PM Chapter 6 Part 2: Bringing the Chill

Right, time to get the sun to rise on this land of flowers.

Not enough sun does that to a person, especially a flower.

...The sun is male? I always though the sun was female in Paper Mario. Most myths about the sun and moon typically make the sun male and the moon female, but I think I've seen the inverse.

...Wait a second, you guys have your own sun? I mean, I guess Super Mario Bros. 3 set precedent with the Angry Sun enemy, but wow.

Of course he does.

The Bubble Berry will allow us to head on over to the north-west.

...In a manner of speaking.

I believe we'll need a new Bubble Berry if we want to go back across (from right-to-left). There's a shortcut for the opposite direction, at least.

This is a Green Magikoopa. He's one of the magicians in the Koopa clan. I have to admit, I like those green robes. Very cool! Max HP: 11, Attack Power: 3, Defense Power: 0. He can magically increase the defense power of others. He looks pretty surly.

Green Magikoopa (Lv. 21) is the next most recurring of the Magikoopa Clan, being in nearly everything Red is. Green also matches Red in abilities- instead of +1 Atk, he gives +1 Def.

...This formation is going to suck.

...Oh, right. Tattle means I only get one turn.

Time to panic.

Also the baby Bzzap! attack. This does 5 damage total, so it's less dangerous, and Defend Plus probably lets it tink.

Fortunately, +1 Def won't save Bzzaps! from Goombario. Although I do have to choose who's still alive next turn...

Never mind. I am leaving this battle.

You can go through these logs. The whole "folding out" thing is mainly for the player's benefit, and I'm fairly sure it's not accompanied by the physics doing any changing. You certainly won't fall out of it.

Shooting Star hiding in these flowers.

And Lakitus throwing down Spinies. Annoyingly, despite the fact I apparently got hit by Spiny Flip, these Lakitus are too high to jump on. They're just here to spawn Spiny fights, not to fight us themselves.

Which also means there's no clearing them.

Blowing up this rock gives us Mega Smash (3 BP), a 6 FP Hammer that lands +4 damage. I'm not entirely sure what this is worth it on. 6 FP is a lot. Besides, with no Atk upgrades or enemy Def, this only matches Fan Smack, which costs 5.

Now that is a map transition.

The following map gets its own unique theme, Sad Sun. It's a fairly remarkable song with little screentime, but it gets worse than that.

You'll need to blow up a rock down here in order to climb the Sun Tower and meet Mr. Sun.

And we can, quite literally, talk to the Sun. Presumably he's related to the Angry Suns, but he is- or, to use his terms, was- capable of doing the Sun's job, something the Angry Sun rarely does.

That's an impressive cloud layer. Would be that real cloud emissions were half as effective.

And if that wasn't bad enough, his guilt about not being able to do his job makes the pain of not being able to do his job even worse.

Fortunately, the Puff Puff Machine exists down on the ground level. Somewhere we haven't found yet, but we don't have a key behind the lock.

Despite the lack of clear direction or key item, talking to the Sun was necessary to progress the story.

It's the sun. Some people call it the "Blessed Sun." It's the source of life for flowers and trees. If it doesn't come out, eventually all plants will wither away. Sunshine makes me happy, too.

I assume "Blessed Sun" is a Japanese thing, their flag being a sun means they probably have something suitably flowery this line is supposed to be referencing that our version hasn't quite found a suitable substitute for.

That's because someone spawns on the walk back.

And he's gonna want to fight.

Hello, Lakitu.

A Lakitu with a crisis of identity.

That's all right, mate. You won't take it too personally if I wipe the floor with you and blow your cloud away?

I'm sorry. I truly am. You do not sound cool.

Even your personal theme is struggling to come anywhere close to the aura you want to project, although it is trying really, really hard.

He said his name is Spike. He seems to be a Lakitu, but he's the weirdest one I've seen. Max HP: 50, Attack Power: 4, Defense Power: 0. He throws Spiny Eggs. Is it just me, or did he call himself Spike, Michael and Lakilester? What an odd guy... I have to wonder just what his real name is...

Spike? (Lv. 40) may have a HP value that far outstrips Lakitu's, but he has none of what made Lakitu so annoying to fight. His only move is Spiny Flip- sure, it does 4 damage, but it's nice and predictable, and it keeps the battle purely between us and him. And you know what happens to opponents who have one target and 0 Defence in this game?

Something like that.

He's doing his best with that Spiny Flip. I don't think normal Lakitus have that glow before the toss.

And that's not even an impressive amount of Star Points.

Again. Nothing personal. Fan Smack is just too good for 0 Def to cut it anymore.

...I was about to point out POW Blocks don't work on aerial opponents, but they do in this game.

Before this guy can meet as inglorious an end as any other Lakitu, another one swoops in to stand in our way.

These two are boyfriend and girlfriend, incidentally. I'd say the design is also pretty unique, but they came close with Glam Lakitu from Bowser's Inside Story. The ponytail's cute, though.

Last month? He's still tripping over it! I always thought the new name was a more recent development- presumably, coinciding more closely with Huff N. Puff's arrival- but unless time has been passing on us, this change has had more effort put into it than that.

I do not pretend to understand why. I don't think we get anything but this to justify what he enjoys seeing in her. Or what she sees in him, either.

And Spike is in no hurry to share his thoughts.

Spike insists that, since he lost, he has to take his lumps. He certainly can't crawl back to Huff. We're vaguely talking around the idea of killing him, and the main thing masking that is the general lack of stakes the death of enemies has. Mario's dunked Bowser in lava how many times and he keeps crawling back? Who's to say Mario's foot is any more lethal on the Koopa Troop?

...Lakilulu, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but that's not the defence you think it is. Sure, he didn't seem all that enthused to do it, but we get no reason why Spike couldn't have just said "no" here. I mean, I don't see you throwing Spiny Eggs at me.

(Ironically, if you say you won't forgive him, Lakilulu's way of But-Thou-Musting you is to throw a Spiny Egg at you.)

I'll say. The pun in the name "Lakilester" was never obvious to me, although I've been informed it might be "lacklustre". I'd change my name too if I was named that maliciously.

Huff's won. At this point, unless we do something about his Puff Puff Machine, we can do all we can for Flower Fields. The place is still dead. But it seems all the winmore Huff's doing hasn't been as inspiring for troop morale as advertised.

Spike is at a bit of a moral crossroads, and you have the option of suggesting what you think Mario fights for. If you're curious, you can also ask why he picked his new name. All four options lead to the same result, but it's cute.

As this run has kinda got me to notice, Mario isn't exactly a "world peace" kinda guy. Sure, he'll jump into it if he's called on, but he's in it for Peach- and occasionally Luigi. He may be one of the greatest heroes of the modern age, but he's an everyman at heart and it's an every man for himself.

Also, as much as I joke about it, I think it's what Spike needs to hear. Spike's been a follower- going along with Huff N. Puff to be a tough guy, rather than looking within at what he wants to do, or what he thinks a tough guy is. It's all right to think about your needs.

Hahaha, mate, how cute.

World peace, huh? Isn't that a bit melodramatic? Still, I must admit there's a certain manly charm to having such a noble purpose... Yeah! That's the way to go! I'm going with you, man!

Spike really doesn't work going for world peace, as much as others might wish he was.

Man, you're a cool customer. You're out there every day risking life and limb just because you feel like it? Wow. Talk about a tough guy. You know what? I wanna fight just because I feel like it! I'm going with you!

This almost feels like a more healthy way for Spike to reprioritise. I'd still pick "for myself" over it any day, but I can feel like this has done him a tangible good.

Why? Because Spike is a million times cooler! Lakilester is the dumbest name ever! It just doesn't fit the image of a dangerous rebel like me. The name doesn't matter, man! What matters is this... I've decided I'm going with you! You're the real deal! Traveling around with you has gotta be as cool as it gets!

As funny as it is to ask why he picked the name, there really isn't a reason for him to join your cause out of the answer other than "we didn't want to send you back to choose again". It also doesn't explain why Spike and not, say, "Lakifonzie" or "xSunslayerXx".

Once again, I wish, but we only get one party member per enemy type.

...Actually, I wish, but instead of Spike. With that said, though, we have four female party members and three males, Spike brings the gender balance back.

And Spike is more than willing to find his masculinity on the journey.

...Party balance and RPG functionality aside, there's no real reason Lakilulu has to stay behind and it really shows. I'm not really sure what RPGs can handle this outside monster tamers that allow you to grow a whole menagerie, and those games don't really like having NPCs join in that capacity for obvious reasons.

Seriously, do we have to take Spike?

Please.

And, with one last idle comment to throw her way, Spike is ready to join our cause, and about time too!

The game's going to call him Lakilester, but he did change his name...

Spike's field ability is to let us sail right over all those thorn patches scattered around Flower Fields. I'd say this covers us for any harsh terrain, but this late in the game, I think these spikes, a row of spikes in Toad Town Tunnels and the lava in the final dungeon is all the game has room to throw him. TTYD learned from Spike's downfalls as a partner and made the last partner you get the one in Chapter 5.

Spike's basic attack, Spiny Flip, is a projectile attack, making his the best basic attack of the bunch. He's the only party member that can attack a flying enemy that does general contact damage (from being electrified or fiery), not the game throws many of those at us, if at all. With that said, he's doing 3 damage at base, not 4 like the fight would have you believe. Spiny Surge, at 4 FP, will hit every enemy on the screen for... 2 damage. Yes, attacks that hit every enemy on the screen are highly valued by the game, but Spike really is underpowered as a partner. The game is probably at least partially balanced assuming you're going to give him one of the Super Blocks in Flower Fields, but the numbers don't scale up great.

Since there's no real good time to share later:

• At Super Rank, Spiny Flip goes to 4 damage, Spiny Surge goes to 3 damage, and his new attack is Cloud Nine. Joining Watt and Sushie in buffing Mario, Spike will give Mario a cloud for four turns that gives him a chance of dodging, at 4 FP. The odds are around 50%, much better than Close Call, but an imperfect chance of success opens the door for 4 FP that go completely wasted. Sure, it's nice if it works, but you can never forget that "if".

• At Ultra Rank, Spiny Flip goes to 5 damage, Spiny Surge goes to 4 damage, and his new attack is Hurricane. For 5 FP, Spike will attempt to remove all enemies from the field. Despite Bow having perfectly good Fright Jar and Air Lift tables to steal from, I'm told she's using the same tables. Even if she wasn't competing, that's not an Ultra Rank attack you want to brag about. And it leaves him continuing to rely on his high-utility, low-power attacks in a game where power is about to become more important than utility.

You can actually talk to Lakilulu immediately. The game isn't wholly prepared for the possibility you might, and she gets dialogue that feels like it was written for her general NPC state later on, not "right after Spike gets going."

That's because she flies away before you make it half a Spin Dash forward.

This is Lakilester's girlfriend, Lakilulu. When they have arguments, she never backs down. What a cute couple.

Of course you'd think that, Goombario.

All right, Spike!

I think riding Spike is a speed boost over walking, but we have Spin Dashing for that.

Spike can't even one-shot an enemy designed to be oneshot-before-it-hits-you. As much as it makes sense to not give you a "kill Bzzap! for free" button with no strings attached... Spiny Surge is already 4 FP. It's not like we can just throw that out as we please.

Well... no choice but to grin and bear it. Although I could kill one and let the Magikoopa buff the other.

To add insult to injury, while Spiny Flip is the most powerful utility attack, it's all-or-nothing, like Shell Shot, and must be precisely aimed. And on a tiny enemy like Bzzap!, that can be tricky. Forgiving, but it's not like analog sticks are famous for precise aiming.

At least his cloud is so happy as a victory animation.

Remember to grab this on the way back.

With Spike, we can now cross the thorny bushes here and solve the puzzle of how to get up there.

Whenever you ground pound on one of these buttons, all buttons of that colour will either rise or fall- they will go in whichever direction the arrow is currently pointing (they cannot sink below the thorns, and any platform that looks like it will is always going to go up). You cannot jump on top of a button that is one tier higher than your own, no matter how much it might look like you can.

As such, our goal state of the puzzle is to somehow get to this position while we are standing on top of the green button to our right.

And to do that, we need to use Spike to float back to the start, where we can jump on this and push the green button down on this side.

That's how it's done. A nice puzzle- one we only need to solve once to beat the game, and clever enough to make you think.

This is a Yellow Magikoopa. He's one of the magicians in the Koopa clan. Yellow is the new black, didn't you know? Max HP: 11, Attack Power: 3, Defense Power: 0. He can use magic to give his companions an electric charge. While his cohorts are electrified, don't attack them directly or you'll be in for a shocking surprise.

Yellow Magikoopa (Lv. 21) appears only in the baseball games and the Puzzles & Dragons game outside here. His job is to electrify enemies- and one thing that I always get confused is that Ruff Puffs, immunity to Electro Dash aside, actually don't have any way of doing that themselves in this game. On these flying enemies, Electrify is concerning, but do feel comforted to know that if Mario is also electrified, he can safely jump on them. Plus, we have Spike now!

"Yellow is the new black" seems to be a reference to something, but most things I found seem to post-date this game. I'm sure everything is referencing the same pre-2000s thing, I've just never heard of it.

Yeah, let's take out one of them.

And deal with him as we plea-

...You guys aren't immune to Electro Dash?

...

...Where the hell did your electricity powers from TTYD come from, then?

Ahahaha...

Air Raid, 6 FP for 5 damage? Or Spiny Surge, 2 damage for 4 FP? Base 3/4 Atk would make the choice even in terms of FP cost, but at base, Spiny Surge loses that fight handily.

...Actually, wait a second, that was Tidal Wave. I thought Air Raid did 6. But still, Tidal Wave is also 6 FP, the comparison stands.

Fortunately, there's a Super Block here to bring Spike up to "mediocre".

And a Star Piece that got caught on the roof here. It's a little weird, jumping over to this side- the hole you spring from to get on top of this roof is deceptively large, and the spring always sends you to the left.

Letter in the plants here. This one is weird for a few reasons, but we can deliver it just fine.

This had a Thunder Rage, incidentally.

And over in here, we have the Puff Puff Machine.

In a continuation of the weird trend of Chapter 6 having way more music tracks than it needs, here's a song that plays only while the Puff Puff Machine is online.

...No? You're just standing there.

...I'd compliment your working spirit, but that song doesn't even sound catchy in text form.

It's weird, how well Lakitu fits into this plan. Lakitu hasn't quite been turned into a good guy by years of seeing him judge Mario Kart (and save you from falling off the edge), so seeing this villainous role that actually fits into his design is rather quaint, all told.

That said, goggles are not glasses and you should consider switching.

Now then, before we start this fight scene, I would like to address something rather peculiar about this setup. Obviously, before we smash the Puff Puff Machine, we have to defeat these Lakitu and Magikoopa guarding it.

There are three ways to start that fight.

The first, most obvious way is to start hitting it with your hammer as soon as you walk in.

 Hit it twice, and this Magikoopa will lecture you, in a very "villain explaining his plan" kinda way, about the importance of the machine-

Before proving that his own glasses need a checkup.

If you walk around the Puff Puff Machine and hit it from this side first, the Lakitus will berate you instead.

Water vapour, actually.

...Now that I say it out loud, the fact they wanted the Water Stone to increase the power of the Puff Puff Machine makes a lot more sense than I gave it credit for. I always thought they just wanted it to use as hydroelectricity- the game just kinda treats this as a "machine that makes clouds" as opposed to something doing actual real-world science to make clouds.

Mario is really confused how this keeps happening.

Anyway, back to that fight we started.

Thunder Rage and Smack will get the Magikoopa.

Not so much the Lakitu.

...I was hoping you wouldn't do that.

Let's clear it out, and...

Spike, you win this fight.

That got us extra HP and a full heal to press on with. We're going to need that soon.

No matter how you challenged these guys to a battle, they always leave the same way.

These followers of Bowser run the Puff Puff Machine. They're continuing their evil
plan to fill this fair land with clouds. Boy, Bowser and his goons think up the strangest ways to mess with our world, huh? They're really quite creative.

Yes, since you can talk to them, you can Tattle them. They may be creative, but that just makes them all the more deadly.

Spike will always be the one to say this line- if he's not out, he will jump out of your pocket just to say it.

You have to hit the thing until it breaks down. Various panels and doo-dads will fall off along the way. You have to hit it on both sides at least a few times- go until you knock something off, and then choose a side to continue hammering on.

You'll know you got it when you hit those delicate metal innards.

The Puff Puff Machine has been disabled.

And the Sun is ready to rise!

This is another cutscene that I think has a unique song, although I'm sure it's used somewhere else in similar circumstances.

I think we can afford a celebratory yippee for life as we know it returning to normal.

...You say that, but that rainbow was always there. Not sure why, but it was.

She says, planted under a shade.

And Petunia feels at ease with her lot in life. Not that much has changed about her situation.

And with that, Spike is happy to continue being Mario's pal. He's found something that makes him happy.

This is the song that plays when Flower Fields is sunny again. It's a bit more pleasant a theme, although again, confined entirely to the end of the arc and almost never playing.

What happened to the wall here? It looks like it collapsed. This place seems very different from the rest of Flower Fields.

Goombario has... well, less than you'd expect Tattling in this room. It's weird, I thought he'd comment on the Puff Puff Machine too.

The Bub-Ulbs, of course, are overjoyed.

You do you, Bub-Ulb.

Petunia: After basking in this lovely sun for a while, I've noticed... that it feels good to grow! Even though I can't move, I'm completely happy right here!

Posie: Now that the sun has returned, the Crystal Tree and I are filled with new life. I heard that it's all because of you. Thank you.

Lily: The sun is shining. And I am floating. Oh... I'm... so... happy!♥

Rosie: The sunlight glittering on this Crystal Berry is really quite striking, you know. I love all things beautiful! And yet, no one realizes how hard it is to be so gorgeous...

The reactions of the various flowers we met. If the game wanted me to check up on them, it wouldn't have made the chapter so full of backtracking to each one.

Hey!!! I heard that you're the guy who broke the Puff Puff Machine! Thank you so much! Thanks to you, Flower Fields has blue skies again. And I can shine once more! Speaking of shining, I'd better get back up into the sky! All those flowers are waiting! See you! Bye! Good luck!!

The Sun will come down and chat if you go visit the Sun Tower. Speaking of, in a competitor for "most remote song ever", we have Happy Sun. The Sun Tower's unique theme has been replaced with an upbeat unique theme, one that no one will ever hear unless they felt like speaking to the sun again. There are no items in that room to go back and grab, there is nothing worth visiting in that screen, but it has its own unique song now.

Posie: What do you think? Pretty, no? Gorgeous and fascinating! Hee hee hee! Who, me? No, not me. I'm talking about this Crystal Tree. It grew from a seed that Petunia gave me a long time ago. The soil here is so fertile that the tree grew this big. Petunia has a lot of rare seeds, but she never plants them. What a waste, huh?

Posie: Petunia heard that I planted the Crystal Tree, but she wasn't angry at all! Weird! I wonder who changed her view? Maybe you did...

While I'm looking through miscellaneous Flower Fields dialogue, I stumbled across these lines of dialogue from Posie. I never knew Petunia gave Posie the Crystal Tree's seed. Although I feel like both of them require being exactly where they are, which makes me wonder how the exact process of "giving the seed" happens. The easiest answer is probably "a "Bub-Ulb is involved."

Some sort of pink gem seems to be floating on the water. Is it the tear of an angel? No, it's not. Her name is Lily. She's a beautiful, tragic flower fated to be unhappy. See the reflection of her face? She wears a brave smile... but if you remove the veil of petals one by one, you'll find Lily's soul is wet with tears. Don't cry, Lily. Crying will never free you from the bonds of this spring... It's no use... Unless perhaps you cry so much that all of Flower Fields is flooded and you can swim free...

Also Lily has the same issues as Petunia. Although the sun clearly didn't help her perspective there. Sucks to be a flower...

Our next stop is Wise Wisterwood, who has a tree-mendous pun to celebrate our efforts.

You have to do this talk to be able to start planting. This is probably what's stopping you from trying before you restored the sunlight.

Now then, three items, and you need to make sure you put them in the proper order.

Soil, Seed, Water. The order they are listed is the order you obtained them in- in randos, this can be in any random order, and I feel like you have the option of pulling it off in the vanilla game too just by grabbing Berries and moving on rather than picking up the key items as intended. Then again, they may have thought of that.

Fortunately, we don't have to put in any in-game time to let this beanstalk grow.

Although you do have to watch it go all the way up.

The path to Huff N. Puff is now open!

...Notice how that was the only objective we got the whole chapter?

Oh, it's just a beanstalk, you massive oak.

This leaf rises like an elevator. Although you have to watch it go all the way up this screen, the screen with the fancy food clouds, and then hop off on the Climb.

Welcome to Cloudy Climb!

Wow! We're in the clouds! We're floating! It feels comfy, but I just don't quite trust it. Mario, am I sinking? Am I?

Don't worry, there'll be no falling off for us. Or through, either.

This cloud can be used as an elevator. I feel like you have to Parakarry onto this cloud, but you might be able to make a jump. I don't like taking that chance.

Super Jump Charge (2 BP) allows Mario to increase the power of his Jump by 3 Atk for 4 FP. This is an amazing move in comparison to Smash Charge- +3 Atk translates to +6 damage with a Jump, and even more if you choose to make that Jump a Power Bounce. I'm not fond of it, but this can make you do more damage than an equal number of uncharged Jumps would.

Speaking of Jump upgrades, there is one more you can find. I am choosing not to.

Onward, we go...

...Cloudy Climb is just for the boss fight. No dungeon, crawling through Flower Fields was enough of a dungeon for the devs. Also, bringing out the sunlight was too much of a rewarding climax for an entire dungeon afterwards.

Here's what I'm packing for our battle with Huff N. Puff.

All you need to do is approach the weird mound in the middle.

He's going to hang around in this cloud for the pre-battle talk.

Also, his pre-boss theme catches that suave tone Spike was trying so hard and failing to manage. You can really tell how Spike fell in for this guy's rhetoric and general demeanor.

And all of this could've been avoided had you set up shop, say, in the Chapter 7 area, where the people like it chilly.

I don't think it's my intellect that stops me from understanding.

Huff N. Puff will say this only if Spike is your currently active partner. Spike won't actually react to it, but it is worth mentioning.

...Actually, it's this whole ending bit. I thought it was a minor addition, but I guess not.

I must tell you, King Bowser ordered me to defeat you if you showed your face... but I'd take you down even if it weren't a direct order! You cloud-destroying pest! You can't save the Star Spirit! Gahh ha ha ha ha ha!!! Here comes the storm!

I feel like this line works better, although that might be helped if Spike gave him something to bounce off in response to the unique line. Perhaps they didn't want to force Spike out for any reason.

This is Huff N. Puff. He's a giant cloud monster. Max HP: 60, Attack Power: 5, Defense Power: 0. His thunder attack is very dangerous. If you don't defend, you'll take massive damage. When you attack Huff N. Puff, little clouds called Tuff Puffs come out. Their number is based on the amount of damage you do. If you leave the Tuff Puffs, Huff N. Puff will swallow them up and restore his HP. You need to use smart tactics to beat this guy, Mario.

Huff N. Puff (Lv. 80) is no joke, as funny as that face is. This guy is often considered the hardest boss in the game, and with good reason. Every time you damage him, a number of Tuff Puffs equal to the damage you dealt will spawn, and Huff will occasionally (by which I mean frequently) inhale them and restore his HP equal to the number of Tuff Puffs are on-screen. Yes, this means that a thoughtless attack pattern may be heal-looped- and since Tuff Puffs attack before Huff heals from them, you're on the losing side of that arrangement. This guy is resistant to Electro Dash, not that Watt was really the partner of choice for this fight.

Huff's attacks are a generic body slam for 5 damage, a gust of wind for 7 damage that you have to mash down to 2-3, a mighty ground pound that deals 5 + 2x damage, (where X is the number of Tuff Puffs he has) he'll only use at low HP, an electric charging move, two varieties of lightning dealing 12 and 10 damage, and of course, his Tuff Puff Swallow. Fortunately, Huff himself loses his action when he heals. Small comfort.

Huff N. Puff's battle theme, Huffin and Puffin, is a fan favourite. Mixes that coolness charm of the character with the tempo you need for a boss theme, and add in how it fits a scary battle you have to be on your toes to win, and it's certainly one of the game's best tunes.

Huff N. Puff has one major weakness- the Star move Chill Out.

To add insult to injury, he misses his first attack.

These are the Tuff Puffs that break off when you damage Huff N. Puff. Max HP: 1, Attack Power: 2, Defense Power: 0. Tuff Puffs will fly over and attack you directly. You have to shake them off you using the action command or they'll keep on damaging you. Huff N. Puff will swallow the Tuff Puffs to restore his HP, so think carefully when attacking. You can beat the Tuff Puffs easily by attacking all enemies.

Tuff Puff (Lv. 1) will go down to anything you hit them with, so any screen-clearing attack you have will control the number of Tuff Puffs on the screen. Their attack deals 2 damage... multiple times. And it will only end when you finish button mashing- if you don't resist, it's an infinite attack. Or, well, it'll always hit 33 times.

Anyway, time to demonstrate the reason Chill Out is so powerful: Any Tuff Puffs that spawn after you use Chill Out on Huff will still suffer the Atk penalty. Chill Out, as you may recall, reduces enemy Atk by... 3. If you keep Huff under Chill Out, you can ignore the Tuff Puffs as a source of damage and negate the advantage he has with the heal loop. You're on your own figuring out how to break that, but this is so helpful that it's not much of an issue.

The first time a Tuff Puff tries to attack, you get this cute little skit.

...Wow, Pretty Lucky coming in handy this fight.

Here's the wind attack. Button mash the way all up, and...

Huh, I button mashed to the point the wind stopped. Thanks, Chill Out!

As much as I've been needling Spike about how any boss with 0 Def is no match for Bow, Huff's whole gimmick does put a damper on her. So long as you have a plan, though, you're free to smack.

There is one saving grace for the particularly powerful attacker- Huff can only have so many Tuff Puffs on screen at once. If he's full on Tuff Puffs and you attack him again, the new Tuff Puffs will immediately fall away, and he won't remember them when he tries to heal. You can brute force your way past the healing loop, but he still gets like 20 HP from full capacity Tuff Puffs.

Any screen-clearing attack will hit Huff as well as the Tuff Puffs, and because of the way screen-clearing attacks work, Huff will always be able to spawn new Tuff Puffs with the damage you deal. That's worth it, though, to get rid of all the Tuff Puffs from a mighty Jump, Fan Smack, or indeed, Power Bounce.

Putting Super Jump Charge right before him was the game giving you exactly the tool you needed to skip the gimmick entirely.

Here's the Tuff Puffs demonstrating the fact that, under Chill Out, they're useless. You don't even need to mash- after two hits, they'll realise they're idiots and fly back. That won't stop them trying, though.

And there's Huff healing up. 4 HP and not 6? Wonder how that happened.

Anyway, back to Bow.

Sounds like he's readying up that charge attack of his...

What made you think that was going to work?

...Oh yeah, you're a different Tuff Puff to the last batch.

And here he is with his angry face. Obviously, he's Electrified, and he will contact damge you if you try anything of the sort. More worrying is that 10 or 12 damage attack he's about to fire. Now, I do have Bow...

OK, first of all, he's done being in Chill Out, and I need to fix that...

I figured Spike deserved a turn in the fight.

This still hit, for a certain definition of such.

But the lightning strike didn't! Go, Cloud Nine! Prove that you can be good in the right hands!

...So close. If I was willing to seal the deal with Bow, I could win this turn.

But I figured it was Spike's turn to win. I made a bit of a misplay here, if I am to be honest- since the Tuff Puffs go down to any screen clear, you can flick the control stick back once, throw one Spiny Egg, and still do 1 damage to everything. In this fight, that's not an expression of how bad Spike is, but exactly what you want. I still haven't forgiven him for being bad in every other fight, though.

Huff has noticed he has landed on 5 HP- a serendipitious number. If you're winning the Huff fight, the odds aren't in your favour of this- you probably figured out how to knock him down to 0 from a higher value.

Huff has one more trick up his sleeve.

And that's his Tuff Ground Pound. It's such a remote attack, because of the "I only use it on death's door" clause, so I'm glad I got to show it, but I could've avoided it if I did the weak Spiny Surge trick.

Also, fun fact, that's the only hit I took in the whole fight. Everything else was dodged or blocked.

When Huff dies, all the Tuff Puffs go with him.

Also, if you get Huff to low HP and have ambitions about having Bow do less than the full amount of Smacks, don't. For some reason, that makes the game angry and you will crash the game. It's probably something to do with the special animation for killing the Tuff Puffs.

No level up- we got one coming in. Klevar will full heal us anyway.

Sorry, Huff.

You did.

It's a very blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot, and it seems I have, but Huff explodes into Tuff Puffs when he dies and blasts away.

So it is that Mario and party defeat cruel cloud Huff N. Puff and set free the sixth Star Spirit. The thick clouds that once cast dark shadows have gone, and Flower Fields is bathed in sunshine again. A single Star Spirit waits to be rescued, waits to take its place in the Star Sanctuary. Perhaps you will see Princess Peach soon... Perhaps... Just wait and see. Kammy Koopa, who watches impatiently from Bowser's Castle, is waiting, too... for you to try to save them...

After winning against Huff so cleanly? Bring it.

Next time: Peach's coolest segment.