A trip into the Gauntlet; How Mario and Luigi Bowser's Inside Story is at level 99

Thanks to some incredible boredom, a good old Action Replay code to speed up the level grinding and some free time, I have recently been attempting to get all characters to level 99 with maximum possible stats (999 per stat). Currently, I have succeeded with Mario and Luigi (the level 99) bit, and have been playing around with the Gauntlet mode in a vain, near impossible attempt to make it an actual challenge.

So what's it like trying out the supposedly 'difficult' Gauntlet mode and fighting all the X bosses at the maximum possible level with nearly 1000 in each characters POW stats? Answer: Ridiculously dull. Very, very easy. And very, very short.

First battle was Durmite X. Health being about 1000 for this boss, and my attack stats for both Mario and Luigi nearly being as high, in theory an attack doing about 1.5 damage would one hit kill this creature. But in a vain attempt to actually LOSE at max level, I tried literally everything to do less damage than the max health of this boss. A list includes:

1. Mighty Meteor (one hit killed it)
2. Falling Star (see above)
3. Snack Basket (see above)
4. Green Shell (a few hits killed it)
5. Fire Flower (I shot three fireballs total before the boss keeled over)
6. Jump Helmet (one hit killed it)
7. Jump attack (one hit killed it)
8. Hammer attack (one hit killed it)]
9. BAD Jump attack... as in, just Okay... killed it in one hit
10. BAD Hammer attack... the head of the hammer fell off... boss still died in one hit.

In conclusion... Attacking instantly killed said boss, in an almost 'steamroller to head' way.

In the second battle, Mario and Luigi were against Alpha Kretin X. You know, the X form of the weird molecule creature that captured Peach some time earlier in the game. Now, I personally despise this boss, due to the simple fact that there's no way around having to solve a puzzle to defeat it.

Picture this. You have to destroy all molecules to make it become Beta Kretin X, some weird small creature from God knows where that looks like a virus from Dr Mario. But you can only attack molecules of the same colour as the attacking Mario brother in question (red for Mario, green for Luigi). Magic Window allowed me to destroy it easily, but for some reason I can never comprehend, despite the last molecule taking damage, it doesn't damage the boss until the next turn. So there goes some attack, often doing enough damage to kill Bowser X three times over and yet it takes an additional attack afterwards to make this sucker lose the battle.

Did I mention this thing has probably the worst attack strategy of any RPG boss in the known universe? It's sole attack is a slow projectile who's direction and amount is determined by the number of molecules left. If only one remains, it's about as difficult to dodge as a Super Mario World Bowser statue.

Third battle... Wisdurm X. It's a strange creature this, which changes from a tiny bug thing to a massive glowing green worm/insect from hell with a magic wand when attacked enough. There's supposed to be a strategic, difficult boss battle here, as you probably noticed when you originally thought this thing... but not now. Yeah, doing about 20 000 damage in a single special attack made the whole thing called 'tactics' completely obsolete. Yeah... the enemy got utterly ripped in two by a single special attack used by Mario, and the meter shot up and down in about the same half a second.

Bowser's Memory M and L are the fourth battle... and are probably where most people who are first time to the Gauntlet will start to actually lose battles. Single hit attacks are pretty useless in this fight, all things considered, since the non affected enemy just revives the defeated one.

I simply used Magic Window again, although once I've had the Luigi clone suddenly revive the Mario one between Mario and Luigi's attacks even with both main character's speed stats being about twenty times higher than that of the boss. Ah well, I guess the computer really is a cheating [insert insult here].

Fifth boss? Junker X. Yeah, strange really, the first four bosses are all creatures that are remotely plausible to be found inside Bowser (parts of his biology, small creatures he swallowed)... and then you've got the pretty damn huge robot thing you fought in Princess Peach's Castle. Either Bowser managed to shrink and eat a seven foot tall insane robot, or this Gauntlet is magically generating clones of major characters and long gone bosses for the heck of it.

Still, I remember when I first fought him that the battle was a challenge, at least mainly due to his Thwomp throwing attack. Never the less, he was easy as heck here, thanks to both characters being strong enough to defeat him with merely a single GREEN SHELL. The bin type enemies never even appeared due to how quick the battle was ended.

In the penultimate battle, was possibly my least favourite boss of the Gauntlet, Dark Star X. Now, the boss itself has a decent enough design, but it's attacks are often quite difficult to avoid, and in fact, you often end up doing worse off at a higher level.

The reason for the latter? You need to send the two Star enemies into the boss itself to make it lower it's defensive shield and attack. However, the Dark Star will only summon them in round 1, after it's first attack, then you have to use a round to defeat them, THEN it'll throw them and you can start fighting back. Now, at lower levels, this can be done in about two rounds... one for summoning them/defeating them, one for attacking the boss. But at later levels, Mario and Luigi attacking first works to their disadvantage, meaning it costs you three turns.

It's other aspect is pure hatred inducing if you have the Daredevil Boots equipped. These make you die from one hit, but do twice the damage. You can't kill the boss in one or two turns, so you have to dodge it's first attack, which will ALWAYS be the clone attack. To put it simply, Dark Star/Dark Star X summons about five clones, and sends them at Mario and Luigi. You have to hammer them away. Sounds easy, correct? These clones turn INVISIBLE about a second before they reach your character, meaning that you have to time your attack dead on, or get smacked straight in the face and killed as Mario/Luigi blindly swings at thin air. Very easy to mess up, although I didn't do so this time.

Finally, there's Bowser X. How the hell does this make sense? It does not. It's a clone of... Bowser. Inside... Bowser. Yes, you can come up with a million and three different theories to how this works. Maybe that's what those cloning 'exit Bowser' warp pipes would do if Bowser uses one. Maybe it's some gross scientific experiment by mad scientists or aliens, or demonic possession. But that's beside the point, and a long rambling theory on how Bowser can be inside himself and fighting Mario and Luiigi would probably make people question my sanity.

However, Bowser X is ridiculous. You can quite easily die against him at level 99 if you don't kill him in one turn, since his attacks are ludicrously fast, and two hit kill type powerful. He also has 7000 health, and can eat your special attacks once you use them, taking away each one at a time for time turns in a row.

Again, he went down pretty easily though. 7000 health is nothing when your attack did about 20 000 damage, and even the glorious final surprise villain of the Gauntlet couldn't fight back.

That's that I guess. I also tried beating it with both Daredevil Boots and challenge charm items equipped, the latter increasing health by nearly double for all enemies. I actually got all the way to Bowser X purely with normal jump attacks, and then lost by literally around a 100 health left for said boss. No, I'm not bitter at all...

Random Note: Did you know that Dark Star/Dark Star X's final black hole attack isn't really lethal? Yeah, it's perfectly survivable, although it did about 250 damage when I let Luigi get sucked in by it.