What are you playing? c'mon, tell me punk!

[E-Man]

I took on the entire Pit of 100 trials just now. I had a rough time on several floors and I was thinking I wasn't going to make it (even with my improved skills in Paper Mario). Up until now, I cleared that entire pit probably once or twice with a good amount of difficulty. In fact, I had to go through a fair amount of Jelly Ultras and Life Shrooms in the past just to get to the bottom. For this new run, while I did have several Life Shrooms on hand, I only had Super Shrooms and Maple Syrups to keep Mario alive. It didn't help that Zess T. is unable to take the cookbook I have on hand at this point in the game, so Maple Supers are out of the question. When I made it to floor 90, I already used two or three of my Life Shroom at that point and I could have left the pit just like that. Instead of leaving and restocking like a smart person would have, I took a risk and went deeper into the pit.

The rest of it was not pretty. There were enemies that chewed up Mario and his partner's health like candy. I had to run away from some fights to gather my bearings and abuse a trick that allows me to restore Star Power and use Sweet Treat when its ready. A gang of Swampires sent Mario and his partner to the brink of death and even caused a partner (I think it was Goombella) to use a Life Shroom automatically. To add insult to injury, there was even a fight where an Amazy Dayzee took a pop shot at Mario and Flurry for 19 damage (if I didn't guard, Flurry would have used another Life Shroom at that point). When I finally cleared out floor 99, I wasn't sure if I would stand a ghost of a chance against the bony dragon. Despite that, I mustered up whatever courage I had and used a portion of the small pool of recover items I had left to restore most of my party to full health. After equipping my badges (including a Power Plus P and a Jumpman badge), I expected the worst as I went down that pipe to take on Bonetail, or die trying.

As for the fight itself, well…

It turned out it was easier than I thought it would ever be!


Bonetail gave me trouble in the past, but I was very delighted by how manageable he is compared to some of the other fights in the pit (I'm looking at you, Swampire gang). Like all the other enemies I first encountered, I had Goombella Tattle the beast the instant I saw it. Then, once I changed her out for Madame Flurry (I had the Quickchange badge), I started a slightly long process of beefing up Mario with the Charge ability. Since I left Flurry in the front, she took most of the abuse from the dragon. Sure, Bonetail occasionally used his magic breaths to harm both Mario and Flurry, but Mario was mostly left untouched throughout this fight. It suited him fine because he needed to stay alive to keep spamming Sweet Treat to top off not only his health, but also Flurrie's health and the general FP pool. As I left Mario to heal the group and keep charging himself up, Flurrie was keeping Bonetail busy by chipping away at his health and restoring her own at the same time with Lip Lock (the Power Plus P Badge gives her five HP back per kiss). I originally wanted to save my Boo Sheets for Mario, but I think I only used one throughout that whole fight (I even got one from a Boo in the audience for free and there was even a Boo that made Mario transparent once or twice anyway). Besides, they didn't do much good since Mario was mostly untouchable throught that whole scrape. Heck, I was doing so good that I even swapped Goombella out to charge herself up and let out a nice string of Multibonks. Once she was on the verge of death, though, I swapped her with Flurrie to finish the job.

The thing about Flurrie is that She took about a large amount of life with her Lip Lock ability. She easily left the dragon with 90 HP and Mario didn't even have to harm Bonetail yet. Despite that, Bonetail did had a small advantage during the fight. When more than half of his HP was gone, he healed himself for 30 HP. Also, I didn't guard an attack of his properly and Mario and Flurrie was left frozen for a couple of turns. While Mario had plenty of HP to resist Bonetail (even when he was helpless in that ice block), Flurrie didn't stand a chance and ended up using my second to last Life Shroom. It was shortly after that (and getting a Star Jackpot that filled my entire audience) that I decided to let Mario loose and let Bonetail have it! Bonetail had about 90 or so HP at that point, but Mario let out a string of Power Bounces that dealt up to 37 attack points per hit and depleted the rest of his health in seconds flat!

With Bonetail out of the picture, nothing was stopping me from taking his Return Postage badge and running off from the pit like nothing happened. I know that badge isn't exactly worth it compared to how much trouble it was worth to obtain it, but I still equipped it anyway as a trophy of sorts. Now that I took out the hardest boss this early, I do not know what to think. it's natural for players to get Mario set up to the point where he can take on the pit once there's nothing else to do, but since I took it out early…

Aw well! I can still finish the entire game and make short work of any boss that gets in my way! I barely touched the Creepy Steeple, so I'm ready to give one of my favorite characters in the game a little surprise. >:)