PM Chapter 3 Part 2: The Heartless Giant's Torment

Just past the windmill is the literal ghost town of Gusty Gulch.

It's desolate and uninhabited by all but a few ghosts, and the only reason that's unusual is because it's less ghosts than usual.

...Wow, Bow is ready. About the reaction one expects from someone who's main attack is slapping the enemy silly.

He has a place of residence. This question doesn't seem to have much relevance for us catching the guy. Maybe it takes him time to come down here, but it doesn't take us long to walk there.

It's worse when they have names. Even if we've literally never met Herbert before in our lives. Still, though. Hubie will be missed.

Bow doesn't want anyone else to... pass on, and promises the Boos that her secret weapon will succeed.

PM Chapter 3 Part 1: The Enigmatic Mansion

So, do we just grab a Starman and have a fight where both of us are invincible?

We've been in Forever Forest before, and I believe we're acquainted with Piranha Plants.

Boy... The forest is really dark and spooky. People say that if you don't choose exactly the right path, you'll get totally lost. I can believe it. This looks like the type of place where you get lost and then monsters come out of the grass and... Hey! Did you notice that grass over there rustling? I swear I saw it move!

Goombario's Tattle. Goombario's Tattles are incredibly useful here, for reasons that'll make more sense in a bit.

For now, I'm showing off that Piranha Plants will take damage from Zap Tap. This is not the reason I brought it with me, but it's a huge help.

With Power Plus, I oneshot these guys anyway.

To get further into Forever Forest, you have to enter the path next to the shifting flowers.

Oaklie's back, and he's going to continue to try and keep us out of the forest.

All we need to do is have the Boos invite us over, and Oaklie takes us at our word. Early in development, Oaklie would have inspected you for an actual passport, but honestly, it's way funnier that he just smiles and nods.

PM Post-Chapter 2 Part 2: Running Some Favours

We're starting here in Toad Town Tunnels. We're going to be spending a lot of time here as we progress.

This Stone Block covers a great deal of treasures.

But first, we have to fight a promised boss. Why do I have Heart Finder and Quake Hammer? Presumably, we're really at a premium on good Badges. We're not quite at the point of having more good Badges than BP to use it on.

Squiddy, the sequel!

This is an Electro Blooper. Electro Bloopers are electro-charged. Max HP: 50, Attack Power: 4, Defense Power: 0. A bit of advice: When they're emitting electricity, it'd be a smart move to avoid contact with 'em. If you can manage to damage 'em while they're emitting electricity, they'll go back to normal. Their attack power when they're emitting electricity is 6. Let's try to be careful, what do you say?

Electro Blooper (Lv. 50) will be the second Blooper you fight. If you didn't go get Shrink Stomp, this room would be guarded by Blooper, and going back for Shrink Stomp would have the Electro Blooper fight. Electro Blooper is almost as simple as Blooper was- it can stomp you or spray you with ink, both doing 4 damage. Its new technique is to gain an electric charge, before unleashing a stomp move that does 6 damage. This electric charge has an important role to play in the fight.

No other Mario game uses "Electro Blooper", nor can I think of any that even associate Blooper with electricity.

PM Post-Chapter 2 Part 1: Failed a Spot Check

Now for a special transmission from Peach's Castle.

Bowser's come for another chat with Peach.

...And? How is that my problem?

(With that said, Peach's default sprite is smiling,so it's difficult to say what mood she was in when Bowser arrived. I don't think this is a question of graphics, just effort.)

"Some of whom have homes to go to!" Bowser's also holding off the cooking contest.

Back in 2000, his competition was Smithy. I'd honestly be tempted to give the win to Bowser in that comparison. Today, the Mushroom Kingdom has faced the Shroobs, Fawful, the Dark Star, and from a distance, Count Bleck. Bowser's gotten darker appearances, but he's small potatoes in comparison. Even if he's done it that many more times.

He's self-aware about how many times he's been at this business. "Before he showed up" is a long time ago.

Bowser recognises his equals, and expresses his solidarity with his fellow comic relief.

Bowser says this, but he doesn't ever seem to be responsible for which of the Star Spirit guardians I save next. I wonder if he knows what powers each one has- Tubba's Star Spirit might just be the best of them all, so maybe putting him in the protection of the most dangerous one was intentional. If he didn't turn around and "unleash" him on us now, our journey could've been that much harder.

Legitimately, I think Tubba Blubba might actually have the highest Atk power out of Bowser's boss picks. The Chapter 6 and 7 bosses might have him beat, but most of the later bosses really claim a higher difficulty due to the tricks they pull, rather than their strength.

Kammy has come to report some... bad news. It can only be good news for us, of course.

Paper Mario Chapter 2: The Mystery of Dry Dry Ruins

Chapter 2 takes the winning formula established by Chapter 1 and adds some extra difficulty to it, establishing fights that require using your fancy tools, like Clefts and Swoopers, and raising the stakes of everything else. It also introduces Super Blocks and the Super Hammer, showing off the actual offensive upgrades that the level up system isn't accommodating.

Mt. Rugged is a simple introductory area, giving us a partner early before we get to the desert. Interestingly, I think this makes Parakarry the party member who has the least to do with the Chapter he's found in. Kooper comes pretty close, but he makes up for it with his adoration for Kolorado, but most party members we'll get for the remainder of 64 and TTYD will care about the plot of their home Chapter. Parakarry's more important for his role in the mailman sidequest.

Into the desert itself, we have Kolorado himself and he's accomplishing a whopping nothing. In fairness, Kolorado is supposed to be this pathetic- he somehow has enough of a reputation that Kooper looks up to him and he's generally regarded positively, but as far as his role in this narrative is concerned, he's pretty pathetic and almost entirely comic relief. His main job is to be a major character in Chapter 5- this is a recurring trend in the Paper Mario trilogy, and Kolorado is the only one of these characters to appear beforehand. This might be a good opportunity to set up his character... if he had much of a buildup to provide. They didn't exactly give him much time for that anyway.

The mystery of Dry Dry Ruins has a neat setup, with a backstory and everything, but the Town Story is pretty... short. I mean, yes, if you know the steps you need to take, you can literally skip the whole thing the next playthrough, but still. Moustafa as Sheek is a nod to Ocarina of Time, and him looking for a nice guy to share the secret with makes sense, but because he doesn't actually know Dry Dry Ruins is in any peril, there are no stakes to the story. What's Moustafa's approval worth, when, at best, we're being positively compared to Kolorado? Somehow, I feel like there'd be a solution to both of these issues in one package, although if I don't exactly know what that is, I can't expect anyone else to figure it out.

Onto Dry Dry Ruins proper, Tutankoopa taunts us throughout the dungeon as we progress. Well, I say "taunt", but he's somehow even more pathetic than the Koopa Bros. The Koopa Bros. were clearly signposted as comic relief, but they hid keys in inconvenient positions, set traps that actually worked, and had a killer endgame move with the Koopa Stack. Tutankoopa... all he does before the fight is threaten us with curses he clearly has no capacity to back up, and his boss fight lacks the cool tricks of the Koopa Bros., using just raw damage and Chomp as backup. One of his attacks is finite and the other has a chance of backfiring. Paper Mario is a very light-hearted game, and Bowser himself is very pathetic when he's not wishing himself the power to say otherwise, but we've got actually threatening bosses in this game too. Sure, we've shuffled the easiest bosses first in the sorting algorithm of evil, but if we're three-for-three on "bosses making fools of themselves", we're establishing a tone that these more competent villains are compared against. These later bosses can all be said to have the same story of having their wish granted by Bowser in exchange for guarding the Star Spirit and doing evil, which connects the tissue, but tonally, we're also going to see them step up in terms of what they do with their power.

Mechanically, Dry Dry Desert's Super Block represents the first major choice to be made. Early-game, because you just don't have a lot of Badges, your Badge setup is pretty identical from run to run, so the Super Block is a good chance for some individuality. Even now, after giving Goombario a shot alongside Kooper, I'm still not sure what the optimal first partner upgrade is, and perhaps it's better that way. If multiple partners are helping in different situations, that's a good sign you can let player personality fill in. Super Blocks don't really get used in this way going forward, though- a bit of a shame, but they wanted you to have enough for everybody. The Super Hammer also adds some much-needed utility to an option that's fallen by the wayside: Outside Quake Hammer, Mario's Boots are just factually better than Hammer, so by giving the player the Hammer upgrades first, they keep it competitve. We are getting Boot upgrades, though, so this won't last long. They tried.

PM Chapter 2 Part 2: Dry, Dry Wit

Welcome to Dry Dry Outpost! A desert town filled with Mousers and tagelmust-wearing Toads. Mousers are enemies from Yoshi's Island, and they share similar (though not identical) appearances to Bandits. The Toads, meanwhile, are considered "Dryites", although I'm not sure if this means they're a different race or just a demonym- we don't exactly call vanilla Toads "Mushroomians".

Moustafa will be the main person of interest of this Town Story. When we find him, anyway.

The Dryite communicates the same information in song. More power to him.

This Dryite is kinda like a mini-Russ T. for secrets in Dry Dry Desert.

Hey! Guess what! Hey! Somewhere in the desert, there's a stone cactus. If you move 3 south and 2 west from there, you'll find something special hidden. I'm not sure how to find it exactly, though. You should go there, huh? Yeah!

The stone cactus is located in D4, the exact centre of the desert. Three south and two west puts us... G2, so that's the Attack FX C Badge.

Hey! Wanna hear something else? I know lots of other stuff! Useful stuff! Hey! If you get caught in a desert whirlwind, it'll blow you away and you'll get lost. Bandits are out there, too! They appear all of a sudden running really fast, and they steal people's coins! There are many tales. You'd better pay attention to them, too, because the desert is such an unforgiving place.

...OK, not really clues. I'd expect him to mention the Tweesters are reliable.

If you go south just after you leave town, you'll find an oasis. It's amazing... A paradise! I go there sometimes. If you want to take a rest, it's the best place to go.

The oasis is a key landmark to point out, yes, both for the Super Block and the Lemons and Limes. He also mentions the Heart Block, too.

Hey! Know what I heard? There are these three trees growing in a triangle somewhere in the desert. The rumour is that if you jump in the center of the triangle, you'll find something good. Only... I don't know where the three trees are... I mean, the desert is huge! I don't know everything...

More's the pity. These trees are located on tile C5, and the treasure he's talking about is a Badge. There are three Badges in the desert, and I think they hinted at all three pretty decently, all things considered.

There's always someone better, isn't there? This Dryite is the second NPC you can brag to about beating the Dojo.

Well then, why don't you go and fight Bowser's minions in the desert?