Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Goombas Quiz

Answer: Water Goomba

There are many nasty enemies specific to water levels, but Water Goombas aren't one of them! The Shoe Goomba, as the name suggests, hides inside a giant boot and is only found on Level 3 of World 5. If you bump the block under it, you get to hop around in the boot and kill enemies that you couldn't kill otherwise, and run over lines of Munchers.

The Pile Driver Micro-Goomba hides in blocks, and is first encountered in World 2. The Paragoomba is a winged Goomba which loses its wings when you jump on it; the brown one also spawns Micro-Goombas as it flies.

Answer: Boom Boom

Boom Boom is a Koopa who appears at the end of every fortress, and in some worlds, you get to encounter him twice. He can be defeated by jumping on his head three times, but you have to be quick as he'll either run around or worse, start flying. When you defeat him, he drops a Magic Ball and doors on the map disappear, making other levels easier to access.

Answer: 2 and 8

The Angry Sun is content to just sit in the sky and glare at you for a bit, but he will chase you after a certain point in an unnamed level in World 2. the only way he can be defeated is by throwing a Koopa shell or hammer at him, although he's fairly easy to avoid once you figure out his attack pattern. Unfortunately for Mario, the Angry Sun reappears in Bowser's domain in Level 2 of World 8, though he can be avoided if you use one of the Warp Pipes.

Answer: Lakitu

Lakitu is a Koopa who rides on a cloud, and first appears in World 3. He chucks spiked balls at you which are actually Spiny Eggs. The red ones hatch into Spinies, and these beasts can only be killed with fireballs or the Super Star. It is possible to kill Lakitu by jumping on him.

When you defeat Morton Koopa Junior in the second airship level, Princess Toadstool/Peach gives you Lakitu's Cloud, which enables you to skip a level (though if you die, you have to do the level you skipped).

Answer: Muncher

Ptooies (the plants that spit spiked balls), Venus Firetraps (the firebreathing plants) and Nippers (the tiny white plants that snap at you) can all be killed with fireballs, hammers, or by Mario in Super Star mode. Munchers, the black snapping plants that appear in World 5, can't be killed by normal means, but if you have the Goomba's Shoe in Level 3 of World 5, you can walk over them quite easily (which is good because there are a lot of them, and there's a 1-Up hidden in a block with a whole row of Munchers under it). Frozen Munchers also appear in Level 10 of World 6, and the Princess warns you that if you throw a fireball at the ice blocks housing them, they'll be freed.

Answer: 3

Boss Bass is a giant version of the Cheep Cheep fish found in the water levels, and is one of the most frustrating enemies to deal with because he can't be killed, although throwing an object or fireball at him will knock him out temporarily. He will also eat Mario regardless of what form Mario's in. Fortunately, he only appears in Levels 3 and 8 of World 3, but you have to be a skilled player indeed to avoid him, especially if you want to rack up enough coins on Level 8 to get a P-Wing.

A similar enemy, Big Bertha, can be found underwater in other levels and is usually accompanied by her baby.

Answer: Look at it

According to 'Mario' lore, the Boo - or Boo Diddly - is a very shy monster and hates being looked at. It will often sneak up on Mario with an evil grin on its face, but will stop and cover its face with its hands if Mario turns around and looks at it.

The only way to kill a Boo is by pelting it with a shell or hammer, or charging at it while you have the Super Star. A variety of Boo called a Stretch, which is attached to a platform and follows Mario as he moves past it, appears in later fortresses.

Answer: Bert

The Koopalings are named after musicians, and were originally intended to be Bowser's children, though this was later retconned. Each of them has a magic wand, which Mario needs to steal from them in order to turn the kings of each land, who have all been transformed into animals or monsters, back into humans.

In order, they are Larry Koopa (named after either Larry King or U2 drummer Larry Mullen), Morton Koopa Junior (named after Morton Downey Junior), Wendy O Koopa (named after Plasmatics singer Wendy O Williams), Iggy Koopa (named after Iggy Pop), Roy Koopa (named after Roy Orbison), Lemmy Koopa (named after Motörhead singer Lemmy), and Ludwig Koopa (named after composer Ludwig van Beethoven).

The Koopalings will try and shoot you with their wands, but others have extra tricks up their sleeves; for instance, Wendy throws striped candy rings which float around the screen. Like Boom Boom, they can all be defeated by jumping on top of them three times.

Answer: Para-Beetle

The Para-Beetle is similar to the Buzzy Beetle, except it flies. You have to jump right on top of its back if you want to use it as transport, but it flies quite quickly and there are some parts in Level 6 of World 5 - the only place where these critters are found - where you have to jump from Para-Beetle to Para-Beetle, lest you fall to your death. Like their grounded counterparts, fireballs will not hurt them.

As for the others, a Baby Cheep is Big Bertha's baby, a Dry Bones is a skeletal Koopa that appears in the fortresses and reforms after you hit it, and a Chain Chomp is a dog-like black ball on a leash that tries to bite you.

Answer: Sledge Brothers

The Sledge Brothers, like everything else in World 4, are bigger than usual, and they also throw sledgehammers instead of normal ones. Because of their size, they can also create earthquakes when they land. If you walk into the Sledge Brothers or any other kind of Hammer Brother(s), you have to fight them regardless, and they tend to wander around the map from place to place, but can be temporarily put to sleep by music boxes. Hammer Brothers and their variants usually drop Super Stars, but sometimes you might get a rarer item such as a P-Wing, a hammer (which you can use to smash down rocks in your way on the map) and in one case, a Warp Whistle in World 2, which is guarded by a pair of Fire Brothers.