Paper Mario is proving to be a great wind down game. It's just so relaxing and generally chill.
I've just beaten the chapter with the Shy Guy's Toybox nonsense. I farmed some Cake Mix in there for when I get some Melon from the island later. Gotta make Yoshi Cookies and Shroom Cakes.
My Mario has been overpowered in terms of damage and moveset since the end of chapter 2. I've just racked up a lot of badges and emphasized points to wear them and flower points to use the moves a ton. I have one badge that gives me an additional extra point in damage if I stick the action command, which I always will. I also have another that gives me a flat point of damage. So my double jump alone does way more than it's supposed to. I can run through enemies, and I do fight most of them. There's even another badge that gives me another point of damage negation for successfully blocking, and another to make timing that stuff more generous. Been wearing a badge that gives me money for items used in combat throughout the whole playthrough, so I always have lots of coins to buy the best stuff from the badge shop. I generally use Tayce T.'s cooked items for better value and properties, boosting it up. Ingredients you buy can be cooked into items that allow you to recoup the cost of with the payout badge. So I just make and use lots of consumables to drive a Mario with little in HP, but a lot of force to throw around different ways. Play around with lots of different badge setups.
I figure if I just don't have enough HP at some point from barely investing in it, I have already collected 3 HP Plus badges, which give a level's worth of hp[5] for a level's worth of bp[3]. So I can exchange some of those levels invested in wearing badges to make Mario tankier dynamically. But I tend to favor strategy for avoiding those big hits.
I've been running into this guy a lot while doing the different fetch quests available in places you've already been when you are first allowed to go to the island. Boosted my star point collection up quite a bit.
Something like 14 from that. I was diligent collecting all of them I could find elsewhere, for the most part. You can find more in panels you recently got the ability to ground pound. The Koopa Koot favors are worth doing, he occasionally gives out a whole 3 star pieces. You can get at least a dozen from him. Delivering the letters nets lots of star pieces, too. There's also a long chain letter worth tossing around till the end of it, you get the Lucky Day badge, which is OP as fuck because it gives you a 25% chance for total damage negation. You can add Pretty Lucky, a cheap tradable badge to up the odds further and become pretty hard to hit.
By the end of chapter 3, I already had 25, which is enough to trade for a Power Plus badge early. It costs a whopping 6 badge points (2 levels' worth,) but if you've invested in BP early like I have, you can equip it for a +1 damage boost, which is great in this game. It's like being able to do the damage of Mario's best boots, which aren't available till the tail end of the game. Again, you can pair that up with other boosts to do massive damage. For just 2FP, I can do a quake hammer that hits every ground/ceiling enemy for 4 damage. Metal hammer does 7. Double jump can do 8. When it would usually do 4. It's already pretty endgame. This is fairly 'big block' turn-based combat... as in the turn-pacing is fast with battles turning over in just small handfuls of turns. So you gain huge advantages by doubling your damage per turn.
There are several great badges to trade the star pieces for. They seem rare, but they're surprisingly common. As of starting chapter 5, I have another 24, and I've already traded in at least 32.
I've also been taking advantage of unlocking the ability to combine items as ingredients. Back in Dry Dry Desert, Chapter 2, I collected a bunch of dried fruit. I actually have like, 5 tucked away.
Kind of a rare drop from the Pokeys in the desert. I fought a good like, 15 (at least) separate battles while exploring to get 5 of them. I was geared-up to do that quickly and efficiently. Just on their own, they're a great item to have. They heal 15hp in a time when the best item you could otherwise get heals just 10. So it's appealing to use. But like the precious Whacka's Bumps, it's worth holding onto until you unlock the full range of recipes. At that time, you can spend another 3 coins on some Dried Pasta and make a Dried Fruit into a Yummy Meal, which heals an excellent 20hp/fp. [fwiw, the Whacka's Bump combines with Strange Leaf to make Deluxe Feast, one of the best overall recovery items in the game at 40hp/fp.]
I'm only making 3 for now, and it's just one of several very good healing items I can make multiples of with the ingredients I've saved up. There are a range of items that will heal similar amounts of one or the other which can be made more sustainably. Getting something that gives back large amounts of both is rare. A lot of other sustainable ingredients make this item more of a compromise to cook... some require an Ultra Shroom, which is pretty rare until chapter 6 and heals a full 50hp. Since I have up to 5 Yummy Meals for just 3 coins each right now, I'll burn through them in battle on the island and rack up double digit coins each time I use one for a net profit. Again, I can already make a ton of other stuff lol.
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) Currently at Avengers: Infinity War. Tony Stark is my new hero.
