Tropes A–L - TV Tropes

• Certain locations have this. Sorted by first appearance: Twilight Town, Twilight Trail, Keelhaul Key, Excess Express.
• Certain attacks and badges also have this, including Koops's Shell Shield and Shell Slam, Flurrie's Lip Lock, as well as the badges Close Call, Damage Doge, Double Dip, Feeling Fine, Flower Finder, Happy Heart, Power Plus, Shrink/Sleepy/Soft Stomp, Spike Shield, and Timing Tutor.

• At one pivotal point in the Final Boss fight, the game rigs the slot machine to give you a much-needed Shine Sprite Bingo, which restores all your HP, FP, and Star Power, and refills the audience seats after the Shadow Queen empties them.
• If you miss the Tattle for any enemy there is a limited number of (such as bosses or mini-bosses), the Tattle Log entry will appear in Professor Frankly's wastebasket, meaning you can't accidentally lock yourself out of 100% Completion.
• Despite being listed under "attacks", tattling does not count as an attack in chapter 3. This is to ensure you are still able to fill out the enemy's tattle log entry even if Grubba gives you the "don't let your partner attack" stipulation. In the remake, this is made more obvious by Grubba saying not to let your partner deal damage — tattles and buffing moves on Mario are fair game.
• Can't find the last Star Pieces or Shine Sprites you need? You can visit Merluvlee in Rogueport Sewers and pay for predictions that tell you pretty clearly where to go to get them. The remake makes this even more useful by tracking each prediction in the menu until you collect its respective collectible.
• Ms. Mowz has the power of sniffing out hidden blocks, Star Pieces, Shine Sprites, items, and other useful things with her field ability.

• Chapter 1 has Hooktail, a dragon who eats Koopa Troopas. It's later revealed that she has two older siblings who are connected to the main plot, but she herself seems divorced from it.
• Chapter 3 has Grubba. He's simply using the Crystal Star to further his youth. He actually has no relation to the main plot outside the Chapter and doesn't appear again after being defeated, being replaced with Jolene who takes over the Glitz Pit.
• Chapter 4 has Doopliss, who curses the people of Twilight Town to become pigs and steals Mario's name and body. Although he later becomes connected to the main plot when he joins the Shadow Sirens.
• Chapter 5 has Cortez, who was a pirate captain when he was still alive and guards his treasure and island even in death. Unlike the other examples, Cortez actually does a Heel–Face Turn and helps Mario defeat Lord Crump, who had disguised himself as a sailor.
• While the Shadow Sirens (primarily Doopliss) are the antagonists of Chapter 6, the chapter boss and final obstacle are the Smorgs, a species of cloud-like creatures that stop the Excess Express at Riverside Station and hitch a ride while it's stuck there, eventually combining into a large mass that abducts all the passengers.

• The Spaghetti and Koopasta recipes use the same HP Values as the previous game, resulting in them being less useful than the item you make them from in this game.
• In Paper Mario 64, the Slow Go badge still wasn't that useful, but it could at least be used to avoid waking up the sleeping Clubbas in Tubba Blubba's Castle. In this game, there is no stealth segment or place where you need to walk slowly, giving it no practical purpose.

• The Mega Rush badge raises attack by a whopping 5 when Mario has only 1 HP remaining. The game gives so many different items, partner skills and badges to avoid his demise in that state during battle that it's not even funny, but reducing his health to that single point and keeping it that way all the time can be impractical due to reasons such as a lack of abusable hazards for Scratch Damage in many areas or the Level-Up Fill-Up mechanic. Furthermore, just a single Power Rush badge combined with other attack boosts can get Mario to game-breaking levels of power anyway.
• The Happy Lucky Lottery has some pretty cool prizes, but due to the mechaniacs of how the lottery generates its winner numbers, you'll have to either wait a long time ^note  or cheat the clock to win the top prizes. Since there are easier ways to obtain them, you're probably best off not bothering to play it.
• The very last crystal star gives you the Supernova ability. It's a flashy attack that does a whopping 15 damage to all enemies and pierces defense, the strongest non-boosted move in the game. However, it also consumes six star gauges, and there are other attacks and abilities with just minor downsides for much less cost. The only fights you'll probably ever use it is immediately before a level-up.

• The boss of Chapter 3, Grubba compliments Mario amid his trash-talking and seems to genuinely appreciate "The Great Gonzales", even in his battle where he turns into Macho Grubba, he still compliments Mario for his showmanship and fighting abilities.
• Grodus briefly praises Mario for finding all the Crystal Stars for him in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, albeit in a much more threatening manner.
• Bowser will be impressed that Mario's managed to stay standing and land hits on him the two times he's fought. Granted, he's fought Mario dozens of times at this point, so he knows all about how hard it is to take him down.

• In Chapter 6, the snooty Bob-omb couple can be seen arguing about what to get their son Bub for his birthday. If you talk to him, he says that he only wants a signature from someone on the train whom he looks up to. Given that Zip Toad, a celebrity (which later turns out to be Doopliss in disguise), is also on the train, most players would think to go to him first — except he will not sign autographs to anyone who is not a hot girl (and bringing out your female partners will not get you anything, not even a comment). However, by poking around on the train some more, you'll eventually discover that Bub actually wanted the train conductor's signature, because he looks up to his career of working on a train.
• Also seen in Chapter 3; Jolene shows the player the Champion's Room and the Major League Room, before bringing them to a run-down minor league room. Goombella even comments on this, should you use Tattle in the room.

Goombella: Yeah, now that you mention it, I guess we were fine out there with no air and all that. [Beat] Yeah, I'd rather not think about that too much.

• Implying (intentionally or unintentionally) that Rawk Hawk is weak is a bad move, as he'll either go to great lengths, even cheat, to prevent the accuser from commenting on it as a means of exacting revenge on the accuser, or directly attack the accuser (although the latter did not end so well for him as the person who accused him, Bowser, was more than entitled and justified for saying that).
• Lucky, the Bulky Bob-omb who runs the lottery, gets very angry if anyone cheats.

• Sky-Blue Spinies that have curled up into balls are referred to by the game as "pipes". Paipo is the Japanese name for the Spiny Eggs, which may be where the confusion came from.
• What was supposed to be a reference to the Crystal Palace from the first Paper Mario got mangled into "Goomstar Temple". The translators mistook the "kuri" in "kuristaru" for the Goomba's Japanese name.
• In the Paper Mario 2 demo, Courage Shells are called "Courage Cola". This is because the words for "shell" and "cola" are similar to each other in Japanese, and got mixed up during translation.
• The "allergic" status, rare as it is, has a very confusing description in the original game - it says "Status hasn't changed!" which is obviously ironic to say when receiving a status effect. What it really does is prevent the afflicted from gaining any other effects, positive or negative, until it wears off.
• The Remake fixed all translation errors including the first two and Bubus as Lil' Oinks and Kooskoos as Koopa Koot.

• The popular "Danger Mario" build can be surprisingly simple to set up and maintain, with lots of resources on the core path that raise Mario's attack power and make him very hard to hit without even the need to learn the Superguard mechanic. This makes the plain old Power Bounce and Multibounce skills capable of trampling over most enemies and bosses by themselves, rendering all the flashy partner attacks and Special moves largely unnecessary.
• The very first Special Move unlocked, Sweet Treat, remains useful throughout the game as a way to refill HP & FP using an easily renewable resource.
• The second Special Move, Earth Tremor, is likely to remain the most-used offensive special even after more powerful moves like Art Attack are unlocked, thanks to its dirt-cheap SP cost.

• The Boos employed by the Pianta Syndicate had bunny ears in the original Japanese version; essentially, resembling that of the Playboy Bunny. They were changed into cat ears in all other versions of the game; possibly just to remove a reference to an adult magazine, or perhaps to avoid legal problems, since the Playboy Bunny logo is trademarked.
• In the Japanese version, the home of the bandit who steals your coins in the prologue had a Chalk Outline of a Toad surrounded by dried blood on the floor, implying that a Toad had entered the house and suffered a terrible fate.
• Mario's "hello" gesture was removed in the European localizations of the game, evidently and most likely due to an unfortunate resemblance to the infamous Nazi salute.
• Any hint of Vivian being transgender was removed from the English and German localizations. The 2024 remake added them back, though.
• During Chapter 5, Bobbery asks you to find him a bottle of wine in the Japanese version. In the English version, it's a bottle of Chuckola Cola instead.
• In the English version, one of the answers for Question #1 in Shhwonk Fortress is the "Pickle Stone". In all other languages, the answer is "Luigi's underpants".
• In the previous game, when Whacka was hit eight times, he would disappear with the same animation as defeated enemies, making it look as if you killed him. Here, he simply leaves the same way he always does and never returns, and the added Super Boss in the remake makes it clear he doesn't die after the fight.

• "You out there in front of the TV!" ("Looking at the screen" in the remake).
• Doopliss steals the lowercase letter P from the player's keyboard so his name can't be entered (using uppercase P won't work). The player must find it in a chest in order to regain access to it.
• When asked to describe Stewart in Glitzville, Goombella will mention that Cheep-Cheeps have been around since the first Mario game, and then say "I just broke through the fourth wall there, didn't I?". If you get her to describe the gatekeeper in Twilight Town, she'll mention that the game would be too easy without him, before getting flustered and saying 'What? I didn't say anything!'
• If you defeat Gus in Rogueport, he will exclaim, "You dumb video-game heroes ALWAYS do this!"
• After Bowser goes through Rawk Hawk's secret training facility, Rawk Hawk will point at the camera and presumably ask the player if they forgot about him.
• An NPC in Petalburg mentions wanting a game called "Paper Luigi". Later, he says that he's playing a new game... called Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Oh, and he also finishes it before you do. He also mentions Fire Emblem^note , another game by Intelligent Systems. And at the end of the game? He's playing Super Paper Mario!
• When you are in the Keelhaul Key chapter, at one point, the pirate "Four-Eyes" (a.k.a. Lord Crump) looks at the TV and tells the audience not to tell Mario who he obviously is. Weirdly, if your partner is Goombella at this point, she will have just broken the fourth wall in Chapter Four and then acts confused when someone else breaks the fourth wall in Chapter Five.
• When Koops is reunited with his father after the first dungeon, he says "Everyone thought your game was over!" This may have been an example at the time, but it no longer remains so. In Super Paper Mario, the common term for death In-Universe is Game Over (although there are some instances in which characters bluntly talk about death).
• In the Paper Mario 2 demo, Goombella will say that she normally would have a "witty and insightful tip" to give out when using Tattle, but she's holding off until the final version.

• A comedic example. When Kroop asks you if you're going to go defeat Hooktail, Mario has the option of saying "What? Hold on now!" If you select this, Kroop takes this as a "yes". Then when Kroop claims that he hears Mario deny a reward for defeating Hooktail, Mario has the option to say "I never said that!" Selecting this option still has Kroop mistaking it for another no to the reward.
• After catching the Yoshi egg in Glitzville, Mario is given an option to, instead of free him, say "Let there be hot dogs!" Of course, picking this option will simply result in Mario's partner yelling at him and overriding his decision.
• Immediately afterward, Mario is given an option to bring the egg with him or not. If he says no, his partner immediately changes his mind.
• Essentially any point in the game where dialogue options seemingly give Mario a chance to refuse a possible plot-relevant action or to help someone in need. In most of these cases, his partner will either correct him or outright ignore his refusal and make the decision for him. The biggest aversion to this occurs when the Shadow Queen offers Mario a chance to be her servant. He can actually accept, which leads to a Non-Standard Game Over.
• The player must open the chest in Creepy Steeple to proceed any further, as Boos will block the doorways.
• A much straighter example occurs when the Pianta Syndicate goons ask Mario to find Francesca and bring her home to visit her sick-with-loneliness father. He can refuse them once, but they will ask again, with a much more threatening tone. The only options this time are "I'll do it!" and "I understand!"
• When talking to Flavio to ask for his ship at the beginning of Chapter 5, he will ask Mario what he is feels is missing. Regardless of if Mario replies romance, emotion, thrills, or money, Flavio will just come to the realization that the search for Cortez's treasure will bring him all four of these things anyway.

• The audience, whose torture ranges from being scared out of their wits and munched by Hooktail to getting dragged off to Hell by the Shadow Queen.
• Doopliss, too, when he joins the Shadow Sirens—he starts taking the punishments that Vivian had been, though unlike Vivian he decides not to leave. Goombella lampshades his Butt-Monkey status in one of her Tattles: "Hey, how do you think he became one of the Shadow Sirens? Isn't that... weird? How do you think he stands Beldam's abuse? You think he's all right in the head?"
• Poor Bowser is always at least one step behind the plot, often falls into blunders.
• Luigi to a lesser extent. Bowser has such a poor view on Luigi that he's left in total disbelief that he somehow lost to him (although it's simply Pennington confusing Mario for him).

• Chapter 1 for both games are about getting to a fortress/castle where the Plot Coupon is held, with the help of a Koopa partner you meet in a town of Koopas on the way to said stronghold.
• Chapter 4 is a call back to Chapter 3 in the first game. Both introduce the Hyper enemies who can charge their attacks to deal massive damage. Both are about an unbeatable enemy with a secret that makes them beatable, and that you need the help of a partner whose ability is to make you disappear to get through it. Both also take place in a Big Boo's Haunt setting. Boos are foes in this game, though.
• Chapter 5 for both games is about finding another Plot Coupon within a tropical island, though in this case Cortez later helps Mario beat the X-Naut army.
• In both games, the Big Bad's base is located beyond the clouds, and only reachable with the help of NPCs. In this game, though, the Big Bad's base isn't the last chapter.
• The boss of Chapter 3 is a giant Spike for both games. And both of them have a secret that you spend most of the chapter investigating. But for this game, you don't know that the Spike in question is behind everything until the very end.
• The first part of Chapter 6, in which Mario becomes the assistant to a Bumpty detective, refers back to the murder mystery segment from Chapter 7 of the first game.

• Ms. Mowz, who is also the owner of Rogueport's Lovely Howz of Badges.
• Also the mysterious lady in the Glitzville juice stand, who is very heavily hinted to be Jolene.

• After Peach drinks an invisibility potion and sneaks into Grodus's office to upload sensitive data from a data disk into the desktop computer, the monitor displays an animation of the Famicom Disk System BIOS and plays its startup music.
• A Toad in Petalburg talks about Fire Emblem, another series made by Intelligent Systems.

• The instructions for the special skill "Sweet Feast" read "Hold [the Control Stick] left to try to hit hearts and flowers". This is because, unlike its predecessor "Sweet Treat", holding the stick will autofire. However, as shown by Milesluigi, you're probably better off spam-flicking the stick; "Sweet Feast" also removes the One Bullet at a Time limitation, and most people can repeatedly flick the stick substantially faster than the autofire rate.
• The description for Thunder Bolt and Thunder Rage state that they drop lightning on enemies and stun them, the latter of which is not true. The remake fixes this by removing this part.

• At the beginning of the game, Parakarry from Paper Mario 64 game delivers a letter to the Mario Bros. In the post-game, you can meet another of your party members from Paper Mario 64, Bow. There would've been more than just the two, but they were Dummied Out. Jr. Troopa can also be seen in the background of a picture attached to e-mail sent to Mario by Zip Toad. Also, in Hooktail's castle, the note written by a dead Koopa is addressed to his son Kolorado, an NPC in the first game.
• A Hammer Bro in the Glitz Pit mentions his grandfather (who he inherited his hammer from) being from World 7-1.
• Podley and Podler's race is never specified, but they're almost unmistakably Beanish, in a reference to Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.
• In Keelhaul Key, Bobbery asks you to get him Chuckola Cola^note  he was saving for arrival at the island. This is a reference to the soda of the same name from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.
• Lumpy's quest for oil parallels Chapter 2 in Paper Mario 64, down to him going through Mt. Rugged and Dry Dry Desert and having encounters with Buzzar, Kolorado, and Moustafa, just like Mario did.
• Koopook sends you an email to say that he's now hiding out in the Crystal Palace, which was the final dungeon of Chapter 7 in 64.
• Pine T. Jr.'s dad has gotten a job taking care of Li'l Oinks in Toad Town, referencing the farm there in 64.

• Goombella is an adorable young Goomba, but don't be fooled, she's much tougher than she looks.
• The nameable, color-customizable Yoshi partner found in Glitzville. For someone fresh out of his egg, he can hold his own in a fight damn well.

• Peach, but like in the first game, she does a little more than just sit around and wait to be rescued. At the end of the chapters, you get to play as Peach sneaking around the X-Naut Fortress, looking for information to help Mario. This time the kidnapper isn't kidnapping Peach simply because he's an Abhorrent Admirer.
• Luigi gets his own in the form of Princess Eclair, though it turns out that her kidnapper wasn't actually the main villain, at least according to the Super Luigi book series.

• There's Twilight Town, and even your own party member, Vivian. Also, the Black Chests and the "demons" within. Discussed post-game when the single Twilight Town resident in Rogueport comments that the Shadow Queen's darkness was more of a creepy, sinister kind-of-dark as opposed to the one he prefers.
• The Dark Bones mini-boss in the Palace of Shadow. His sole line of dialogue implies that he's trying to prevent the Shadow Queen from being awoken.

• Mario gets to deliver one of these letters in a quest. It's from Bobbery's wife, Scarlette, which perks him up to help Mario and co. travel to Keelhaul Key.
• Koops finds and reads one of these found amongst his father's bones. (Well, Kolorado's father's bones, really).

• Mario has to sign a contract that Grubba gives Mario to participate in the ring while advising him not to read all of it, and in fact, sign without reading it. Some of the lines in the contract include Mario not being able to leave the Glitz Pit until Grubba releases him. Oddly enough, Mario can leave Glitzville via blimp after signing the contract without any repercussions. (Although this could mean "don't leave our employ" rather than "don't leave the area".)
• You can agree to the join the final boss to rule the world, though this results in a game over.

• The first fight with Lord Crump in the Prologue is explicitly made to be impossible to lose. Even if you lower Mario's HP to 1 by intentionally jumping into the water repeatedly, he'll automatically by healed to 5 HP when encountering Crump. And since Mario goes first in battle, you'll end up winning with 1 HP even if you fail every action command and block, since Crump has 5 HP and only deals 1 damage.
• When you enter East Rogueport for the first time, a Bandit will steal half of your coins, which you can retrieve later by finding his hiding place and talking to him. If you have no coins at all when he robs you (only possible by deliberately buying items at the shop in Central Rogueport until you run out), the sequence will play as normal, but confronting him will have unique dialogue expressing his annoyance that you had nothing to steal.
• Normally when speaking to Luigi for the first time, he'll tell Mario he's in town due to his adventure in the Waffle Kingdom and offer to tell the story if Mario accepts. If you wait all the way until after Chapter 7 to speak to him, he'll instead tell Mario that he's in town to relax at the inn since his adventure has already concluded by that point in the game.
• Turning back the clock to try and cheat in the Happy-Go-Lucky Lottery will disable it for the remainder of the day, in real time. Doing that will cause Lucky to nearly explode and give an Implied Death Threat.
• You can access the Pianta syndicate headquarters as soon as you complete Chapter 1 if you know the secret code before Ishnail tells you. All the Piantas there have unique dialogue, and Francesca and Frankie are present before they elope.
• Piercing Blow is a badge that's available to purchase from the shop in Rogueport that allows Mario's hammer to pierce through an enemy's defense. However, the Iron Clefts in Chapter 3 have infinite defense, so even this badge will have no effect on them. This is to ensure you do not skip getting the Yoshi partner, as his Gulp attack is the only thing capable of hurting them.
• If Mario speaks to Mr. Hoggle with the Yoshi Kid that hatched from the aforementioned egg as his active partner for the first time, Mr. Hoggle will remark that the Yoshi used to be the egg he failed to catch.
• During Chapter 3, two new fighters join the Glitz Pit to replace Bandy Andy and King K. At this point, you're too high-ranked to fight either one. But if you fall down the ranks by losing, you can fall down far enough to fight them. The Wings of Night team consists of Swoopers, as evidenced by team leader Sir Swoop (meaning they can be encountered before Creepy Steeple), and the Destructors consist of Spinias and Spanias.
• Even though there's no possible way to see it (due to Yoshi's gulp being the only thing capable of harming the iron clefts, and the following cutscenes preventing you from switching partners), Goombella, Koops, and Flurrie all have different dialogue for checking Rawk Hawk's belt and realizing it has a fake Crystal Star on it.
• Leading up to Chapter 4, Professor Frankly will tell Mario and his party to look for a warp pipe below west Rogueport to reach Twilight Town, the chapter's setting. Once Mario reaches the pipe and jumps in, the pipe will reject him, at which point Mario must go back to Frankly to learn a workaround. However, the pipe can be encountered earlier if Mario takes the Yoshi partner he recruited in the middle of Chapter 3 exploring in that area, which requires the Yoshi's flutter jump ability to reach. If Mario tries and fails to enter the pipe before dictated by the plot, Mario's active partner will remember this when Frankly instructs Mario on where to go, allowing the player to skip ahead to the workaround.
• During the halfway point of Chapter 4, Mario's partners and the warp pipe leading back to Rogueport both become inaccessible. There's plot and gameplay reasons for this: Yoshi's Flutter Jump is required to reach the Twilight Town pipe from Rogueport, so if the player were to leave the chapter without him they'd have no way of getting back. Thus, the pipe stops working to ensure the player can't get stuck.
• There is only one copy of the Lucky Start badge, dropped by Atomic Boo. The badge normally sticks around until the player grabs it, but depending on where in the room the Atomic Boo fight is initiated, it's possible for the badge to fall into a hole in the floor and become unobtainable. The game will recognize if this happens, and will put Lucky Start up for sale at the Lovely Howz of Badges to ensure that it is still obtainable. The remake corrects this by having the badge spawn in the middle of the room, regardless of where the fight began.
• There are two bosses (the first Doopliss fight and the first form of the Shadow Queen) that have plot-important events take place during the fight, but could be brought to 0 HP with certain setups before said events happen. If you do that, they'll inexplicably heal a certain amount Doopliss will regain 10 HP and the Shadow Queen will regain 1 and the event will begin.
• The game will remember if you've upgraded your party members to Super Rank before or during Chapter 4. If you have not upgraded them, they will have their initial Max HP (however Goombella will still have Multibonk despite unlocking that at Super Rank).
• When you recruit Ms. Mowz, she gives you a badge. However, if you happen to have the maximum amount of badges you can carry, then there will be a quick cutscene where she leaves the badge in front of the badge store for you to pick up. Note that the maximum amount of badges you can have is 200 and there are only 85 unique badges, so in order for this to happen, the player would have to go waaaaaaaaay out of their way to grind for them.
• During the interlude between Chapters 5 and 6, after you get a ticket for the train, Beldam will pop up for a cutscene. While Goombella, Koops, and Vivian will recognize her, Flurrie, Yoshi, Bobbery, and Mz. Mowz will not (as none of them was part of your party the last time you fought her), and wonder who she is.
• In Chapter 6, on the third day, if you try go to the cargo room without talking to the engineer first (since the conductor isn't there to block the door), the door won't open, and your partner will comment on this as a Smorg briefly appears on the other side of the door.
• If you happen to do some glitching around and enter Gloomtail's room after defeating Bowser for the final time (the room is inaccessible through normal means), there's a hole in the back area which was used when Bowser jumped down.
• It's possible for the player to obtain the Ultra Hammer as soon as they return to Rogueport from Poshley Heights. When Professor Frankly informs you that you need to find the Ultra Hammer to reach Fahr Outpost, your active partner will tell him that you've already done so.
• One Trouble involves rescuing Pine T. Sr., who's gotten himself lost and injured inside the Pit of 100 Trials. He can be found on Floor 18, and if you help him and make it to a floor with an exit pipe (which is every number that is a multiple of 10) he'll automatically head straight to the exit pipe and leave. If you somehow meet enough Movers to skip every exit pipe floor and make it to Bonetail along with Pine T. Sr.,^note  the pre-fight cutscene will include him hiding behind a nearby pillar and shaking in fear just before you fight the boss, and heading to the nearby pipe on his own after you defeat it.
• Like the first game, Goombella will have tattles for every single area and character that are able to be interacted with. Characters that are only around for a limited time such as ones that only appear during trouble center requests, random passengers on the Excess Express, and bosses such as Grubba and Bowser outside of battle all have unique tattle dialogue associated with them.
  • Additionally, some characters will have different tattle dialogue depending on current story progress. For example, Goombella will have something new to say about Pennington when first meeting him, after he introduces himself and makes Mario his apprentice, after Zip Toad/Doopliss runs away at Riverside Station, and after Pennington reveals he's the curator of Poshley Sanctum. Like the above, these only appear during certain windows of time, so you would only see them if you went out of your way to use Goombella at every possible opportunity.
• During Chapter 7, Mario needs to get permission from Goldbob to use the cannon in Fahr Outpost. In order to do this, the player, as Mario, must agree to give Goldbob all of the coins they currently have, then go through a bunch of "are you sures?" before Goldbob reveals he was joking and returns your coins along with his permission... unless you don't actually have any coins, in which case Goldbob will make an exasperated comment lampshading it before sending you away. This pretty much has to be deliberate due to how late in the game this event occurs in, as well as the fact that in order to get zero coins, you need to spend exactly enough at shops to get down to that amount (since Mario can't buy anything if he doesn't have enough coins to purchase it).
• When confronting Grodus in Chapter 8, Mario's partner will come to the realization that they are finally meeting the leader of the X-nauts face-to-face, and address him as such before Grodus introduces himself. Except Vivian, who's already seen Grodus before and already knows exactly who he is.
• The Double Pain badge has a stacking effect if multiple copies are equipped^note , even though only one can be obtained legitimately in the game. The remake's description has been updated to mention the stacking effect despite it being impossible to see in normal gameplay.

• The Superguard requires better timing than the standard guard, but nullifies all damage and deals damage to some attackers. The Simplifier badge lessens the strictness of the timing, as well. The remake expects you to be good at this for the two new Superbosses, being very helpful for Whacka (who deals huge damage) and downright required for Prince Mush (who blocks every attack during his second phase, and can only be knocked out of it through Superguarding.
• Koops' purely ground-based offense somewhat handicaps him against aerial foes, though with the right set-up, it's all he needs.
• Similarly, Ms. Mowz' regular attack pierces Defense. Combined with Power Plus badges and Power Lift, she can obliterate ground enemies.

• Koops' father, Koopley, left for Hooktail Castle ten years before the start of the game to slay Hooktail. It doesn't end well, which gives Koops the motivation to join Mario to avenge his dad. When they defeat Hooktail, though, the dragon spits up Koopley, who survived in her stomach for ten years.
• Kolorado's father suffered the same fate Koops thought of his father.

Don Pianta: What's wid you, wise guy? I ain't too jolly today ... If you got a beef, spit it out quick or dis is gonna hurt!

• By far, the Shadow Queen, who is among the most heartless, evil Mario villains to ever have been onscreen, comparable to the Shroobs and Cursa. Her legend had stood strong during the events of the game, with people still talking about the four heroes who sealed her away. Her power is immense, shown when she severely cripples Grodus with a single lightning bolt, drags the audience to Hell to heal herself during the second phase of her fight, and attacks with all sorts of crazy moves that would leave you hurting badly. Despite being statistically weaker she's in reality more powerful than even the Super Boss, and not hust because she requires scripted outside interference to beat.
• Cortez, the pirate ghost king. Not only is he in control of thousands of malevolent pirate spirits, it goes without saying that he's the leader for a reason. Subverted after he helps Mario and the other stranded islanders defeat "Four-Eyes" (Lord Crump) and gets them safely back to Rogueport after Chapter 5.
• Doopliss had his moment during the beginning of Chapter 4 where all of Twilight Town were being turned into pigs due to him making the bell ring throughout the land, leaving the remaining residents terrified as their loved ones became swine. Without a doubt, the suspense building up to who you would battle once you reached the steeple would be nerve-racking your first time.
• Despite being Demoted to Extra, Bowser. He might not be the Big Bad this time, but he's still the Koopa King. Most NPCs, including those of East Rogue Port, flee screaming from his presence. Only the very brave (Or just goofy) keep calm when he's around.

• There's a place in the X-Naut Fortress where Mario can be 8-bit again.
• Stay at an inn 50 times and you'll get a special cutscene and a 200-coin gift.

• Elite Wizzerds deserve their own subsection, as the weakest of the three types of Wizzerd, the Dark Wizzerd, is an endgame mook with both regular Wizzerds and Elite Wizzerds being exclusive to the Pit of 100 Trials. Elite Wizzerds have a defense of 5, tied with Chain Chomps and Moon Clefts for the highest save for the Iron Clefts (who have an infinite defense and are only there as a Skill Gate for the arrival of a partner with an Armor-Piercing Attack), and due to their ability to float, they're immune to a number of your "attack everyone and pierce through defense" skills such as the Super and Ultra Hammers. (Well, the front one still gets hit, but it doesn't hit anyone else). They also have a base attack of 8, tied for third-highest in the game behind Amayzee Dayzees and Piranha Plants, 12 HP (fairly high, especially given that monstrous defense), access to a number of Status Buffs...and can come in groups of up to five, which even for the Pit of 100 Trials is a Wolfpack Boss In Mook Clothing. Even worse, said groups of five commonly carry stopwatches, which can immobilize Mario and his partner...

• The upside is that mashing A quickly enough gets you a 100% success rate & the coins you lose land on the ground so you can get 'em back although you'll need to to avoid the enemy while you do it & they don't stay long.

• When the Shadow Queen is finally released from her crypt and possesses Princess Peach, it quickly becomes apparent that she will not listen to Grodus as he had thought. After severely crippling and sending him away, she then offers Mario a Deal with the Devil.

• In the "Super Luigi" book series, Minister Crepe, who called for help, turns out to have been behind the kidnapping all along.
• Jolene is an inversion: Although it seems like she was the one who was making the fighters disappear, it was actually her boss, Grubba, who did the deed. And while she was trying to betray him, it was actually due to the fact that she wanted to stop him knowing how much of a scumbag he really was.

• At the end of the game, Peach gets a dark version of her usual dress.
• You could also count Mario in his Wario outfit or his Waluigi, depending on whether he equips both the W and L emblem or just the W emblem.

• Played With in Twilight Town with the crows. Mario and Vivian learn by eavesdropping on the crows how to learn the name of the monster who stole his body. Of course, they have to listen to the right crows, or they get nothing but random philosophy or gossip.
• In Chapter 3, while in the vent, the person you're spying on basically goes over his entire diabolical plan to himself. Just to grab your attention, he more or less says "And since I'm talking out loud here, I'll just put this extremely important piece of paper in this desk drawer here and leave. Ah, there we go. Right there in the drawer, nobody's gonna steal it at all."

• Used as a plot point. The Big Bad's Artificial Intelligence, TEC-XX, has been allowing the captive Peach to visit its main terminal to converse with her (as it is secretly in love with her). After a few visits, TEC seems conflicted about something, then it suddenly challenges Peach to a quiz game. The first few questions are about things the player must already know, but then;

  TEC: What is the legendary treasure that waits behind the Thousand-Year Door? A. 100,000,000 coins, B. An extremely rare badge, C. A 1,000-year-old demon's soul.

• TEC proceeds to use the rest of the quiz questions to explain Grodus' entire plan to Peach without technically violating Grodus' order not to tell her about it and then rewards her "victory" by allowing her to send a message to Mario, which she, of course, uses to relay the new information.

• Chapter 4 would actually be the shortest Chapter in the game if it weren't for the fact that you're forced to go Back Tracking through the Twilight Trail four times.
• Before Chapter 7, you have to find a Bob-omb named General White. This involves going to all the places you've already been to and finding out that's he's already long gone to somewhere else until he finally shows up at Fahr Outpost, the place from where you've set off.

• When Doopliss steals your identity, you very own friends, who assume you're Doopliss in his shadow-clone guise, fight alongside him. You don't have to kick their asses, but still.
• There's also Peach getting possessed by the Shadow Queen at the end of the game.

• Like the previous game, jumping on a Koopa or Buzzy Beetle will flip it on its back, rendering it helpless and negating its Defense Power (until it gets back up). However, the same can happen to your partner Koops.
• Simultaneously subverted and inverted with Shady Koopas, who have the same "flipped" animation and have their defense dropped, but will attack with a stronger attack while they're on their backs.

• Flurrie's Lip Lock ability also counts as this. She grabs the enemy and forces a kiss on them, draining them of their HP.

• When TEC is cycling through his cameras during the first Peach segment, one of them shows the top floor of the base with the surface of the moon visible through the windows.
• In Twilight Town in Chapter 4, a villager makes a wish on the moon not to turn into a pig. When his wish is granted, he asks Mario who he thinks lives on the moon. The two answers are Little Green Men and Princess Peach. While you don't know at this point in the narrative, the latter actually is true - Princess Peach is in the X-Naut Base, which is later revealed to be on the moon. The NPC's response to this answer is pregnant with foreshadowing.

  Twilighter: Ha ha ha! Too funny! You must be a dreamer... What an imagination!

• In the intro before the title screen, the hooded peddler who gives Peach the chest containing the map is short and hunched over, and she gives out a rather sinister cackle during the exchange. This cackle is Beldam's Evil Laugh, and she confirms at the end of the game that she was the one who encountered her.
• You might not realize it until you actually get the item, but the reply when you are forced to name Doopliss is missing one specific letter or kana.
• Despite having a Crystal Star on his belt, Rawk Hawk never actually harnesses its power. This is a subtle clue that the star on his belt is actually a fake.
• There are several hints in the game that the treasure behind the Thousand Year Door is not a good one for the world, as well as the X-Nauts' plan to conquer the world with said treasure.
  • The intro, as well as the early chapters, mention that a great cataclysm brought darkness to the town where Rogueport now stands before a treasure appeared around the same time. In addition to that, rumors were spread among the citizens who founded Rogueport that said treasure is behind the Thousand Year Door for anyone willing to find it. It's revealed before Chapter 4 that the Shadow Queen and the cataclysm that caused the darkness are one and the same, while the "treasure" behind the Thousand Year Door was just a rumor spread by Beldam in order to find someone of a pure heart who can open the chest that contained the Magical Map.
  • One of the potential theories Professor Frankly has about the treasure is a demon. He's unwittingly right on the money, as the treasure is the Shadow Queen's soul.
  • After the X-Nauts kidnap Peach since Beldam failed due to too many witnesses, such as Toadsworth, Grodus orders his men not to harm Peach while she’s in captivity and even repeats the same order to Peach when she is disguised as an X-Naut during the Peach Intermission after clearing Chapter 3. As Peach is the Shadow Queen's vessel, he has damn good reason for her to be in perfect condition.
• After the fight against the Shadow Sirens in Chapter 2, Vivian's Tattle Log appears in Professor Frankly's waste basket if the player doesn't use Goombella's Tattle on her. The same does NOT apply to the other two, hinting towards the fact that Vivian is not fought a second time in the game.
• When Vivian and Mario team up for the first time, Koops, under the belief that this is the same fiend they fought earlier, accuse him of teaming up with the Shadow Sirens to get revenge. The real Doopliss does join the Shadow Sirens later on to get revenge on Mario for trouncing him.
• During Chapter 3, you can meet Bandy Andy outside in the hallway and he'll tell you about the "Seven Wonders of the Glitz Pit". One of them, "The Spooky Ring Lights", has Andy mention that his friend saw mysterious lights in the arena when nobody was around, and he plans to investigate it himself. Later on, you find Andy and King K barely clinging to life in the storage room after having been drained by Grubba, and Grubba himself confronts you with his power sucking machine when the Glitz Pit is empty.

• Mario's quest for the fourth Crystal Star takes him to Creepy Steeple, where he must wrest the Star from Doopliss.
• The haunted fourth cabin of the Excess Express.

• The stage equipment can malfunction, causing damage or other effects to befall Mario, his partner, or his enemies.
• The audience will cheer Mario on for executing his Special Attacks well—a good performance generates star power (in multiple senses), which Mario needs to fuel his Limit Breaks. Doing well will attract more audience members to the theatre, which can raise Mario's star power further in turn.
• Audience members can throw items at Mario, either helpful items from fans or harmful items from hecklers. Mario or his partner can punish anyone about to throw an item, but be careful not to hit a fan, or even more fans will leave with them. Some troublemakers will even leap on stage to run amok behind the scenes.
• During a Boss Battle, many bosses will have some way to attack the audience directly—Hooktail, the first boss, introduces this mechanic by leaping off stage and devouring the audience to restore her health.

• On occasion while you're in the middle of cutscenes in Rogueport and other towns.
• Battles are presented as a stage production, requiring players to pay attention to vandals among the audience in the foreground and to the background props suddenly swaying and collapsing over Mario. Also, sometimes Luigi is among the crowd and every so often he does an Aside Glance towards the player.

Crump: Buh? Somebody there? Hey! What's the big idea, Turtle Boy?

Crump: Whoa. What's your problem, Gramma? You got an ear hair tickling your brain, or what?

• Chapter 1 takes place before the X-nauts and Shadow Sirens learn Mario has the Magical Map and is hunting the Crystal Stars. Likewise, Chapter 3 takes place in a location where neither party ever learns that a Crystal Star is there. As such, both chapters are the only ones in the game that have nothing to do with the Big Bad's agenda, and neither the X-nauts or the Shadow Sirens appear to antagonize Mario at any point during either chapter.
• Grubba is the only other character to use the power of a Crystal Star for himself on-screen, and he uses it to increase his own power drastically at the end of Chapter 3. When Mario obtains that same Crystal Star, he also gains the power to give himself Attack and Defense Ups.
• On the way to Chapter 4, Mario is blocked by the Twilight Town warp pipe as it only works for people who have their names written on them somewhere, which Darkly helps him and his partners with so they can proceed. After having his identity stolen during said chapter, the pipe back to Rogueport will reject Mario because while Mario's name is still written on his person, it's not HIS name anymore.
• After Chapter 5, the weak Goomba and Spinia enemies in Rogueport Underground are replaced with slightly more threatening Koopatrols, Hammer Bros, and Magikoopas (with the exception of one Spiked Goomba lurking about), coinciding with the time that Kammy calls the entire Koopa Clan as reinforcements in the post-Chapter 5 Bowser segment against the X-Nauts. The post-Chapter 6 Bowser segment mentions that they are scouting the Underground for signs of the Crystal Stars and manage to find (a fake) one in Rawk Hawk's hidden gym.
• In Chapter 8, Mario's partner will deduce that Grodus is the leader of the X-nauts upon seeing him, but do not know his name until he reveals it, since this is the first time Grodus has confronted Mario and co. face-to-face. Should you have Vivian out as your active partner, however, she is noticeably less surprised since she's seen Grodus before and already knows who he is.

• In Chapter 4, after Doopliss steals Mario's identity, the shopkeeper in Twilight Town is still able to keep track of your previously acquired shop points, despite the fact that no else can or should be able to identify Mario.
• Rawk Hawk claims he's going to continue training, and he'll be stronger than ever before. Despite this, he has the exact same stats the first time you fought him if you go through the Glitz Pit again any point after Chapter 3.

• Keelhaul Key and Pirates' Grotto.
• Rogueport, as it contains many pirates as well. It even has a gallows.

• The Smorgs during Chapter 6. While they get a brief bit of foreshadowing during the visit to Riverside Station (and a post-Chapter 6 NPC mentions researching them, which suggests they're at least a known species), they are still completely unrelated to the plot and there's no reason given as to why they attacked, outside of some implications that the Shadow Sirens disturbed them.
• Luigi parodies this; after beating the Chestnut King, what he vaguely describes as a huge nightmarish monster appeared that he took out. The Super Luigi books say the "monster" was actually Minister Crepe, who had been using Luigi all along.

• Every fight in chapter 3 is a tournament bout that enforces certain restrictions on you during battles. Examples include not using any items, finishing in a certain amount of turns, or not allowing you to use the Crystal Stars. As such, running out of HP simply causes you to lose the match rather than leading to a game over since it's a tournament match rather than a fight to the death. Except against Macho Grubba, who very much can kill you.
• Chapter 4 is significantly shorter than every other chapter in the game, and its boss is ridiculously easy, especially for that point in the game. Then it leads to a fake-out ending after grabbing the Crystal Star, and the second half of the chapter involves backtracking through Twilight Trail multiple times to track down the boss's name and finish him off for real.
• Chapter 5 partially invokes this: After defeating Cortez and grabbing the Crystal Star, the chapter will end, but the player is still stuck on Keelhaul Key and then has to fight another boss in the form of Lord Crump before the game finally cuts to the Peach intermission.
• Chapter 6 is a Breather Level that mostly involves puzzle-solving and platforming, and the only required fight in the entire chapter is against the boss, Smorg. And unlike other bosses, Smorg is a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere that is fought 3/4ths of the way through the chapter instead of the very end, and the Crystal Star obtained at the end of the chapter is found just sitting in Poshley Sanctum rather than being obtained from the boss.

"AI AMU NANBA WAN!! AI AMU CHANPION!! (アイ アム ナンバ ワノ！！ アイ アム チャンピオン！！)"^note 

• The fog that appears during the battle that lasts two turns and reduces everyone's accuracy by 50% can be removed from the battle by either using an attack or item that triggers an explosion or by using Flurrie's Gale Force. The game never tells you that you can get rid of the fog.
• Finding the Atomic Boo. Remember the church full of Boos clinging to you and sending you back to the entrance? You can send them flying with a Spin Attack. Do so until the boss shows up. To the game's credit, it tries to give to you a clue — notice how the Boos are spinning as they crowd you.
• Finding General White in Chapter 7. You need to backtrack to most major chapter locations out of order, talk to certain characters, and head back to Fahr Outpost. The townsperson you need to talk to can be either a major NPC (the bartender in Glitzville) or a minor one (a Twilight Towner in an innocuous corner), and their hints are designed with the idea you're expecting a run-around beforehand. The last hint doesn't even give you a location, just the hint "he said he was tired" which the player is supposed to read as "he returned to his home in Fahr Outpost." Notably, there's nothing in the game prior to this point to notify you the house he's in has anything to do with General White.
• Any time you need to use Vivian's ability to get an unseen, hiding NPC to reveal themselves, most notably while finding Ghost T. in Chapter 6.
• The "Space Food" item, and even the Allergic status itself is this. The item can be cooked up by Zess T. or given at the Fahr Outpost Inn, but not only does it not have any indication that it can inflict the condition during battle, it doesn't even have a perfect chance of inflicting it either. As for the status effect, it's extremely rare, only being inflicted by said item, Beldam (during the second battle against her), or the Shadow Queen, and even the text for the original version is very confusing ("Status hasn't changed"). However, the status condition itself prevents any further status changes - positive or negative.

• After getting Hooktail's HP down to zero, she will attempt to trick you into coming closer to get a cheap shot in. Regardless of whether or not you fall for the tricks, she will then devour some of the audience to restore some of her health.
• After nearly depleting Cortez's HP to zero in his third phase, he will eat the souls of half the audience and fully restore his health.
• Upon dropping the Shadow Queen's HP to half, she will show her true form and become invincible. After a few turns she will use her powers to consume the entire audience and restore herself to full health.

• About halfway through the game, Vivian decides that she's fed up with Beldam's abuse and leaves to join the mysterious shadowy person, even sticking around once he's revealed to be Mario.
• TEC and Cortez. Rawk Hawk definitely may qualify as a Face to all of his fans, but for the majority of Chapter 3, he's the biggest heel behind the scenes you could imagine. First, he's the one who poisoned one of the cakes left for Mario in the locker room. A real Jerkass moment. Then, he bribes a security guard to lock Mario in one of the unused locker rooms so he'd miss his title match, that being the championship title with him, Rawk Hawk. Eventually, it's subverted because he changes his attitude towards you after losing.
• At the end, Beldam, Marilyn, and Doopliss give up their evil ways following the Shadow Queen's demise. Beldam even promises never to be mean to Vivian ever again, while Doopliss becomes an actor in a play about Mario's adventure. Also, according to a rumor Goombella heard, Grodus and Crump somehow survived and changed their ways as well, likely because Grodus was reduced to a head and can't do much mischief anymore.

• You can't beat the Iron Clefts until you've obtained the baby Yoshi.
• Your attempt at fighting a disguised Doopliss is hopeless for both sides because neither of you can damage the other.

• TEC was willing to betray his master and even die to protect Peach.
• Vivian and Goombella both decide to keep their crushes on Mario to themselves because they know Peach is his Implied Love Interest.

• Each time you finally get your hands on a Crystal Star, the game will tell you about its special powers in battle and what they do. So when you get the Ruby Star in Chapter 4 only to move on without learning about its abilities, you know something's up.
  • Should Mario have the W Emblem equipped, he will go back to wearing his usual red clothes in the cutscene after defeating the Duplighost. This is a clue that it's not really Mario.
  • A little regarding the above too, but once you beat Cortez and get the Crystal Star in Chapter 5, you do get a new ability, but you don't immediately shift to the Peach/Bowser intermission sequence that you'd normally be used to seeing afterwards. That's because you have one more boss to fight - Lord Crump - before the chapter truly ends.
• A more minor example is that whenever Goombella uses Tattle on an enemy, their place of origin, so to speak, is mentioned in their entry. Because certain enemies can be encountered before then (most notably in the Glitz Pit and the Pit of 100 Trials), this can lead to you finding out about a particular place before you actually get there. The remake mitigates this by having the Tattle always say the area that the enemy is Tattled in, however enemies that appear more than once have "etc," written by their location, indicating that they can be fought again somewhere else.
• On the flip side, not using Tattle on most enemies with limited encounter windows causes their entries to appear in Frankly's trash can. So if you fail to use Tattle on the Shadow Sirens, you may wonder why you get Vivian's entry from the trash can, but not Beldam's or Marilyn's. The remake hides this giving recurring bosses separate Tattle logs, meaning that all three Shadows will have their logs in the trash can after their first encounter instead.
• Courtesy of a minor glitch, if you hire the secret character Ms. Mowz at first opportunity, make someone else the active party member, and select to use an item outside of battle, you'll have the option to use it on someone who hasn't actually joined your party yet (Bobbery).
• Another minor one: If you beat the pit of 100 trials before you beat the story of the game and use Tattle on Bonetail, in the Tattle Log you will have a neat gap between Hooktail and Bonetail, all but confirming that there is probably a third dragon yet to beat.
• Even though the Magical Map is supposed to progressively change throughout the story, if you look carefully as early as before Chapter 1 starts, you can clearly see that the Map is complete. When the camera zooms closer in on it, you can see every location including Glitzville, the Great Boggly Tree, and the X-Naut Fortress on the Moon.
• Goombella's Tattles in the overworld has her tell you what's in the area. In the final dungeon, there's a set of corridors that are seemingly spacious and empty at first, and yet Goombella's dialogue tells you to make good use of Mario and his partner abilities, indicating that there's more to these rooms than appears at first glance.
• Should you find more Shine Sprites than the number you need to fully upgrade all your partners, then once you are late enough in the game that it's unlikely a new partner will appear, that tells you there was a secret partner. Conversely, once the fortune teller stops being able to find Shine Sprites and you already have all movement abilities, that tells you there isn't another partner (secret or not).

• All of the female members of Mario's party have feelings for him, despite that none of them are human like he is.
• The supercomputer TEC's romantic feelings for Princess Peach count as well.
• One of the troubles from the Trouble Center revolves around one. A woman in Twilight Town asks Mario to get into contact with her old lover, the bartender of the Chuckola Cola bar in Rogueport, who is Beanish.

• The Iron Clefts have a special defense that prevents even defense-piercing attacks from hurting them, and the only attack that can hurt them is Yoshi's Gulp.

• The Duplighost boss does not want you to know his name. But by the time he joins up with Beldam, he's practically begging to be called by name, rather than "freak-in-a-sheet". Poor Doopliss.
• The Piantas threw Mario in the slammer in Super Mario Sunshine after falsely accusing him of being a criminal. The Piantas in this game are criminals.
• In Chapter 2, Punio states the secret entrance to the Great Boggly Tree won't be labelled "Secret Entrance", or else it wouldn't be a secret entrance. When you get Flurrie and have to use her power to reveal the entrance, it turns out it WAS labelled "Secret Entrance", complete with a Broadway-style sign and flashing lights. Punio, surprisingly, doesn't realize the irony.
• Mr. Hoggle is a Hot Dog vendor. Pork is one of the traditional meats used in making Hot Dogs.

• Beldam treats Vivian very harshly and blames her for everything, even if was actually Beldam's fault in the first place.
• Grubba drains the energy of King K, Bandy Andy, and Prince Mush because they discovered the power-draining machine energized by the Gold Star.
• Doopliss turns the entirety of Twilight Town into pigs because he could.
• Mario himself, depending on what choices you make for answers.

• There are several points where a loud jarring sound will play when the player discovers something unpleasant. A more prominent one being Ghost T. when he asks you a favour. His dialogue suddenly bursts onto the screen accompanied by the screen shaking profusely with a loud sound playing.

  Ghost T: All I need is... YOUUURRR LIIIIIFE!!!!... Just kidding.

• Another one occurs in Chapter 4 where you talk to the lone Boo in Creeple Steeple, who asks you if you can keep a secret. If you answer "yes", he will cover his eyes, before rapidly switching back to his normal scary sprite as the screen shakes violently.

• The unnamed guard at Glitzville who escorted Mario to lock him in a minor league room after being paid off by Rawk Hawk gets no punishment. Even as Mario is furious at him when he tries to explain what he had done, the guard pretends to feign innocence.
• Beldam and the Shadow Sirens. Despite loyally serving an unspeakable horror and nearly unleashing it upon the earth, they get off with a few apologies and promises. Doopliss even goes on to be an actor with Flurrie.
• Cortez never gets called out on the fact that he devoured the souls of several members of the audience to restore his HP. It is never brought up again afterwards and does not serve as an obstacle to his Defeat Equals Friendship with Mario and co.
• In Lumpy's story, Buzzar returns unexpectedly after its defeat in the first game and has apparently switched from bounty hunting to petty theft. It attacks Lumpy and flies off with all of his food and money, leaving him hungry and stranded in the desert. It is never mentioned again.

• Doopliss is basically a Duplighost with a white sheet and some party attire. He also successfully advances his Duplighost powers by switching Mario's identity with his cheap, shadowy doppelgänger.
• Macho Grubba is the second boss variation on the Spike family, after Tubba Blubba.
• The Shadow Queen is basically a Physical God version of a Shadow Siren.
• Downplayed with the Red Bones and Dark Bones, which are each a Palette Swap of a Dull Bones and Dry Bones respectively.

• One of the Attack FX badges comes in handy when facing Hooktail. Who would've known that a cricket sound effect would be anathemic to a giant dragon?
• One of Zess T's recipes is Trial Stew, which the game only tells you has "amazing results." Using it drops Mario or his partner's HP to 1 and FP to 0, which puts you in the perfect position for an enemy to finish you off. What keeps it from being a full on joke item however, is it also fully restores Mario's star power, making it a convenient way to use special moves if you follow up with a powerful healing item such as a Jelly Ultra. It also happens to set you into the threshold for Mega Rush.
• The Double Pain badge is a pure Joke Item on the surface, doubling the damage Mario takes from everything in-game and costs 0 BP to equip like the other "joke" badges. That being said, it makes the Return Postage badge (which is your reward from completing the Pit of 100 Trials) much more effective, since the increased damage Mario will take also means the enemy will receive more damage in return. The best use of this strategy is in Glitzville, since there's a free bed available in between every single battle.

• At one point, Bowser's music theme comes to a halt for this line:
• In the Chapter 4 Bowser interlude, his leitmotif dies out again when the Koopa Clown Car breaks down on his flight to Glitzville.

  Bowser: Huh? That don't sound good... What's that warning light? Oh, don't tell me...

• Happens to the sad music in Chapter 5, once the gang realizes that Bobbery's just sleeping.

• Some time after finding Koopook for his Trouble Center sidequest, he will send an e-mail saying he's hiding in a cold location. In the original Japanese and most translations, the location in question is the Crystal Palace from Paper Mario 64. The original English localization, however, renders as the completely made-up "Goomstar Temple", losing the Continuity Nod.
• The final RDM email in the original Japanese script and most translations of the games has a special hidden section found by scrolling down for a long time, which mentions Chuck Quizmo from the first game as well as a recipe. For whatever reason, the English translation removed this section entirely but left in the statement alluding to its existence ("May we meet again... sooner than you think *wink* *wink*"), confusing many players.
• One of the crows in Twilight Town talks about a friend living in "Mushroom Town", which is a literal translation of Toad Town's name in Japanese. An answer for one of the quiz show questions in Shhwonk Fortess is "Mushville", which is another mistranslation of Toad Town.
• After finishing Pine T. Jr.'s trouble, he sends Mario an e-mail about how his father found new work in Toad Town, where he takes care of a previously-unheard-of entity named "Bubu". The message was supposed to read that he takes care of Li'l Oinks, the pig-like creatures you could farm items from in the first game, but their Japanese name Būbū-san ended up being translated too literally this time around.
• An answer for one of the quiz questions is "Kooskoos", which is really meant to refer to Koopa Koot from the original game.

• The fight conditions that you can get for the Glitz Pit fights can vary from a cakewalk to really bad depending on the fight (e.g., take damage 5 times is mildly annoying for the Goombas and nasty against Koopinator or Dark Craw), with a few conditions being outright impossible for the Iron Clefts fight. Fortunately, you can either run away or just ignore the conditions, then try again until you get a better condition.
• The overworld enemies encountered at each level of the Pit of 100 Trials are fixed, but the actual group you fight is one of three possible groups, some of which are way worse or more annoying than others. If you're truly unlucky, you can get stuck with facing 5 Elite Wizzerds on the penultimate floor. Depending on the player's preparedness level, the number of Movers you encounter (approximately 5.1% chance each floor) on your way down can determine whether you reach Bonetail in a timely fashion with some items remaining, or at all.