Playing psychological warfare with a program doesn’t sound easy, but that’s exactly what you need to do in Super Mario RPG’s Dr. Topper 21 Coin Game. Here’s how you can beat that oversized Hammer Bro.
The rules are simple. There is a box between you and Dr. Topper (Dr. T to his friends) with 21 coins inside of it. You can take anywhere between 1 and 4 coins from the chest. The goal is to not be the one who removes the last coin. That is to say, you want to force Dr. Topper to take the last coin.
How’s your counting skill? Mine is horrible, so we’re going to be taxing it here. What we’re going to try to do, ideally, is grab the 20th coin so Dr. Topper has no choice but take the 21st.
Out of the gate, take the full four coins. After each set of coins, hit A to pass it back to him. There is one specific point we want to try and ideally hit, which is the 15th coin. When you take the 15th coin and pass the turn back to Dr. Topper, he’ll have to take anywhere between the 16th and 19th coin. Regardless of how many he takes, though, you’ll be able to take the 1-4 coins needed to bring the total up to 20.
If, for whatever reason, you’re unable to nab the 15th coin, don’t panic. Dr. Topper is pretty dumb. So long as you manage to get a turn before while the total is between 16 and 19, you can push it to 20 and force him to lose.
I hope that makes sense. I’m a writer. Numbers are not my strong suit.
Super Mario RPG is available now for Switch.
