Badge

Badges are items used by Mario in Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. In both games they 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 from the Paper Mario series do not usually raise Mario's stats. The badges instead have many different 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.

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 is the more BP it requires.

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. In The Thousand-Year Door, badges can instead be bought from the secret badge shop in Rougeport. They can be traded for Star Pieces with Dazzle in Rougeport Sewers.

Badges are also obtained and used by Mario and Luigi in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga badges raise Mario or Luigi's Attack stat and also sometimes their BP. 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.

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, in the present Kingdom's Item Shop, or bought from Fawful.

In both Superstar Saga and Partners in Time, enemies sometimes drop badges when defeated.

Paper Mario Series
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. Total number of badges: 69.

Unused Badges of Paper Mario
In the game's coding, many badges can be found that are entirely unavailable except through hacking. A list of them can be viewed here.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Notes: 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 more than one Charge badge, Mario or his partner gains an extra 3 attack power for 2 FP for the next turn. 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.

Unused Badges of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
There are also many badges that can be found only in the game's coding. A list of all these badges can be found here.

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
– No effect. 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.

Trivia

 * Super Paper Mario eliminates the use of badges for there is 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 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.