Laggy is the best.
Rose Way
Level 5 -> 6
Easier dungeon than the last, which is fine.
Starslaps are scrubs. I guess they heal occasionally. Shyguys manage some damage, though are unexciting. Not much to say about them, they aren't negligible. Snapdragons are less damaging generally but they'll sometimes put people to sleep. I assume. They went 4/4 on targetting the person with the Wake-up Pin so I never saw it. <.< Crooks are better because they're fast. Sometimes they run away, but sometimes they stick around and do decent damage off "goes first" speed, so they're kinda pests then.
The star of the dungeon (besides Starslap oh ho ho) is the Arachne which hits hard (unblockable 2HKO with Venom Drool) and even adds poison. They have pretty good def but Fire Orb roasts them, the first time I've felt that spell really worth using in a random so far.
Forest Maze
Level 6 -> 7
Awww yeah Beware the Forest's Mushrooms in its uninterrupted glory.
Rat Funks are back, coming in large packs. Unfortunately Thunderbolt doesn't actually OHKO them. Fortunately they mostly run away. Funny thing is they mainly do damage with poison now since defence is so much higher with Rose Town armour. A use for the Antidote Pin?
Thunderbolt makes Buzzers explode, but at least they're fast, so they're kinda this dungeon's answer to Gobies. Damage is bad but they have poison, uh more Antidote Pin potential hype I guess?
Wigglers are badass. Hit them physically and they power up and try to hurt you bad (they're not awful at damage before this). Don't trigger this and they'll use Sand Storm, MT fear, ow. They make for good fights and my first encounter with two kills me since I wasn't prepared for this kinda of upgrade.
Amanitas counter physicals! That's kinda cool. They turn people into mushrooms sometimes which would be more dangerous if they came with more dangerous enemies.
Guerillas hit pretty hard and have decent HP but nothing too exceptional. They do tend to be worth a Fire Orb. Octolots do magic damage which I like because we don't have enough of that in randoms so far (though the longer animation time makes this a defensible decision) and are a mid-range enemy in general.
Bowyer, like Mack, got a big damage upgrade, and the button disabling gives the battle its own interesting ripple. Geno Boost is cool but I forget the timing of it and Bowyer is pretty smart about dispelling it so it isn't as decisive as it could be and probably makes this battle harder than it has to be. It'll never be a joke, though, just because Geno is such a damn liability in this fight with that lack of armour against double/triple-acting, and he can't boost himself. I guess bringing in a Bracer would help, but I end up just doing the last half of the fight with just Mario and Mallow. It works.
Pipe Vault
Level 7
Optional dungeon woo. Anyway, the enemies pulled from Chapter 1 are awful but this doesn't need an annoucement. The new enemies are certainly competent, though, again continuing the trend of destroying Geno handilly. They're also physical tanks. Sparkies hit both defences for decent damage (yay), go before Mallow (sadface). Piranha Plants have both good damage and a couple decent status attacks to tie you up. Geno would be terrible here but he at least manages decent damage before he goes down, or can boost Mallow when I'm up against 4+ enemies.
Moleville
Level 7 -> 8 (Geno 7)
Hooray for new storeboughts! I don't bother with Work Pants for now. SLRPG is so far giving me a healthy opinion of defensive stats and the speed hit seems ill-advised.
Well with the new equipment upgrades Sparkies aren't quite the offensive threats they were, although they're not negligible outside and still draw some FP. Magmites are the same deal, anti-physical and not great damage, but not quite as bad.
Bob-ombs are interesting enough, they do some decent damage with self-destruct but are easy to kill first. Horribly bad if you fight them alone (which happens too often) but otherwise they present interesting decisions as to whether they're worth targetting. Enigmas have decent speed, decent damage, and add silence while doing said damage, so they're usually a high priority. Clusters mostly fail but they counter lightning with ID or something like that?
Sackits sometimes do high 2HKO damage off great speed, though more often run away. Their support is awful by this point so there's no reason for them to do their damage more than once.
Overall this is a bit easier than Pipe Vault or Forest Maze but not a total joke.
Croco's solid enough. He doesn't like Geno Boost as he has no way to deal with it, but his damage can still add up, especially on Geno, and your FP is finite. The fight probably hinges a fair deal on how much you go in with. I unloaded some damage but outside the two boosts (which are great) and HP Rain I didn't want to use too much. PSYCHOPATH was totally awesome in this fight so I knew exactly how much FP I needed to ration! Yes!
Punchinello apparently has Sand Storm but I didn't see it. He still managed to kill Mario with some focus fire at one point with the bombs actually deciding to do something, and my missing the timing on his Geno Boost. I had no Pick-Me-Ups but I used a Bracer on Geno and roughed out the fight well enough. Boosted Thunderbolt MT OHKOing the bombs except for the last ones helped a lot and made my not seeing Sandstorm not that improbably, it seems.
Booster Pass
Level 8
Short place but some good enemies with one particularly nasty one.
Spikesters hit fairly hard, especially when they use Funguspike, which also 'shrooms the target. Remember when I noted Amanitas would be scarier if they came with people who had damage? Yeah, that's the case here. They don't like magic too much at least. Carroboscis is mostly notable for great speed. They turn people into scarecrows which isn't bad since both they and Spikesters die well enough to magic, but they do lots of damage off their good speed so you don't want them to stick around too long.
Artichokers are the real monsters of this dungeon, though. Magical tanks who also counter magic with great healing (which has the added bonus of dissuading Thunderbolt while they're around), a nasty physical attack with bubble, and decent MT magic. Screw up taking out their allies efficiently and they'll choke you to death one-on-one (or possibly even one-on-two) as you flail ineffectively against their great HP. One-on-three's not so bad at least. Three resets here.
Booster Tower / Marrymore
Level 8 -> 9
Not too many individual notes here. I run with Bowser and Mallow because I like Thunderbolt and because Bowser's stats are pretty boss. Bowser can control any battles that threaten to be really nasty with Terrorise, to boot.
Spookums are okay. They can do some decent magic damage sometimes with their doubleacting, but sometimes they just do Drain once and aren't really much. Blasters die to Thunderbolt pretty badly. Fireballs are... fast, but really weak, so I guess that kinda works as a punishment since they're just traps. Similarly Rob-ombs are pretty fast and blow up, can do pretty good damage unless they target Bowser, see earlier Bob-omb comments. Jesters and Orb Users are mages but not too notable past that, Remo Cons are decent physical fighters with the associated downsides, Chomps can fear as well as fight. For some reason individual fights make less impression on me here and it's probably because the dungeon isn't super-long but has so many enemies so I don't fight any more than 3-4 times!
Snifits are pretty durable and kinda okay. They're a great source of Pick-Me-Ups! In the Booster fight they're another matter, three at once is very scary and if not for fear I'd have been seriously worried about winning with all the magic damage (argh Blizzard spam) they dish out, as well as silence. Booster himself is also pretty powerful despite being hit by fear! The fight itself draws 3 Pick-Me-Ups but I don't save anyway so who cares. Booster hates Fear and Super Jump, not much to say past that.
Knife Guy and Grate Guy, hmm. Really pretty easy when there's the two of them (thanks to fear). Sure, Grate Guy sleeps people which is annoying, but their damage isn't too impressive (Knife Guy's Static E deserves note for doing 1 to everyone!) so I'm able to largely manage even if things are kinda slow. They have dispel though just so you know Geno is an awful choice for this battle, I guess! Once I kill Grate Guy (since he seemed the more dangerous!), Knife Guy decided he wants to be way better and starts triple-acting with instant death (one per round but still), which is ick with the SLRPG revival situation. Yay for those Snifit Pick-Me-Ups? If I fought them again I would certainly try to kill them at the same time or near enough, since they really weren't too bad together. Checking the stat topic Grate Guy alone is even more evil, so...!
The cake is the cake. I dislike how long the sequence going into the fight is but nothing Laggy can do about that. Knowing that he's fear immune, I opt for a party of Mallow and Geno (I figure I could survive without Mallow but it would cost a lot of money). Geno Boost rocks, Geno himself is incredibly frail and I consider using a Bracer on him but nah. Unlike SMRPG I felt the cake got much more dangerous once reduced to just Raspberry, when he started getting more and more actions with the stronger part and throwing out MT fear, ew. Freshen Ups to the rescue! I leave Geno dead for the last stretch and do fine, Mallow eventually falls because ow Diamond Saw wasn't expecting that even though I should have been because he had it in vanilla and after reviving him he's quite frail too (FroggieStick would have helped here). Still, I prevail first try. Apparently I got a little lucky because I never saw Lulla-bye used in the triple-act phase and it shouldn't be that rare.
Used a total of three Pick-Me-Ups here (two against the brothers, one against the cake) but at this point I can afford them well enough.
Star Hill
Level 9
For some reason I thought this dungeon was longer, just two screens with enemies. Back to using the Mallow/Bowser party. Honestly, while there's a case to remove Mallow (two thunder-immune enemies in this dungeon), I'm uninclined to do so because it's annoying to constantly switch him or Toadstool in between battles for healing. I wish SMRPG let you cast spells with the reserve PCs but what can you do? And non-spell healing is just too cost-ineffective to do throughout a dungeon;it wouldn't be so bad if you had unlimited inventory for Mushrooms but you don't. Anyway.
Sackits are back, same deal as before really. They give lots of coins so I try to track them down.
Geckos are an unremarkable enemy who can inflict sleep while dealing damage, so they can't be taken completely lightly. Mastadooms are kinda badass, I see one do 60 damage to Bowser with a physical! What the hell man. They also null thunder, but Fire Orb shines against them. Pulsars are kinda weird. Physicals prompt them to use a self-destruct instant death counter which... actually isn't a bad way to get rid of them! Or you can jump them to death. Other magic doesn't work so well. Finally there are Mukumukus, who are seriously just annoying. They don't do much damage, and they waste lots of turns taunting you (the taunt takes like five seconds), but they're hard to hit so fights with them take a while if you don't feel like blowing FP on their weak asses.
Sea
Level 9 -> 10
Okay, let's talk about Zeostars and Leukos, specifically when they show up together. Zeostars respond to physicals by healing themselves, so unless you OHKO them (which I could with fear/boost but otherwise no) that's out. Leukos respond to magic with Solidify which is a solid MT attack. Their own turns aren't as bad but not negligible. You fight two of each at the same time, this is actually surprisingly nasty. You can't MT blitz them down because oh god Solidify counters twice. So you have to use a mix of physicals and ST magic. Not too bad once you know what to do but yeah. One reset here.
Mr. Kippers look like Gobies so I assume they'll suck. Wrong, ow, decently powerful doubleact physicals. Bloobers aren't as impressive relatively, I don't remember them much. Same with Crusties, who I mainly remember being the standard slow but strong enemy... but lightning weakness ensures they don't stick around too long.
Sunken Ship
Level 10 -> 11
Fun! Greapers, first of all. These bastards are fast (maybe twinked Geno goes first, didn't try), do lots of ST damage + fear or moderate MT damage as often as not. Sometimes there are two at a time. They often come with Reachers, who do some quite nasty physical damage (OHKOs are possible against the more physically frail), but are at least slow. Reachers are physically tanky but hate fire. There are also Gorgons, who are most notable for Willy Wisp having a low ITD 2HKO but otherwise are unremarkable. Straw Heads also accompany sometimes, but tend to die easily enough to Thunderbolt which they take lots of damage from.
Dry Bones will never die until struck by magic, and they null thunder. Unlike SMRPG (IIRC?) they need to be chipped down first, and their magical defences are decent, so this basically translates to 2HKOing them with very specific things. Notably they spoil cymbals Mallow a bit which not many things do so that's something? Anyway, Dry Bones + Greapers + Reacher (five enemy fight) is evil in particular. Two resets here. Terrorise is the best and generally saves my ass in these fights since enemies don't immune fear.
Alley Rats are fast, weak, run away, and poison. Sometimes they come with enemies who are actually scary though!
King Calamari isn't too bad. Mallow/Geno team. He fears people a lot but eh that isn't too bad. Boosted Mario and Mallow both OHKO tentacles with appropriate elemental attacks, Geno can toss items or Mario can heal. Calmari himself is a pretty standard SLRPG boss, not incompetent but up against boosted PCs nothing too special, either.
Hidon is surprisingly nastier, the Goombettes he summons can make short work of people with bad defence while Hidon himself tosses out decent magic damage, and in particular Willy Wisp. Complicating things is that Hidon is really damn tanky; nulls most elements, good defences (especially physical). I have one reset here, another kinda-reset as I win but use too many Pick-Me-Ups, and end up running Mario/Geno/Toadstool after upping their defences to something passable. Group Hug is great for recovering from the spread-out offence the enemies manage, Geno Boost is Geno Boost, and boosted Super Jump felt the best way to actually kill the bastard.
And then there's Johnny, who deserves note as a total troll boss. Leave Bandana Blues alive and they use Knock Out, which is still terrible (for you). Johnny himself is competent but nothing special, except for the turn you knock him below half HP, where he will act three times and one of those is OHKO damage. And you can't fear him any more, which I was somewhat counting on (Bowser is not a good PC in boss fights where fear is out). So ultimately, I came back with Mallow/Geno. Thunderbolt wrecks the Bandana Blues, Geno Boost is Geno Boost, and this makes Johnny's killer limit turn less disasterous by far. I actually didn't even see him challenge Mario to a duel, though if he had, Mario was boosted and he would be one action from dead anyway, so it's not a big deal. Super Jump dealt the main damage in this battle again.
Mario has been paying off somewhat in tankishness (mostly physical, he has mostly power boosts) and decent special damage despite little in the way of special boosts. He's unexciting but it feels like he has more of a niche in this game. Still wish you could take him out sometimes but so it goes. Mallow's the character I use the most and I guess I might argue him the overall MVP but Bowser is the best when fear works, which is pretty often.
Seaside
Level 11
I run a party of Toadstool and Geno for Yaridovich, and don't regret it for a moment (in fact I'm not certain how parties that lack Geno handle this fight unless they have way more money than me to afford lots of Bracers). Funny how one of the hardest fights in original SMRPG calls for the best party in original SMRPG.
Yaridovich alternates between two phases and both are nasty. During his spell phase he lobs Willy Wisp (OHKO ST) or Water Blast (2HKO MT) and follows it up with a Flame Stone regardless. Without boosted defence, um, ow. With, it's not so bad, although he can kill people if he catches them not fully healed. The mirage phase is generally scarier: it involves him summoning a mirage (which acts basically immediately, so the turn isn't wasted) and then having the mirage throw out doubleacting magic of various (weaker) flavours including the dispelling Lightning Orb, which Yaridovich himself uses doubleact nasty physicals (which are actually slightly weaker than in vanilla! Yeah whatever they OHKO if you don't block unboosted). Four actions to deal with are pretty nasty given how strong they all are; at least Lightning Orb comes late.
I found there was an interesting decision on whether to kill the mirage or not, and it varied with if I had the actions to do so quickly. After three turns the mirage goes away by itself (and this even causes Yaridovich to skip a turn), so there's a case to just wait for that instead of hitting the mirage. But killing it does get you back to the part of the fight where there's no Lightning Orb and missing a timed block isn't a concern. I liked the fact that the game made me consider the decision.
Overall, 1 reset, quite nasty. I actually thought I was going to win first try and generally cruised through the fight until it all unravelled towards the end, while on my second try I felt like I was going to lose far more often but then pulled through and won anyway. That's just the kind of fight it is. Probably one of the most enjoyable in SLRPG so far, but that's no real surprise. It was a fun juggling act of healing, MP healing (Yaridovich has a lot of durability, news at 11), boosting, controlling the mirage, and dealing damage.
Land's End
Level 11 -> 13
I should note right away that the hack has been changed since I played it, so take all comments here with a grail of salt.
This area kinda annoyed me and I'm trying to put my finger on why. Well, I have a pretty good idea actually. There is a particular fight with two Geckits, two Chewies, and a Shy Away which just felt borderline impossible, or at least without way too much luck. Five enemies all with way too high MDef, the Chewies in particular immune to status and dealing out doubleact high damage. Just felt like I couldn't make any progress.
The other fights were less bad but still frustrating because of "oh hey you used Bowser/Toadstool for status and lots of things start immuning it now" which is sadface. I just felt like if I approached a battle wrong I would lose lots of FP and either would have to reload or waste a lot of money. I dunno, it isn't as hard as the Sunken Ship outside that one fight probably but for some reason I was less in the mood for its style of challenge. Some of it was the frustration of dealing with too high enemy defences, some of it was the sheer length of the place, some of it is just wanting something breezier after the also rather challenging (but fun!) Sunken Ship.
Anyway, enemy notes:
Chows have RANDOM STATUS IMMUNITY, do very high damage that or fear depending on their mood (OHKO unblocked). Octovader can throw out some nasty status (silence counters) and if it hits someone not immune that kinda sucks, but at least you can take them out quickly enough with various tricks. Shoguns are kinda like Chows except that their special move can't even be blocked; no fear though (which really only matters if you Geno Boost to survive it). I don't really remember Spinthras well, I fought some and I think they were all-around decent but after I realised the Geckit sprite triggered the obnoxious random above I stopped trying. Geckits are... strange. They can waste turns entirely orrr they can use Sleep-Sauce which is nasty. High MDef means they don't die to collateral and random failure makes them a low priority so you're mostly just hoping they don't use Sleep-Sauce. Fink Flowers status a lot but are kinda scrubby anyway since they don't really accompany good enemies otherwise. Stingers aren't too bad; Mushroom off high speed (though at least the Safety Badge blocks this, unlike sleep) but damage is only okay and they die quickly to Terrorise/Thunderbolt. Shy Aways do high damage off good speed but have the grace to run away at least. Chewies are satan and I have little more to say because I didn't uh ever actually win a fight against them.
The run of Shoguns in the desert holes deserves specific note. Mallow/Geno party although Bowser/Geno is probably a better idea? Not sure. Best way to deal with them I found is to boost Mario then jump on them for a OHKO, anything else leaves them alive too long for Carni-Kiss which is just too damaging without boost. Non-Mario people don't do enough damage and MT is not an option, although at least Mallow's Shocker is decent and pretty close to a OHKO with boost and cymbals.
Belome Temple. Ribbites offer yet more Sleep-Sauce, I have dropped my defences to block it on one PC but even then it is a frustrating move since it both damages and sleeps. Kriffids... good lord, death tanks. Immune to fire, nulls physicals, great MDef, lots of HP. Fights with them are a huge grind and don't feel remotely worth it.
And finally Belome! Two resets here, because those clones are pretty nasty. Some of it is bad luck, I seriously had a sequence of Dark Star on the one sleep-immune -> Aurora Flash -> Dark Star -> Boulder -> Dark Star -> Boulder -> Dark Star. What the hell man. I blame you, Laggy.
Anyway Belome's not as bad as two resets deserve but he's still decent, Aurora Flash is still a badass move and the clones (particularly Geno) do some nasty things. Geno Boost keeps things pretty under control, and Toadstool has a sucky clone so yeah, Toadstool/Geno party go! Just need to make sure Toadstool isn't OHKOED BY DARK STAR UNDER BOOST FFFF but yeah.
Bean Valley
Level 13 -> 14
Well this is mostly a repeat of enemies from Land's End, but I have two new shinies to throw at the enemies: the Troopa Pin and the Ghost Medal. The latter stays mostly on Geno since he can't boost himself and has bad durability and wow this makes him much better. The former bounces around a bunch. Also, Level 14 is a big one, when I do get it. Mallow/Geno for basically this entire dungeon.
Geckit and Fink Flowers are back, I don't have too much new to say here. Fink Flowers sure love to status you for all their relative lack of damage. Also magic tanks with evade, so they take a while but you won't lose. I realise I underrated Stinger damage a bit, it hurts reasonably, but they still die fast enough, so they're good early targets.
So the enemy that really needs to be talked about here is Chewy, who tank magic well, counter physicals with sleep, and on their own turns use doubleact physicals for nasty damage. Ow. High 2HKO per hit if unblocked, and two of them means four of these in a row which is ick. And they're immune to all status. Alone, they're not too bad. Geno Boost on Mario and he can 2HKO them with physicals, although this does provoke sleep counters (however, all magic does double-digit damage at best, so meh). With two people in defence up the storm can be weathered well enough.
Now, when they come with support, namely Kriffids, Shy Aways, and/or Geckits? Yeah this is monstrous. I don't try to win these fights until I get Snowy. But Snowy pretty much changes everything. Attack Up Mallow OHKOs Geckits, does evil damage to everything else. This spell is pretty much godmode here.
Box Boy's the latest monster in a box. I have two resets against this guy, although one reaaally shouldn't count because I learned that if you get three different symbols from the "slot machine chests" you fight one of these guys, and I triggered a fight with a nearly-dead, nearly-no FP party in hopes of getting a mushroom. Whoops. Anyway, Box Boy doesn't like boosted Ultra Jump much, which I now have, that and Shocker takes them out well enough although they hit back really hard with both Blasts and summoning guys who do 130+ damage unblocked. I dunno how an enemy with 900 HP ends up feeling like ball lightning but he does.
One reset on Megasmilax because I mixed up which accessories I had equipped and had nobody immuning Mushroom. Whoops. Other than that, this fight is all Snowy domination. OHKOs the Smilaxes, just shy of 3HKO on Megasmilax (after boosting of course). Megasmilax's defence is higher than in vanilla so I don't do that much damage with anything else (Ultra Jump is immuned) although I admittedly didn't think to try Geno Whirl. Not a big deal, with only 1000 HP he isn't going to be attritioning my party to death or anything anyway.
That leaves the climb up the beanstalks, which have Birdies. Birdies continue the chain of on-crack physicals, easily OHKOing unblocked. What makes them better than anything previous (in a vacuum, at least) is that they go before 30 speed PCs (didn't try twinking to go faster, didn't seem useful). Of course Ghost Medal helps ward them off a bit, and Troopa Pin Snowy is a MT OHKO. I also get good milage out of Geno Whirl for when Mallow drops before getting a turn. There are also Heavy Troopas, who inevitably die before finally acting on their second (slow) turn. I'm sure they do something scary though!
Funny how Geno Whirl and Snowy are very useful (especially the latter) and I basically found both worthless in vanilla.
Nimbus Land
Level 14 -> 15
I mostly use Mallow/Geno for this dungeon. Some Bowser but as usual he feels bad when fear is blocked, and there are several enemies here who do (and Leuko/Jawful spoil it further by countering its use, as noted below). Sleep faces the same problems, although not sure if it'd be countered. Those PCs are certainly better for the fights where those aren't spoiled, though.
Defence upgrade here. Birdies now miss some OHKO but the same general comments apply. Heavy Troopa now get fought three at once so I'm more likely to see them act; they can be 2HKOed with strong enough magic but that's not worth the MP since they're big charge-up move is in fact just a Grinder variation.
So now for the new enemies. Muckles reprise Leukos, meaning they tank and counter magic (aside from Geno Whirl!). They come in large formations so you want to use MT but you can't because yeesh Solidy hurts, so they make battles notably harder. Physicals kill them not super-easily (2-3 hits I generally found). Jawful also act as MT spoilers because they only wake up after one, but their turns aren't as dangerous as Solidify counters. They're really otherwise only notable for having high defence so magic's the way to go.
Orbisons are quite annoyingly tanky and use Mega Recover, mostly annoyances because they're not too threatening. A bit less bad with the latest nerfs. Pinwheels have good speed and can hit either defence... but not super-hard. A joke when they show up alone or with only one other enemy, but often show up in large groups where they're a non-negligible extra complication. Sling Shies are one of the dungeon's stars despite a hatred of Snowy. Originally they had crazy speed so they could do their "high damage + any damn status pretty much" and there was nothing you can do about it, as is they still at least outspeed Mallow/Bowser and can do all that. And they counter physicals if you use them to avoid MT due to their friends. Certainly most dangerous with Leukos. Shamans are also pretty good; decently magically tanky (except magic makes them run away sometimes, so magic's a decent option), good evade, and can rack up lots of damage when they don't decide to use terrible physicals.
And now we need to talk about BIRDO. Birdo is pure genius, but unfortunately I don't figure out the gimmick (even though NPCs say what it is) so I just found her hard. The shell does crazy damage but only lives to see it if you spend time buffing, then Birdo is... not too bad against boosted PCs at first (oh god, if you aren't), then Magnum with multiacting comes out to play. And at low HP, tripleacting and spells. Her HP sucks but the defences are awesome, at my levels the best I can manage short of Work Pants is a little over 100 damage with Ultra Jump while other attacks don't feel worth it (even Geno Whirl). I do have a Rock Candy lying around, though, and figure a boss this tanky with this dangerous a limit phase deserves it applied directly to the face, so there is that. Geno/Toadstool party, love that Group Hug and Geno Boost. How vanillaish. One reset here, plus one more I won't count because I forgot to heal up before the battle due to stupidity, wasted turns doing so since I figured I could stand against the shell as long as necessary, then SHREDDER + METEOR SWARM MT OVERKILL hahaha.
One more new enemy in the dungeon after this point, Bluebirds. They're pretty badass with their SNOWY SPOILING, and decent mdef in general, until I realise that they get destroyed utterly by physicals. Confused by basic attacks, rank them clearly.
And that just leaves Dodo/Valentina, which is a nasty fight on a few fronts. Dodo himself isn't too bad, counters and Flutter Hush add up. The right setups can take him down pretty effectively (for instance, Mallow can OHKO him) but you have to worry about the rest of the fight. Then Valentina herself, who isn't too bad with just one non-physical action. But once both you have to fight both, yeah, ow. 1-2 actions from Dodo and 2 from Valentina is a hell of a lot of offence even if one of those is a Valentina physical, and Shredder can undo the hard work to actually stay alive, including Ghost Medal. It only gets worse from there, as Dodo uses Vigour Up below a certain HP threshold making his damage positively nasty, while Valentina gains an extra action and just has ridiculous offence at that point. I end up doing this fight without sleep immunity just because I need better defences to survive, and fortunately this is actually doable due to Valentina always waking someone up and Freshen Ups healing two people at once, though yeesh.
I don't have many specific comments beyond that (I used Geno and Toadstool ultimately after some experimentation), but it's certainly a very good fight. I had 3-4 resets and generally found it the hardest boss so far, although there is some competition for that.
Barrel Volcano
Level 15 -> 16
Undoubtedly the easiest dungeon since getting the fourth star, but it's no slouch. Lazy Shell is part of this, as Mario's Troopa Pin-enhanced physical now stings enough to be useful against randoms... well, the ones that don't mock physicals Increasingly I start running Toadstool/Geno as Sleepy Time and Geno Whirl are excellent control tactics that don't break the bank FP-wise.
Pyrospheres are the dungeon highlight in terms of badassitude. Great speed, have instant death or decent MT damage in Flame Wall as options. To make matters worse, they null Snowy! Poor Mallow. Fortunately Mario can OHKO them and they're sleep-vulnerable.
Chained Kongs I tended to Whirl right away. I'm a jerk like that. I think they had decent HP and damage but yeah. Magmus is a defensive tank who dies pretty well to Snowy, or they can be whirled in turn. Body/Corkpedite eat Whirl though can Migraine in response. Oerlikons hit pretty hard and mock most status, but they can be blitzed well enough with other tricks (Mario physicals, Whirl, Snowy). Vomers are the new Dry Bones, hit decently hard and counter on death, need to be 2HKOed by any physical + any magic. Stumpets actually immune death! And also tank physicals. So they'll draw a few decent magic attacks. Offence is whatever but not so bad I was really tempted to invest only really low-FP moves to kill them.
Bosses were quite tough! First, Czar Dragon. While nothing new after the brutal Valentina/Dodo fight, defensive boosts felt completely necessary here. The boss has two main gimmicks - fear (which is extremely difficult to justify blocking with all the far better accessories) to try and punch through defences, and Helio summoning. The Helios take two decent MT attacks to kill and if they live a round and a half they'll blow up for some rather nasty damage (in addition to Czar's own turns) which are hard to deal with. After one reset I switch Toadstool to Lazy Shell/B-Tub Ring for a defensive boost, which helps. The fight is slog of tossing Freshen Ups (would have been easier if I'd had more than two), healing, MP healing, and keeping people boosted. Czar's physical defence is very good and I don't feel like using attack magic except to kill Helios so he sticks around quite a while, I'm sure there are ways to blitz him but eh, safe and it works. Zombone by comparison went down like a chump against my strategy despite Sand Storm letting him spread even more fear around; his damage goes down (Czar's Willy Wisp/Blast are mean) and his defence sucks. Also no Helios. Still the overall fight is a slog so I was quite happy that the second phase couldn't measure up to the first, and I'm sure some strategies (hi twinked Snowy) take Czar to pieces, so eh, balances.
Axem Rangers got some serious upgrades; they remain quite a good boss. Most of them get scarier the fewer of them are left. Axem Red, in particular, is just evil once he only has two allies (Shredder + Vigour Up + doubleacting AFTER the Shredder?) so he has to go as one of the first two. One reset discovering this! I take out Pink first because I fear Petal Blast, Red second. Black and Green are vulnerable to sleep, so make extensive use of that, even though Sleepy Time triggers a counter from Black despite putting him to sleep (SMRPG CODING). Yellow gets to go next as at this point he has doubleacting and hits decently hard, magic is the way to go against him (I use physicals otherwise). Green, even after Valour Up, is fragile enough to go next, with Black last... not bad seeing as Black has nasty triple-act unblockable physical damage. The mech is fairly benign, I found, but again, it's a long fight and the last part isn't the "real" part, so like with Zombone I'm fine with this.
Bowser's Keep
Level 16 -> 19
Bowser is awesome here. Malakoopas, Terra Cottas, and Gu Goombas have a significant chance of permanently switching sides if they see him, so yeah, hard to justify not using him. In particular, those enemies can be quite dangerous if not confused... they're all fast, and they all doubleact. At one point I accidentally have Bowser switched out of the party and fight six of them, dead before I get a turn.
The rest of the enemies are pretty durable but come in small numbers... Tub-o-troopa, Forkies, Big Bertha, Star Cruster. Geno Whirl takes them out very cost-effectively. Thus, I end up running a team of Mario/Bowser/Geno, switching in a healer between fights if necessary. Doing so is annoying and I doubt I'd have patience for it all game, but this team is just too effective here so I deal.
The battle rooms deserve note, here. First of all, that's way too many fights in a row with no ability to leave, restock items, or even run away. Still that's SMRPG's bad design and there isn't too much that can be done with it. Anyway, the varying fights are from Nimbus Land and Barrel Volcano as well... I end up subbing Mallow in for Geno past the first few fights when it's clear I'm not facing Bowser-bait enemies any more, so I gain some good MT damage. This ends up getting me killed once, as the last fight in one of the rooms is a Glum Reaper which is pretty brutal at this point. (Fast, evil doubleacting damage, not frail.) Geno Whirl kills him on the retry.
Chester, the last of the box monsters, is, like the previous ones, quite dangerous. Not as dangerous as the last two but on the other hand you're 12-24 fights away from your last save or recovery point which makes him quite stressful. He himself is mostly just kind of durable, but he summons a Bahamut. I later figure out these can be killed with Whirl, but not this time, and he throws out some powerful damage and fear. Objectively not too hard a fight overall, but I'm low on resources and kinda scared at this point, so.
Magikoopa! Well when I first try to fight him he has Aurora Flash, which is nasty. I come close a couple times, but not quite... it doesn't help that I have no remaining Freshen Ups and am somewhat unwilling to part with my KeroKeroColas. Laggy changes his mind about him having Aurora Flash and I beat him then, usual boss-fighting tactics. He's mostly about his three different summons. Bahamut, as above, is pretty powerful especially with Magikoopa throwing out decently powerful on his own turn (including Boulder), but can be Geno Whirled. King Bomb will self-destruct after a round, doing quite a bit of damage, but it's manageable. I at first try to kill them but then realise it's better to heal, buff, and just let the explosion come. Jinx Clone is the scariest because there's no easy way to take him out, and the right combination of attacks from him and Magikoopa can be quite hard to deal with. Also I do actually fail to block Silver Bullet now and then which is obviously terrible. Anyway, aside from the summons, when Magikoopa is alone he will heal for a decent amount... nothing that can't be outraced while on offence, but it still really emphasises an offensive approach. Oh yeah and sometimes he uses Sand Storm. We hate this. But generally, not tooo bad, varies a good deal with how many items you can afford to drag into the fight probably. Possibly the best of the Bowser's Keep bosses which is certainly a change?
Whoever is the best of the Bowser's Keep bosses, it's certainly not Boomer. I am actually fine with this, it would be quite rude to make both Boomer and Exor badass since they're back to back and you certainly want Exor to be the tougher one for plot/style reasons I think. Anyway he switches between physical and magical modes, but still uses the attacks that are in the wrong "mode" which basically fail at damage and give you a breather. He has lots of actions and some of them do do real damage so if your defences suck he'd probably ruin you, and he does mix Shaker (HP-1 or death) in there so you can't totally go to sleep. But in general not too bad. Geno Flash also neuters his buffing gimmick, Nelson-laugh.
Exor! He does lots of stuff, with three parts acting in relatively quick succession (although Mario broke up their turns for me, going after Neosquid). Left Eye (on the right) gets hurt decently by physicals but lulz at magic, and throws out status physicals (sometimes he'll just double physical which is happy times). Neosquid will use Carni-Kiss for okay physical damage (blocking this is important!) and then his usual array of badass multitarget, which includes Aurora Flash (noooo!) and the always-painful Corona. Right Eye savagely mocks physicals but gets destroyed by magic, and is the single-acter. Some of his moves aren't too bad, but some... namely Dark Star and SAND STORM (noooo!) are.
Kill either eye (I kill the left to save FP mostly, except when Mario gets scarecrowed, although on the whole I probably fear right more) and there's two rounds to beat on Exor himself. He's actually less durable than I was expecting (unchanged from SMRPG?) so the fight doesn't last as long as it could... but it's still plenty long seeing as you have to kill the eyes repeatedly and Exor likes to beat on you pretty badly. I decide not to use Geno Whirl because I have a sneaking suspicion Laggy would troll me if I tried, and checking the stat topic I was mostly right! All in all this is a pretty rough fight, but also a lot of fun, certainly the most enjoyable of the three here. I burn my Freshen Ups and do eventually burn both my KeroKeroColas too rather than risk a reset so far from a save point, though I use the second when, as it turned out, Exor was one hit from death. fffff.
Onwards to the end!
Factory, part 1
Level 19 -> 21
First of all, I go beat up Jinx, since the Jinx Belt is sweet. I mainly use Bowser with Troopa Pin (for Bowser Crush) and Geno with Ghost Medal (for Geno Flash), which means my healing is limited. Fortunately Jinx durability, I actually don't heal very much.
Now for the Factory itself. I start hitting Level 20 from my first few fights here. Glum Reapers are the first notable fight, and they're quite scary... instant death, dispel, fear, and good damage off of double-acting and great speed. And there are three of them! So I twink for speed with Signal Ring Bowser and Feather Mallow, Terrorise + Snowy takes them out.
<Laggy> ...
<Laggy> You used Signal Ring
<Laggy> yessssssssssssss
<Elecman> More than I've used Safety Ring now.
<Laggy> ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD
Ameboids take lots from physicals but do quite a bit back, while inflicting fear or poison. At one point Mallow takes over 300 from their strongest physical attack (2x, poison) while feared! Pretty awesome. Fortunately they themselves can be feared, and Jinx Belt ruthlessly spoils them with its def boost and fear immunity anyway. Also, occasionally (once) I fight a Hippopo, which has a pretty sweet design but I don't remember much about it otherwise.
So then there is Count Down. The ding-a-lings use some decent attacks like Fear Roulette and Dark Star, though they also waste turns on physicals and advancing the clock. Clock itself has some pretty nasty attacks, with the worst being Aurora Flash, Shredder, and Petal Blast (the latter two coming in succession), and some okay magical offence turns. It also has some healing in there to keep you on offence. Anyway I have no status immunity which makes this into a slog. I luck out, though, in that the Ding-a-lings skip the first Aurora Flash while I kill them off. Still, I'm able to keep control of the fight well enough despite losing a bunch of turns to sleep/mushroom, although it isn't exactly easy. I'm not sure if it's optimum to kill the Ding-a-lings or not, as keeping them alive does distract the healing onto bad targets and they do wake people up from sleep. I'm pretty sure it would be worthwhile to have at least one Safety Badge wearing PC for this fight, though.
Next wave of the dungeon. So right away I need to talk about the Axem Rangers because holy shit. First fight with Yellow/Black involves Axem Blacks acting four times before I get a turn, I use Terrorise and watch it fail to fear them and two Spritz Bomb counters and Yellow turns argh dead. Red/Green/Pink just involves Boulder -> Petal Blast -> reset before I even see a turn. Haha. Anyway, I eventually realise that a speed-twinked physical fighter (Signal Ring Bowser or Feather Mario) can OHKO Axem Pink before the horrid Petal Blast and I can tough out the fight easily enough otherwise. Yellow/Black are trickier, but speed-twinking, Ghost Medal and Geno Boost let me live, smash black in face (they're not too durable), heal a bunch, take out Yellows with magic so they don't counter.
Doppels aren't too remarkable as enemies. Nothing negligible certainly but generally a lower priority. They often come with L'il Boos, who are just annoying because their defences are so high you pretty much need to spend loads of FP on them. Enemies who are just hard to kill with everything aren't fun. Jabits hate Terrorise and Thunderbolt, which is good since they're off the main PCs I'm running in this area. There's also Mad Mallets, Pounders, and Poundettes, who I don't have too much to say about... I think some of them (not the Mad Mallets?) are kinda competent due to magically tanking and having some decent damage, but didn't do anything to specifically stick out. Finally, there are Puppoxes and Springers, the latter notable for countering, both notable for some status, especially sleep. Sleep + physicals isn't too scary a mix, though.
At this point I run out of MP healing so I leave to buy more. Also I figure I have one unfinished piece of business.
Space Between Worlds
Level 21 -> 22
Culex is a jerk. Not much new here. Geno/Toadstool party, I pull the Amulet back out for Mario so I can better tank what he does. A couple resets, he's tough. A bit better than in SMRPG where he was a superboss. Of course now he's not really a superboss any more, it's funny how that works.
So anyway. Wind Crystal occasionally uses nasty evil status attacks. Its other attacks are quite weak. After two resets I give Toadstool a Safety Badge so I get less ruined by these, although they're still unpleasant to see. Oh, it does dispel with Lightning Orb occasionally. Fire and Water Crystals can unload lots of damage but it's nulled by Lazy Shell and resisted by Amulet, which is why these are crucial for keeping their offence sane. Earth Crystal does moderate, unresistable, but also rather unimpressive damage. Certainly it's best move is Sand Storm. The only nice thing about Sand Storm is it cancels sleep! Still a good use of Freshen Ups since I'm no longer immuning fear with anyone.
Culex himself has his usual "you have to predict it to block" physical and he'll throw in something else too. At least he can't doubleact it with Shredder, which he retains and of course we don't like it much. Still, it's nothing too unreasonable. However, two things can make him badass: one is killing the Wind Crystal, which I foolishly do on my first attempt. Hello, doubleacting with Petal Blast! Ugly. This could be luck but he used it at a way higher rate than the Wind Crystal itself, so killing it certainly isn't worth it. Secondly, below half HP he learns to tripleact and the last action is usually Dark Star. Um, ow.
Still, the overall fight mostly comes down to usual SLRPG Geno/Toadstool boss tactics... boost a lot with Ghost Medal Geno, heal and tank with Lazy Shell Toadstool, do damage with Mario. The fight has its own ripples to stay on top of and I'd be inclined to call this the hardest boss since Valentina. Mercifully killing Culex ends the fight even if all the crystals live.
Factory, part 2
Level 22 -> 24
So the Quartz Charm is f'in sweet. Geno has an upgrade. Also, two Ghost Medals, effectively!
Last few Machine Mades! Macks are pretty scrubby, Thunderbolt sets up a pretty easy blitz. Bowyers are much better, Arrow Rain stings quite a bit and he can take a few hits, so you actually need to be awake and sink some FP into the fight. Probably best to treat it like a miniboss and use Toadstool. Yaridovich is largely the same idea, though no button disabling. Also hates Cymbals Shocker, so Mallow can help blitz him down. Oh and there are Ninjas around here too. I mainly fight them solo so they're pretty wussy.
Cloaker and Domino! The least memorable bosses in SMRPG ever! And... still among the least memorable bosses in SLRPG. Oh sure, I have a reset here because I walk in with an abysmally bad boss-fighting team (aw yeah speed-twinking and no Toadstool or Geno, plus I waste a turn trying to fear them) and might have been able to win anyway if I'd blown a lot of resources. When I fight them for real they're obviously way wussier than Culex. Not negligble of course, but yeah. I kill Cloaker first because he's the default target. Not much to say about the fight, there is Sand Storm from the resulting Mad Adder Endobubble throughout so I guess that gives the fight a bit of a fear flavour.
Clerk and Mad Mallets! Well Mallets still hate Thunderbolt, aw yeah getting milage out of the 2 FP spell in the last rooms of the game. Clerk isn't too special.
Manager and Pounders! Okay this fight is way better. I'm sure the Pounders have some status hole but I am not feeling very experimental. Pounders hit quite hard when you're not blocking them, tank magic pretty well. Physicals? Oh yeah, Manager can revive them all, so ST options aren't appealing until he's dead. Lots of physical damage here. 1 reset, one more "I refuse to use resources on this fight damnit!" reset which probably shouldn't count. Manager's just durable enough to draw some boss-fighting tactics out of me, which is to say he dies in about 4 boosted hits.
Director and Poundettes! Just an all-around improved version of the prevoius. Poundettes sometimes double-act and sometimes inflict fear, and there are four of them instead of three. Director gains some counters, and triple-acts later into the fight (he also dies... not... quite as fast). Very nasty, I get somewhat lucky with my second Ultra Jump taking out two of the Poundettes, allowing me to kill the third and tank through the rest.
Factory Chief and Gunyolk is easier than the last two fights but no slouch. No resets here. The chief is annoying enough with his doubleacting and ability to inflict mushroom, so I take him out first, but this gives Gunyolk constant, unending, MT OHKO damage, every turn. Mario falls from the initial assault and I'm completely unable to find the actions to both heal up (since it solidly 2HKOs boosted Geno), revive him, and boost him to survive. Dealing with this with two PCs is tricky but Group Hug and Megalixirs make it possible. Oddly it would have been way easier if I'd kept the B-Tub Ring on Toadstool so her healing would be better, but I had switched her to a Rare Scarf to tank the Poundette swarm.
One update left!
Smithy
Level 24
Sledge hurts. I think that's public knowledge by now. I also think it exists to troll people who never pick HP boosts! Boost Toadstool, Defend, Group Hug, tank the next round, Boost Mario, Group Hug, and from there on the battle can be fought normally. Unfortunately this is when the Smelter starts summoning. The Shypers don't do great damage but with how good Smithy himself is (especially once he gets to lower HP and can use Attack x2 + Sledge) it does add up to be rather scary. Smithy durability isn't incredible so I don't bother killing them and apparently this is a good thing.
Now, form 2. Going into it buffed, it's really not too hard. I first face Tank Head who does pretty weak damage, and then Mage who does better damage but certainly nothing that can put up a fight. I cut through 4000 HP without too much trouble. And then... and then things get nasty.
First of all Mage Head starts countering everything with freakin' Dark Star. And starts using it too, as part of its doubleactions. Ouch. This makes it rather difficult to continue the blitz. And at this point I feel like I should talk about the rest of the battle.
-At this point the body starts healing Smithy for about 500. That's actually non-trivial to bash past, at least in some of his tankier forms. It still acts on the turns it does that. I actually end up killing the body when I'm against tanky forms just to stop the healing and extra damage it does, not sure if this is a good idea though.
-As for the tanky heads, the biggest one in that regard is Safe Head, who is mostly notable for throwing out a little dispel, and using LIGHT BEAM to tie up the party. Fortunately the body will wake people up. This form isn't too threatening past that move but it's certainly not negligible either. Shredder would have been pretty bad but I never did see it.
-Chest Head throws out MT status doubleacted with Meteor Swarm, which is ow. I twice get Scarecrow which is a bit frightening, fortunately one time Geno dies immediately so I can revive and have him use items, the other my FP/boost status is in good shape so I can hold on with Group Hugs well enough, though I mostly stall waiting for the status to end on offence. Which is unfortunate due to the healing of course!
-Tank Head starts acting four times and using Magnum. Its damage isn't great but it really adds up, and Magnum is just rude. Also it counters. Def is pretty good, MDef doesn't suck like in vanilla, so it's hard to do good damage to, and has those counters to boot. A bit ugly. Not a form I make much progress against in general.
-And finally Mage Head, still the best way to damage it despite Dark Star. At one point the counter it uses is Dark Star AND a full turn, just to be extra ugly (Smithy multi-actions post-transformation glitches, aw yeah). Still depending on who the Dark Star hits one heal a round -may- suffice, and two's also an option... Mario's physical alone does 500+ here.
Overall I get through the fight with no resets, but I have to burn most of my items (which includes, for reference: two Rock Candies, 4 Royal Syrups, 4 Pick-Me-Ups, 4 Megalixirs, a Crystalline, and a Red Essence, which is used on Geno so I can avoid worrying about him at one point) which is what you'd expect for the final boss. In some ways he's very much the objective "best" boss in that regard, no other boss made me use -that- much stuff. That said there's less "lose control" potential than the other good bosses and of course you have no reason not to use all that stuff, so in practice he's not the hardest by any means. And of course aw yeah more resets against Manager and Director.
Final thoughts
To some extent this hack isn't intended for me. I don't actually like Super Mario RPG that much... 'tis okay, but not my cup of tea the way the other two RPGs I've extensively played hacks for are. By making the game harder, the hack drew more attention to certain flaws, which are its clunky and limited inventory system (also, I'm pretty sure enemies just -can't- drop items when your inventory is full. What the hell game), and the fact that most of its timed hits give no visual indication of when their timing is unlike LoD/SH. Also, of course, there's the fact that the hack feels designed for people that know all the game's tricks; I know most but not all, and for sure I'd like the game less if Laggy, say, hadn't reminded me where to get certain coins, frog coins, the free Pick-Me-Up at Marrymore, etc. Also god forbid trying to play the game without knowing about the secrets I mostly did remember, such as Lazy Shell and Ghost Medal. Ow.
That said it is overall pretty cool. It succeeded at making most boss fights individually memorable, which is great. Laggy did an excellent job of running with the existing gimmicks and making them more memorable. It did a decent job with individual randoms too, although of course I have complaints here and there (mostly already voiced, but the big one I'll re-iterate is that enemies with all defences high just aren't any fun). The game made me really care about the accessory slot in particular, and about all of the game's stats (adding ITD moves was a great choice to emphasise HP, while multiacting made defences very potent and of course offences need no explanation!). I also liked the decisions with Mallow and Toadstool's weapons, letting you customise them to some extent for what you really wanted (even if parasol/fan and cymbals were dominant, I did use the others at times). And finally, the hack draws out the potential of one of SMRPG's good design decisions, which are all PCs getting full exp and being able to be swapped in at any time, something the original game kinda failed at due to the PC balance being obvious. SLRPG does a great job with PC balance and everyone felt really useful. I don't want to think about getting through the game being forced not to use a character, any character, and that's great. If I had to point at my favourite thing about the hack it is that.
Least favourite thing about the hack that Laggy has control over? FP costs. I really don't think they needed to be scaled upwards as a general design thing. In particular, the specials Star Rain, Crusher, Bowser Crush, and Geno Flash were all rendered virtually unusable to me by their costs. Not that one couldn't use them, but in randoms they were a huge pocketbook hit so I almost always found something that could be done cheaper. Even as far as "huge MT damage" goes, Snowy snuck into that niche well and really prevented much else from competing because while it's expensive, Bowser Crush/Star Rain/Geno Flash are way moreso (and often do less damage anyway, though to be fair Star Rain wouldn't except for my failing at it). Geno Blast, Poison Gas, and Psych Bomb have a lesser version of this problem. Against bosses... just no, don't have FP for that, with the exception of incidental Geno Flashes for dispels. With storebought FP healing capped at 30 it's nearly impossible to justify the extra action cost of the high-FP specials, especially when you can just use Ultra Jump which does similar damage for 11. It's worth noting that the -only- time I got real use out of Bowser Crush was against Jinx, a ball lightning boss a few seconds from a recovery point.
In the defence of this design decision, if one avoids spending any FP on healing/boosting there's more left over for part of spell blitz (though even then, the big ones cut through FP awfully fast... still, this could help the likes of Crusher).
PC notes
Mario is forced, which is an unfortunate fact since it cuts the number of possible parties significantly. And there are definitely times when I wanted Bowser/Geno/healer as a party, and the game wouldn't let me. Sadface. That said, Mario is pretty good. Kind of unremarkable for much of the game, since he basically has decent ST damage and that's it. Really takes off late, though. The Lazy Shell and Ultra Hammer give him huge atk, and he gains a bit of MT, and his ST specials are way more cost-efficient than Geno's or Bowser's. Mario usually ends up as THE damage-dealer in boss fights, and a key one in randoms. That's not a bad role for someone who is forced.
Mallow's weird, but definitely carves out his own niches. Thunderbolt is wonderful, and a complete bargain at only 2 FP. Shocker is decent ST damage, Snowy is costly but badass and sometimes absolutely worth it, especially with an attack boost. He'll usually want cymbals to make his magery badass, but glove physicals are an option I guess, or Ribbit Stick tanking. HP Rain's status removal is also very nice... I didn't usually pick him above Toadstool for bosses but I at least considered it (and both's an option, I suppose). But definitely one of my absolute favourites for randoms for a long, long time, just great at magery and has two elements to work with later.
Geno mostly comes down to "Geno Boost is badass". Yes, you can replace it with items... two separate items that cost 150 coins between them. Or the MT versions which break the frog coin bank. And Geno Boost is super-valuable. Basically, if there's a particularly durable enemy who is fear-immune, you'll have a hard time selling me on not using Geno. Geno Boost being not self-targettable is a big drawback, and he suffers for it a lot until the Ghost Medal which had might as well be called the Geno Medal. (Quartz Charm improves on this further, but only optionally and late.) Aside from that, Geno Whirl is very useful for mashing certain styles of randoms (it particularly shone in Nimbus Land, Barrel Volcano, and Bowser's Keep), and Geno Flash has a great utility effect for a few bosses. Not much to say, he's still good.
Bowser is about tanking and Terrorise. He maintains his tanking ability better in this game than in vanilla, which is nice. Terrorise is pretty much godly whenever it can be used, Geno Boost your entire team in one action? Yeah. I honestly wasn't too impressed by the rest of his specials, but honestly... he doesn't need them. He's durable, and his physical ranges from decent to great once he gets the Drill Claw, so he's the guy who tosses down Fear, doesn't die easily, and then kicks some ass. Loves speed boosting to get the Terrorise out quickly, but that's no shock. I generally wouldn't use him when fear was immuned, but I did use him to Bowser Crush Jinx I suppose.
Like Geno, Toadstool still carries her broken ability out of SMRPG, nerfed but not really enough to stop it from being dominant. (Higher FP cost stings a bit, but the lack of status healing really reigns it in.) Anyway that ability alone justifies her use, sure you can use 4 Megalixirs per boss fight instead or something oh wait haha that costs 720 coins let's not do that. Obviously some boss fights you can blitz more or get by with cheaper/ST healing but Toadstool's a very safe option. Oh yes and she has Come Back to save 3 frog coins per use as well, also outstanding. Aside from bosses, her main thing in randoms is sleep which like fear is pretty uber on what it works on. She doesn't bring much else to the table in randoms (unless they call for Group Hug, which isn't often), so she's basically completely worthless in them early (not sure how to address this or even if doing so is needed). But obviously still a highly valuable character.
Cool hack, would play again if I play SMRPG again, which may or may not happen. Thanks Laggy~
