Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: How To Defeat Bonetail

You might recognize the name Bonetail when you meet them in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. He’s actually the older brother of Hooktail, the very first major boss in the game. The difference here is that, compared to Hooktail, Bonetail is much more difficult — he's the hardest boss in the entire game.

In this guide, we'll be telling you how to reach Bonetail, and how to beat the one of the most difficult bosses in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

Where to find Bonetail

Bonetail lies in wait at the bottom floor of the Pit of 100 Trials and serves as the final challenge of this gauntlet.

Save for merchants with sky-high prices, there are no healing items available on any of these 100 floors – which means you’ll likely be weakened going into this tough boss fight. Fortunately, we’ve written a helpful guide on preparing for the Pit of 100 Trials and its many challenges.

How To Defeat Bonetail

This goes without saying, but you’ll want to be as healthy as possible ahead of the fight with Bonetail. You don’t receive any automatic healing before the battle, so you have three options: use any healing items you have left, try to level up on floor 99 to get a full heal, or use Sweet Feast at some point during the battle on floor 99. None of these options are ideal, unfortunately, but you’ll need to make do with one of the three before you enter that pipe to the 100th floor. When you do, Bonetail will awaken and immediately start the fight.

The key to winning this battle is smart use of your Special Moves: Power Lift and Sweet Feast are your two go-to moves, and it’s important to decide which is best to use at any given moment. We’d recommend using Power Lift as often as possible to boost Mario and his partner’s damage output. Bonetail starts healing later on in the fight, so you have to keep up the offensive. You must also pull off Stylish Move inputs to keep your Star Gauge full.

It's safe to say, then, that this doesn’t mess around, and neither should you. Start the battle with Power Lift; you’re probably low on healing items, so much of the damage Bonetail inflicts on you will stick. As we mentioned, you’ll want to keep Power Lift active for as much of the battle as possible while using Stylish Moves to refill your Star Gauge as quickly as possible. If your Star Gauge is high but your HP is low, you can switch to Sweet Feast to restore some health in a pinch. The roulette also tends to come in clutch, though that part admittedly comes down to luck and not skill.

Bonetail attacks with claw slams, which deal decent damage and are difficult to block. What you’ll really need to watch out for is Bonetail’s fire breath attack; each color inflicts a different status ailment on Mario and his partner. If you’ve got the Feeling Fine Badge from the X-Naut Fortress, you can equip that here and become immune to status ailments altogether. Bonetail is really good at wearing you down, so you’ll inevitably find both Mario and his partner at low health. In this case, you’ll want to swap out your partner before they go down – this saves Mario from wasting a turn in a vulnerable state.

Even if Mario is at low HP, it’s not over! We highly recommend running as many Close Call and Pretty Lucky Badges as you can. Each one gives Mario a chance to dodge enemy attacks; the former has a boosted chance when Mario’s HP is at 5 or less. They’re not 100% consistent, but the two of these Badges combined can really come in clutch. Mega Rush and Power Rush increase Mario’s damage in a pinch, which can give you the firepower you need to finish the battle. When Bonetail’s health has dropped from 200 to 100, he’ll start healing 20 HP at a time every few turns. Power Lift is more necessary here than ever; if none of your Badges boost your partner’s Attack, some of their moves won’t even deal any damage to Bonetail without a Power Lift boost!

Continue balancing Power Lift, Sweet Feast, and powerful pinch attacks and eventually Bonetail will go down.

What do you get for defeating Bonetail?

You’ll earn a whopping 1 Star Point as a reward for beating the one of the hardest boss in the game — wow! On Switch, however, you'll also be rewarded with 999 Coins. Not bad at all.

More importantly, he'll cough up a treasure chest containing the Return Poster Badge. This acts as a passive counter stance for Mario; in other words, he’ll reflect some of the damage his attackers try to inflict.

Grab your treasure and exit the Pit of 100 Trials, and you’ll have officially cleared this tough challenge. Congratulations!

For more hints, tips, and guides, check out our full Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door walkthrough.