S2. Favorite Team (2016)
HI, everyone! I'm your multifaceted presenter, Tucayo, here with S2. Favorite Team. Let's be honest, the Dossier already gives you all the factual information you'd need about the teams (director, writers, debut issue…), so watch me try and give that info a different spin in this year's S2 presentation! Without any further ado, I give you our nominees:
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| S2. Favorite Team | August 12th, 2016 | About |
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Walkthroughs, cheats, codes, strategy guides, gaming history. Get it all right here!
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Jump straight to the results if you don't feel like reading the whole presentation.
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Quiz
Hello, and welcome to this Fun Stuff-themed quiz! Answer all questions correctly, and you'll win the satisfaction of acing an online quiz!
Easy
- Who is the current Fun Stuff director?
- Who has the most sections written for Fun Stuff?
- Which 'Shroom Director made Fun Stuff an official Team?
Medium
- Who was the first Fun Stuff director?
- What was “Fun Stuff” called before becoming an official Team?
- Which section has the most Fun Stuff SOTM wins?
Hard
- In which issue did Fun Stuff debut as an official Team?
- In how many issues has Fun Stuff appeared either as a team or as a section?
- Which section (other than Director's Notes) has appeared in the most issues?
Answers:
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Easy
Medium
Hard
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Retro Feature
| Pipe Plaza | |
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| First appearance: | Issue XXXIII |
| Directors: |
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| Sections written: | Pipe Plaza: 531 |
| Current writers: | |
HI, everyone! I'm your informative presenter, Tucayo, here with Retro Feature! This month we will be taking a look at none other than the Pipe Plaza itself; how it came to be, and how it currently stands. Let's go back all the way to 2009; the MarioWiki had a project called "Pipe Plaza", which was located in MarioWiki:Pipe Plaza. The purpose of that page was to give out news, mention the latest Featured Articles and Featured Images, bring attention to PipeProjects, highlight some maintenance tasks, and give general tips for editing and "working with others". It's still kept as an archive users can look at it, unlike other abandoned projects such as MarioWiki:Trouble Center.
Anyway, in October, 2009, there was a joint proposal by the then-Core Staff of The 'Shroom, and originally suggested by Super Mario Bros. (talk), to merge the outdated Pipe Plaza with our newsletter. However, the original idea was to basically have a page at MarioWikI:The 'Shroom/Pipe Plaza and have it so users would update their chosen section each time it was necessary. It is like this that the proposal passed 15 to 1, curiously the only oppose came from former Director, Plumber (talk), who said the Pipe Plaza would work better by being incorporated into the Main Page and not The 'Shroom. Regardless, the proposal passed and the merge went into action on Issue XXXII (32), where PP's then-Director, SMB, introduced the project as something that would need to be edited constantly; for example, someone who signed up for Featured was told they should edit their section each time there was a new Featured Article. In the end, between Issues XXXII and XXXIII it was decided our new Pipe Plaza would work better as a monthly project, and it has thrived like that ever since. It's that first edition of our Pipe Plaza that you can take a look at next.
Pipe PlazaDirector's NotesHey guys, this is SMB. Turns out this will be a monthly project, so that's pretty good. I'm sorry to all of those who had confusion, I was busy with other things and I couldn't create a warning to send out, so nobody is in trouble for not sending in their sections (as it is my fault). MG1 is co-directing the Pipe Plaza from now on with me, so please make sure you send all of the sections to him as well as me.
Featured (MG1)OK, here's my section Featured
Hello there! I am Marioguy1 (talk) and I am so excited to be both the user in charge of this position and the sub-director of the Pipe Plaza team! I hope I can do as well as all of the other directors have done in the past. Anyhow, I'd better get on to doing my job and listing all the featured stuff this month. This month we have had a surprising amount of featured articles articles which passed the nominations considering the pace we've been going at. There was a total of three new FAs and they are:
There were no articles unfeatured this month (that's a surprise ).
That gives a total of 10 fails and 3 passes. This month on the main page we have had several articles and images including:
There's four articles and three images on the main page. OK, that's all that happened this month! I'll see you again next month with some new featured articles but until then, read on! Maintenance (Tucayo)Hi readers, and welcome to this first issue of the Pipe Plaza, I will bring you for this only occasion the Maintenance section. Here, you will see some tips to edit the wiki. Let’s start.
Now, we need to use it obviously. You can always out in the pages {{User:Blah/sig}}, however, it is easier just to click on the sig button. To make it work you have to go to the Preferences page (Top of the page), and now, in the Signature box you just paste this: {{SUBST:nosubst|User:Username/sig}} (Changing username with your actual username). Next, you check the Raw signature box. If you don’t do so, all the code will be pasted instead of just the template. If your sig has a variable, take mine for example, sometimes you are just too busy to write something, so there are 2 things you can do:
For even more custom stuff you can change the cursor that appears in the links. Normally, we have the boring hand (in windows, at least). You can change it to any other cursor, just do this, lets use my sig: [[MarioWiki:The_'Shroom/XXXIII/Director_Election|<span style="font-family:font; color:Green; cursor:help; font-variant: small-caps; hover:first-letter;"><font>{{{1|Vote for me!}}}</font></span>]]
There are also even more stuff to do, like font-variant, where you can change the text style, like the small caps my sig has, the font, or more! But unfortunately, my section ends here. Goodbye and have fun editing your sig. Main Collaboration (SMB)Hello 'Shroomers! Welcome to another awesome edition of The 'Shroom. As of today (the release date), here are articles nominated to be featured (on a side note, there are no articles nominated for unfeaturing):
Mario Calendar (Sunshineisles2)
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Movie Reviews
| Critic Corner | |
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| Genres | Drama, Thriller |
| Release date | July 2016 (Worldwide) |
| Starring | XXXXXX |
| Runtime | 114 minutes |
| Ratings | PG-13 (language) |
HI, readers! I'm your critic S2 presenter, Tucayo, and I'm here to review the film adaptation of the popular game, Critic Corner. The game itself was released in 2012 but this movie has just released this summer; so, if you're looking for something more dramatic than Civil War, definitely not as child-friendly as Finding Dory, at times more polemic than Ghostbusters, and actually funnier than Zoolander 2 even though it is not a comedy, then Critic Corner is just for you.
The plot of the movie revolves around a team of brilliant people who are part of a secret, international organization disguised as a monthly opinion magazine named "The Critic Corner" whose goal is to infiltrate in as many national governments as possible and control world politics. From the moment I heard the main plot I was sold, and then with the first trailer we were able to see the terrific ensemble cast this movie has, just take a look at it:
- Danny DeVito in the role of Anton "Hypnotoad", the head of the team whom also holds various high-ranking positions in government and businesses. Very talented at convincing people, some even go as far as to claim he has hypnotizing powers.
- James Franco as PowerKamek, the team's newest member. He's rather popular in the outer world, something which will prove to be a double-edged sword. Let's see if he can use that to his advantage.
- Emma Watson playing DragonFreak, an eccentric and very friendly gamer with great deduction and puzzle-solving abilities.
- Christian Bale as Yoshi876, a British cinephile who alternates his free time between going to the movies and hitting the gym. He's the muscle of the team and he also has great charisma.
- Robert Downey Jr. in the role of Meta Knight, a former solider whose knowledge of military tactics will be of paramount importance.
- Brie Larson playing FunkyK38, an artist and baseball fanatic who hides many tricks up her sleeve and will prove to have the solution to more than one problem.
- Nicole Kidman with a special cameo as Crocodile Dippy, the former leader of the team. Even though she's retired, the rest of the team knows they can count on her to lend a hand when it's needed the most.
I'm not one to spoil a good movie so I'll just tell you this is the must-watch movie of the year. Very good dramatic scenes, a fair share of funny moments, an action sequence that will keep you at the edge of your seat, but above all, a terrific performance by everyone in the cast; they poured they hear into it and it shows. Critic Corner has everything you want and more, so go watch it as soon as you can!
From The Mushroom Vaults
HI, readers! I'm your strategic presenter, Tucayo, and in this installment of FTMV I will give you some useful tips and tricks for The 'Shroom Game Studio's latest release and first RPG ever, Strategy Wing. But first, some background; Strategy Wing was released in July 2015 and it's the first game The 'Shroom has released since 2012's Critic Corner. And believe me, those three years were put into good use and they resulted in what is an excellent game, so let's take a look at some tips and unlockables from this game.
Tips
Let's start off with a tip for the final boss battle, which most users have had problems with. The game's final boss is none other than Stooben Rooben, who actually doesn't have the highest HP out of the game's bosses (that would be Meta Knight, with 1000 HP). Stooben has 500 HP, which at first doesn't seem like a lot, but what makes his battle the most challenging is the fact that he will use his Heal spell every five turns, completely healing himself. This means you only have five turns to beat him; and while this may sound easy if you have a high Attack or Special Attack, Stooben's Special Defense is the highest in the game by far (111). If you remember, the boss of the Mario Kart Dungeon, Yoshi876, has a Defense of 95; this means magical attacks won't do anything against Stooben just like physical attacks didn't do anything to 876, so don't waste one of your five turns attacking him with magic.
The most effective strategy against Stooben is to attack his nose in the first turn after he heals himself, as he will be temporarily vulnerable and attacking his nose will cause double damage on him; however, this will make him use his Pigeon to attack you in the next turn, an attack that deals between 230 and 250 HP and nullifies armor rating. So, before you attack his nose, be sure to have full HP; max-level players will have around that exact HP without any upgrades, so it's recommended you equip the Diamond Mario badge for 30 additional HP. Assuming you have maxed out on your Attack stat, your hit to his nose will deal around 250 HP damage (or up to 350 HP in the very off chance you score a critical hit, which is very much not likely as Stooben has a 95% resistance against criticals; be sure to equip the Poochy amulet before the battle to double your chances of a critical). You will surely have to use a Staff SOTM Potion in the next turn to heal your HP to the max, since you will have between 30 and 50 HP remaining. This will leave you with three turns to deal between 150 and 250 damage, which, if you have the 'Shroom Awards sword equipped it shouldn't be a problem as each hit will deal 90 damage; just don't aim for the nose again as that will repeat the Pigeon attack!
In summary, you need to:
- Equip: Poochy amulet (to double chances of a critical), Diamond Mario badge (to increase HP by 30), 'Shroom Awards sword (highest attack rating in the game).
- Attack his nose in the first turn after he heals (not the first turn in the battle).
- Heal yourself in the second turn.
- Attack him on turns 3, 4, and 5 with the 'Shroom Awards sword. Don't aim at the nose again or you will have to waste another turn healing yourself.
- If you do this correctly, you will manage to beat him in the fifth turn (or fourth turn if you were lucky enough to score a critical).
Unlockables
Fan-favorite Yoshi876 returned as a dungeon boss after his appearance in 2012's Pipe Plaza, and this led to fans worldwide petitioning for the other popular bosses in The 'Shroom's games to be released as DLC. But little did they know you can actually fight MrConcreteDonkey, Andymii, FunkyK38, Yoshi876, Crocodile Dippy, and Anton directly prior to fighting Stooben Rooben. And actually, this is the only way to get the elusive "Favorite Team" ending, which is definitely the best one.
But how do you get to fight them all? You need to collect the five "Team badges" that are found throughout the game. These are badges that can't be equipped, can't be dropped, can't be sold, can't be stored, nada. Chances are if you already found one you will have forgotten you have it since they just sit in your inventory and do nothing unless you have the six of them when you are about to fight Stooben. Let's take a look at how to get each of them:
Fake News Badge
First, you will need to have Waluigi in your party. If you have been near the sewers, you may have encountered an odd half-bat, half-dragon creature who sells "hidden truths" for 1,000 coins each. The first five you buy from him sound just like conspiracionist stuff, but the sixth one tells you to make your way to the Fake News Cemetery (north of the temple made of pasta and bread) and go up to Elvin Parsley’s tombstone (between Santa Claus and Pokémon Trainer) and interact with it at exactly 4:20 AM. Or you can just not pay him 6,000 coins and go straight to Elvin.
Anyway, Elvin will ask you to go to a prisoner camp in Dry Dry Desert and retrieve a Shy Guy tribal music tape. Yes, I'm as confused as you are by that. When you get there, a guard will be blocking the entrance and will demand you give him a "Mushroom made by one of his kin" to give you access. As you will find out, he will not accept any Mushroom you may be carrying. You will then have to pay a visit to the famous Shy Guy chef in Toad Town; he will be rambling on about "real" mushrooms, but once you mention you were sent by another Shy Guy he will listen to you. He will then proceed to give you a very complex way to produce a Mushroom, involving 60,000 coins; remember, this is the only way to get access to the Dry Dry Desert camp. Once you have followed the Shy Guy's instructions, go back to the camp and search for a Shy Guy kid. He will give you the tape you need to take to Elvin at exactly 4:20 AM again. After giving the tape to Elvin, he will disappear, leaving a top-hat shaped badge behind. One down, five more to go.
Fun Stuff Badge
The instructions to get this badge are not as convoluted but they require your puzzle skills. You need to go to the Fun Stuff Arcade and beat the following games in order: Quiz, Crossword, Word Search, Mystery Image, and Picross. Once you do this, talk to the very large Pokémon who's at the front desk, he will be so impressed by your feat he will grant you access to the Secret Room; but, before reaching the room, you will have to navigate through three mazes, each increasing in difficulty. After clearing the mazes, you will get to a small room with only one game called Guess Who?; insert one coin and the game will start. You have to guess 100 characters consecutively; miss one question, and Donald Trump and John Cena will get you out of the arcade and you will have to start from scratch.
When you beat Guess Who?, the arcade will give you a small badge in the shape of a Fire Flower.
Palette Swap Badge
In order to be able to get this badge, you will have to download and enable the mod that lets you play as a baby version of your character, otherwise you won't be able to get the badge. After doing this, make your way to the Palette Swap studio, where a Shy Guy that suspiciously looks like the chef we visited earlier will bestow upon you a game cartridge, saying he needs you to get an artwork for it and a soundtrack. Since the playable characters can't even play the tambourine, you will have to lure deep into the area known as the Fan Creations Board and there you will have to convince two people of helping you out. If your speech rating is high, this shouldn't be a problem.
Return to the Shy Guy and present him with the Art and Music for his game; in return, he will give you a program that emulates sound chips in retro video game consoles. Huh, that's quite a specific quest item. The Shy Guy will give you the cryptic clue "recess is over". You have to find out this takes you to the School, more specifically the playground in it. Activate the program, which will play a chiptune; after the song plays in full, a small kid with a red hat will approach you and give you a badge in the shape of a bird.
Pipe Plaza Badge
Make your way to the Pipe Plaza Office Building. I know what you may be thinking, "that doesn't sound as interesting as a cemetery, an arcade, or an art studio", but trust me, it very well is because there is a lot going on in here. Approach the elevator towards the back of the lobby, and make sure the guards aren't looking in your direction or they will escort you (kick you) out. When you get to the elevator you will be asked for the code, so type in "876", this will open the elevator's doors. There are 50 floors to choose from; the long way to do this is just to visit them one by one and talk to everyone in hope they are relevant to our quest, but these are the only floors that are useful to us: 7, 15, 23, 29, 35, 42, 45, and 49. In them you will find a character that will give you a quest item. You can visit them in any order but we'll start from the bottom and work our way up.
- In floor 7 you'll find a Yoshi made out of paper that will give you a report of last month's operations. He'll tell you to hand it to the boss.
- Once you've helped the Yoshi, we can move up to floor 15, where you will find the archives, going from "3Dejong" to "Z3r0 Tw0". You need to look into every file until you find one marked with "Retro Feature"; the file changes every time you enter the room, so don't leave without having found it and taken it.
- Moving on, in floor 23 you will come across a studio where a Boo and a Mega Man-type robot are interviewing someone else; you can either wait for them to finish, or you can interrupt them, which brings up some funny dialogue. They'll give you a transcript of the interview and you'll be able to proceed.
- Up in floor 29 there will be a Koopaling working on a desk; approach him and he will give you his reports on the community.
- In floor 35 there will just be a note saying "See you at the end" next to a folder labeled "Threads of the Month". Take the folder and move on.
- Floor 42 hosts apparently the marketing team, since they are running polls and surveys. Talk to any of them and they will hand you a folder with poll results. Just be sure not to choose the "Polls are a fad and will die soon, I don't care" dialogue option when they ask you if you like polls, or you'll have to wait a day until you can come back in again.
- Upon getting to floor 45, a blue-shelled Paratroopa will start yelling at you. Or talking very loudly, I'm not sure which. He'll give you five binders each with a weight of 15, so you may need to get rid of some of your stuff.
- Lastly, in floor 49 you will encounter a Lakitu talking about some sort of ceremony. Just take the folder from him.
If you tried to press the button for the 50th floor before doing all this, you'd have noticed nothing happened at all, but you can press it now. When you get to the top floor, an assistant will tell you the boss is busy with something important; he'll just take the folders from you and give you a pipe-shaped badge for your troubles.
Critic Corner Badge
To get this badge, you will need to make your way to the Critic Corner Theater (spelled Theatre in-game) and find a Kamek backstage playing a game. You need to tell him you're here to audition and he'll ask you to go on-stage. When you do, you'll see in front of you five chairs, of which only two are taken; one by the Kamek you already met and another one by a purple dragon. The dragon will mention her coworkers should be taking the other chairs but that they have been acting odd as of late and that only they will conduct the audition. The audition consists of them asking you many questions, and you have to give a specific answer to each; if you give a different answer than the ones here, they'll just tell you they'll be in touch with you and you will have to wait a week before repeating this process. Here are the questions:
- The dragon will ask you what your favorite gaming genre is; you will need to pick the "RPG" option.
- Next, the Kamek will ask you how much you love Mario games. Your options are "A lot", "More than anything else", and "I live for Mario games"; the answer you'll want to choose is the last one.
- Back to the dragon, she will mention they should probably ask something in their coworkers' places; she asks what's your favorite part in a video game; the correct answer is "Fighting the bosses!"
- The next question is what do you like to do in your free time. "Go to the movies" is the answer you want. "Work out" will give you a positive comment but it's not the answer we need to get the badge.
- Your final question will be what type of books do you prefer, and you should answer "Graphic novels".
After giving these answers, the dragon will tell you you're in and will give you a badge in the shape of a pair of glasses. Try not to look too much at it.
Strategy Wing Badge
This badge is found in Meta Knight's chambers, which you can only access after you have defeated him, which means you have to backtrack a bit. After you have taken on the game's second-to-last boss, you will need to go to the tower opposite to where you are now, which was locked before the battle. Once in there, you need to interact with the Calendar on the right wall and search for the day marked as "Galactic Expedition". The date for that day is actually the code to open the safe in the room. However, before you manage to open it, a cube-shaped ghost will enter the room and will challenge you to a battle. You can either fight him or talk him out of it by pretending to be the servant. I suggest the latter as we are getting very close to the final set of battles and you'll need all your items. When he leaves the room, open the safe and take the sword-shaped Badge.
And we have done it! We have all the badges. Now, the dialogue when confronting Stooben before the final battle will be different. He will mention how an adventurer like you has probably heard of the legendary Team Badges, and he says he'd give anything in exchange for those six badges. You then have the choice to tell him to forget about it, in which case the final battle starts as usual and you did this for nothing; or you have the choice to tell him you'll give him the badges if he stops his army, which, being the game's main villain, Stooben of course won't do. Regardless, you should choose this option; Stooben will then take the badges and say with their accumulated power he can summon his partners and they'll all tear you to pieces. MrConcreteDonkey, Andymii, FunkyK38, Yoshi876, Crocodile Dippy, and Anton then materialize from the badges and the battle with MCD starts. You are already familiar with them, so good luck beating them!
If you are strong (and lucky) enough to beat the seven bosses, you will get the famous "Favorite Team" ending, which includes a parade in the pure style of the Paper Mario games. I hope you found this guide to be useful, and I'll leave you with some images from this parade:
