Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Paper Mario: Sticker Star -- 1-4 Hither Thither Hill

Before setting off, we sling the Fan into a Fan sticker. Both routes are open to us, but I decided to go in numerical order, so onto 1-4. In the first area, hit the tree a few times with your hammer to get some coins. Towards the front (close to the screen) is a pipe.

The pipe leads to a 2D underground area with Buzzy Beetles. It looks like something sparkly is in the cave. The pipe to the right leads to an area with a new Burnhammer sticker and a crying Green Toad. He got lost and ran into enemies. He couldn't deal with it, so he started crying. He's going to join us so we can take him back to Decalburg. He can't jump over the fence, so go through the pipe. If you do jump over the fence and return (via the pipe), he says he has baby legs and not everyone does 1,000 jump squats a day. We go back through the pipe and must battle every Buzzy Beetle in our path. If one runs into the Toad, he'll freak out and run away. He'll then tell us he doesn't stomp one hundred Goombas before breakfast. We make it to the other pipe and take him back to Decalburg. He lives in the purple house and has a reward for us. It's a Mushroom sticker. He mentions something about the Goombas in front of the windmill in 1-4 saying "Forwon toothree!" over and over again. Sounds like the Goombas are running drills.

Back in 1-4, we go through the pipe in front of the windmill. The pipe in the middle of the path is missing a piece, so we can't use it. To the right is a hidden area near the goal, with coins and a Shiny Line Jump. There's nothing of interest in the second area (where we found the Toad), so we go back to the first area with the windmill. The sign says "-Windmill-  On days of strong wind, beware the blades." The door to the windmill is blocked by its blades. We have something that can create gales, so we paperize. There's a huge area for a sticker near the windmill. Kersti mention having never seen a paperization zone like this for stickers. She believes it may be for a rare sticker type she's not familiar with. We place the fan and, with fanfare, a giant fan appears in the background. Its blades start turning and enemies blow away, while the pipes rock, and the trees spin. The windmill blades start spinning as well. The fan stops and the windmill blades stop where they no longer block the door. Let's see what's inside!

 Inside, there are four blocks with the number zero on them. Thinking back to what Toad told us, it sounds like the Goombas were telling us the order in which to hit the blocks: 4, 1, 2, 3. I try it out, and that doesn't seem to be it, however, the number of times I've hit each block appears. So I have to hit each block a specific number of times before magic happens. The blocks disappear and a pipe appears. The pipe leads underground, to the level above where we were when we were leading Toad. Carefully platform to the right to find the sparkly object, which is the piece of the pipe that's missing above. We go through the pipe in front of the windmill and paperize, then place the Green Warp Pipe.

This warp pipe leads to a red pipe. Before we can reach it, the ceiling shakes and a giant Buzzy Beetle drops in to battle. There's a Battle Spin at the start of the battle. I fail it, so only one sticker per turn to start. This is a boss battle, so I'm breaking out the Shiny Stickers. The Big Buzzy Beetle has 40 HP and isn't flipped for a while by jumping, so I try a Shiny Hammer. That doesn't work either. A POW sticker doesn't flip him for long either. The Shell doesn't work either. Kersti notices and says that two or more stickers should work here. It took a couple of tries, but I got three stickers from the Battle Spin. Unfortunately, I matched Poison Mushrooms, so Mario's poisoned. I start with a POW block, followed by a Shiny Jump and Shiny Line Jump. Thankfully, I defeat him with this combination. Mario takes poison damage between attack stickers. Victory gives us an HP-Up Heart, making our max HP 30. The red pipe leads to an area with another door drawing on the side of the hill. The Secret Door leads to the Matches.

The item block has a Flashy Jump sticker. One of the brick blocks has a Leaf sticker. Go down the stairs to find the comet piece. The path to 1-6 Goomba Fortress opens up. We'll go there after 1-5.

We return to Decalburg to restock and find a Toad saying that high winds are a problem in Bouquet Gardens (1-2) again. Sounds like another Fan! The Toad near the Sling-a-Thing stand mentions that he'd like to make stickers, but doesn't have any things to sling. He wishes he could buy some for coins. To the left of the Sling-a-Thing, there's a Toad behind a door with a slot to look through. He'll sell us things to sling. Currently, he has a Fan for 130 coins.

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