Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Stylish Moves Guide

One of the best ways to ramp up your combat capabilities in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is by learning how to do Stylish moves. With well-timed extra inputs during attacks, you can make characters strike a pose to boost your Star Power, letting you unleash Mario’s special moves all the more often. Below, we’ll cover what a Stylish move is and how to do them with Mario and his partners’ core attacks.

How to do Stylish moves in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Stylish moves are performed by pressing the A button at the right time during your character’s attack animation. The catch? Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door won’t tell you what that timing is. Well, not without a bit of investigation, anyway.

In the case of Mario’s standard jump attack, you just need to press A at the peak of Mario’s jump after he stomps on an enemy. You need to have landed a Nice attack (by tapping A as you hit the enemy) and can even perform two stylish actions in the same attack. Here’s how it looks in action:

The Battle Toad offers a basic introduction to Stylish moves, but if you want to learn more, you can speak with a bandit in the western Rogueport sewers. Unfortunately they’ll only offer advice on a single move each time you speak, making it a painfully slow discovery process. You can also purchase the Timing Tutor Badge from Charlieton which will show you the timing when equipped.

To save you an awful lot of experimentation, we’ve collected the Stylish move timings for Mario and his partners in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door below.

Mario Stylish move timings

• Jump: Tap A at the peak of Mario’s jump after landing on an enemy with a tap of the A button. This can be performed multiple times for multiple bounces.
• Hammer: Tap A right after hitting an enemy, as Mario’s feet land back on the floor. Mario will perform a backflip. Tap A again when he lands to do an extra Stylish move.
• Super Hammer: Tap A when Mario spins for a fifth time after hitting an enemy.

Badges offer unique variations to Mario’s attacks and, in some cases, add extra Stylish moves. But the core concept remains the same for each hammer or jump attack. With Power Smash, for example, Mario can perform three backflips if you tap A each time he lands. In the case of Quake Hammer, Mario takes longer to land after the hit. Tap A as his feet come back toward the ground.

A few of Mario’s badge moves break the standard format. For Spin Jump, tap A as Mario is jumping toward the enemy. For Spring Jump, tap A at the peak of the jump after Mario's second bounce on an enemy. For Tornado Jump, tap A as Mario falls to the ground after the combo input, then again when finished rolling back to his starting position.

Goombella Stylish move timings

• Headbonk: Tap A just before Goombella jumps toward her enemy.
• Tattle: Tap A again after pressing A when the target is in the crosshair.
• Multibonk: Tap A just before Goombella jumps toward her enemy, then again at the peak of her initial jump.
• Rally Wink: Tap A right after the heart effect appears.

Koops Stylish move timings

• Shell Toss: Tap A right after Koops hits an enemy, then again as he slows to a stop.
• Power Shell: Tap A when Koops returns to his starting position, then again after he spins several times.
• Shell Shield: Tap A right before the shield lands on Mario.
• Shell Slam: Tap A when Koops returns to his starting position, then again after he spins several times.
• Shell Toss: Tap A right after Koops hits an enemy, then again as he slows to a stop.

Flurrie Stylish move timings

• Body Slam: Tap A when Flurrie hits the floor.
• Gale Force: Tap A when Flurrie stops blowing air.
• Lip Lock: Tap A after Flurrie kisses.
• Dodgy Fog: Tap A as the fog appears around Mario.

Yoshi Stylish move timings

• Ground Pound: Tap A as Yoshi arrives above an enemy. Tap A again as Yoshi drops back down to the ground.
• Gulp: Tap A after Yoshi spits the enemy out into their ally.
• Mini-Egg: Tap A when the last egg is thrown, then tap A again when the egg hits.
• Stampede: Tap A when Yoshi whisltes and the musical note appears.

Vivian Stylish move timings

• Shade Fist: Tap A as Vivian pops up in her starting position.
• Veil: Tap A as Vivian returns to her starting position.
• Fiery Jinx: Tap A when Vivian lifts her finger to cast the spell.
• Infatuate: Tap A immediately after you successfully hit an enemy.

Bobbery Stylish move timings

• Bomb: Tap A as Bobbery lands back on his side of the stage.
• Bomb Squad: Tap A when the last bomb is at maximum height.
• Hold Fast: Tap A after the last input, when the word (e.g. Nice!) appears for a successfully timed sequence.
• Bob-ombast: Tap A as Bobbery lands back on his side of the stage.

Ms. Mowz Stylish move timings

• Love Slap: Tap A when Ms. Mowz walks back to her starting position.
• Kiss Thief: Tap A when Ms. Mowz walks across the stage toward the enemy.
• Tease: Tap A as Ms. Mowz hops back to the floor in front of the enemies
• Smooch: Tap A immediately after Ms. Mowz kisses Mario and a ring of hearts appears above him.

Each Stylish move takes a bit of practice to learn consistently, but hopefully these tips help you hype up the crowd for some extra Star Power in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door!

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Release Date: May 23, 2024

• Nintendo SwitchBuy