Paper Mario: The Origami King - Cutting The Purple Streamer

The mighty Sea Tower is finally unlocked, and we can reach the top to cut the fourth streamer in Paper Mario: The Origami King. We’re getting closer to the end with every step, and there’s only one streamer left after this quick trip up the tallest tower in The Great Sea. The main puzzle is solved, but there’s still a bunch of challenges waiting in this mysterious dungeon.

Like every streamer lair, you’ll encounter a big boss at the end. This time around, you’ll have to deal with the terrible Tape! This sticky dispenser of annoyance brings a pretty high challenge threshold to the table — figuring out how to navigate his maze of taped ring arena tiles is going to be tricky. We’ve got a few tips to help you conquer this penultimate challenge.

Paper Mario: The Origami King – Table Of Contents:

Green Streamer Region: Pt. 21: Visit All 5 Hot Springs | Shangri-Spa | Pt. 22: Cutting The Green Streamer | Bowser’s Castle

Peach’s Castle: Pt. 23: Defeat Ollie | Final Dungeon

Sea Tower Walkthrough

The Purple Streamer leads Mario and Olivia to the Sea Tower — found in the top-left corner of The Great Sea. To unlock the door, you’ll need to complete all three trials in Diamond Island, and to earn the Ice Vellumental power. Now that we have all three orbs, insert them into the door to gain entry.

How To Solve The Moving Platform Puzzle: In the first room of the Sea Tower, there’s a series of moving platforms. To get across, look for two platforms that you can stand on safely forever. There’s one on the right, and a later one on the left.

To make progress ahead, enter the door to the left of the huge Vellumental statue faces. Chase the Blue Sidestepper with the jewel! To catch the Blue Sidestepper, follow the path through the spikes and repair the broken platform with confetti. At the top, you’ll encounter push-blocks that are seemingly impossible to pass.

Hit the wall to your left with the hammer twice to make platforms appear — now Mario can jump on top of the pushers and walk to the other side. Pull the sticker off the platform at the end and it will slide you down; once it’s also fixed with confetti.

How To Get The Red Gem: In the water room where the Blue Sidestepper retreats, use your hammer to knock down all the dragon statues above the holes. Three hammer hits cause them to drop. Block the upper-left corner, then wait on the water-pathway for the Sidestepper to attempt to escape through that hole. Then you can corner it!

Insert the Red Gem in the left statue’s mouth in the main room, and the stairs will come together, allowing Mario and Olivia to reach the next floor. Up above, you’ll find toads that have been mysteriously stuck to the walls in tape.

The Second Floor: Stock up on confetti! Smash all the enemies, then go right and look for ice-stairs down. Take the icey path all the way left to a puzzle room. Your goal in the ice slide puzzle is to reach the raised ice slide on the far-left wall. To do that, you need to move the upper-right corner slide and block the small spike pit.

Use the picture above as your guide. Hit the upper-right slide down, left, up, right, down, left, and up again to reach the spike pit.

On the high slide, knock it right with your hammer and you’ll complete the bridge, giving you access to a fire room. There’s another familiar puzzle here — the fire block puzzle from the Fire Vellumental Cave.

How To Solve The Fire Block Puzzle: Up, Right, Up, Left, Left, Up, Right, Down, Right, Up, Left, Left, Up

Past the fire blocks, use the 1,000-Fold Arms to pull the ribbon and drop the heavy weight, melting the ice-teeth blocking your way to the exit.

Outside, you’ll encounter some bad guys on your way to the top of the tower. At the very top, approach the purple steamer and the terrible Tape will appear!

Boss: Tape

This boss hides all the panels you need in the treasure chest tile, so make sure to open it as soon as possible. To hurt Tape, use your Hammer attack to crack its plastic shell. You’ll need to attack all four sides of Tape — more powerful hammers will destroy the plastic faster.

Navigate so you’re close to each corner of Tape and break the parts. This is the easy part of the fight — just attack all four parts and smash them with your hammer. The 1,000-Fold Arms and Fire Vellumental will do damage to the plastic, too!

After the dispenser is destroyed, the Tape is free! It can now place tape on the ring arena. Taped rings will stick together when you move them — to destroy the tape, you can use the Fire Vellumental Magic Circle. Tape only adds more tape to the ring arena, so you’ll need to clear it away or the entire arena will become immobile.

To really damage Tape in its second form, use 1,000-Fold Arms! Regular attacks barely hurt it. Take turns using 1,000-Fold Arms, then using the Fire Vellumental to clear the arena. When the boss charges its super-attack when it’s low on HP, use the Fire Vellumental Magic Circle to stop it!

Pull the tape with 1,000-Fold Arms about three times to defeat it. Without tape, this boss is gone. Now you’re clear to smash the Purple Streamer and say goodbye to The Great Sea.

The Third Floor (Roof): After defeating the boss, you’ll need to solve one more puzzle. You’ll need to reach all four switches — there’s one in each direction, with a multi-magic circle like on Diamond Island.

Upper-Right: Use the Ice Vellumental to freeze the water and push the red button with your hammer.
Upper-Left: Use the Fire Vellumental to melt the big block of ice.
Lower-Left: Use the Water Vellumental to put out the fires.
Lower-Right: Use the Earth Vellumental to lower the rocks.

Complete all four puzzles and hit all four red buttons with your hammer and a light will appear on the tower. Enter, and you’ll enter the final of the five streamer regions — Shangri-Spa!