What a nerve-wracking puzzle. While going through the Return to Bowser’s Keep phase of Super Mario RPG, you may come across Dr. Topper’s Ball Solitaire. It’s a lot, and if you fail, you’re kicked back to the door selection. Here’s how to solve the Ball Solitaire challenge.
That is if you want to. There are six doors you choose from in this part of the game, and you only need to do four. Have you considered one of the battle ones? They aren’t too bad. No? Okay. I want you to know I only did this puzzle so I could tell you how to complete it. You’re welcome.
Ball Solitaire puts you on an eight-by-eight grid of cannon balls. One of them is taken away, and you have to eliminate the rest of them by leapfrogging one ball over another into an empty space. Eventually, you just want to be left with only one. It’s like those puzzles they have on tables in old country restaurants or Crack Barrel. The ones that you probably cheated on when you were a kid.
Some tips first. You want to make sure to break the balls up. If you wind up with four in a single row, you might not have any way to complete the puzzle, so you kind of want to perforate the board. At the same time, you want to make sure the cannon balls are close enough together so that one doesn’t get stranded in the corner. That may sound counter-intuitive, but on an 4×4 grid, the balls are usually not far apart.
Just tell me how to solve it
All right, all right. Prepare your eyes for my amazing MS Paint skills:
Amazing, right? When I was younger, before I decided to be a writer, I wanted to be an artist. I don’t know why I brought that up. It just came to my head for some reason.
Anyway, that’s how you solve the Ball Solitaire puzzle. It’s possible that there are other ways to complete the puzzle. I’m not sure, and my brain hurts, so I don’t want to think about it anymore. This will get you through this puzzle, so mission accomplished.
Super Mario RPG is available now for Switch.
