MY FRIEND LOOKS LIKE A MARSHMALLOW
DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN EAT HIM

Now I know this is a very serious situation and a very serious boss fight against a powerful monster and our friend just got eaten alive but



I'M SORRY BUT LOOK AT HIS FACE
I CANNOT TAKE THIS GUY SERIOUSLY ANYMORE I NOTICED THIS FACE IN EDITING AND I JUST
HE JUST
LOOK AT HIM HE'S JUST LIKE
"mbloop! there goes your friend!"



ANYWAY! Let's get Mallow out of there. :U



That... wasn't the best combo ever.



Let's just bonk him!



Really? Y'don't say? :V



Why don't I get any cool rhymes? >:c



Whatever, he paid us anyway!



Uh, Mallow, I don't think he meant "the flood" literally—



Er um



OH



MALLOW YOU HAD ONE JOB
HOW THE HECK DO YOU FALL OFF A SWITCH



Welp, I guess that's it! Super Mario RPG ends right here. Hope you guys liked the LP, I'll be back with my new one in a few weeks, etc., etc.



Oh. Nevermind.



Minigame time!

...Why do the Kero Sewers empty into a river?



Heh. Get it? Crash? Because we're probably going to crash into something? :D

...No? Okay.



Money



Mario is stronger than a waterfall, apparently.



Is this legal?



I'd like to talk to your manager



Well here we go guys!! We're crashing down a waterfall!! Great fun!!



Got a Frog Coin!



...And I missed one.
I probably could've reached it by swimming over, buuuut... I didn't think about that when I was playing. :V



Let's hop into this cave!



Sometimes you can get some pretty neat things in these little alcoves. This one looks kinda empty though.



UM I'D APPRECIATE NOT BEING FORKED THANK YOU



"Well, that was disappointing." - Title of my new autobiography



Oooo, this one has a Flower Point in it!



Thank you Mr. Robozombiedog sir!



And that's the end of this section! That... was not the best run of this minigame.



But wait! There's more!



Mario should be pretty familiar with that.



We already have a pointer on the screen, but nevermind that, can't go wrong with some more!



Timing? Pffft! I can handle that.



Mario I don't think that counts as jumping onto the next barrel. Jussayin.



Well uh I wouldn't go that far Toad



I don't think I actually encountered any Cheep-Cheep on this run of the minigame. Hm.



So yeah, as you can see, I am sucktacular at this game. :V



WHOAWHOAWHOAWHOAWHOA



Biggest thing you have to worry about: Make sure you're in the lane with the most coins on screen at a time.



...Unlike me. :V
The perspective can mess with you a bit, but just look at the shadows of the coins on the water and you should be fine.



Well that was a barrel of fun!



Money



Better money



...Wow lame



What a coinkydink! We were just heading there. Very convenient. It's as if someone designed this to be this way.



You know what it's called when someone takes your money and you have no say in the matter? Stealing.



Whatever it is, I am going to need it after that horrendous run.



But it was very worth it!



Uh-huh. That's right. We're getting Mario's second weapon before Mallow's first weapon.

Here's Mario's stats with the Hammer...



...And here's Mario's stats with the NokNok Shell! A +10 increase to Attack!



By the way, "NokNok Shell" is a mistranslation. It's supposed to be a Koopa Shell. Nokonoko is the Japanese name for Koopas.



NO. No SIR. I am NOT falling for your little tricks again.

Grumblemumblegrumblemehh. >:c



Oh, I will NOT forget, good sir!



Anyway, we can come back to the Midas River course at any time we want from the map screen now!



But we got bigger frogs to fry!

Or... listen to their elderly advice. I guess that too. :V



And here we are at Tadpole Pond!



...Which we will be going over in the next update.
See you guys then!