Don't just run in caves.

I continue on my quest in Super Mario RPG! Last time on my journey, we finally got to say hello to Geno. The guy from Smash Bros!

Anyways, Bowser has just a few enemies left and he no longer owns his castle. Yet he's still passionate about capturing Mario or whatever. Even in his time of stress, he still needs to remember that he himself is evil. Anyways, this game really does become side quest-a-thon. Because apparently some kids... and a star got trapped in the mines and it's up to me to save them. Well I really didn't want to but the game made me do it anyway. In the mines, I encountered enemies including hard shell, frozen spikey ice, lava bubble, and bob-omb enemies. The hard shells or Magmites being the hardest to defeat. I guess they do have a HARD shell! Oh I almost forgot, there's these enemies named Enigma's too. They're like these... blue clouds with bat wings? Anyways, they're definitely the weakest of the group. After... somehow managing to survive through the mines. Despite nearly blacking out all my guys, I come across this... innocent looking spring. I mean it's smiling! What could go wrong? Answer, everything.

Turns out there is a ceiling above me. One I cannot see. Once I'm out cold, Croco the dino and his minions apparently take all of our coins and we need to get them back. I corner up with Croco and battle him down. I get his attacks understood and pretty soon, that dino braveless doofus runs off. Not before giving us back our coins and a mini-bomb too. Which we could give to Pa Mole. Oh yeah. Pa Mole needed a bomb to be able to blow a wall... or blockage more so in the mines so we could save the kids. After taking down a shit load of bombs, there's this... well I'll call him bootleg Sonic The Hedgehog. With spike hands. Going straight into him seems to make him push us all the way back. It's only when I jump directly on top of him that the battle begins. Bootleg Sonic identifies himself as Punchinello. Oh yeah he punches alright. He starts by throwing out a bunch of micro bombs. Which are the equivalent to stepping on small pebbles. It does nothing. Even the regular sized bombs he then throws out are no threat. Though it's kind of difficult trying to avoid their explosions. I can't seem to get the timing down to shield myself from them.

Then... Mr. Punch McGee gets serious and sends out really big bombs! I just BARELY stay alive in battle with Mario being the only one alive with 1 HP. I very quickly revive Geno and then heal some of Mario's health. After that, the last big bomb blows. And is that it? No of course it fucking ain't. Because this dude... SENDS OUT THE LARGEST BOB-OMB IMAGINABLE! IT'S AT LEAST 30 FEET TALL HOLY SHIT! We were no match for that dude and the bomb blew up and everybody died. Wait no somehow they survived. That doesn't make sense but whatever. We get the 3rd star from there! Afterwards, we find the kids and take a ride down a minecart which brings us to a minigame! Ride down the tracks while collecting coins and mushrooms. it looks like you can collect as many mushrooms as you want. And use them to boost you. Now I don't know if this minigame is bugged or if I'm not understanding it fully but during the 3D parts, I kept falling off the track. Despite me holding the joystick to turn. Thankfully it doesn't seem like there was a penalty for falling off. The 2D sections were easy. All I had to do was jump.

Anyways, conveniently the minecart falls right into the Pa and Ma Mole house and thus, the children are safe and reunited with their parents! Oh and apparently there's these Snifsters who were interested in catching a beetle? I honestly do not know what in the damn hell the point of that cutscene was. That was random. Anyways, I actually went back into the mines to see if I could redo that minigame. And it seems like you could! Just without any mole children on your back. Plus that minigame is so damn good for grinding out coins! It looks like on average you can collect about 150 coins per ride and it also looks like your coin count can max out at 9999. Which assuming you play non-stop, you could get there theoretically in maybe less than 3 hours. So all in all, Super Mario RPG is also a get rich quick game.