Huff N. Puff

"I've got a surprise attack. Just give me a little time to prepare."

- Huff N. Puff

Huff N. Puff is a a large cloud monster of the Puff species appearing in the game Paper Mario. He is found in the sixth chapter of the game, Dark Days in Flower Fields, in the area Flower Fields preventing the sun from shining over the lands.

History
Bowser assigned Huff N. Puff to guard the sixth Star Spirit, Klevar, by using the Star Rod to turn him into a Ruff Puff beast.

Mario and his comrades, with the help from their new teammate Lakilester, destroy his Puff-Puff Machine, defeat him, save Klevar and bring peace back to Flower Fields. His base of operations is Cloudy Climb.

After Huff N. Puff is defeated, he explodes, sending several Tuff Puffs flying in all directions. In spite of this, he does make an appearance in the credits during the parade, being shrunk by the Yoshi kids and chased by Gourmet Guy, who has a knife and fork and wants to eat him. However, the parade at the end is argued by some, to be merely showing most of the characters who appeared in the game, as many Mario games are portrayed as being a play of some sort.

Huff N. Puff
Huff N. Puff attacks by Body Slamming, blowing wind, and thunder and lightning strikes. When his HP reaches as low as five, he will then begin attacking by creating earthquakes.

If Huff N. Puff is struck with any attack, he will spawn several Tuff Puffs. The number of Tuff Puffs is equal to the amount of damage done. These Tuff Puffs provide backup while battling Mario and his comrades. Huff N. Puff can swallow the Tuff Puffs to restore HP.

Bow and Lakilester are great choices for battling Huff N. Puff. When he prepares for his lightning strike, Mario can use Bow's Outta Sight move. If she's ultra-ranked, she can use her fan smack which causes great damage. Lakilester can use his Cloud Nine move to protect Mario from massive damage for a short time, and he can use Spiny Surge to attack the Tuff Puffs as well as Huff N. Puff with considerable damage.

Tuff Puff
Tuff Puffs are weaker versions of Ruff Puffs that are knocked off from the much larger Huff N. Puff. The Tuff Puffs provide backup while Huff N. Puff is battling Mario and his comrades, and attack collectively as one unit by draining two HP from Mario with each use of their HP Drain move.

The player must repeatedly tap the A button to tear them off, similar to the action command for the Jungle Fuzzy. In addition, Huff N. Puff can suck them back up, and restore one HP for every small Tuff Puff and two HP for every large Tuff Puff. All of the Tuff Puffs are defeated automatically when Huff N. Puff himself is destroyed.

Despite the fact that the Tuff Puffs were once part of Huff N. Puff, they still refer to him as their master.

Trivia

 * Although Huff N. Puff's name could simply be derived from the fact that he is a cloud, it is perhaps more likely to be a reference to "Huff and Puff," a line from The Three Little Pigs.
 * The name Tuff Puff is based on "Tough Puff".
 * If Lakilester is Mario's active partner upon confronting Huff N. Puff, the cloud boss will react differently, addressing the Lakitu directly as "Spike" and calling out his betrayal.
 * Like Salvo the Slime from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, smaller enemies resembling Huff N. Puff break off him when he takes damage, and he gets smaller.