Mario’s Itinerary

Well, this is unexpected. Amassing a grand enough collection of Power Moons reveals the way to the Broodals’ lair itself. It’s time to teach these rude mercenary wedding planners a lesson. What is it up here that makes some of these rabbits go bad? Is it something in the water? But isn’t the moon a desert? Anyway, marvel at the site of Madame Broode’s enormous carrot tower, and explore the rabbit’s small village of odd stone vegetables below.

Arrival at Rabbit Ridge

The Broodals aren’t going to take kindly to Mario and Cappy bursting in on their home. That’s really adding insult to the injury of thwarting their plans with Bowser. It’s their home turf, so the Broodals are naturally more aggressive here. The other big variable is moon gravity. This isn’t deep enough to the moon’s core to increase the gravity to earth levels, like in some moon challenge rooms. Jumps here are as floaty as on the surface. You have to account for that in your hat-avoidance strategies against the Broodal quartet.

Boss gauntlet

Rabbit Ridge Tower, First Floor

Topper attacks right away upon Mario’s entrance. When Topper’s hats begin bouncing around in large numbers, if several hats are incoming at once, jump straight up and let the loftiness of the jump take care of things—the hats bounce around underneath Mario and spin off to other parts of the arena by the time he descends.

When Topper approaches, stack of top hats on his head, hat toss early when Topper’s still out of range, then hold Cappy. Topper advances into Cappy, sometimes taking multiple hits and losing multiple top hats at once. This helps deplete top hats without getting close enough for Topper to perform his hat spin attack.

Rabbit Ridge Tower, Second Floor

Hariet returns with her pigtail bombs and armored saucer hat. When she’s tossing bomb pairs, run wide circles around her to dodge them, then step around any lava pools left behind.

In her saucer form, the main danger she poses is dropping bombs directly down on top of Mario. Stay out from under Hariet’s saucer form wherever she is, and divert around the lava trails she leaves behind. They’ll dissipate before too long.

When Hariet finally strikes with mace-like attachments, hit her lodged spiked balls to send them swinging back in at her. The impact dislodges her helmet, granting a few precious seconds for Mario to sail into her head with his feet. Without her protective hat on, Hariet panics more than any other Broodal, making her the hardest to stomp on in the moon’s low gravity. To make things easier, stun hatless Hariet with a cap toss right before jumping at her.

Rabbit Ridge Tower, Third Floor

Spewart continues doing his best impression of a Poison Piranha Plant, saturating the battlefield in dangerous purple glop. What does he think he’s doing, playing Splatoon 2? Hat throws soak up ink underneath, clearing patches Mario can safely stand on. A spin throw de-inks lots of real estate at once.

Sliding around under his hat, Spewart glides on a cloud of poison liquid, leaving a trail behind him. If he approaches Mario, knock him away with Cappy and just wait the phase out. He’s no threat when he’s gliding around on the other side of the arena. When Spewart is walking around upright, he’s probably about to eject poison barf in a 360-degree fan, so back up to the wall. After he soaks the room, mop up a path to Spewart, knock his hat off, and stomp on him.

Rabbit Ridge Tower, Fourth Floor

Rango has the deadliest direct weapons of the Broodals, and can be the hardest, if you make things complicated. Keep things simple though and this wedding planner will be out of a job. In standard rabbit-to-plumber combat, Rango winds up briefly and throws several sharply-bladed hats at Mario. Throwing his hat as a weapon means Rango isn’t wearing head protection. Jump right at him as he readies a hat throw so Mario is already soaring in when Rango releases his buzzsaw headwear. With good timing, Mario bounces right off his forehead just after he throws the hats.

Now it gets tricky, but is really not so bad. Rango shelters inside an oversized version of his bladed hats, bouncing relentlessly at Mario. Rango can bounce straight in any direction much faster than Mario can run. He can only adjust his angle when he lands, though. Keep running around Rango in one direction, changing direction abruptly whenever necessary to make sure Rango’s buzzsaw bounce keeps missing.

Rabbit Ridge Tower, Roof

The Broodals collective reprise their Bowser’s Kingdom ace up the sleeve, the enormous RoboBrood machine. The irony here is that, although moon gravity is in effect, and this is a fiercer version of Robobrood, the fight is probably easier than before, as you get to capture a Hammer Bro instead of a Pokio. A Hammer Bro can stand far back from the RoboBrood and hop up and down unloading hammers at a hilarious rate, shattering the armor around RoboBrood’s legs much faster than Pokio could manage. With a Hammer Bro, you can also choose to shatter the control globes of Broodals who aren’t on the upward-facing portion. You can nail the globe of whoever’s in reach of the ground and the Hammer Bro’s huge hammer arc.

Still, the Hammer Bro has its weaknesses. Once the RoboBrood is sufficiently enraged to begin charging back and forth across the arena at Mario, it’s time to cease the current Hammer Bro capture. You can tell it’s time to step up movement speed when the RoboBrood’s legs are glowing. Mario’s ability to roll, tackle, or running long jump to get out of the way quickly helps avoid damage here, where a Hammer Bro is too slow. Once the RoboBrood settles down again, track down another Hammer Bro to capture. RoboBrood begins launching swarms of swirling, captivating, candy-like firework explosives, but keep moving and tossing tons of hammers and they shouldn’t be a real issue.

Finally, these annoying Bowser underlings are dealt with, and the rabbits of the moon are free to hop about in low moon gravity in peace. After knocking out all the Broodals back to back, Mario wins the King’s Crown and King’s Outfit! Several new moons are available to find here on the Dark Side of the Moon. Just as Dark Side was discovered with 250 Power Moons in hand, even more remote reaches might be uncovered with yet more moon power.