Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door/Battle Information

Attacking enemies
While Mario and his partners are battling enemies, they can attack enemies with extra power using the Action Command.

Countdown: Tilt and hold the control stick left, then release when the red light flashes.

Tricky Timing: Pressing A just before landing on Mario's opponent.

Aiming: Aligning a cursor in the center of the targeting reticule.

Button Mania: Holding on to or repeatedly tapping a button or input an entire sequence.

Stylish Moves are extra commands to please the crowd more and gain more star power.

Guarding
To perform a guard action command, press A or B when Mario's opponent is about to strike him. Guarding will reduce the damage he takes from enemy attacks and help the player resist status effects. The player must time it right, though.

Guard: To perform a Guard move, press A to dodge enemy attacks, reducing the damage they do by 1, also protecting Mario from negative status effects. The player will have a 1/2 second to guard.

Superguard: To perform a Superguard move, press B to dodge enemy attacks, negating the attack completely, damaging their opponent if it is attacking directly. The player only have a 1/4 second to superguard, making it naturally harder than guard.

Star Points
Every time Mario wins a battle, he'll earn Star Points. When Mario's Star Point Level gets up to 100, he'll choose whether to upgrade his Heart Points, Flower Points or Badge Points. Choosing HP and/or FP will raise Mario's HP or FP by 5 and choosing BP will raise Mario's BP by 3. Mario stops leveling up at 99, however it is very hard to reach this level.

Shine Sprites
When Mario and co. collect Shine Sprites, Mario can give 3 of them to Merlon and Merlon will power up Mario's partners, increasing their HP and teaching them new moves. Getting the Up Arrow in Hooktail Castle will allow Mario to power up his partners a second time, and Merlon will teach Mario's partners ultra-rank moves.

Star Power and the Audience
In the Prologue, Mario will earn a new Special Move, and every time Mario and company earn a Crystal Star, they will learn 7 Special Moves and the Special Moves can be used if Mario and company have plenty of Star Energy. After using a Special Move, Mario and company can replenish their Star Power by appealing to the audience and thrilling the crowd with the action command and stylish moves.

The Audience (or Crowd) are minor characters that appear in every battle sequence in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door after Mario learns Sweet Treat. They can either be allies or enemies during the battles. They appear in the bottom of the screen, giving Mario Star Points when he attacks enemies. These Star Points can be powered up to release a special move on the opponent. There's also special crowd members.

For example, a Crazee Dayzee may sing to put all audience members around her/him asleep. A Bulky Bob-omb may light its fuse and explode, killing the audience members around him/her. Bosses such as Hooktail may use the audience as a power source, restoring HP upon eating the audience members. The crowd may also throw objects at Mario. It can either be an item that will aid Mario, or hurt him. The items that will aid him can range from one Coin to a Boo's Sheet. The items that will hurt him range from rocks to crushed soda cans. Mario can press the X button to get them out of the theater.

Also Luigi, Punis, and Toads often appear in the crowd. Luigi, Punis, and the Toads will never do anything to hurt Mario or his Partners and will throw helpful items such as coins and mushrooms. Also, the X-Nauts refuse to give Mario helpful items. Also, Shy Guys will sometimes get on to the stage and go backstage and drop something on the enemy, boss, or even Mario and his partners during battle (the objects Shy Guys can drop fall on their own quite commonly).

With the exception of Shy Guys, Audience members never appear until they have been encountered. For example, X-Nauts and Punis don't appear in the audience until Chapter 2.

Also getting a Bingo will cause the crowd to fill in, but however if the player hits a poison mushroom during an Bingo round, the crowd will usually run away, and Mario's party's health and FP will be cut in half. Also Mario's star power will get cut in half as well. (See below)

Bingo!
An icon will appear next to Mario's Star Power Gauge whenever the player nails an Action Command. If the player has two matching icons and if the player executes an additional Action Command, Mario can take the Bingo! wheel for a spin. Press the A button to match the third icon to the first two. Matching anything but poison mushrooms also brings Mario's audience to max. 3 Poison Mushrooms will cut down all of Mario's current status by half and deplete all of his audience (for example I have 20 HP and 10 FP. I get 3 Poison Mushrooms so my HP goes down to 10 and my FP goes down to 5.) 3 Mushrooms will fully recover Mario's Heart Points, 3 Flowers will fully recover his Flower Points, 3 Stars will refill Star Power, and 3 Shine Sprites will fully restore everything!