Paper Mario: The Origami King has some great new puzzle battles to tease your brain alongside the classic Paper Mario battling style. But a part of getting through these fights is knowing when and how to use the more powerful gear and weapons in the game.
As always in Paper Mario games, you can increase the power of your attacks by timing further button presses with when your jump lands on an enemy head, or when the power indicator coming from the Hammer turns orange. However, you also get a 1.5x damage boost for successfully lining up or grouping enemies together for your attack.
Together, this means you can get away with using the basic Boot and Hammer attacks for the first two worlds in the game, but eventually you’ll need to start using more powerful Paper Mario: The Origami King weapons and items to defeat enemies quickly. Oh, and don’t forget to check out our Best Accessories guide for another leg up!
How to get new Paper Mario: The Origami King weapons
You get new weapons in a couple of different ways in the game. First up, you might find them hidden in ? Blocks while adventuring through the game’s various worlds. You will get tons and tons of weapons and items this way, but you can also visit vendors in various locations around through the game.
You’ll first need to find the hidden Toads and rescue them from their Origami forms. The first shop-running Toad is found just as you exit Peach’s Castle after rescuing Luigi. Defeat the Goomba that jumps out of the tower and then use the 1,000-Fold Arms technique to tear off a strip from the tower.
He’ll still need a bit of a hand getting back to his shop, so instead of following the path, help him repair the bridge back to Toad Town by removing one of Olly’s troublesome stickers!
If you’re eager to throw coins at him, head back into Toad Town and visit his store just to the right of the Museum. His inventory, and those of all the other vendors, will grow through the game as you find new and more powerful weapons from ? Blocks.
Paper Mario: The Origami King Weapons and Items List
Boots
(attacks a column of up to 4 enemies)
- Iron Boots – Can stomp spiked enemies.
- Shiny Boots – Stronger than Iron Boots, can’t stomp spiked enemies.
- Shiny Iron Boots – Stronger and shinier than your regular Iron Boots.
- Flashy Boots – Stronger than Shiny Boots.
- Flashy Iron Boots – Stronger and fancier than your regular Iron Boots.
- Legendary Iron Boots – The strongest type of Iron Boots.
- Gold Boots – Wear these to stamp a few coins out of your enemies.
Hammers
(attack a 2×2 grid of up to 4 enemies)
- Iron Boots – Can stomp spiked enemies.
- Shiny Boots – Stronger and shinier than your regular, everyday hammer.
- Shiny Hurlhammer – A stronger option for long-range hammer attacks (attacks in a single column of 4 spaces)
- Flashy Hammer – An extremely strong and fancy hammer
- Legendary Hammer – The strongest and fanciest hammer in the game.
- Gold Hammer – Use this to knock coins out of your enemies’ pockets.
Items
(single use in battle)
- Fire Flower – Throw fireballs at enemies in a straight line.
- Shiny Fire Flower – Throw stronger fireballs at enemies in a straight line.
- Ice Flower – Throw ice balls at enemies in a straight line.
- Shiny Ice Flower – Throw stronger ice balls at enemies in a straight line.
- Tail – Spin and flick your tail at nearby enemies.
- Shiny Tail – A stronger tail attack good for stronger enemies.
- POW Block – Shakes the ground, dealing damage to all enemies.
How to equip your Weapons and Items
Just because you’ve got a weapon, doesn’t mean you can use it in battle. You have to manually select and equip the weapons from the pause menu, with up to three Boots and three Hammers in addition to Paper Mario’s basic attacks.
Items, however, are always available to use in battle.
My Weapon just broke! What?!
Yup. Weapons can break in Paper Mario: The Origami King. Paper Mario’s basic Boot and Hammer attacks do not break, but all the others will. Keep an eye out for a warning damage symbol on weapons in battle, because these will only have one or two more uses before they disappear. And when that happens… don’t forget to equip a replacement!
