The 'Shroom:Issue 131/Strategy Wing

Director Notes
Written by:

Hey there everyone! This month of Strategy Wing is somewhat small, I've personally been extremely busy, and have decided that I am resigning from Party Trick! I've worked on this section since I first took over Strategy Wing from, but I've decided that I don't have the time to continue writing it. I would like to continue working on Galactic Expedition for now, but as of this moment I have not had time to write it. That being said, if anyone wants to sign up to succeed my section or write something new, please send us an application following the guidelines on the sign up page! I would love to see more sections on this team so it can flourish, but sadly I myself cannot do much when I have school in the way. There's still some great sections to read though! Thanks to and !

Section of the Month

Congratulations to YoshiFlutterJump and Yoshi876 for tying in first! Thanks to as well for their section!

YoshiFlutterJump's Tips and Tricks
Written By:

Hello and welcome to the fourth edition of YFJ’s Tips & Tricks! In this section I give a strategy guide for a rather difficult Mario level. In this issue we look at a rather devious level: World 1-4 from Super Mario Tennis.

For those of you who don’t know, Super Mario Tennis is a minigame in Mario Tennis Open that is heavily based off of Super Mario Bros.. It contains two worlds with four courses each, amounting to eight courses total. Unlike most people think, the second world is not unlocked by completing the first; rather, both 1-1 and 2-1 are available from the start, and you can choose the world simply by changing the number of players. The second world is WAY harder, but here I’ll show you how to get through Bowser’s seemingly circular castle in World 1-4. You can unlock this level by clearing the first three levels in the first world.

First, some basic strategy to the game. First, you should play as a speed-type character, like Yoshi or Baby Mario (the latter is unlocked by completing 1-3). I strongly recommend against power-types in this mode; they will make the ball go faster, not to mention you’ll be slower. Also, pretend that the screen is split into three parts. The top part can be hit with lob shots, the middle with topspins, and the bottom with slices. Flat shots are also good for either the middle or the bottom section, as it’s fast. Simple shots can hit the middle section but are kind of slow, and as such I do not recommend them. Drop shots are basically an instant loss in this mode, so avoid those. You may want to use Dynamic View, as it positions the camera behind your character, allows you to aim via gyro controls, and takes care of movement for you. You may also choose whether to use touch or button controls; I prefer touch controls but most people prefer button controls; you decide which feels more comfortable. Lastly, collect as many points as possible; doing so increases the time limit, which is very crucial to victory.

The level begins as you’d expect from Bowser’s Castle, containing Lava Bubbles, Fire Bars, and...invisible blocks? Yep, there are plenty of those. Hitting anything (well, not the ground) with the ball will give you points and increase your time limit, and you cannot take damage in this way. The invisible blocks begin in the middle of the screen, but they start to appear on the top after the second Fire Bar. Hit as many as you can. Be sure to hit the Goombas and Koopa Troopas! Next comes a pipe that leads to a secret area if you hit it with the ball. This may be an opportunity to gain more time, if you’re fast; if you’re not fast, skip it; it will only make you lose valuable time.

This area is filled with Goombas, Coins, and Brick Blocks, in addition to a Super Mushroom. Hit the Super Mushroom to grow your ball, then hit as much as possible in the room. Don’t spend too long in the room; leave within fifty "seconds" (timer countdowns) of your entry.



You’ll enter an area in which there is nothing to do. Hit as many Fire Bars as you can, but whatever you do, DO NOT miss the ball. Focus on keeping the ball in play. Soon you’ll see that by entering the pipe, you completely circled the castle, which means you’ll have to start over. Scroll up two paragraphs to see how to proceed, and hit as many things as you can; however, DO NOT hit the pipe again. Go a little further and you’ll see a group of three pipes; hit the one furthest to the right to escape the circle. DO NOT miss the pipe, or you will have to circle the castle again.



Now you should find yourself in an underground area. This area is pretty straightforward; hit the Goombas, Koopa Troopas, and ? Blocks. Before long you should see a set of three ? Blocks; hit the leftmost one to get a Super Mushroom. If you entered the secret area and haven’t died since, you’ll get a Fire Flower instead, which allows you to shoot two fireballs whenever you hit the screen. After a few more sets of ? Blocks, you’ll find a green pipe; enter it to proceed to the next area.



This area begins with two parallel sets of five ? Blocks each. The bottom-right one contains a Super Mushroom or Fire Flower; the top-left one contains a Super Star. Hit both power-ups to increase your timer and, well, power up! Hit everywhere possible while the Super Star is in effect to get lots of coins! Soon enough, you should reach two ? Blocks. Hit directly to the left of the top one to reveal a 1-Up Mushroom. Soon you should see two rows of brick blocks. One of these blocks contains a beanstalk. Hit the beanstalk to proceed; otherwise, you’ll find yourself going on a circle.



This next area is another straightforward one; keep hitting the screen to reveal a message that says “NIGHT SKY”. Keep hitting enemies and invisible blocks to avoid losing time, and hit the green pipe to return to the castle and avoid a circle.



The last area is a relatively short one. You’ve gotten past all the circles, and you’re in the very center of the castle now. Just hit every enemy, and aim for gaps in walls; you don’t want to lose time right before the boss!



The boss, Bowser, is not hard, as long as you know how to hit an axe. Hit his fire breath; if you’re still fire-powered, damage him with your fire. Once the axe is in sight, though, forget Bowser; he can’t deal any damage to you. HIT THE AXE and rescue the princess! “Thank you, Mario! Your quest is over,” she will say. But is it really over? By no means! Play Super Mario Tennis with another player and see for yourself!



Now why did you play that level? Was it for that shiny platinum medal in your records? Or was it to dress up as a certain money-craving overweight friend of ours? Chances are you did it for the Wario Costume. To unlock it, you’ll need to collect at least 800 Coins in this level. To get that many, you’ll have to keep circling in the area with the Super Star. You may run out of time, but that won’t be a problem; you’ll have plenty of lives to spare from those 1-Up Mushrooms! The Super Star will get you tons of Coins, and after about eight loops you’ll have enough.

Well, folks, that’s it for this issue. Feel free to post feedback or suggestions on this forum thread, vote for me, and look forward to my next section! Goodbye for now!

Pokédex Power
Written by:

Hello everyone, it's me, Yoshi876 again with a new edition of Pokédex Power, the section written by the person who did not benefit with the warmth of last month's focus, and even managed up catching a cold. And if Fire type Pokémon couldn't save me from an illness, who knows how this month's one will step up to the challenge.

This month we will be looking at the Pokédex entries of Onix, a Pokémon that is probably most famous for being Brock's Pokémon of choice, and for being defeated by Pikachu, even though Ground-types are immune to Electric-type attacks. And no, the water should not have had any effect.

In Pokémon Black 2 I used an Onix for a short while, and I mean a short while, because I was massively disappointed by it. For a massive rock snake, its attack stat isn't anything special, and it struggled to OHKO opponents even with super effective moves, and being a few levels higher. I think it's best if I just leave using Onix to Brock.

Generation I

I'm going to cut straight to it, and say that Onix's original Pokédex entries, are not great. If we start with Red and Blue it already seems to contradict the anime. I have never seen an Onix in any series of the anime, that is black, not even the super-sized Onix from the episode To Master the Onixpected!, the closest we've ever gotten is the Crystal Onix, and that one is lighter than your traditional Onix. I understand that the Generation I games were monochromatic, so Onix could appear to be black, but I'm fairly certain that artwork at the time saw them as grey. Moving on, the other two entries are better. Although I'm annoyed that Yellow just says a “high speed”, at least this is given an actual figure in Stadium, I also don't like the vague statement of “food.” What does an Onix eat? Seeing as it's based off of a snake, is it carnivorous? I know this is clarified later on, but I don't see a reason as to why we can't know now. What I do like about Yellow's entry, however, is the Diglett part. It is nice to see that the Diglett depend on the Onix in a form of. And on a final note, it's nice to see Stadium clarify how large an Onix gets.

Generation II

Generation II isn't much better, as it mainly focuses on Onix's tunnelling habits, and they only require one Pokédex entry, not three separate ones. Gold and Satdium 2 are quite vague on how far the sounds from Onix's tunnelling travel, because while I can imagine they are loud, where they are mainly underground, I can't imagine them being noisy above ground, depending on how far down the Onix tunnel. Silver offers nothing new if you are aware of what Gold's entry says, as we are aware of how it tunnels, and the speed fact was revealed in Stadium – by the way, be prepared to hear that speed fact a lot in Onix's Pokédex entries. Crystal is the only interesting entry of the bunch, due to the absorption fact, maybe this is how Onix eats. Although I'm sceptical on this being the reason that Onix's body is so solid, I mean, it could easily be the fact that the thing is made out of rocks.

Generation III

As I said, be prepared to hear 50 mph a lot, as it's back again in the entry for FireRed. Overall, FireRed is a very weak Pokedex entry, not only is it repeating facts, but it's vague over food again, and more importantly, it's giving off obvious statements. Most of the previous entries mention how Onix tunnels around underground, so it's an obvious assumption that it spends most of its time there. If they'd gone for a fact over why an Onix may decide to come above ground, then it might be an interesting entry. Other than that, Generation III has some realty good entries. The main three titles of the generation all focus around the compass fact, and this is an amazing entry. It gives you something Onixpected – come on, who would have thought that it had a compass in its brain – and for those people who may not understand what a compass does, it helpfully explains that, while remaining relevant to Onix. The final part of their entries are interesting, but as you never see Pokémon age, it's hard to get excited about it. And LeafGreen fixes the absolute mess that was Red and Blue's entries, by saying it becomes similar to black-coloured diamond, not becomes black-coloured diamond.

Generation IV

Generation IV go back to being boring, and repeatedly hit us over the head with the fact that Onix travels at 50 mph. HeartGold and SoulSilver copy their respective game's Pokédex entries, and the rest don't really add much. The only interesting thing from Pearl is that Onix is constantly eating, and as for Diamond the way it describes Onix makes it sound like a nuisance, seeing as tremors could cause major damage, so it would have been interesting to see whether humans regard them as a nuisance Pokémon. Platinum is probably the best of the bunch, because while it does regurgitate the 50 mph fact, it does at least finally clarify what Onix eats.

Generation V

Usually when I talk about a Generation V Pokédex entry, I mention how it's just a copy of a previous generation's entry, and while that rings true for Black and White, Black 2 and White 2 do add something new to the mix. It mentions how Onix creates long tunnels, which hints at these tunnels having decent longevity, although I guess the Generation I entry that said Diglett live in these tunnels does that as well. But more importantly, it adds more to what Onix eats, this time being soil, although with a mouth as large as described, I do wonder whether it sometimes inadvertently does consume another Pokémon.

Generation VI

Although Generation V did manage to add a new entry for once, Generation VI doesn't do this, and instead copes some previous generations' entries. It even manages to give us the 50 mph fact again one last time.

Conclusion

Overall, Onix doesn't have great Pokedex entries. Although it is nice to have a fact based on how fast it can go, it's repeated almost every generation and quickly outstays its welcome. It also took us four generations to find out what Onix even ate. General facts on how Onix moves aren't particularly interesting, and to have them surface for a couple generations takes away the potential for more interesting things, like the compass brain. For improvements, we need to drop the speed fact, honestly we get it now. What could also be done is a general habitat, does Onix tunnel wherever, or is it more of a mountain Pokémon? Do its tunnels cause any negative effects for humans? What are baby Onix like?