Tape (Brain Drain)



The Tape is an item in Brain Drain. It is a cassette tape belonging to Luigi that contains the hit single of The Pizzas, "Anchovies with Extra Cheese" (which Luigi comments is his favorite). If Luigi decides to stop for a drink of Fungus Up, he grabs it from a table and takes it with him. Later, after Luigi has his mind swapped with that of a Koopa Troopa and is wandering inside WMUSH, Iggy Koopa orders him to retrieve a tape with the same song from the recording studio. If Luigi gets distracted by the studio's computer and fails to acquire Iggy's tape, he can use the tape in his possession instead. As Luigi is looking for the tape, Iggy also mentions that the secret to his Synapse Switcher is hidden in the song. Luigi listens to the song and notices that during the chorus, someone is reading out a string of letters: "VBIILT YRQQLK." Luigi assumes that this tells the listener how to reverse the Synapse Switcher and immediately begins decoding it. However, the reader is left to deduce the code themselves, as explained by some narration. Breaking the code also requires obtaining the highest score in a computer game that Luigi could have played previously, Pound the Plumbers: The high score's last digit is used to change each letter according to its place in the alphabet. As the highest possible score for the game is thirteen, the letters in the code must be shifted forward by three places, revealing the code to be "YELLOW BUTTON." Once Luigi presses the yellow button, the Synapse Switcher dispenses a can of Fungus Up, leaving Luigi to deduce that Fungus Up is the cure for the mind-swapping. If Luigi does not have the Tape, he attempts to ask a nearby Sumo Brother for a copy of the Tape; doing so immediately reveals that Luigi's mind was swapped, as Iggy had ordered all copies of the Tape to be destroyed, after which Luigi is promptly thrown in a dungeon, leading to a Game Over. If Luigi presses the machine's orange button instead of the yellow button, it causes the machine to self-destruct, leaving him stuck in the Koopa's body, also leading to a Game Over.