Paper Mario Dark Star Edition: Koopa Bros Fight with CantWin File Code, Triple Curse (9x)

Seriously, what do the Koopa Bros do offscreen while prepping their Trojan Bowser? I'm sure it's not just that...

CantWin is a File Code in Dark Star Edition that sets you to level 27, gives you all 128 badges, and the 5 unlockable stones immediately (all but Greed, Badge, and Rainbow). However, in return, it forces all encounters to be at least 4.5x difficulty, the equivalent of Super + Mega Curse. Equipping Curse badges does NOT stack with this multiplier, but if you equip Ultra + Mega Curse or all 3 Curses, you will do a fight on that respective difficulty instead of the innate 4.5x difficulty that CantWin forces.

Trojan Bowser, who you fight initially, has 12 Base HP, 4 Base Attack (scaling up to 108 and 36 respectively on 9x), and 1 Defense. For the Koopa Bros, Black has 5 Base HP (45), 2 Defense unflipped, and 1 Defense if flipped. All others have 8 Base HP (72), 1 Defense unflipped, and 0 Defense if flipped. I believe the base attack of all of them is 2 (could be wrong though; if correct however, then it scales to 18), but you won't see these attacks due to the strat I'm using. Their special, Super Spinning Attack, has a Base Attack value of 8 (scaling to 72) if all 4 of them are up. But in the tower, you can use Bomb to instantly knock them down.

There are additional things to note regarding the Koopa Bros. Green is immune to Quake damage (though he still gets flipped), and he gets up faster than the others. Yellow is Electric at all times, causing direct contact to hurt for 1 damage. As you noticed, while Black has lower HP, he has higher Defense than the others. Finally, Red is immune to Fire.

It's worth noting that I'm not the one who discovered this strat. That honor goes to ‪@reborn756‬, and this video is my take on the same strat. I believe it is the best strat to get through this fight on 9x. The only difference is in the badge build in that I made a small adjustment to have it suit my playstyle.

Mega Bounce is the attack of choice against Trojan Bowser thanks to its high single target damage. However, once we're in the Koopa Bros section of the fight, our main attack changes to Quake Hammer. We can't afford to fit a more powerful Quake here, but our attack boosts will make up for that. Quake Hammer knocks all Koopa Bros down at once (though as noted, Green won't take damage from it). Our attack boosts are facilitated through 2 Power Plus, P-Up D-Down, Dark Power, and Mega Rush. We reach Peril by guarding the first attack, Super Guarding one of the second or third attack (either one will do), and not guarding whichever of those two attacks that we didn't Super Guard. We survive an additional strike in Peril by using Last Chance, which gives us another buffer to ensure we take out Trojan Bowser.

On the defensive side, we need Pity Flower so that we get FP Recovery after taking damage. And the damage we take gets reduced by Perfect Stand and Dark Shield. As I noted in the Bill Blasters fight, Dark Power and Dark Shield should basically always be equipped in Chapter 1 of CantWin because with 0/0 Star Power, those badges always have their positive effects active. The only change I made to Reborn's badge build that adjusts this to my playstyle was switching out their Dark Saver in favor of Dodge Master and Mega Saver. Dodge Master increases Mega Bounce's consistency, and Mega Saver helps further reduce my move costs once I do reach Peril.

Items are not needed as the Badge Build specifically aims to get through this fight itemless. I did use the Thunder Bolt available outside of Koopa Bros Fortress, but I could've done any regular attack to reach Phase 2 with Bombette still available to knock the Koopa Bros down.

You need 2 partners for this fight; during the Trojan Bowser phase, you need Bombette for her strong single target damage with Bomb. Once the Koopa Bros are knocked down, you switch to Goombario who will use Headbonk to ensure specific Koopa Bros remain knocked down (Green and Yellow mainly).

You can watch Reborn''s execution of this fight here:    • (CantWin Max Difficulty) Koopa Bros Chapte...