Star Power

Star Power, sometimes also referred to as SP, is a special form of energy featured in the first two installments of the Paper Mario series. In both games, Star Power is used to fuel Special Moves, a set of unique combat techniques that require Mario to use a special power taught by an entity like a Star Spirit or a Crystal Star.

Breaking from the tradition of the series, Star Power is no longer prominent in the third installment of the series, Super Paper Mario, and onward. The lack of Star Power in the subsequent games disables some of the features known from its predecessors, namely the possibility to perform Special Moves.

Paper Mario
In Paper Mario, Mario receives the ability to gather Star Power after he rescues Eldstar from the Koopa Bros., and he also learns his first Special Move from him. After that, another unit of Star Power is added to Mario's disposal for every Star Spirit he rescues. Along with each Star Spirit, Mario also learns new Special Moves for each Star Spirit which consume one to three SP when used. Mario's amount of Star Power is represented by colorful bars at the top of the screen. When the gauge is not completely full it will slightly refill during battle. It takes eight turns to fully recharge one SP bar. However, the player can also speed up this process by using the Focus-Command, letting Mario regain half of an SP bar in exchange for one turn.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Mario gains access to Star Power after the prologue by holding aloft the Magical Map in front of the Thousand-Year Door. Like in the previous game, Mario's Star Power will increase with every Crystal Star he obtains and he will also learn new Special Moves. Unlike before, the Star Power gauge is now composed of up to eight dots, each representing one unit of Star Power.

In this game, Star Power is still gained automatically at the beginning of a turn, but it is now tied directly to the audience, and many options are available for both Mario and his partners to excite the audience and gain more SP. The most dedicated method is the new ability to Appeal to the audience, which serves a similar function to the previous game's Focus action in taking a turn to charge SP. Successfully executed Action Commands also attract SP from the audience, but of particular note are the newly introduced Stylish moves, normally hidden action commands which allow the playable characters to perform stunts during moves that drive the crowd wild, making them a great source of SP. SP recovery can be augmented greatly by wearing certain Badges; the rate of regeneration from attacks is also boosted when Mario or his partner is in Danger or Peril, or after a Trial Stew has been used.

Due to being tied to the audience, the amount of SP that can be gained at a given time by these methods is affected by the size and composition of the audience - as a result of this, events that take away audience members (such as the attacks of certain bosses, or the behavior of certain members of the audience) impede the party's ability to build SP, while gaining a larger audience size with stage upgrades as Mario's star rank increases with his level will allow SP to build quicker.

There are a few methods of gaining Star Power which are not tied to the audience: SP will always be fully recovered in-battle by successfully getting either three Stars or Shine Sprites (the latter of which also fully restores HP and Flower Points on top of gaining a full audience) in the Bingo! wheel. Eating a Trial Stew also fully restores SP in addition to giving a boosted recovery rate, albeit at the cost of lowering the party's HP to 1 and FP to 0. Outside of battle, SP can also be restored fully by staying at an inn.