How to defeat Whacka in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door remake

Whacka is an incredibly dangerous superboss in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door remake. While it might look adorable and lazy, that look belies some truly incredible power. With 108 HP, 10 Attack, and 1 Defense, plus the ability to heal, this fight can drag on for a while. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and it comes at the cost of grinding through one of the longest sections of the game twice.

Like Super Mario RPG, there are some optional bosses in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door remake. To unlock the Whacka fight in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door remake, you need to beat the game and use your hammer on the Blue Mole in Keelhaul Key until it stops showing up.

The next step is to complete the Pit of 100 Trials and best Bonetail. If you’ve done all these steps, you should receive a message that a powerful foe now awaits in the Pit of 100 Trials. The next step is to do that again, but at least you can spend 300 coins to skip the first half. Otherwise, once you’re ready, beat the Pit of 100 Trials again, where an adorable foe awaits in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door.

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Tips to defeat Whacka in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door remake

Danger Mario builds let you smash this boss (Image via Nintendo)

Whacka is a pretty straightforward boss in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door remake. If you hit him for any reason, he drops a Whacka Bump. These are used to either heal himself or attack you.

What this means for you, the player, is you need to avoid multi-hit attacks, because that will stack up lots of Whacka Bumps for you to deal with that. Your most powerful single-hit attacks need to be a priority, as does learning how to Superguard. Superguarding nullifies incoming damage, and the status effects that go with said attacks, but they are much harder to time. You have about three frames before an attack connects to trigger one.

The whole strategy of this fight is to have lots of Life Mushrooms, Superguard his attacks if possible, and hit him as hard as you can. This is a fight where the Danger Mario build is going to be viable. It’s dangerous because Mario has only 5 HP, but he can shred through the boss’s HP. The Danger Mario strategy takes a lot of the challenge out of the game, but this boss can knock out your party with ease. On a personal level, I prefer taking him out as fast as possible.

If too many Whacka Bumps build up, you'll have a lot to dodge at once (Image via Nintendo)

This isn’t the only strategy to deal with Whacka in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door remake, but it’s admittedly the fastest. Otherwise, you have to grind through his HP, deal with his constant healing, and worry about how powerful Whacka Bump strikes. To do this, you want to head to Chet Rippo in Rogueport and convert 5 HP into Attack. If you're doing this build, keep your HP at 10 when you level up, since you need to have your health at the critical "5" for this strategy. Then, equip the following Pinch badges and Attack badges:

• Multibounce
• Power Bounce
• Spike Shield (not needed in this fight)
• Ice Power (not needed in this fight)
• Mega Rush (as many as possible)
• Last Stand (as many as possible)

However, you don’t need Ice Power or Spike Shield in this case—those are just in the typical Danger Mario build. This loadout greatly reduces damage, while also increasing the amount of damage you put out.

Since your HP is always five or lower, these badges always trigger, and deal devastating damage. Your normal jump can hit for 20 on its own, so multi-hit attacks from Mario, if successful, can one-shot Whacka in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door Remake. It’s worth noting that this makes the game entirely too easy. If you want to challenge the boss normally, Danger Mario isn’t the way to go. But make sure you pack lots of Life Mushrooms, just in case.

This is a very straightforward boss fight. You'll want to be prepared to guard against his barrage of Whacka Bumps (Red being stronger than Yellow) and hit him as hard as you possibly can. Multi-hit attacks are fine if you’re good at Superguarding or plan to one-shot the boss.

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Defeating Whacka in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door remake grants you the Golden Whacka Bump, which, like for Prince Mush in Paper Mario, does nothing other than show you bested this mighty foe.