Crystal Palace is the 5th fortress level in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Layout[]
Crystal Palace is an ice-made fortress in the mountains and hills of the Ice Land under the starry night sky. It is one of the locations Mario and his party visit during the events of Paper Mario.
The first area takes place on the snowy covered treetops outside that look similar to the athletic levels found in the first Super Mario Bros. game as the player jumps around tree to tree while dealing with various enemies, such as Koopa Troopas, Paregoombas, Ninjis, and Bullet Bills being fired off scene. There are also Scale lifts, in which one platform rises once the player lands on the parallel platform. If the player lingers too long on one platform, the scale breaks apart. Once the player makes it across the treetops, they enter the palace.
The second area takes place inside the plalace with some candles around the hallway as the player travels through the hallway while dealing with additional enemies, such as Boos, Thwomps, Thwimps, and Flurries. There are also some Skewers to watch out for and living flames called Hotfoots that come out of some of the ceiling candles to attack the player. Near the end of this area, the player will slide across the ice blocks while avoiding the Rotodiscs to get the pipe to the next area.
The last area seems to take place on top of the palace, as the player can see the moon and stars in the background as all the floors are covered in ice. Here, the player needs to slide around them while avoiding the many enemies and hazards coming their way and not falling into the pits. Once they make it through, the player falls into a pit that takes them to an underground checkpoint room before falling again to the boss fight.
Here, the player will fight the living, flame-like creature known as Fryguy who attacks by shooting fireballs out of his mouth. To damage him, the player can use the Mushroom Blocks to throw them at him in case they don't have a power-up or sub-weapons to deal with him. Once Fryguy has only half of his health left, he will summon many mini-fireballs that circle around his body while shooting more aggressively before stopping to make an X-shaped fireball before throwing all of them at the player. Once Fryguy endures enough damage, his body starts to crumble into countless mini-flames before exploding. The player has now cleared the level as they go to the No Man's Land section next on the map.
Alternately, the player can opt to find the secret exit, which leads to the path to World 6: Adventurer's Domain, instead of the main exit, where Fryguy is fought. In order to get to World 6 on the map, the player needs to melt the many ice cubes full of coins in the last area using a fire-based power-up or sub-weapons. Upon entering the pipe, it will take them inside the palace on top, where they can see many traps, such as Thwomps and Skewers, completely frozen and harmless, but there's still some enemies, such as Boos and Flurries, not frozen. The player must first go to the left side to deal with the enemies before getting a key to unlock a gate on the right side, then jump across the bed of the spikes and encounter some new non-Mario enemies before entering a pipe to the world exit area.
The world exit area takes place in Petrolith Castle from the SNES game Skyblazer. This is one of the many fortresses that the main character, young sorcerer Sky, goes to on his quest to rescue another sorceress, Arianna, from a demon warlord, Ashura, with the help of the old man and his new power.
The first two areas have the player first flying across the icy slope using the ice cube lying on the ground that knocks out any enemies standing in the way. There are also rotating elevator platforms to ride on while dealing with the Mario enemies and some new enemies from SkyBlazer, such as Eyeinsects and Hedgehogs, while collecting some orange diamonds and jumping on purple chests for power-ups or sub-weapons.
The last area takes place in a hallway of Petrolith Castle as the player deals with a number of Panthers that will charge towards the player while going through the slippery ice floor. Once the player gets passed through, they will see some orange diamonds that spell out W6 before entering a pipe to get to the flagpole and clear this area, as they now have access to the Adventure domain on the map.
Enemies[]
Mario enemies:
- Flurry
- Koopa Troopa (SMB3 version)
- Koopa Paratroopa (SMB3 version)
- Ninji
- Bullet Bill
- Paragoomba
- Boo
- Skewer
- Thwomp
- Thwimp
- Rotodisc
- Hotfoot
- Grinder
- Fire Chomp
Skyblazer enemies:
Boss[]
- Fryguy (SMB2)
Trivia[]
- Earlier versions of this level did not feature the World 6 Secret Exit area,
- Originally, the first area was a nighttime ice theme from New Super Mario Bros although with a darken effect as the original background took place in daytime. Since its redesign, it now have tilesets and backgrounds from the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros.
- Bullet Bills, Koopa Paratroopas, Boos, Skewers, Grinders and all the Skyblazer enemies were originally absent in this level.
- The following enemies were originally in this level but were removed after the level was revamped: Beezos, Banzai Bills, Shy Guys, Autobombs, Boomerang Bros, Fire Bros, Spikes, Albatosses, Bob-ombs, Rexes, Goombas, Chargin' Chucks, and Sparks. In the v0.82 update of Mushroom Kingdom Fusion, Chain Chomps were removed from the level.
- Clawgrip was a hidden boss in older versions of this level but was removed and replaced with Reznor. Likewise, Mouser also served as a mini-boss before being removed. In the v0.82 update, Reznor was replaced with Fryguy, whose boss fight was ported from the long-cancelled sister project Super Mario Fusion: Revival.
- This level used to be named Frost Palace.
- This level shares the name of one of the locations in the 2001 (2001 in Japan) N64 game Paper Mario.
Gallery[]
Revamped Version[]
Older Revamped Version (pre-v0.82)[]
Original Version[]
Video[]
Mer!K Plays MKF v0.8 Frost Palace
Lancer Plays MKF 318: Frost Palace
TaXMaN Plays MKF 0.7 - Frost Palace (Revamped Version w/World 6 Exit) playthrough
Mushroom Kingdom Fusion Play-Through: World 1-F4 Frost Palace (Original Version
Mushroom Kingdom Fusion v0.3: Link - Frost Palace (Special Ending!)