Elder Princess Shroob

"FOOLISH MUSHROOM HEADS... YOU MAY HAVE BESTED ME, BUT THE SHROOBS WILL LIVE ON... ONE DAY, THE SHROOBS WILL DANCE ON THE BURIED REMAINS OF THIS PATHETIC KINGDOM..."

- Elder Princess Shroob

Elder Princess Shroob and her younger sister are the leaders of all the shroobs. Her twin sister is Princess Shroob. When Princess Peach, Toadiko and Toadbert came to the past Princess Peach's Castle, they met the Shroobs. Elder Princess Shroob attempted to attack Peach; however, Peach used the power of the Time Machine, the Cobalt Star, to trap the Elder Princess Shroob inside. Peach then shattered the Star into pieces; however, the younger Princess Shroob still was able to capture Peach and trap her in Shroob Castle.

''Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
Throughout the game, Mario, Luigi, Baby Mario and Baby Luigi collect the various pieces of the Cobalt Star, not knowing that Elder Princess Shroob is actually trapped inside. When the brothers get to the top of Star Hill, the spirit of the Cobalt Star appears and speaks to the brothers. The spirit is actually revealed to be Elder Princess Shroob who was tricking the brothers. It seemed that only Baby Luigi knew since he was crying when "the spirit of the Colbalt Star" appeared.

Finally, at the end of the game, after Princess Shroob is defeated, it is revealed that Princess Peach kept the center shard of the Cobalt Star. Peach states, however, that she cannot allow the Cobalt Star to regain its original form. Before she can explain, Baby Bowser comes in and steals the last shard, combining it with the five that the heroes had already collected, causing Elder Princess Shroob to come back to life. The baby and adult brothers then fight Elder Princess Shroob on a platform high in the air.

She is much stronger than her sister, and commands a fleet of Shroob UFOs. Her attacks depend on how many saucers are present; she can use one to heal herself with a drink that recovers 120 of her HP (in other editions than the US edition, she drinks 80 HP), or summon a Shroob-like Chomp to attack Mario or Luigi. The UFO guides the chomp towards a brother and the player has to quickly see which way the UFO is going. She can ride on two saucers, shooting energy blasts down on the brothers, which is too swift for both brothers to jump at the same time so the brothers need to check which hand the evil obese princess shot it. Then firing blasts at the brothers from the sides, which needs Mario then Luigi to jump if the princess doesn't shoot it high (which she commonly does for some reason) before being blown from the UFOs and landing on the platform, causing a shockwave needing the brothers to jump at the same time.

She can also have three UFOs bring her a Shroob meteor, with which she attempts to crush the brothers; however, this attack is easily defended against, with the Hammer and leaves her open to damage. Princess Peach throws stars to the brothers, with which they can knock saucers out of the sky and prevent her from using her more powerful attacks.

When there are no saucers, the princess does one of her most dangerous moves: A football tackle towards one of the plumbers. The younger versions of the plumbers then have to hammer her away multiple times (usually two) before she finally resents. Also only the last strike counterattacks. Occasionally she will do a tricky if-not-extremely annoying tactic of stopping right yester the brother thinks she will attack then charge again (similar to her younger sister's machine sit attack). The way to determine which tactic she will use (which is also extremely annoying to guess) is checking if her mouth is shut or if she is grimacing with her mouth open waving her hand wildly. If she does the former one she will do a straight ram. If she does the latter she will stop for a second then continue. In the Japanese and European version of the game, every time after the player attacked Princess Shoob, a ! appears above her and she would charge at the brother who attacked her, no matter whose turn it is.

Once she loses 3500 HP, she activates her crown and morphs into a hideous beast, which is her true form. The player will have to have to eliminate her stronger form with 3000 more HP. In that form, she has seven parts: four arm tentacles, a group of leg tentacles, a crown, and her main body. The leg tentacles and crown come back in about three turns and each arm tentacle comes back in one turn. In order to make her vulnerable, the player must eliminate the leg tentacles, which allows the crown to be attacked. This crown is the source of her power, as trying to attack the body before taking out the crown results in a single amount of damage. Once the crown is deactivated, Princess Shroob herself can be attacked.

Each body part has a different attack usually going in this order: feet or head; arms; then feet again which is always the tentacle sweep move. This move can be dodged by jumping is and eerily similar to Cackletta's arm swing attack in her ghost form. Once she has taken a certain amount of damage, she will use three tentacles instead of two. The feet has three attacks and each one is synced with the head; one is where the shroob royalty backs up with her feet then spits out poison gasses like the one Swiggler uses but is dodged by jumping. Another is the one mentioned earlier the tentacle sweep. The last is the rarest attack of them all; she backs up summons a Time Hole and six saucers, and spits a giant laser ball that hits the saucers causing them to either burn or decircuit and makes them fall into the time hole, then she resumes her attacks. The next turn if the legs aren't destroyed by then, the time hole is back and the saucers attack either Mario or Luigi. The burning ones attack Mario and the shocked ones attack Luigi which is a reference to Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. They come in the order that the giant laser ball hits them, the first one the giant laserball hits is first, and the last the giant laser ball hits is the last.

Her head only has one attack; and that is summoning up a giant laser ball and hitting saucers with it identical to the time hole one except with out the time hole making it significantly easier. Her tentacles have three attacks that is quite awkward. One is to grab the brothers and throw them. The babies must hit the tentacles together repeatedly to prevent her from grabbing them. This attack can not hurt Princess Shroob in any way when countered. This needs both bottom tentacles to activate. Another attack is to shoot a huge laser ball into the air then throw red and green energy balls into it then making it crash into one brother and if countered into the next and if countered again, it has a backlash. The one with the most energy balls then it is hit first. It can be countered solely with hammers. Also this needs both top tentacles to activate. Finally the last attack is to stab a brother. the tentacle will shine first before attacking. Each tentacle is assigned to a brother. The top right tentacle (on her side) hits above Mario and is only used when there is no top left tentacle. the bot right tentacle (on her side) hits Mario and is quite quick. The top left tentacle hits above Luigi and is only used when there is no top right. The bot left hits Luigi. Also this attack is only used if both bot tentacles are present.

When the player finally defeats her, Baby Luigi claims her purple Mushroom remains. The party returns to the present Peach's Castle, where they find Bowser's unconscious body. The purple Mushroom from Baby Luigi's pocket suddenly floats up and goes right into Bowser's mouth. Bowser and the Elder Princess Shroob then form into Shrowser and the brothers battle Shrowser. Shrowser is easily defeated. Elder Princess Shroob disappears for good while Bowser is released unconscious. The game then ends with the babies (including Baby Peach) and Young Toadsworth finally returning to the past.

''Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Bizarrely, Elder Princess Shroob was one of many Shroobs seen in cold room in the bowels of Bowser's Castle during Mario and Luigi's fight with the Shroobs in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, implying that she managed to survive the events of previous game but was frozen to prevent her evil plans from continuing. How she could have not only survived but regained her original form is unknown. The truth behind her appearance remains a mystery (and is decidedly left thus by Nintendo), though it is notable that she only appears in the background of the battle, as do duplicate Junior Shrooboids and Commander Shroobs; outside the battle, the only Shroob (aside from the three Mario and Luigi fight) that can be seen is one Junior Shrooboid, and the room is much smaller than in the battle.

Another puzzling thing about this is that if Bowser had frozen them in the past as Baby Bowser, it is unlikely that the castle he had then would be the same castle he was using at that moment, as he has had (and sometimes lost) many castles over the various games.

Personality
Elder Princess Shroob seems to have cared a lot for her sister (who, ironically, made no effort to put back together the Cobalt Star) and swears her life into avenging Princess Shroob's death. Oddly, she shows no concern at all for her own people. Whenever a Shroob UFO performs a task for her, she knocks it away, even for simple tasks like bringing her a drink. When she turns into a beast, she is even more destructive, shooting down her own UFOs so that they will hit the Mario Bros.

Trivia

 * In the North American version of Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, the Elder Princess Shroob's crown is given an attack rating, although the crown never actually attacks, as its purpose is to simply protect the princess from damage. In the Japanese and European versions of the game, this has been corrected, as the crown has a Power rating of 0.
 * Elder Princess Shroob is the only one of her race who talks in straight-forward English (without the English dialogue being put between parentheses and under the alien/Shroob-like dialogue).
 * Elder Princess Shroob is one of the few Shroobs, along with Commander Shroob, to not be a Shroob form of someone from the Mushroom Kingdom, as Princess Peach is never shown to have a sister.
 * In battle, the Elder Princess Shroob is labled as Princess Shroob.
 * During Phase II of the battle, parts of the music sound similar to music from the David Tennant years of the British science fiction show, Doctor Who.
 * Along with Cackletta and the Shadow Queen, Elder Princess Shroob is one of the only female final bosses in the entire series of Mario video games.