Part 38: Update Thirty Seven: Bowser's Keep: Redux
Last time on Super Mario RPG, we found out that we'll have to take the bus, then went side-questing. Today, I'm going to make the thread title make sense and we'll meet some old friends and do a lot of other shit. Strap in, kiddies, we've gotta get this show on the road.
Before we go too far, though, we're heroes, right?
Let's take a moment to relax in the hot springs.
...Is it just me or is it a little toasty in here?
Alright, Mario's O-Face has been shown off. Let's get to the bus!
Head up these stairs...
Whoo-hoo! Let's go take back a castle from a gigantic sword!
Yeah, he's here. What of it?
"No, it's not part of the bus route until Friday!"
This bus better be good. I named my thread after it.
There you go folks. Wasn't naming my thread after a single mode of transportation that's 90% of the way through the game worth it?
I think my favorite part of this is the driver's hat. Or his mustache.
I like this guy. Ask him to take us straight to the enemy's stronghold and he's all, "Whatthefuckever, I'm drivin' the BUS!"
Could you have found a more
hop, Mallow? 
See, look at Mario. He's leaping onto that bus.
I'd say insert your dramatic music here, folks, but...
...somehow, I don't think it'd fit.
It just floats so lazily over to Bowser's Keep.
I don't know how these people knew we were coming here. Or how they got here, considering it's probably extremely dangerous for all of them.
Now, if you look at the Keep, you can kind see Mario and the Bus at the entrance.
And in we go. Let's do this shit.
But, first, a message from the Lord of the Keep.
Fuck yeah! Let's do this!
The beginning layout is the exact same as it was at the beginning of the game. However, these turtles are new.
180 HP, with good stats across the board, this is the only room where we encounter these guys. Sure, they're just the Terrapins with a red shell and higher stats, but it's a nice little detail.
Bowser is not amused, however.
Rewards aren't too shabby for just one of them. This room wouldn't be a bad place to grind, honestly. Here's the rewards from defeating three of them, for example:
25 experience isn't too bad, for how easy these encounters are.
The next room, still identical, has lost the
fireballs but has gained these sickly green Goombas.
The Gu Goomba, proudly supporting 132 HP with crap stats. They can also poison you with Thornet, if they feel so inclined.
Generally, they don't live long enough to do so. This Star Cruster here, however, can put you to sleep. It's another in the line of high Defense, low HP enemies, with 72 whole HP to its name and 145 Defense.
The Keep is pretty profitable, experience and cash wise.
This bridge is still out, but at least they have something up to help you cross.
In this room, there are green shelled Sky Troopas.
And the Gu Goombas rush you when you go far enough down the path.
The Forkies are just Jawful 2.0. Instead of sleeping, they're enraptured. When attacked, they come to their senses. With 350 HP and 170 Attack, they can hit pretty hard, and have access to Storm.
Worth it, however. Expect levels to go up here.
If Bowser is in battle and a the Goombas, Terra Cottas, or one of these Malakoopas (95 HP, good Defense, crap everywhere else) acts before him, Bowser simply scares them out of battle. Even working for the bad guys, Bowser is still bad enough to terrify them to no end.
Look at him go!
Meet the Heavy Troopa 2.0. High Attack, 500 HP, they're just palette-swapped Heavy Troopas and about as dangerous as their previous form.
Instead of leaping to the chandeliers, this time, we're going through this statue.
It leads to a very dark backroom. I hate it when games do this shit.
Enemies patrol around here, often just out of sight. Mario, you can shoot fireballs! Light the damn room!
It's a small room, though.
This is the only split path, and it's very short and straight to the point.
There's a Gu Goomba behind Mario in this shot, and you can see the shadow of a floating chest just ahead.
Defeating that Goomba gets Mario to level 26, and gains +3 Magic Attack on top of it.
The chest is nice, too. You can't actually see what comes out of it, but this familiar green flash is enough to let us know what it is.
Heading the other way, we see two Gu Goombas behind the statues ahead.
And a Goddamn Malakoopa fucking up my shot of jumping over the first Goomba!
Try and jump over that second one, though, and it knows your bullshit trick by now.
It may have been tricky, but it bled like everything else.
Croco? Didn't I kick your ass hard enough back in the Mines?
Bwuah?
I don't remember seeing the scene where Croco becomes helpful to us. I can't even begin to imagine why he would be helping us.
Oh, wait, never mind. He's useless.
This next room holds six doors; two are "action" rooms, where we must platform and make it through with a limited number of "tries" (i.e., lives). Two more are "puzzle" courses, in which our brains are tested to get through. The last two are "combat" courses, where our brawn will guide us through.
I missed the two combat courses this time.
We need to get through four of them to continue on; next update, I'll show off the two I didn't do this time. For now, we'll be doing these things sequentially, starting with 1.
Ah, it's an action room. Our 10 tries are lives, basically. If we fall in the lava, we're sent back to the start, with one less try to use.
They basically test your platforming skills. There's also treasure all over the place.
I think this makes seven or eight of these things in my inventory. The treasures here are all high-end stuff like this, too.
Next room, we avoid the bombs and need to use this ball to get to the door. We can also use it to grab the chests that are scattered around this room, on the platforms and to grab the Coins. I ignore the Coins, though. You'll see why later.
I'm sure you expected me to bitch about this. Pick Me Ups, are far as revival items go, are a lot better than your standard Phoenix Down affair; they restore someone with full HP, so they're actually pretty nice. This group, even though I see no danger coming for them, would need these if one of them fell in battle and I needed them back immediately.
And if you touch a bomb, you get blown to bits. I don't know if you actually lose any Coins, or how many you'd lose here, but let's pretend that didn't happen.
The next platform holds this Flower.
Then a single target, full heal item. Nice.
Rock Candies are awesome. They hit every enemy at once, and deal a guaranteed 200 damage to them. Plus, it's really easy to hit their "Freebie!" and get another to replace what you used.
And we finish off this room with another Flower.
In this room, stand on one platform, and the other slowly rotates around you. It's as boring and tedious as you think it is.
There's also a ton of fucking chests around.
However, these two were the only two worth showing off. I also found a Fire Bomb, an Ice Bomb, and a Pick Me Up or Max Mushroom.
And we're done with our first course!
Mallow's ultimate weapon. I was kind of hoping for another frog-themed stick.
And on to Door #2!
Son of a bitch! Puzzle room!
I couldn't think of a good way to explain that, so I let Dr. Topper do it for me.
It's not as hard as some (fucking Strange Journey
), so this isn't nearly as much bullshit as it could have been.
It's down in the bonus video section, if you're interested to see how this goes down.
I, on the other hand, don't hate you guys enough to show you the process and tell you, "Yep, then I grabbed two coins! Then he grabbed two!"
We've all seen a puzzle like this before. We just gotta hop around until all the buttons are depressed; pressing on switches that one and the ones around it from on to off and vice versa.
There's a video of me doing a terrible job below.
I wasn't kidding when I said it was terrible.
Seriously, it's like watching a monkey try to fuck a football; I'm doing a whole lot, but not getting anything done.
Kick ball, remove ball, end up with one. We've all seen that peg game that does the same thing, right? Probably at Cracker Barrel or something?
Same concept here. Video below.
I do better at this one, so it's not quite so painful to watch.
Yessir, easy as 1-2-3.
Our prize at the end of this is another Rock Candy. I'll get around to showing this off, eventually.
Door #3 is next.
Another action room! This one's gimmick is that when you jump, you reveal the path over the lava. Otherwise, it's invisible. Same deal as last time with tries and lava, though.
Those Terrapins jump randomly, revealing the floor, and head toward the exit. Follow one to get out quickly, or take your time and reap the rewards.
The rewards which are crap, cool, crap and awesome, respectively.
And we can leap from the end of the path there to the door.
The trick here is that these platforms move back and forth constantly, some coming close to one another. Jump over to them, don't fall in the lava, collect treasure. Pretty basic, and I believe Indiana Jones would approve.
Not too bad. With one of these, Mallow won't have to waste his turn using Healing Rain. Though, he's still my weakest attacker, so he wouldn't waste his FP using it!
Invincibility for three turns? You shouldn't have!
Flowers are always nice.
And whoopdy Goddamn doo.
Ten tries to jump and move across featureless platforms?
Well, okay. This must be a breather room.
Never mind, some asshole is throwing barrels at me!
When I find him, I am going to beat his monkey ass!
Son of a bitch, he's quick. He almost got me there.
Oh, hey, throwbacks! Hello, monkey!
It's probably best to be afraid.
That face of his is hilarious to me.
And our treasure here is
Last door of the day, I swear.
Fuck me!
No, it's answering questions. Who needs a tutorial for that?
Jonathan Jones. Answer right, and the platform is raised up a notch; incorrectly, it lowers. If it hits the floor, you lose.
Who is the photographer in Marrymore, Topper?
They're fucking carrots. Get out of my face with this easy shit.
...You're retarded, aren't you? It's Johnny. He's a shark pirate, how am I supposed to forget that?
Topper! I know you have harder questions than this! She was looking at flowers!
Torte! 
It's Toadofsky! Enough of this bullshit, Topper!
Of the three answers, the first one here was Toadosfky, then the second one was Toadofsky. Tricky fucker.
...
...Uh...Fuck. You're good.
BUT THEY'RE FUCKING BLUE!
And get out of my Goddamned way!
Guess how many fingers I'm holding up, Topper. I'll give you a hint; more than one, less than three.
Okay. Am I supposed to remember how many there are, for ten seconds, while keeping my eyes closed?
According to Explosionface, he actually added two. I saw one disappear and still got the right answer, so I just can't count! v
v
Well, folks, how many are there?
14, you tool. I was pointing at it!
What are you going to do, add five and act like Einstein would be stumped by this shit?
Now, that's a lot of fucking barrels.
45 to be precise.
Actually, yeah. It's kind of difficult, I'll give you that, but nothin' too bad.
Combat? You shouldn't have!
A logic puzzle!?
Fuck! I'm terrible at these.
I'm more impressed your feet can reach the pedals.
...Good job, Bones.
in the swimming event.
Alright, guys, I'll give you a few minutes to puzzle this out, then I'll reveal the answer in spoiler tags. It's not hard but, if you're someone like me, logic puzzles don't exactly "click" with you.
Either way, answer coming up soon.
From how I see it, Goo is first.
Kipp came in second.
Followed by Boo.
And Bones came in last.
You bet, Doc. I'm pretty sure on this.
Well, folks at home, am I right!?
Of course I am.
Thank you, sir.
I liked it better when you gave out weapons.
...This isn't good.
Quickly, Mario, throw yourself at the ground and miss!
Or not. Panic and reach for the door is also an acceptable action.
Well, we ain't gettin' back up there, huh?
Magikoopa!
There's something off about him.
And he engages us in a fight.
Magikoopa, as you can expect from his name, is a magical powerhouse. On everything else?
Well, I think this shot says enough. He has 1600 HP at max, by the by, which I forgot in this fight.
Seriously, this animation is fucking sweet.
This was the sole action Magikoopa got to perform this fight; he also has a ton of the other magic spells that we've seen through the game.
Magikoopa can be a tough son of a bitch. I didn't intend to breeze through this fight like I did, to be honest. I was actually expecting a bit of trouble here.
But, uh, yeah. He can also summon other monsters into battle, including Bahamutt, Jinx Clones, a King Bomb (the massive one we encountered back in the Moleville Mines), and a few others that I can't remember. I didn't mean to sell Magikoopa so short there, but he can be a decent challenge, if you're unprepared for him.
Actually, you know what? Fuck him. 10 experience? You're a damn end-game boss, Magikoopa!
Oh, hey, Mallow hit level 26, too, with an additional +2 to Magic Attack.
Sure, it's kind of a quiet effect, but I still thought it looked neat enough to gif it up.
Understandably, Magikoopa is a little confused right now.
But extraordinarily chill, considering the circumstances.
Yeah, asshole, you did! :argh: ONLY TEN EXPERIENCE!?
Okay, but I'm only doing it because Bowser said so.
Yeah, he kind of does.
Ooh! Free level ups for everyone?
...Jesus Christ, Magikoopa! You just destabilized an entire economy with a single flick of your wand!
If we run up and talk to him, he heals our HP and FP to full, for free.
Yeah, thanks, just said that.
It works like so. Yay green flash!
...Destabilizing economies, one coin at a time. Well, at least it's bottomless.
You do remember I could just beat you up and take these things?
And I don't have to be not shooting you with fireballs.
Everyone's ultimate armor, barring the Lazy Shell and Super Suit. If you'll notice, Bowser's ultimate is the "Heal Shell". I've heard that in the original Japanese, it was the "Hell Shell" and it'd be great if someone could confirm or deny this.
Either way, we're all suited up now.
And ready to take a break! Next time, we'll take back Bowser's Keep! Stay tuned!
Bonus Video
Quiz Room One!
Quiz Room Two wasn't interesting enough to warrant its own video. The reason I bring up the menu for a brief second in that video is because someone started talking to me and I thought I was going to have to scoot off for a bit, but I didn't.
Jesus Christ, 200 images!