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Mario is back in his flattest form in thePaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Doorremake for Nintendo Switch. Many veterans will be replaying the game on modern hardware, but newcomers will also be welcomed into the fold this time around.
Paper Mario might come as a bit of a shock to you. Its funny dialogue, RPG mechanics, and turn-based battling are a big departure from the likes ofSuper Mario Bros. Wonder, putting a refreshing spin on everyone’s favourite plumber. Whether you’re new to the series or dusting off your origami hat, these tips and tricks will put you on the right track.
Use Badges To Your Advantage
Badges are Paper Mario’s equivalent of a skill tree. you may chop and change which badges you have equipped at any time, and I’d recommend constantly checking that you have the best ones equipped for any situation.
Badges can do anythingfrom give you or your allies buffs to health, attack, or defence stats; give Mario new attacks to utilise in battle; or make his hammer sound like a frog. The latter is surprisingly useful in a certain boss battle, butattacks like Multibounce and Quake Hammer can help with enemy hordes or tough opponentsrespectively.
I’d focus on upgrading your Badge Points on level up, so that you can have more badges equipped at any one time.
Each badge costs a set amount of Badge Points (BP) to equip, with stronger badges costing more. Weigh up the pros and cons of each before deciding.
Regularly Switch Your Partners
Mario’s paper partners come in handy in this RPG, each having their own unique special abilities. Usually they follow the ‘00s RPG formula of being required soon after they’re acquired, but it’s always handy to cycle through them to check if you may access a hidden area at any point.
The Switch remake makes it much easier to switch partners on the fly, by holding the left bumper (L) and scrolling through.
The companions also offer different roles in battle.Vivian can suck you both into the shadows to avoid devastating attacks, whereasAdmiral Bobbery can lay mines across the entire battlefieldto damage multiple enemies at once.
It’s best tokeep Baby Yoshi around for most overworld travel, because his little legs transport you much faster than by using your own, but if you ever notice a scrap of paper folded over the backdrop or a cracked wall, be sure to check if any of your partners can use their abilities to access the new areas.
Upgrade Your Partners With Shine Sprites
While there is division in the Paper Mario community over whether to upgrade Badge Points or Flower Points on level up (never Health Points), the resulting buffs are marginal.
However,upgrading your companions with Shine Spritesmakes them a lot stronger and far more useful in a fight. With more HP, attack, and defence, they can stick around for longer and deal more damage while they do.
It only costs three Shine Sprites to upgrade a party member, and you’ll be swimming in them by the midpoint of the game.
Head to Merlon to upgrade your partners, and don’t forget to track back to Hooktail Castle when you’ve unlocked Mr. Bobbery.Explode the wall in the room with the black chest(where you gained the ability to turn sideways) and grab theUp Arrowto gain the power of upgrading your partners twice.
Skip Pointless Battles
I regularly skipped random battleswhen exploring the worlds of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and never felt underleveled.
Resource management is hugely important, and wasting your precious HP and SP on hordes of Goombas just isn’t worth it. A few enemies are hard to avoid, so fight them, but for the most partyou can run past the random encounters.
Don’t be afraid to run from battles either, but it isn’t as simple as in Pokemon or other turn-based battlers. The more often you run, the less chance you have of doing it again, so you’re best off avoiding the encounters to begin with.
Check Shop Prices
Items can get expensive in Paper Mario, but they can also turn the tides of a battle. A Thunderbolt will damage every opponent on the field, while an Ultra Shroom will heal copious amounts of HP.
Watch out for enemies holding items, too.
However, theseitems cost different amounts in different places. I noticed that Super Shrooms cost 20 coins in Rogueport, but just 12 in Keelhaul Key, so don’t waste your money.
Items can also be combined at Zess T.’s kitchenin Rogueport, which will change their properties. Cooking an Ultra Shroom, for instance, will make a Shroom Steak, which heals 30HP and 10FP. If you find yourself running low on FP, that might be more useful than the 50HP restored by a regular Ultra Shroom.
