Mario Strikers Charged Football Striker Cup and Striker Challenge Guide Copyright 2007 Version 1.0 Written by White_Pointer e-mail: whitepointer@blood-sports.net Contents of this Guide: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Legal Information 3.0 About the game 4.0 What’s in this guide? 5.0 Beating the Striker Cup 6.0 Beating the Striker Challenges 7.0 Acknowledgements and Credits 1.0 Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, let me guess...you've got yourself Mario Strikers Charged. You're playing the Road to Striker Cup. You found the Fire Cup really easy, and the Crystal Cup challenging. But then got a rude shock when you attempted the Striker Cup? Yup...so did I. How on earth do you beat it? I've done it, and decided to write this guide for people just like you. 2.0 Legal Information ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This guide is intended for personal use only. No profit can be made from this guide under ANY circumstances, it is to be used for non-profit only. This guide will ONLY be hosted on Gamefaqs, unless you have my written consent to publish it on your own site and you MUST e-mail me to request my permission to use it. Please explain in your e-mail what the theme of your site is, the approximate amount of unique visitors you receive each month and what materials the site covers. This guide may not be altered in any way, shape, or form. 3.0 About the game ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mario Strikers Charged Football (the US version does not have "Football" in the title) is the sequel to the Gamecube game Super Mario Strikers, and is the first online-enabled game for the Nintendo Wii. 4.0 What’s in this guide? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This guide doesn't go into any detail on character statistics, or strengths and weaknesses, or tips and strategies for picking the best team of captain/sidekicks, or how to pull off advanced moves. There's already good FAQ's on Gamefaqs that cover that stuff. This guide is for all of you out there (and I know there's a good number of you!) who are having difficulties beating the Striker Cup. It contains tips and strategies for beating the opponents you'll be facing, and a few tricks that'll come in handy to win those tight games. Also included is a guide to beating those Striker Challenges...because those can be quite tough too. 5.0 Beating the Striker Cup ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Most likely, when playing the Road to Striker Cup single player mode, you breezed through the Fire Cup relatively easily, and Bowser Junior was a piece of cake. The Crystal Cup is a different story, as the opponents are significantly more challenging without being overly difficult. Diddy Kong can be a pain, but is certainly beatable. Then you come to the Striker Cup...feeling confident after knocking over Diddy Kong, you feel like you are ready to take them on...then you get absolutely smashed. 5.1 GENERAL STRIKER CUP TIPS **************************** The Striker Cup's difficulty is insane, to put it bluntly. It can seem like it's stupid hard and you may start getting frustrated that things aren't going your way. Before we get into specifics, here are a few general things you really need to watch out for when attempting to beat the Striker Cup: - The AI plays dirty. Really dirty. They won't hesitate to whack you when you are not in possession of the ball, especially if the ball is lobbed into the air. To counter this, there isn't much you can do except play dirty yourself. Give them a taste of their own medicine. Sorry, but if you play nice and try to win the ball by normal tackling all the time, you aren't going to get far in the Striker Cup. - The AI will often seem to get into a state where it basically says "I'm going to score a goal here, and there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop me". It does seem like that sometimes, where no matter what you do to try to stop it, they always seem to manage to get a goal in. Often they'll take multiple shots on goal which always manage to rebound back to them if they don't go in, or if you tackle them another member of their team ends up with the ball and takes another shot. When this happens, you'll need to frantically attempt to put them out of action. Smack them into the electric fence, throw items at them, do anything it takes to get the ball off them. With quick reflexes you can prevent them scoring in these scenarios...but sometimes, there simply isn't anything you can do except sit there in aghast as the goal goes in. - If you manage to draw level with the AI, or somehow manage to get ahead of them, be on your guard, because they often strike back almost immediately. Also don't allow yourself to lapse in concentration when there's only a few seconds left on the clock either, because the AI loves scoring in this period too. - On the subject of the AI scoring goals, there can be times, especially against the offensive or power characters, where it will seem like the AI scores off every shot on goal they take. If this starts happening, it can be incredibly frustrating to say the least. I myself often yelled at the TV saying "That's ridiculous! Every shot they are taking is going in! How can I defend against that?". It's important to keep your cool though and attempt to win the ball and hold onto it as much as you can, otherwise you'll find yourself 5-6 goals behind before you can blink. - Try to avoid sudden death against the AI if it's at all possible. It seems, at least, that their difficulty increases again once sudden death kicks in. Not only does it become a lot harder for you to score, they also seem to be able to put the ball in the back of the net a lot more reliably. If you do get into a sudden death situation, hold onto the ball as much as you can and fire as many charged shots at goal as possible. - The AI is quite smart in knowing when to use a character's fake (or deke as they seem to be more commonly known as). They'll often use it and time it very well if you rush up to them. So don't run up to them and attempt to take them out or tackle them immediately. Hang back if you can spare the time, and wait for them to attempt to fake or start charging a shot or pass, THEN go for them. - Conversely, don't overuse your own fakes (or deke's). The AI is quite good in avoiding them, and timing their tackles or hits right to get the ball back off you. - Kritter (the goalkeeper) is usually very adept at saving your megastrikes, even if you manage to hit the orange spot absolutely perfect. It doesn't seem to make much difference. I'm not saying don't attempt to score megastrikes... you should always take the opportunity to fire them off if the opportunity presents itself. Just don't expect to get many of them in. You definitely shouldn't rely on them to win you games. You'll find the times when you most need them to go in is when every shot gets saved. - The AI also knows when and how to use the captain's special abilities. Be very wary of them if you notice they have one ready to go. Every ability gives them a chance at a megastrike in some way. - Learn to save the opponent's megastrikes. Practice and practice. Because you'll no doubt be facing a lot of them. - Learn the "charge and pass" technique. That is, charge the ball with B, then hit A, to pass, or A while holding Z to lob pass. This skill will become invaluable and give you much better chances of scoring goals (of course, it also has the unfortunate side effect of giving the AI a good chance to score goals if they get the ball off you). - The difficulty seems to increase once you get to the elimination stage. A character you might have comfortably beaten in the group stage can come back and give you a nasty shock in the eliminations. Don't get lax and prepare yourself for a lot of close games. - By the same token, pay no attention to the rank of your opponent during the group stage. Their rank means nothing - a lower ranked opponent is just as difficult to beat as a high ranked opponent. Don't enter games believing you should easily win it on account of the opponent being of lower rank to you. - Pick a good combination of playmakers, offenders/powers, defenders and all- rounders in your team. I'm not going to recommend any specific combinations as choosing your team is totally up to you, but do make sure that you mix them up a bit. A team full of power characters or a team full of playmakers isn't going to go very well against the barrage you'll be facing in the Striker Cup. My personal recommendation is one balanced, one offence/power (pick one), one playmaker and one defence - but mix and match to find the combination that best suits your style of play. - Score however you can. There's no morals when playing against the AI. Do whatever it takes to score, including scoring goals by teleporting or jumping the goalkeeper with those characters that can do it. Tactics like that might be frowned upon by some people when playing online, but against the AI...do whatever it takes. 5.2 SPECIFIC STRATEGIES *********************** It's impossible to provide strategies when playing against certain teams, since every time you play the cup the combination of captains and sidekicks the AI uses are randomly chosen. However, what I CAN provide is specific tips on how to counter each specific captain...since they are, usually, your biggest threat in a game. You can use some of the general tips I mentioned when dealing with the sidekicks. Note that you won't play against the captains in any particular order, nor will you necessarily play against any one of them. You only play 9 games in the round robin competition, and there's 12 captains in the game (including Petey), so you won't face all of them. For ease of reading, I have listed them here alphabetically. Note these descriptions are in no way indicative of the way real opponents will use these captains when playing online, this is specifically for playing against the AI in the Striker Cup single player mode. BOWSER Bowser's big and bulky, but boy does he hit hard. He loves to just smash you whenever the opportunity presents itself...and he's quite good at shooting too. If he gets the ball while it's white and he's anywhere on your side of the halfway line, he'll likely take a shot and more often than not, it'll go in. Beware of his special ability...when he uses it, he's pretty much immune to anything unless you hit him from behind or throw something at him. Bowser also has an uncanny ability to hit his megastrikes perfectly and fire them off at maximum speed, (more so than most of the other captains, it seems) so try not to let him get too many away. Bowser does tend to leave himself open to being tackled or hit as he's recovering from his fake, so take the opportunity to steal the ball in this window of opportunity. BOWSER JR. I hate this little *%&$*. Like Bowser, he's exceptionally good at shooting and can score a goal from just about anywhere on your side of the field. He doesn't necessarily even need the ball charged up to take a shot either. Beware of his fake as it'll knock you away. The golden rule with him is don't allow him to take a shot - if necessary, gang up on him with your team mates and pummel him from all directions to get the ball off him. Luckily his special ability isn't too much of a problem to deal with...even if he manages to hit one of your team with it it's not the end of the world. Sometimes you may be unlucky and it'll hit multiple team members, where it might spell trouble. DAISY Daisy can be a surprisingly difficult customer to deal with. She sucks at shooting, but will often have a couple of power or offensive sidekicks accompanying her to offset that. She's very fast around the field and can come at you from seemingly anywhere to diffuse any situations where you might be in a position to score. Her special ability isn't bad, but also not too hard to avoid if you see it coming. If she manages to get a megastrike away, like Bowser she seems to hit the orange area and fire them off at maximum speed most of them time. Don't treat her as an easy opponent. Luckily, she doesn't use her fake too often to attempt to score goals, but be on the lookout for it regardless. DIDDY KONG If you are anything like me, you probably found Diddy Kong a bit of a pain to beat the first time you played through the Crystal Cup. He doesn't get any easier if you face him in the Striker Cup. He's extremely quick at running around the field, and very good at charging the ball and passing it off to one of his sidekicks to take a shot. Like Daisy, he always seems to have a couple of offensive or power sidekicks with him which cancels out his poor shooting ability quite nicely, and also like Daisy he can come from nowhere to prevent any goal scoring opportunities you might have. Watch out for his special ability, he's quite good at using it to trap your players and send them off the field, giving him a free shot at a megastrike. DONKEY KONG Donkey Kong, or "DK" as he's referred to in the game for some reason, is usually one of the easier AI opponents you'll face in the Striker Cup. Don't rush up to him as he loves doing his fake and knocking you away. He falls into the same class as Bowser, being a power character, but for some reason, he doesn't seem as good at shooting as Bowser is, and certainly doesn't hit the orange area very often if he manages to get a megastrike away. However, he's a power character nonetheless, so you need to be wary of him if he ventures past that halfway line and into shooting zone...he'll often score several goals quickly in succession if you let your guard down. His special ability can be a problem if most of your players are within range when he uses it, so make sure you've got someone hanging back to take him out after he lands. LUIGI Luigi, the man in green, is back and is my preferred captain of choice...though he's actually not much different to Mario. Playing against him, he can be a very annoying opponent, as all the balanced captains tend to be. He's adept at shooting...though he's not going to score off every shot he takes, you should still be on the lookout if he takes a shot while the ball is white. His super ability is quite good, but can be countered by slide tackling him at the exact right moment...unfortunately this can be difficult to time correctly as he tends to use his fake when he's really big and in possession of the ball. Don't allow him to squash all of your teammates and you should deny him a chance at a megastrike. Bombs, shells and banana peels are also effective in stopping him or slowing him down when he's a giant. MARIO What's a Mario game without Mario? As noted, in this game, he's really not that different to Luigi...the only real difference is that he has a different fake. Like Luigi, he's decent at shooting...though he tends to score more often than his green-clad brother for some reason, and doesn't seem to come back to assist in defence as often. His super ability can be countered by timing a slide tackle perfectly...though, like Luigi, he likes using his fake when he's big and in possession of the ball, making it a lot harder to tackle him and making it a lot easier for him to squash you (unlike Luigi, who can't really squash you when using his fake while he's big). Items like shells and bombs, and even banana peels, can also work to stop him. Overall, he can be an annoying opponent, but usually not too much of a problem. PEACH Peach, along with Donkey Kong, is probably the easiest AI opponent you'll face in the Striker Cup. For some reason, she just doesn't seem that good when the AI uses her. She very fast, and good at offloading the ball to her sidekicks, but that's about it. She's not very good in defense, nor is she very good at shooting, and her special ability isn't all that useful and not that hard to avoid. You just need to watch her speed, and watch any passes she might get away to her sidekicks - who are without a doubt a far bigger threat than Peach herself. She falls into the same class as Diddy as a playmaker, but Diddy is easily a much tougher opponent. WALUIGI Waluigi can be one of the most frustrating AI opponents you can face in the Striker Cup. He won't exactly score goals in quick succession like the offensive or power characters can, but he will tend to score them at regular intervals, usually when you are in a position to win the game. Unlike the other defensive captain Daisy, he DOES tend to use his fake to teleport behind the keeper and score goals, so you really need to watch out for that if he gets possession of the ball anywhere near the keeper's box. His special ability is excellent, but luckily he doesn't always get it right and gives you a chance to take him out before he gets a megastrike away. When he does get it right though, short of dropping a bomb on his head there's no way to stop it so make sure you stop the shots as they come in - he'll rarely, if ever, hit them perfectly in the orange area, so it shouldn't be that difficult. Oh, and he's very fast too and an excellent defender. WARIO Wario is another one of those opponents where you must absolutely, positively, in all manner of humanity, not allow him to take a shot on goal. He's an offensive captain like Bowser Jr, and like Bowser Jr, he can score goals from just about anywhere in your half of the field, and he doesn't need the ball fully charged to do so. If he takes a shot, it'll very often go in. His fake can be a pain to deal with, and will knock your team members down and stun them for a short time, giving him virtually a free shot if he's within range. His special ability is also very good...getting hit by his stink bomb will cause your controls to be reversed. While it's possible to tackle through the gaseous cloud, you still need to be running in the right direction to do so, which is very tricky. Luckily, he usually won't hit his megastrikes absolutely perfectly, though he still will from time to time. YOSHI Like the other balanced captains, Yoshi can be damn annoying as an opponent in the Striker Cup. He loves scoring against you in the final seconds of the game to secure a win (and for some reason, I find his celebration sequences really, really annoying). Even though he's decent at shooting, he'll tend not to score goals himself unless the ball is white, relying on his sidekicks quite a bit to do that work for him. He loves running around the field though and is great in defense, particularly because he's the only character in the game that doesn't actually put himself at much risk when clobbering you. His special ability is similar to Mario and Luigi's, though you can't interrupt it with a slide tackle. The best defense against it is to try and avoid it until the egg breaks, then take him out as he's charging up his megastrike (which he'll almost always do immediately after doing his egg roll). 5.3 THE FINAL BATTLE ******************** If you've managed to reach the champion in the Striker Cup...congratulations. Actually reaching him, in my opinion, is the hardest thing about the Striker Cup. Petey Piranha is the initial champion, but don't think the match will be easy. As a side note, since Petey appeared in Mario Kart Double Dash!!, my brothers and I simply refer to him as "Plant". As in "I just unlocked Plant!" or "Grr I hate Plant! He's so annoying!". Feel free to also use that nickname yourself, it's quite funny when you say it aloud in a sentence such as "Stupid Plant!" and everyone around you joins in :) Anyway...strategies for beating Plant: PETEY Plant falls into the same category as Bowser and Donkey Kong - he's a power character which means he's good at shooting. Don't allow him to get too many shots away because he does have the ability to score a lot of goals very quickly, and put you out of the game. Don't rush up on him as his fake is good at knocking you away, usually into the electric fence. His special ability is very good...and when he uses it, short of dropping a bomb on his head or managing to throw a big shell at him, it's almost impossible to stop the megastrike coming in, as your players slow down to a crawl and get stuck in the mud. Plant will almost always hit his megastrikes perfectly in the orange area and fire them off super fast too...so I hope you have practiced up and have gotten good at saving them. Plant does have one weakness though, he's absolutely atrocious in defense...though he does tend to have fast moving sidekicks that offset this vulnerability. Still, it's a vulnerability nonetheless and you need to exploit it if you're going to beat him. If you manage to knock him over in the best out of three game series, congratulations, you've beaten the Striker Cup. Go get yourself a beer. 6.0 Beating the Striker Challenges ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some of the Striker Challenges can also be quite difficult to complete. You're going to need to complete them all if you want to unlock all of the cheats for domination mode in the game and have a sense of finishing the game completely. You'll notice I've listed two different difficulties for each challenge here. "Skill Level" is the reported difficulty of the challenge according to the game. "Difficulty" is how hard the challenge really is. This is because these reported difficulties seem to be more based on the actual skill level of the AI, rather than how hard it is to actually achieve the objective that's required to successfully complete the challenge. I've grouped the difficulties of the challenges into four categories: Easy, Moderate, Hard and Insane. 6.1 Mario's Challenge - Till Sudden Death Do Us Part **************************************************** Challenge Objective: Win in Sudden Death Skill Level: Novice Difficulty: Easy Your Team: Mario, Boo, Toad, Monty Mole Opponent's Team: Donkey Kong, Toad, Hammer Bros, Birdo No surprises here that this is the easiest challenge of them all. You are Mario and must beat Donkey Kong in sudden death. Piece of cake. You only have one good goal scorer in your team in the form of Monty Mole, although Mario is adept enough at scoring as well, and Toad can jump the goalkeeper. On this skill level you can even use Boo's skillshot to score. You only need one goal. 6.2 Luigi's Challenge - Sibling Rivalry *************************************** Challenge Objective: Come back from 2 goals down with 3 team members to win Skill Level: Novice Difficulty: Easy Your Team: Luigi, Koopa, Koopa Opponent's Team: Mario, Dry Bones, Toad, Monty Mole Despite the fact you are a player down in this challenge, it shouldn't be too much of an issue for you. It may seem difficult at first, needing to come back from 2 goals down with a minute left, but it's not that hard. You can use one of Luigi's megastrikes, which is really easy to get away at this skill level, or you can simply score your goals by charging the ball and taking shots with Luigi or using Koopa's skillshot to stun the keeper and then fire it in off the rebound. 3 goals in 1 minute is a cinch here. 6.3 Donkey Kong's Challenge - This Monkey Shines ************************************************ Challenge Objective: Come back from 3 goals down to win Skill Level: Professional Difficulty: Easy Your Team: Donkey Kong, Toad, Toad, Boo Opponent's Team: Petey, Birdo, Monty Mole, Dry Bones Two minutes and 45 seconds to score at least 4 goals? Even with the team you are given (DK's the only really good striker) you've got almost a full game to put the goals away. One good megastrike is all it'll take, though you may not even need it with DK's good scoring ability and Toad's ability to jump the keeper. You shouldn't find this any more difficult than the previous two challenges. 6.4 Peach's Challenge - Battle for the Crown ******************************************** Challenge Objective: Score 5 goals more than your opponent Skill Level: Professional Difficulty: Moderate Your Team: Peach, Shy Guy, Boo, Koopa Opponent's Team: Daisy, Birdo, Dry Bones, Shy Guy Finally, a challenge that's actually a bit of a challenge! Actually, the only thing that makes this challenge moderately difficult is the fact you've got no really good goal scorers on your team. But, at this skill level, it's also not that hard to get megastrikes away, so aim for doing that. Also make use of Shy Guy and Koopa's skillshots to stun the goalkeeper giving you a free shot on goal if you get the rebound. 6.5 Daisy's Challenge - Brick Wall Baby *************************************** Challenge Objective: Win without conceding a goal Skill Level: Superstar Difficulty: Hard Your Team: Daisy, Toad, Koopa, Hammer Bros Opponent's Team: Waluigi, Birdo, Monty Mole, Hammer Bros So the challenge here is to beat Waluigi without conceding a goal. The "win the game" part of the challenge should be a cinch considering Waluigi's team is not good at defending. However, the "without conceding a goal" part is actually very tricky. Every one of Waluigi's team is good at shooting apart from Waluigi himself, but he can teleport past the goalkeeper and score instead. You're going to need to keep possession of the ball as much as possible and not allow the AI any time with it on your side of the field. It's really frustrating to concede a goal right at the end of this one, and you need to last the entire 3 minutes, which isn't easy against the attacking powerhouse team Waluigi has. 6.6 Wario's Challenge - A Stunning Situation ********************************************* Challenge Objective: Win with a goalkeeper that is easily stunned Skill Level: Superstar Difficulty: Moderate Your Team: Wario, Birdo, Dry Bones, Toad Opponent's Team: Diddy Kong, Koopa, Monty Mole, Hammer Bros Your goalkeeper can apparently be easily stunned, giving your opponent opportunities for a free shot on goal...though whenever I do it, it doesn't seem like Kritter has too many problems in this one. Anyway, you start the game level at 2-2, and the objective is to simply win the game despite your handicapped goalkeeper. This is actually quite easy. Charge the ball and shoot with either Wario or Birdo, or use Dry Bones' of Toad's fake to teleport/jump the opposing goalkeeper. Don't allow the AI too many shots on goal and the challenge is yours. Daisy's challenge is way harder than this. 6.7 Waluigi's Challenge - 3 Goals Away ************************************** Challenge Objective: Win by at least 3 goals Skill Level: Superstar Difficulty: Hard Your Team: Waluigi, Monty Mole, Boo, Boo Opponent's Team: Luigi, Monty Mole, Dry Bones, Dry Bones This challenge is significantly more difficult than Wario's. You need to win by at least 3 goals, against a team that's pretty darn good at defending and has the ability to score some annoying goals, to boot. Your best bet is using Waluigi's special to trap yourself in the corner and get a megastrike away, but there's no guarantees you'll actually get his special ability. You really need to make use of Boo's ability to charge and pass, and if possible get Monty Mole taking as many shots as possible with a fully white ball. Don't pass up the opportunity to use Waluigi's teleport to get past the goalkeeper either. Winning the game isn't THAT hard, but winning it by at least 3 goals is quite challenging, especially considering you only get 50 seconds to do it. 6.8 Yoshi's Challenge - So Far Behind ************************************* Challenge Objective: Come back from 5 goals down to win Skill Level: Legend Difficulty: Insane Your Team: Yoshi, Koopa, Hammer Bros, Hammer Bros Opponent's Team: Wario, Dry Bones, Dry Bones, Dry Bones This challenge is stupidly hard. You need to come back from 5 goals down to win the game, against a team that's good at both attacking and defending, with only a minute and 8 seconds on the clock. The stadium you draw for this one, The Sand Tomb, doesn't do you any favours either. I mean good grief, this challenge is ridiculous. To beat this challenge you really need to make use of Hammer Bros good shooting ability...charge the ball up with Yoshi and Koopa and pass it off to your Hammer Bros as much as you can for them to take shots with a fully white ball. This may also sound strange, but try to allow the AI to take you out illegally (the AI loves taking you out if you lob the ball in the air a lot) and give you items...you'll often get Yoshi's special egg roll or a star, giving you a chance at a megastrike. Don't rely on just megastrikes to win this one though, Kritter is very good at saving them. Though obviously, with such a small amount of time, the bulk of your goals do need to come from megastrikes - there's a fair bit of luck involved here with how many goals you manage to get off the megastrikes. When I finally did it, I needed 3 megastrikes to draw level (only 1 goal off the first two, and 3 off the third) then used a star on one of the Hammer Bros to fire off a skillshot and pull ahead, and frantically defended for the last 10 seconds. One of the hardest parts about this challenge is stopping Wario from scoring...if he manages to get any goals in you can basically kiss the challenge goodbye. Use your items wisely, and combine your megastrikes with regular charged shots from your Hammer Bros, and hope for some good fortune. This is probably the hardest challenge of all. Good luck and be prepared to retry this one a lot. 6.9 Bowser's Challenge - Zero Tolerance *************************************** Challenge Objective: Win without conceding a goal Skill Level: Legend Difficulty: Hard Your Team: Bowser, Boo, Koopa, Dry Bones Opponent's Team: Peach, Birdo, Toad, Monty Mole This is pretty similar to Daisy's challenge, but is obviously harder (though not by that much). Bowser is the only character on your team with any real shooting potential, though don't miss an opportunity to use Dry Bones' fake to get past the keeper. Again though, the problem with this one isn't the scoring goals and winning necessarily, it's the not conceding a goal part that's tricky. Try to prevent Peach's Birdo or Monty Mole getting the ball and taking a shot and you should be okay. 6.10 Petey's Challenge - Tag Team Tussle **************************************** Challenge Objective: Win the game with only 2 team members Skill Level: Legend Difficulty: Moderate Your Team: Petey, Monty Mole Opponent's Team: Donkey Kong, Toad At first you might read the description of this challenge and say "oh man, this is going to be tough with only 2 team members"...and then you realise that your opponent also has the same disadvantage. So you are on even terms...and in fact you have the upper hand because both Plant and Monty are excellent shooters. The only real disadvantage is their slow speed, so watch out for DK's Toad zipping past you and attempting to score. Overall, this is harder than it looks at first glance...largely because Plant and Monty move so slowly, but is not a particularly difficult challenge. (By the way, if you skipped the rest of this FAQ just to read this section and are wondering why I'm referring to Petey as "Plant", see section 5.3). 6.11 Bowser Jr's Challenge - Against All Odds ********************************************* Challenge Objective: Win without the use of items or powerups Skill Level: Megastriker Difficulty: Hard Your Team: Bowser Jr, Koopa, Dry Bones, Hammer Bros Opponent's Team: Bowser, Toad, Toad, Toad You are Bowser Jr and you will not receive any items during the match...but your opponent Bowser still can. That means that Bowser's team can basically take you out at any time without any penalties...and believe me, they will. The three Toads seem to be everywhere against your team which is generally a lot slower...learn to time your fakes with Bowser Jr and Hammer Bros while you charge and pass with Koopa and Dry Bones as much as you can to give your offensive players a white ball to shoot with. Teleport past the goalkeeper with Dry Bones whenever the opportunity presents itself. The one thing in your favour in this match is that the three Toads are not good at shooting (beware of their skillshots though) so if you can deny Bowser the ball (easier said than done) you're on the right track to winning. Watch out for Bowser's special ability though - if he gets a megastrike away he'll always hit the orange area. This one will probably take you several attempts but it's nowhere near as difficult as Yoshi's or Diddy's. 6.12 Diddy Kong's Challenge - Lucky Seven ***************************************** Challenge Objective: Score 7 goals and win the game Skill Level: Megastriker Difficulty: Insane Your Team: Diddy Kong, Shy Guy, Dry Bones, Dry Bones Opponent's Team: Yoshi, Birdo, Monty Mole, Koopa Holy Megastrikes Batman, this challenge is pretty darn hard. I guess, being the last challenge, you'd kind of expect it to be. It's not quite as hard as Yoshi's though, in my opinion...so if you managed to beat that one, you should be able to beat this one. Remember you only need to score 7 goals, not win by 7 goals. You are Diddy Kong, and you not only need to win the game, you need to score 7 goals in the process (more if your opponent actually manages to score 7 or more). Needless to say, with your team of abysmally bad shooters, scoring seven goals is not going to be easy...but on the plus side, Yoshi's team is not that great at defending. There is actually a trick to this one, though it does require a bit of luck to pull off. As crazy as this may sound, let Yoshi get about 5 goals up on you at the start. Once you are that far behind, you start getting items like stars and chain chomps which give you perfect megastrike opportunities. Fire a few of them away, and make use of Diddy's special whenever you get it to set up additional megastrike chances. Use Dry Bones' fake to teleport past the keeper whenever the opportunity is there, and make use of Shy Guy's skillshot to stun the keeper and get a free shot on goal. Yes, some people are of the belief that the bulk of your goals should come from your Dry Bones' in this one, and if both of them get zapped away at the start you should concede a goal to get them back. I say NO! to this...Shy Guy's skillshot is PERFECT for scoring goals with when there isn't many players around. Following this strategy you should nail 7 goals in 3 minutes, but as I said, it does require some luck with the items you receive (and you also need to make sure you actually win the game and don't allow the AI to score any more goals). Be prepared to try this one a lot too. 7.0 Acknowledgements and Credits ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next Level Games and Nintendo, for making this fantastic game! Gooberman, for proof-reading this FAQ. Myself, for writing this guide :) If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about this FAQ, feel free to e-mail me. Copyright 2007 by White_Pointer