Super Mario RPG Switch Remake - Low Level Part 9: Bundt

Channel:

MoogleBoss

Subscribers:

6,660

Published on December 17, 2023 6:42:42 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXWze-TRsRU

Game:

Super Mario RPG (1996)

Duration: 5:40

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24

Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c1MMIPTlZnOvI4eiDzyABR_

A boss battle that was so hard that it played like Hard Mode of Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne the first few times I tried it. The section when you face Bundt and Raspberry both at once and they frequently doublecast magic and wipe out everybody but Browser, halting all possibility of progressing the fight was obscenely gruesome, and nothing like the past fights in this challenge, forcing me to sandbag until I either got extremely lucky or ran out of resources like resurrection items or AoE heals.

...until I went to Tadpole Pond and paid up 5 frog coins to purchase a Party Bracer. A single use of the item ensures the party goes from being severely endangered by the multi-attack boss to very comfortably withstanding all of its assaults. Admittedly, I never had to try and survive a Chainsaw, the vicious single-target move, on Mario with Bracer in effect, but it does look like putting any effort into healing at all (which I neglect towards the end of the battle to get to the stage where Raspberry is left alone, getting Mario killed off) almost guarantees the party's survival.

The first stage is relatively simple: you time the blocks on the chefs' (nicknamed Torte) attacks while buffing up the party and using the Lucky Jewel, and eventually enough damage is incurred to plunge us into the second part of the battle.

Here, two kinds of MT magic inflicting Fear will be used in addition to regular physicals that are hard to block, Lullaby, which inflicts sleep, and Chainsaw, blocking which requires admirable command over the timing and which seems to result in 90 damage done whenever it's used. This is all excessive, though I've beaten runs without the Bracer used on the party. It's up for debate which status you want the party to be protected from. I go with securing myself against Fear, as that is set on the whole party whenever we survive MT magic, and it both increases damage incurred and lowers damage done. Lullaby, meanwhile, is single-target, and the allies of the one afflicted with the status can step in and provide aid.

Mario, on the other hand, is the weak link with his low stats, especially in the HP area, and foregoes both the Work Pants and status protection, going with Booster's Charm to halve elemental damage instead.

The difficulty here is using physical attacks (no, the multi-hit triple move the three possess cannot cheese through this) to snuff the candles to finish the second phase. Each turn the boss gets results in a candle lighting up again, so you can imagine what it's like when Bowser needs to revive the other two after a turn of nothing but magic spam, all while whatever progress we'd made on restoring the candles back is gone.

When the candles are all snuffed out and the boss is attacked once more, the next stage of the fight starts, with the Raspberry on its own. As we only get attacked once per turn here, this is the easy part, and I even sacrifice Mario to get past the candle stage faster. Mario is the least potent attacker in this fight, though Jump is actually super effective against the boss.

The best discovery made in the process? The odds of getting 0 exp after the fight thanks to the Lucky Jewel is 50% as opposed to the old 16%. We're always offered to double the exp, and it's 50/50 to land on the Wrong Yoshi egg. This is good news for the resetting to come in the future.

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