Cleft

Clefts are animate rock enemies resembling spiked skulls that appear in the Paper Mario series. Their name comes from the word "cleft", which can alternately refer to a crack in a rock or an indentation of the chin, both of which are characteristics of the Clefts. Clefts have a large amount of variant types, all of which are very strong and sturdy and are capable of disguising themselves as ordinary rocks, though they are also easily flipped over with an explosion or the Quake Hammer, rendering them helpless. They pursue and attack Mario by charging into him, are immune to fire, and, aside from a few variants, have spiked heads preventing him from jumping on them.

Paper Mario
In Paper Mario, Clefts inhabit Mt. Rugged. They are initially disguised as white rocks on the overworld, but when they detect Mario, they change into a dull brown and gain their features. When encountering one, Goombario's tattle suggests running away if the player finds them too difficult to defeat. Green Hyper Clefts inhabit Gusty Gulch and are additionally capable of charging their attacks to boost their power.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Clefts inhabit Boggly Woods, and in fitting with its aesthetic, are monochrome. Earth Tremor does not flip them, but if executed well enough, it can defeat them automatically. Additionally, if three questions of the 65th Super Fun Quirk Quiz are answered incorrectly, the player will have to face four Clefts. The original active coloration of Cleft makes a cameo on a poster in Glitzville, though due to the placement of buildings it is very difficult to see in-game.

Hyper Clefts also return, and several new variants of Clefts are introduced. These are the spikeless Bald Cleft and Hyper Bald Cleft, which are safe to jump on but still have high defense; the large and nigh-invulnerable Iron Cleft, which can only be defeated with Yoshi's Gulp; and the moon-dwelling Moon Cleft, which uses a brighter version of the original coloration for Cleft in Paper Mario and is said to simply be an ordinary Cleft on the moon, despite also being stronger.

Super Paper Mario
Clefts appear in Super Paper Mario in Chapter 5-1, near Downtown of Crag, and in room 71 of the Flipside Pit of 100 Trials. However, the English localization mistakenly refers to them as Moon Clefts, despite them not being found on the moon or in any cosmic locations; this error is also present in other western localizations due to being based off the English script. Their attack pattern remains the same: they charge at Mario and his allies as soon as they get close enough. They still have the same weakness, as Boomer can flip them over. They will occasionally drop a Cake Mix when they are defeated. A shadowy version, called Dark Cleft, appears in the Flopside Pit of 100 Trials.

Names in other languages
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Kirk Teschiolito