How To Defeat Prince Mush In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Despite presenting itself as a remaster, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door includes some new content. One is a highly requested fight against the former champion of the Glitz Pit, Prince Mush. He’s no pushover, so here’s how you can unlock him and beat him. 

How To Unlock Prince Mush

Prince Mush is actually a pretty easy fight to unlock, and you may naturally unlock him without even trying. After completing Chapter 3, a side quest will pop up in the Trouble Center called “Help Wanted!”. Once you complete it, you’ll receive an email from Prince Mush challenging you to an exhibition match in the Glitz Pit, which means you don’t have to become the champion again to fight him. Simply go to the Game Boy Advance monitor in the Glitz Pit, go to the Exhibition screen, and then select Prince Mush to begin this superboss fight.

How To Defeat Prince Mush

As unlock Prince Mush may be simple, actually fighting him isn’t. If you don’t know what you’re doing, he’ll mop the floor with you. Prince Mush has 96 HP and attack and defense powers of 6 each. While his attack is pretty standard, his high defense will spell your doom. Without badges, none of your base attacks will be able to hurt him. To make matters worse, he can completely evade some of your attacks depending on what stance he’s in. 

Prince Mush has three stances. He’ll swap between the first two every few turns, while his third stance will only appear after he loses more than half of his health. To figure out which stance he’s in, you’ll have to take note of his body movements. His first stance is when he’s jumping in place. When he does this, only jumping attacks can hit him, as all ground-based attacks will be dodged. The inverse is true for his second stance. When Mush is sidestepping back and forth on the ground, only ground-based attacks can hit him. In his third stance, Prince Mush will become completely invulnerable to all damage. This stance is when he guards his face, and no attack will damage him — not even special moves.

With this in mind, you’ll want to bring badges that can nullify his defense and moves that can damage him regardless of which stance he’s in. Piercing Smash is an excellent choice, as is Power Jump. I would also recommend having Power Plus and a few Flower Savers equipped since you’ll be using a lot of moves that require FP. Quick Change is also recommended, but not mandatory, since you’ll be mostly relying on Ms. Mowz given that her base attack, Love Slap, completely bypasses defense. You’ll also want to bring a healthy number of Life Shrooms because the second half of the battle against Prince Mush will be the biggest test of your abilities in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. 

For the first half of the fight, start off by using Power Lift to boost your attack and defense. Depending on when you fight Prince Mush, 6 points of damage per attack can hurt. If you’re coming into the fight with over 40 HP, however, you can easily endure a couple of hits with boosted defense. When Mush is in his Jump stance, have Ms. Mowz support Mario with healing items or appealing to charge the special gauge while Mario attacks with Power Jump or Spin Jump. When Mush is in his ground stance, lay as much damage as you can with Love Slap and Piercing Blow. He may charge an attack and if he does, you can Superguard him to completely nullify it. This will also serve as practice for the second phase. 

You’ll know you’re in the second phase when Prince Mush shifts into his third, guarded stance. During this phase he’ll constantly guard, charge a ton, and lay into you with the deadliest attack in the game — Combo Attack. This attack has Mush hitting you from multiple angles several times, and it can do 100 points of damage if you’re unprepared. No matter how much HP you have, getting hit by this attack is instant death. So how do you stop it? Superguard. Superguard him at any point during his onslaught, and the Combo Attack ends. Mush will then retreat, and his defense will drop to 0, giving you the opportunity to lay into him.

It’s not easy Superguarding against him given how precise the timing you need to pull it off is. The best advice that I can give is that when it looks like his character model is about to come into contact with Mario’s, hit the B button. If you miss, don’t worry because he’ll quickly come back again, giving you another chance. Chances are, you’ll die a few times before you successfully pull one off, but if you have a Life Shroom, you should be fine. Heal up with items, Sweet Feast, or Ms. Mowz’s Smooch, and try again. Once you pull it a Superguard, hit him with the heaviest attacks you have, then get ready to immediately go back on the defensive. He’s tough, but once you get a sense of timing for his Combo Attack, he’ll go down, and there’s nothing quite like beating him with a Superguard. Once defeated, he’ll give you Prince Mush’s Belt, which does nothing, but serves as a delightful badge of honor.

And that’s how you defeat Prince Mush in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door!