After solving the six part password puzzle in the Sunken Ship dungeon you’ll be challenged by a tentacle! If you want to proceed further in the Sunken Ship, you’ve no choice but to answer this challenge, and defeat the host of the taunting tentacle - King Calamari. This page will provide tips and strategies for defeating King Calamari in Super Mario RPG.

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(1 of 2) King Calamari can inflict massive damage with his Ink Blast attack - a few levels here goes a long way!

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King Calamari can inflict massive damage with his Ink Blast attack - a few levels here goes a long way! (left), or perform a Tentacle Throw that inflicts Fear. (right)

How to Defeat King Calamari in the Sunken Ship¶

From the password entry room, go through the door to the northeast (make sure to save your game in the previous room, first!). This is a two-stage boss battle, where you’ll first have to face off against six tentacles. These come in two groups of three, so you’ll only be fighting at most three at a time in two different engagements, rushing up the hold after each victory until you’re finally engaged with King Calamari himself.

The tentacles themselves are hardly worth a mention - they deal trivial damage and while you can expend FP to take advantage of their weakness to fire damage, they’re not worth the expenditure of resources. Just cut them down en route to King Calamari.

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The Tentacles you’ll fight en route to King Calamari are of no concern - they deal little damage when they attack,

King Calamari - Attacks and Special Abilities¶

As mentioned earlier, the Tentacles don’t do much of note. They’ll swat at you for pathetic damage, and toss you up in the air to inflict Fear. Chop through them and when you reach King Calamari the real battle will begin.

Enemy	Attacks and Abilities	Attack Type	Description
Tentacle	Tentacle Swipe	Physical	Swats a single target for light damage.
Tentacle	Tentacle Throw	Special	Grabs a target and flings them into the sky. Deals no damage, but inflicts Fear.
King Calamari	Tentacle Slam	Physical	Bashes a target with several tentacles, dealing moderate damage to one foe.
King Calamari	Sandstorm	Special	Deals light damage to all party members and debuffs them.
King Calamari	Painspout	Special	Water erupts under all party members, dealing moderate damage.
King Calamari	Ink Blast	Special	Deals moderate-heavy magic damage to one target.
King Calamari	Venom Drool	Special	Shoots a glob of poisonous drool at a target, inflicting the Poison debuff.

King Calamari is a more formidable foe than here mere Tentacles (although he’s joined by two of those, as well!), being capable of actually dealing damage with his Tentacle Slam attack (by far his favorite attack to use) and Ink Blast. The latter is actually quite dangerous, depending on who it targets, as it deals magic damage. If King Calamari targets a character with low Mg. Defense like Geno or Bowser, you could see quite scary damage numbers, indeed. Otherwise, King Calamari likes to use Venom Drool to inflict Poison and familiar staples like Sandstorm and Painspout.

Focus on chopping down the Tentacles accompanying King Calamari to limit the debuffs they can inflict with their Tentacle Throw attack, then work on whittling down the big squid, himself. As long as you keep everybody above 50 HP (you can get more aggressive if you don’t have Geno or Bowser in your party) you should be fine.

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Exploit King Calamari’s weakness to fire with Mario’s Super FIreball attack.

King Calamari - Stats and Weaknesses¶

If you use Thought Peek on the Tentacles, you’ll see that they’re weak against fire… which is also the subject of their thought, in case it wasn’t clear enough. There are actually two types of tentacles, Left and Right, which appear in the bestiary, with Right Tentacles having more HP and minor stat differences (Left Tentacles have more Defense and less Mg. Defense, for example). It doesn’t really affect how they perform in battle.

Enemy	HP	Weaknesses	Resistances
Tentacle (Left)	200	Fire, Fear, Poison	Mute, Sleep
Tentacle (Right)	260	Fire, Fear, Poison	Mute, Sleep
King Calamari	800	Fire	Fear, Mute, Poison, Sleep

While it’s arguably a waste to expend FP on the weak Tentacles, King Calamari is another story, and Mario’s Super Fireball once again shines in this fight. Assuming Mario doesn’t end up debuffed, a perfect Super Fireball can hit for 200+ damage, which is close to a third of the boss’s HP. This is your best attack against King Calamari, although the damage output is reduced considerably if you don’t buff with Geno and/or you end up inflicted with Fear.

King Calamari - Rewards¶

Defeating King Calamari will earn you 100 Exp (split three ways) and 100 Coins. Better yet, you’ll be able to advance to the second half of the Sunken Ship dungeon!