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There are plenty of glitches in Paper Mario that allow us to refight bosses infinitely, attack invisible goombas underneath the map, even fight Bowser as Princess Peach... but what about glitches and oddities with the battle system itself? Well, that limits us to breaking the game's basic battle mechanics, but you might be surprised at the results!
0:00 Double Dip + Egg Missile Crash: This one is still not understood. Double Dip is integral to the crash, and similar enemies handle it fine, so it's complicated.
00:25 Goombario's Multibonk Glitch: Remember that Power Bounce formula from "Can Mario Defeat Bowser in 1 Turn?" Well, Goombario uses the same formula for his Multibonk. But it doesn't work right. The base value applied to the formula, 200, steadily declines as you bounce consecutively. The value is supposed to reset once you get capped, but in Goombario's case, it doesn't. He's stuck with a low base value for all future Multibonks until the value is reinitialized by switching him out or entering a new battle. This means you're extremely likely to get capped before he can manage a third hit, making Multibonk temporarily inferior to his Headbonk. How sad is that?
1:37 Hammer Throw Oddity: Recall the Monty Moles in Chapter 6, found harassing Petunia. Unlike every other enemy in the game, this particular enemy is weak to the Hammer Throw ability. Mario's normal hammer works normally. Throwing his hammer deals an extra 3 damage to them for no understood reason. If other enemies shared this hidden Hammer Throw weakness, perhaps the badge would've seen more use.
2:39 Up, Up, & Away Oddity: Fuzzipede has a weakness to Up, Up, & Away, despite being considered a miniboss. No other boss-like enemies have this property, and you're not supposed to have Up, Up, & Away when you fight him. Like the Monty Moles with a unique Hammer Throw weakness, Fuzzipede's Up, Up, & Away weakness begs the million-dollar question: why?
2:49 Fuzzipede Ceiling Glitch: Fuzzipede clings to the ceiling after landing a hit on Mario. It's kind of annoying because Fuzzipede promptly returns to the ceiling when struck. Because of this, there is a curiosity with Power Shock, since Fuzzipede is unable to move after being forced off the ceiling. Everything else is normal, unless you use Mario's Spin Smash ability. This tosses Fuzzipede back on the ceiling, still paralyzed, but the game hasn't properly updated Fuzzipede's battle position. Now Mario can perform a normal jump on ceiling Fuzzipede.
3:01 "Negative" Damage Glitch: Mario can equip charge badges and stack power increments to unleash a massive attack. 99 damage is Paper Mario's damage limit. Ice Power says otherwise. With Ice Power, Mario's attacks against fire enemies receive 2 bonus damage. Ice Power is likely not factored into damage calculations until the very end, since this is the only power-increasing badge that allows you to exceed 99 damage with a single hit. The game does not have a "101" and "100" available for display, and uses a placeholder negative sign. So "-0" is just Paper Mario's way of telling you 100.
3:09 Dizzy Attack Demo Glitch: Dizzy Attack can stun the frontline enemy as a first strike. It seems as though the developers programmed the first turn of a fight to check for Dizzy Attack, since something strange occurs if you die to a backline enemy on turn 1. Hang tight on the title screen, and you'll find that the demo reel's battles now behave as though Mario performed a Dizzy Attack first strike. The first few fights still behave correctly, but Tubba Blubba is supposed to attack you. With this glitch, the demo will not progress, so you can stare at Tubba Blubba forever.
4:18 White Clubba First Strike Oddity: A squad of White Clubbas are found guarding the Crystal Palace. Each one speaks to Mario before the encounter, but you can first strike them with Kooper and Bombette before they say a word. However, the first strike is canceled in-battle. Weird, right?
4:56 Dark First Strike Glitches: Battles that take place in the dark are not programmed to handle first strikes from Mario's partners, likely because the developers assumed everyone would use Watt to brighten the cave. Furthermore, without Watt illuminating the battle, Mario and his partner cannot target enemies. But if you use Bombette or Kooper to first strike an enemy, you will get strange results depending on the number of enemies in the formation.
2 Enemies: Bombette and Kooper strike the backline enemy instead of the frontline enemy.
3 Enemies: Bombette and Kooper strike themselves, but do not truly sustain any damage.
4 Enemies: On Virtual Console, Bombette and Kooper "miss" the first strike. On Nintendo 64, the game crashes.
Animated intro by TheSneakySpy: / thesneakyspy
Video Border by totallynotjon_: / totallynotjon_