Badge

"Putting on badges and taking them off is a vital skill."

- Goompa

Badges are items used in several Mario RPGs ever since their first appearance in Paper Mario. Badges are equipped as accessories, similar to the weapons, armors and accessories from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The main difference is that, unlike the items in Super Mario RPG, Badges have a variety of uses depending on the game. They may increase stats, provide unusual abilities, or give Mario access to new moves.

Paper Mario series
Each badge requires a certain amount of BP to be equipped, which means that Mario can't equip all the badges at the same time. The more useful a badge, the more BP it requires. Instead of changing Mario's stats, badges have many uses, from prolonging Mario's Spin Dash to changing the sound effects of Mario's hammer and jump attacks. Some badges also allow Mario to use special attacks with the hammer and shoes that use FP.

Paper Mario
In Paper Mario badges can be found scattered in all the Mushroom Kingdom, but some particular badges can be only bought from Rowf in Toad Town and from Merlow in exchange for Star Pieces.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, badges can instead be bought from the Lovely Howz of Badges in Rogueport. They can be traded for Star Pieces with Dazzle in Rogueport Sewers. Ms. Mowz can steal badges from enemies and enemies also occasionally drop badges when defeated.

Super Paper Mario
Super Paper Mario eliminated the use of badges for there was no RPG style battling system. Although, there are two items that were previously badges in the past games: Power Plus and HP Plus; they retain their main purpose. Power Plus boosts the character's attack power by one and the HP Plus boosts the character's maximum Heart Points by five. But with the badges they had to be equipped and could be unequipped. In the most recent game, once it is used, it's permanent. The Happy Flower, albeit distinctly different than its badge form, also appears in Super Paper Mario as an item.

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, each bro can only wear one badge at a time. Badges are used to raise Mario or Luigi's Attack stat or their Bros. Points. Certain badges also allow different effects to be used in battle, such as defense from spiked enemies, HP recovery, and attacks with different effects, among others. In the game, badges can be bought in shops all around the Beanbean Kingdom or dropped from defeated enemies.

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
In Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Badges only give special effects to Mario, Luigi, Baby Mario, and Baby Luigi. Clothing instead increases and decreases all the stats in this game. Badges can be found all around the Mushroom Kingdom of the past, dropped by enemies, in the present Kingdom's Item Shop, or bought from Fawful. Like the game's predecessor, only one badge can be given to each bro at a time.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Items known as Bros. Badges appear in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, in which they are used in battle by Mario and Luigi (but not Bowser). The first two badges are given to the player by Princess Lipid in the Flab Zone. When a gauge fills up, touching the two linked badges with the stylus activates the badge, yielding a variety of results, such as restoring health. The gauge is filled up by performing an attack in either a "GOOD", "GREAT" or "EXCELLENT" way (the requirements vary from badge to badge). Switching a badge during a battle will reset the gauge to zero. Some badges can be purchased at a shop in Toad Town and others can be found throughout the game.

Super Smash Bros. series
The Franklin Badge is an item in this series that lets the user deflect projectiles.

Paper Mario series Badges
Badges can be obtained in a multitude of ways in the Paper Mario series. Most badges provide a special attack for Mario and consume BP (Badge Points) when equipped.

Paper Mario
There are sixty-nine badges in Paper Mario, but some appear more than once, making a total of 80 badges.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Notes: There are now badges that are exactly the same as its regular counterpart only having a "P" on the end, signifying that these badges are for partners. Equipping more than one of the jump or hammer attack badges Mario has already obtained doubles FP requirements, but increases attack power by 1. When wearing both Double Dip badges, Mario can use Triple Dip for 8 FP. For each additional Charge badge, Mario or his partner gains an extra 1 attack power for the next turn, but the FP cost doubles. When both the W Emblem and L Emblem are equipped, Mario's clothes will change into Waluigi's clothes.

Total number of badges: 85.

* When using P-Down D-Up (P) the defense point added additionally decreases damage received from a defense-piercing attack by 1, whereas even Defend Plus doesn't protect against such an attack.

** This doesn't work if the enemy's (Iron Cleft) DEF hasn't been determined.

*** There is a common misconception that the Feeling Fine badges have an effect on Poison Shrooms. In reality, all they do is stop the user from being poisoned. There is a slight chance that the user will not be poisoned or lose half HP, but instead will be fully healed. This is simply a random occurrence; wearing these badges makes no difference. This has been proven by extensive testing.

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Key:

1 Increases counterattack power. 2 Increases POW in battle. 3 Recover 2 BP every turn. 4 Enemies will drop items more often. 5 Recover HP equal to 1/10 damage dealt with Hand attacks. 6 Increases frequency of Lucky hits. 7 Recover HP equal to 1/10 damage dealt with Jump attacks. 8 The more Mushrooms in your possession, the more damage your attacks will do. 9 Recover HP equal to 1/10 damage dealt with Hammer attacks. 10 Inflict twice as much damage on Spiny enemies with Jump attacks.

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
Note: If the Location is "Fawful's Bean 'N Badge", the price is in number of beans.

''Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Left side of the badge (Luigi's badge) decides how good the action command must be to fill the bar, and how big the effect will be. Right side (Mario's badge) decides what the effect will be.

Trivia

 * The letter in the sound badges are determined by the color of the badge. Pink is P, Red is R, and so on.

For a list of the names for each badge in other languages, see here.