Knife Guy

Knife Guy is a boss in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, and the older brother of Grate Guy. Both seemingly work as entertainers and bodyguards for Booster. They ambush Mario and company on the balcony of Booster Tower to protect Booster, who has fled to Marrymore with Toadstool.

In battle, Knife Guy is overall less dangerous than Grate Guy. Each turn, he will target one party member and use one of two attacks: a direct stab after juggling his knives, or a thrown knife that does 1.5 times the damage of the former. There is a 2/3 chance of the stab attack, and a 1/3 chance of the throwing attack.

After several turns, the two will team up, and Knife Guy will stand on Grate Guy's head. They are still considered separate targets during this time. During this phase, each turn Knife Guy will either use Blizzard to damage the whole party, or Crystal to damage one character. There is a 2/3 chance of Crystal, and a 1/3 chance of Blizzard.

The length of this phase is determined by both a hidden counter and the HP of the brothers. Each time Knife Guy takes damage, the counter is increased by 1, and each time Knife Guy uses either of his spells, the counter is increased by 2. If either Knife or Grate Guy is defeated, or the counter reaches at least 5, they will separate and return to their first phase. As Knife Guy has 200 less HP than Grate Guy, it is more efficient to defeat him first to limit the number and duration of team-up phases. Additionally, Knife Guy is weak to Fire: if Mario has learned Super Flame, he can easily inflict considerable damage.

After their defeat, both brothers decide to split up, with Knife Guy staying at Booster Tower. Inside, he can be found practicing juggling, using colored balls instead of knives. If Mario returns to Booster Tower, Knife Guy will offer to play a game with him. He will juggle one yellow ball among many red ones; when he stops, Mario must guess which hand the yellow ball is in. If Mario chooses correctly, he will be "rewarded" with a Moldy Mush, a Wilt Shroom, or a Rotten Mush, and sometimes a Mid Mushroom or Max Mushroom.

If Mario keeps playing, the game will get progressively more difficult. If Mario wins on the highest difficulty level, Knife Guy will give him the Bright Card needed to get into Grate Guy's Casino.

Names in other languages
Knife Guy