Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA) – Part 19 – Joke’s End

-Joke’s End-

Having collected all four pieces of the broken Beanstar, we return to the castle and present them to the Queen. I’m not sure what kind of magic she used on the pieces, but within moments they have come together to form the Beanstar once more.

No sooner has the Beanstar been restored does Lady Lima arrive with a message from Bowletta. Having somehow been informed of our success, Bowletta now demands that we bring the Beanstar to her. Him? I’m not sure which pronoun to use for Bowletta. Cackletta is a girl, but Bowser is a boy… The consciousness is Cackletta so I’m going to stick with female pronouns.

The drop off place is set at Joke’s End, located at the far end of the ocean. Apparently Joke’s End is the final resting place for cruddy jokes. Furthermore, Bowletta informs us that it is impossible to get there by walking along the seafloor, so we’ll have to find some other way to get there.

After hearing this message, Queen Bean also seems uncertain which pronoun to use when referring to Bowletta. More to the point, something seems off about the whole exchange. If Bowletta is planning to trade Peach for the Beanstar, then there is no way for her to use Peach to awaken the Beanstar. If that’s the case, then what is Bowletta’s end goal?

While the rest of us begin contemplating Bowletta’s plan, Prince Peasley enters with a plan of his own. There’s no reason to worry about any of Bowletta’s plans if we simply hand over a fake Beanstar. No matter what, Bowletta’s plans will fail that way.

Before we set off to Joke’s End, Toadsworth has one small request for us. He wishes for us to bring Peach a new outfit. Surely she has tried to escape by now and more than likely ruined her dress in the process. We can’t possibly leave the Princess in such an immodest state.

We attempt to leave and are once again stopped in our tracks, this time by Prince Peasley. Following Bowletta’s advice, we’re going to have to travel across the surface of the water this time. Since the only boat we have come across so far is currently resting at the BOTTOM of the ocean, we’ll have to find some other method. Prince Peasley suggests we check out the beach area. Apparently there used to be a good surfing spot, maybe we’ll get lucky and find a surfboard we can borrow.

He also admits that we won the bet we had with him. And so he turns over the agreed upon 99,999,999,999,999 Mushroom Coin prize money. Before we have the chance to retire to our new life of luxury, Lady Lima is quick to point out that those 100 Trillion Mushroom Coins are only worth about 99 Beanbean coins by the current exchange rate. That’s even worse than the last time we had to exchange money. What kind of recession is the Mushroom Kingdom in right now that their money is so completely worthless?

Before heading to the beach, we decide to swing around to the Hammerhead Bros. one more time. It has to have been enough time now for them to develop a new hammer. Sure enough it has been. Apparently we have the best timing on this 3^rd recent visit to them. We also seem to have just woken them up from sleeping on their anvil…

They claim to have just now finished mastering a brand new hammer making Technique. With this new technique, they reforge our hammers once again and upgrade them to shiny golden Ultra Hammers.

With the Ultra Hammers, we are now capable of breaking any rocks we come across. So it looks like the hammers are now fully upgraded. Combined with the hand techniques we’ve learned, I would imagine we can go just about anywhere now.

Using our new hammer, we manage to break the rock that would have otherwise blocked us from entering the great surfing spot. However, as the beach’s lone occupant quickly points out, it’s still impossible to cross the ocean unless we actually have a surfboard.

However, if we can find something to jam into the hole nearby, it might make some sort of a Surfboard Substitute we can use instead. I guess that could work, but what would be a good substitute for a surfboard.

Having no materials to really choose from, we end up simply bashing Luigi into the surfboard mold instead. By some miracle he manages to pop out in perfect surfboard shape for Mario to ride across the ocean. What’s more, he must be flutter kicking like crazy, because we are simply FLYING across the top of the water as if we were on a jet ski. He really is such a good younger brother.

With the ocean as big as it is, it’s a bit hard to navigate. What’s more, there are tons of balloons floating around out here that are filled with coins. It’s a bit distracting. Oven when we do overcome the temptation of free coins and head towards Joke’s End, we find that there is a large wall of rocks blocking our way. We’ll have to search for a path through them.

Thankfully, we actually managed to find our way right next to our goal. Once on land, a few seconds with a tire pump is all it takes to plump Luigi back up to his normal self again. Which is good, because we’re going to need his help clearing out all these rocks in front of Joke’s End.

As we walk up to the main entrance, we are quickly approached by what appears to be an ice spirit. Joke’s End is apparently her playground, and if we want to play here too, we should at least introduce ourselves first.

The spirit introduces herself as Jojora, the “Buddy of a cousin of the descendant of the spirit who once guarded this place.” I’m sorry, did we just detour into Spaceballs for a moment there. We don’t have time for such nonsense and immediately start asking if she knows anything about Bowletta and Princess Peach.

Sadly, Jojora doesn’t seem to have any idea who Princess Peach or Bowletta are. Wonderful. You have been no help at all Jojora.

It seems Jojora’s interest in us has also disappeared after that interaction. She warns us that Joke’s End isn’t going to be as easy as whatever we have been doing up until this point. But otherwise doesn’t seem to care what we do anymore. Go nuts!

We follow Jojora as she heads inside, as she seems to give off a very subtle hint as to what we’re supposed to do to progress. Starting from above a green vat of liquid, she then floats to the floor above and to a second floor balcony on the right. She then taunts that she wonders if we can make it there too. At least we have some kind of objective in mind now.

We soon find a map, and as would be expected, Joke’s End is a massive labyrinth compared to any of the previous areas. With dozens of rooms, multiple floors, and several Save Albums, we can already foresee that Jojora was right when she said this wouldn’t be easy.

Death Count: Mario – 7, Luigi – 5, Game Over – 2

The battle difficulty has also gone up quite significantly. Between the poison gas clouds for the blue Glurps and the massive damage output of the caveman like Clumphs, Mario ended up being killed off within our first encounter. Clearly we got a big head running around one hit killing weak enemies in the outskirts for the last couple hours. We need to get serious now if we plan to survive.

If that’s how things are going to be, we really need to prepare. So for now, we leave, and head back to Little Fungitown to buy some new gear and stock up on healing items. We’ve racked up a decent amount of money, so we fill our pockets with as much as we can carry.

We return to Joke’s End ready to face whatever might come our way. However, we’re still not entirely sure where we’re supposed to go first. So rather than stop and think about it, we simply start smashing holes in the walls and start climbing the stairs that are for some reason positioned behind this walled off section of the building.

It’s on these stairs that we find a random meteorologist studying the whirlwinds in the area with a telescope. Not sure how he got here what with the rocks at the front door, and the whole staircase being walled up and all… Anyway, his exposition gives us a hint that we’re probably going to have to create whirlwinds to get around here at Joke’s End. Apparently when a rotational energy is added to the warm updrafts a whirlwind is created.

That reminds me, there was a sign that mentioned not to boil the Joke Broth Soup (The green liquid Jojora was standing over). My guess is that we DO want to boil it and a spin jump will create a whirlwind. However, our Firebrand technique doesn’t seem to be strong enough to do the trick this time. So, how do we get it to boil?

We continue up the stairs in search of an answer, fighting quite a few enemies along the way. Eventually we work our way over to a steel grated platform on the second floor, directly above the Joke Broth Soup. The jump to the next platform where Jojora ran off to is clearly too far away, so we head into the door here on the platform instead. What we find inside in a series of very tightly grouped set of rolling spiked pillars. Because of how closely packed they are, it takes us over a dozen attempts before we finally reach the other side.

While we didn’t find any clues beyond these spikes that would help us to boil the Joke Broth Soup, we did find a lone !-Block. Hitting it ended up opening a door back on the ground floor to another section of the building. But before we head off that way, we need to finish exploring this wing first. And so we continue on through more and more sections of rolling spike pillars.

The next section however was somewhat different from the last. The pillars would stop rolling every few seconds. Since the Hand Technique also only lasts a few seconds, that meant we had to reactivate it halfway through the obstacle. This required some special timing for when to activate the first time so the pillars would be stopped by the time it wears off, giving us time to activate it a second time and clear the obstacle.

That was the last obstacle in this wing, and we find ourselves rewarded with a room full of ?-Blocks. After collecting their contents we return to the ground floor to examine the newly opened area. This also leads us back to our original exploration strategy of knocking down walls and hoping for the best.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much behind this wall. Just a Bros. Block and a Rally Block. We do however manage to get 27 hits on the rally block before we ultimately miss it, a personal best I believe.

We backtrack a little and this time, head to the right, and down the stairs. It is here in the basement that we find a wood stove positioned directly underneath the Joke Broth Soup. Mario’s Firebrand makes quick work of lighting the wood, and the broth starts to heat up.

Now that the Joke Broth Soup is boiling and has quite a bit of steam rising up from it, we head back upstairs to test our previous theory. Sure enough, performing a spin jump over the soup causes a whirlwind to form on the platform above. Hopefully that whirlwind will be enough to get us to the other platform where Jojora went.

We waste no time, heading upstairs and spinning through the whirlwind. With the extra speed, we land on the platform and continue chasing Jojora. We don’t have to go far to find her, she’s been waiting in the next room over just to taunt us some more. Apparently this is where the “Real Challenge starts” and we should probably just give up now. She of course runs off once again after this, leaving us to find some method of following her.

With a locked door blocking one path, and a gate blocking the other. The only option available to us is to have Luigi tunnel under the gate to activate the !-Block on the other side. This block unlocks the door, however a problem still remains. With Mario on the other side of the fence, the brothers have no way of reuniting at the moment. It looks like they’ll each have to go solo for the next stretch. I hope there aren’t any enemies, I don’t want another meltdown…

Sadly, the game is unwilling to be so kind to us. We do our best to avoid contact with any of the enemies or their projectiles, but it’s not always possible. Not when there is a Glurp sitting right in the middle of the hall. When combat is unavoidable, we do still have the option to run. These are thankfully just normal random encounters after all.

Luigi’s path is eventually blocked by a Simu-Block which requires Mario’s help to activate. So we switch our focus to Mario and likewise try to avoid combat as much as possible as we try to reunite our heroes.

Before we can do that however, it would appear there is ANOTHER set of Simu-Blocks that Mario needs Luigi’s help with first. So once again, we switch over to Luigi, backtrack through the rooms full of monsters, and together activate this first Simu-Block.

Shortly after, Mario’s path is once again blocked when he comes to a locked door. There is however, an !-Block, which drops a barrel on the other side of the wall. Using this, Luigi can finally reach the button high up on the wall, which just so happens to open the door blocking Mario’s path.

Now that the door is open, we can finally activate the Simu-Blocks which Luigi first found. However, instead of opening the doors ahead of our heroes as I had expected, activating the Simu-Blocks instead calls Jojora to us. Once again, she seems to taunt us with surprise that we have made it this far.

As a reward, Jojora casts a vortex between us. She then starts explaining that we need to hit the blocks that come flying out of it to score points. This doesn’t sound like a reward to me. This sounds like another Mini Game Challenge.

Get 30 points in 25 seconds and Jojora will open up the door for us. It sounds easy enough, and in the long run, it is. However, the blocks come out randomly, with greatly varying speeds. Sometimes Mario would end up getting 2 blocks before Luigi’s 1^st block finally made it to him. It made it a bit difficult to keep track of, and of course I failed the first attempt.

On the next attempt we did better and managed to get the required 30 points. True to her word, Jojora opened the doors for our heroes. However, it’s still too early to celebrate, as the brothers are still not yet capable of reuniting. Looks like we’ll have another stretch of solo adventuring ahead of us.

For no particular reason, we choose to go with Luigi first. Right away we notice a sign that informs us that Yellow Floors can be raised by striking them from below. So clearly we’re going to need to use this to get past the next areas. Unfortunately, the Yellow Floors immediately next to the sign appear to be too high for Luigi to hit, so it’s still unclear what we’re supposed to do.

Since we can’t hit those Yellow Floor tiles, we simply move on, not that we make much progress. In the very next room is another Simu-Block which requires Mario’s help. There is also a face on the wall which shoots out fireballs. Again, we’re probably going to need Mario’s help to get past that as well. Again we move on for now, but are ultimately stopped in the next screen by a dead end and a !-Block on Mario’s side of the wall.

So with Luigi’s path at a complete halt, we switch to Mario. His path is equally short, but slightly more confusing. The only path options open to him are a set of stairs on the outside of the building which lead to an arrangement of 4 of the largest candles we’ve ever seen. Naturally we light them with his Firebrand and simply hope it does something useful.

As it turns out, it does. For some reason, lighting these 4 random candles causes the greenish stack of blocks on top of the Yellow Floor to move aside. Without this extra weight, Luigi is finally able to raise the tiles up. The tiles don’t STAY up though, so it actually requires some good teamwork between our two brothers to get Mario over this wall. First Luigi has to hit the floor from below, then quickly Mario needs to jump off and over to the next platform before it falls back down.

With this new path open to Mario, we continue along with him for the moment. Avoiding enemies as much as possible, running from battles when it isn’t. Soon we come upon the same Simu-Block that was stopping Luigi before.

We switch once again to Luigi, and together with Mario activate the Simu-block which ends up lowering the gate blocking Mario’s path. Again, the brothers move forward to the !-Block Luigi saw earlier. This switch is a little more helpful, dropping a barrel to block the fireballs from the face in the wall. Unfortunately, we missed our mark, and will have to try again. At least we know where it’s landing now.

The second attempt didn’t go as planned. Turns out this is another teamwork challenge. When Mario hits the !-Block, the barrel will fall randomly somewhere in the room. Using its shadow, we need to quickly position Luigi underneath where it is going to drop. It takes a few attempts, but we finally manage to do it.

Now that Luigi is safe inside the barrel, we use it to bounce the fireball back to the face on the wall. Once defeated, a new bridge is created to connect Mario and Luigi’s platforms back where they did Jojora’s challenge.

Guiding the brothers back, we are FINALLY able to reunite them. And now that we have, it’s time to go defeat some of the monsters that were tormenting us before, and finally collect the ?-Blocks we previously passed by.

Death Count: Mario – 8, Luigi – 6, Game Over – 3

At least, that’s what we would have liked to do. Unfortunately, our over excitement at being reunited has caused us to once again drop our guard. This time with disastrous results. Both brothers fall to the same attack and it is a game over for us. What makes this especially devastating is that it has been quite some time since we’ve last saved. To be more specific, our last save was just before the two brothers originally separated. So we’re going to have to do ALL of that over again…

I’ll spare you the details of the second run through the area, since nothing significant has changed. However, our destination after reuniting did. Not wanting to have to do all that a third time should something bad happen, we immediately rush back to the nearest Save Album. Turns out this is where we should have gone all along. The doorway out was too high for Mario to reach on his own, but with Luigi’s help they can make it just fine. And so we continue our climb up the building, fighting monsters all along the way.

We keep trudging along until eventually we run into Jojora again. She criticizes us as soon as she sees us, saying we’re the most stubborn people. Adding that no girls would ever like us. That hurts, Jojora. I’m sure at least Princess Peach and Princess Daisy like our heroes… Anyway, she runs off again, leaving us alone in a room with more Joke Broth Soup, and no clear explanation of what to do next. So we do what we do best and start knocking down wall again.

Unfortunately, this wall doesn’t lead anywhere. Just a small room with a couple of ?-Blocks and another Rally Block. We don’t even do very good on the Rally block. Best we managed was 18 before we lost it.

Since that was a dead end, we then take the more obvious path of heading downstairs to below the Joke Broth Soup. Right there in front of us is the furnace to heat it, and back above we Spin Jump to create another Whirlwind. Curiously, this whirlwind forms on the same platform as the 4 giant candles Mario lit earlier.

Turns out, there is a water fountain on the current platform, so I guess we can try snuffing out the candles with the water. By some miracle, shooting water into the Whirlwind causes it to break into 4 balls of water and put out all 4 candles at the same time. That’s one hell of a trick shot.

Even more amazingly, snuffing out those candles somehow opened the locked door that was blocking our progress. What is it with the Beanbean Kingdom and seemingly unrelated things triggering each other? How did those candles have anything to do with that door? Was that door already open before we lit the candles earlier? Anyway, we’re in the final stretch of this place now, and the two save points right next to each other doesn’t fill me with hope that this exchange is going to go smoothly.

No use dreading it. It’s not like we could ever really trust Bowletta with a simple exchange to begin with. Anyway, we continue on, and I must admit I was scratching my head at the next chamber for a bit. Mostly because there is a random barrel in the room with no obvious use for it. There is also an !-Block which triggers a Yellow Floored bridge to the next room. The bridge disappears quickly, and I assumed the barrel must have something to do with getting across it. But no. Just a quick reaction time and some very hot buns for Luigi are all that’s needed. I guess the barrel was just there for misdirection.

We finally reach Jojora at the top of the castle, and for once she doesn’t run away from us. Quite the opposite, she congratulates us for being the first people to ever climb all the way up here. I know that’s a lie, I mean, she’s already here. Plus whoever owned the castle originally was probably here at some point, and construction workers… Anyway, off topic. Because of our determination, she decides to give us a reward.

She invites us to sit down at the table where she already has snacks and drinks set out for us. She also informs us that she has a few friends she would like to invite over. However, she is only going to allow one of them to come right now and she allows us to decide who it will be. Should we invite over Chucklissa, Oholina, Hoohoolia, or Teeheena?

Having no idea who any of them are, we simply put it to chance, hold the down arrow on the controller so it cycles through all the choices, and pick one at random. And the lucky winner is Hoohoolia. She will be the one to join us today for our snack time. Apparently that was a good choice, as Jojora compliments our good taste before calling her in.

No sooner does Jojora call her does this gorilla of a woman drop down from the ceiling and scare our heroes right off their seats. Can we go back and pick one of the other girls? Would that matter? I feel like we may not have picked the best girl available. But our cries fall on deaf ears as Jojora tells Hoohoolia to take good care of her honorable guests.

And so a battle begins. Right away Jojora tries to attack us with her wand, but Mario managed to knock it flying clear out of her hands. She cries for a moment and calls us creeps. Then, rather than stay and fight without it, she goes running after it and clear out of the battlefield.

Hoohoolia on the other seems rather interested in our heroes as she sends a wink and a heart their way. She too then leaves the battlefield. However, she is quick to come back, this time encased in a giant snowball ready to plow over everything in her way.

She seems to be particularly interested in Luigi as she picks him up and kisses him against his will. Clearly she isn’t his type, he has Daisy waiting for him back home, and the whole act leaves his mouth poisoned from another girl’s lips.

Jojora eventually recovers her magic wand and returns to the battle. As we are already focused on Hoohoolia, we continue directing our attacks at her. Jojora takes great offence to this though. She yells that we should never touch a lady without her permission, and then uses her magic to encase our heroes in snow.

It would seem Jojora’s mere presence here in battle also causes the two of them to recover heath at the end of every turn. Thankfully it is easy to get rid of her. We just need to knock the wand out of her hand again.

With Jojora once again absent from the battlefield, Hoohoolia’s mind begins to wander. It’s unclear which of the brothers she is thinking about, as she’s already attempted to kiss both of them. But in her mind she believes one of them likes her. In an effort to attract his attention, she changes her hair from blond to pink. He’s sure to notice her now.

She then continues to sexually assault both our heroes throughout the course of this battle. Picking them up in her massive arms and kissing them against their will. Every couple of turns, her hair will turn back to its original blond, and a few turns later she will again dye it pink to catch our attention. Likewise every few rounds Jojora will return with her wand and we will again need to knock it away from her.

The battle continues in this loop for some time, until Luigi finally had enough and kicks Hoohoolia in the face so hard she explodes into stars. Jojora returns to the battlefield just in time to see it happen, and she isn’t too happy with what we did to her friend.

However, she knows she isn’t strong enough to take us on by herself. Not after what we did to Hoohoolia. So she simply calls us uncool and runs off, putting an end to the battle.

For her, playtime is over for today, and it’s all our fault for being jerks. Now that I think about it, she may have just been some kid playing here. We never did see her do anything bad. We just naturally assumed we should chase after her and then started beating her and her friend up after we cornered them on the top floor. Also, wasn’t she holding a baby when we saw her earlier? What happened to that baby? Maybe we are jerks.

Jerkiness aside, we came here for a reason, and we haven’t done that yet. So we must press on. We quickly light the remainder of the fires along the wall, and they open up the passageway to the last couple rooms of the castle. Ideally Bowletta will be in one of those rooms waiting for us along with Princess Peach.

We are unfortunately not so lucky. Not only is Princess Peach nowhere in sight, but Bowletta isn’t even here. Instead we have to deal with her lackey Fawful to handle the exchange. He does however get almost straight to the point, for once, and instruct us to put the Beanstar up on the pedestal.

While we’re already on the weaker side of this exchange, a metal fence ends up weakening us even more. With no visible way to open it, Luigi is going to have to do the exchange alone. Not the best position to be in for an exchange like this.

Almost predictably, Fawful attacks Luigi from behind without delay. Not only that, but he has clearly seen through our plan and already identified the Fake Beanstar for the imitation that it is.

With Luigi unconscious on the floor, he is incapable of stopping Fawful from getting the Real Beanstar. Fawful even seems to know right where it is. Without any hesitation Fawful opens up our suitcase and sucks up the Real Beanstar into his head contraption. And then, he is off. He has the Real Beanstar, and he never returned Princess Peach like he promised. Once again, Cackletta/Bowletta has everything she needs to awaken the Beanstar and shape the world to her liking.

A button in the other room opens the gate, and the brothers reflect on their situation. Luigi sits there crying on the floor while Mario ponders their options. Suddenly Mario is struck by inspiration and starts digging through the trunk. Triumphantly, he pulls out Princess Peach’s spare outfit, but for what purpose?

For now, we’ll have to simply wait and wonder along with Luigi. In the meantime, our heroes chase after Fawful as he makes his way up to the roof of the castle. It is here that we see that Bowletta really did show up, and thankfully she has Princess Peach with her. Perhaps there is still a way to save her after all.

It’s still unclear what Mario’s plan is. Furthermore, I’m not sure where Luigi would have run off to at a time like this. He was trailing right behind Mario last we saw him. Either way, Mario starts asking Bowletta to hand over Princess Peach. Maybe all he had to do was ask nicely?

Obviously that didn’t work. Asking nicely has never worked with characters like Bowletta. She begins to taunt Mario and lecturing him on how he will reap what he sows. However, she is cut short when Mario suddenly starts laughing uncontrollably. Something is wrong, and clearly something in his head has finally snapped.

Just then, Princess Peach comes walking in from behind Mario. Now there are 2 Princess Peaches? Apparently they had planned for this to happen all along, and the Princess Peach Bowletta has is an imposter. Amazing! This is the second time this game that Cackletta/Bowletta has been fooled by an impostor!

This is too much for Bowletta to believe, but it must be true. After informing Bowletta that her plans are once again ruined, Mario and Peach start their return home. And there is no way Mario would just walk away if the Real Princess Peach was still with Bowletta.

Before they can get away, Fawful once again attacks from behind, incapacitating Mario. Bowletta then dumps the fake Princess Peach on the ground and quickly grabs the real one and escapes with her. In the process we learn that the mouth on the Koopa Clown Car actually does function as a mouth, it’s not just painted on like I had always thought.

As Bowletta and Fawful fly off with the Real Princess Peach, Mario takes a moment to check on the Impostor Peach that Bowletta so roughly dropped on the ground. She gets up and thanks Mario for saving her, then gives him a kiss on the cheek. Mario then goes stupid with love like he would if this were the Real Princess Peach.

While Mario pulls himself together, we shift our attention to Bowletta, Fawful, and the Real Princess Peach aboard the Koopa Cruiser. Both of the villains are gloating, but still angry that they were tricked again by an impostor. They start venting their frustrations to each other when suddenly something seems off. Why is the princess covering her face with her hands?

They both start questioning the Princess to see if everything is all right. Suddenly Bowletta screams about a HUMONGOUS COCKROACH behind the Princess. This of course scares the Princess into screaming as well and uncovering her face. And… um… that doesn’t look like Princess Peach…

This detail didn’t get past either of them. After a short exchange, Bowletta instructs Fawful to fire upon Princess Peach. With that, the illusion is broken. This is not in fact the Real Princess Peach. This is Luigi in a dress! It would seem the Mario Brothers have managed to trick us all… Ok, maybe not the rest of us, I would hope everyone would have been able to pick up on the fact that it was Luigi in a dress… But they did trick Bowletta and Fawful.

Their anger now at a boiling point, Fawful starts chasing Luigi around the ship while rapidly firing upon him. While running, Luigi manages to block a bridgeway behind him, preventing Fawful and Bowletta from following.

No longer being chased, Luigi finally ditches the failed disguise and attempts to find a way off the Koopa Cruiser. It has clearly undergone significant repairs since we last saw it, but it’s not exactly up to the condition it was once in. Furthermore, there are quite a few of these stations set up with blue orbs. Naturally, we’re going to activate every one we see. Some of them don’t appear to do anything, but some of them are kind enough to reveal hidden ?-Blocks. What’s more, these block are STUFFED FULL of Hoo Beans. Usually we would only get 1 bean per block, but these are giving us up to 5 if we keep hitting them.

Eventually, Luigi makes it to the cargo hold. Pretty much where this whole adventure officially began. And it is here that he manages to find the stolen Beanstar. A quick shock to the control box takes down the force field protecting it, and just like that, the Beanstar has been recovered.

Beanstar in hand, there is no reason to stay on the Koopa Cruiser any longer. So Luigi opens the cargo hatch, throws on a parachute, and jumps out of the flying ship. He managed to escape just in time too, as Bowletta was right behind him.

Fawful isn’t too far behind either. He suggests they chase after Luigi, but Bowletta rejects the idea. No, instead they’re going to go to the Mushroom Kingdom. With the Mario Brothers AND Princess Peach here in the Beanbean Kingdom, there really isn’t anyone there to stop her from whatever terrible plans she has in mind. I can only imagine the damage she can cause by the time we get back.

Until then, let’s make sure Luigi makes it safely to the ground. I had thought he was using a proper parachute when he jumped out of the cruiser, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Now that we get a better look at it, he is actually just using Princess Peach’s spare dress as a makeshift parachute. I’m surprised it can slow him down enough. Quite to our surprise, Prince Peasley actually meets Luigi up there in the air on his flying pillow. He congratulates Luigi on a job well done, and quickly makes sure the Beanstar is safe.

Luigi hands over the Beanstar, probably happy not to have to worry about it anymore. Unfortunately for Luigi, a bird happens to fly by at that moment and breaks his parachute cords. Prince Peasley tries to catch him, but simply ends up being knocked off his balance and falling to his own death as well. A sad end to our green hero, and a good riddance to the annoying Prince Peasley.