Petey Piranha
| Petey Piranha | |
|---|---|
Official artwork of Petey Piranha from Mario Party: Star Rush. | |
| Universe | Mario |
| Debut | Super Mario Sunshine (2002) |
| Smash Bros. appearances | Brawl Ultimate |
| Most recent non-Smash appearance | Super Mario Party Jamboree (2024) |
| Console/platform of origin | Nintendo GameCube |
| Species | Piranha Plant |
| Gender | Male |
| Place of origin | Isle Delfino |
| Article on Super Mario Wiki | Petey Piranha |
Petey Piranha (ボスパックン, Boss Packun), is an antagonistic character and leader of the Piranha Plants in the Mario series.
Origin[edit]
Petey Piranha made his debut as a boss in Super Mario Sunshine and has become a recurring boss in the Mario franchise. He is a mutated and larger version of a Piranha Plant with a red head peppered with white polka dots, yellow iridescent petals with orange rims that surround it, thick green lips, leaf-like arms, stubby legs, and a pair of pants with the same color scheme as its head.
Petey Piranha first appeared as a boss in the second and fifth episodes of the Bianco Hills area. In the second episode, he is seen spitting large amounts of brown goop from atop a windmill, and in the fifth episode, he is seen sleeping on a cliff, where he can be awakened with a Poink. In both boss battles, he attacks by spitting his brown goop on Mario, and if the player gets close enough, hitting Mario with his head by spinning it around himself. In the fifth episode, he gains the ability to fly and swing his arm to cause a tornado that sends Mario flying upward. He can be defeated by using F.L.U.D.D. to spray large amounts of water in his mouth before he spits out his goop to expose his belly button on his engorged belly, which can be ground-pounded on three times.
Petey Piranha also appears as a boss in New Super Mario Bros. as the boss of World 5. In that game, he flies above the player and will try to stomp on them.
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl[edit]
As a boss[edit]
| Petey Piranha | |
|---|---|
| A boss in | Brawl |
| Universe | Mario |
| Location | Midair Stadium |
Petey Piranha appears as the first boss of the Midair Stadium level in The Subspace Emissary. Prior to the battle, during the Subspace Army's invasion on the stadium, Petey blasts Mario away with a cannonball and captures both Peach and Zelda in cages, leaving Kirby to battle him. He can be defeated by destroying one of the cages. The player can also attack his head, which splits the damage received to both cages.
Once one of the cages' health is depleted, the cage will break and free one of the princesses inside while Petey catches on fire, collapses and explodes. If the health on both cages are depleted simultaneously via an attack on his head, the game will randomly decide which princess is freed. The unsaved princess will be turned into a trophy and captured by Wario. In The Great Maze, Tabuu resurrects Petey, along with the other bosses, and sends him after the heroes.
Petey can be battled in Boss Battles Mode. During this mode or in The Great Maze, his cages will be empty and the sky will be blue, in comparison to the Midair Stadium level where his cages will contain the two princesses and the sky will be an ominous red.
Rather than being voiced by Toru Minegishi who voiced the character in Super Mario Sunshine, Petey Piranha has a set of realistic monstrous beast roars, similar to how Donkey Kong, Bowser, and Diddy Kong were given realistic animal sounds.
Moveset[edit]
Petey has only two main attacks. The first involves swinging one of the two cages along the ground. The second is a jumping attack, where Petey tries to stomp the player while holding both cages vertically. Any contact with Petey or his cages during this attack will meteor smash the player as he comes down from a jump.
When either cage is reduced to half health, Petey will roar and its body will momentarily glow with a red aura. Petey will then speed up its attacks and often jump in a different pattern, usually two times in a row; his attacks will also deal slightly more damage, increasing knockback as a result. At a quarter health he will again speed up and deal more damage, however this change is not indicated like with the half health roar.
- Notes: The "d" below is a multiplier based on the difficulty value. Final damage is rounded down to the nearest whole number. Boss Battles halves the final damage, rounding down again. The move names are fan-made in the absence of an official source.
| Name | Damage | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Cage Swing | 10 + 2.7d | Petey Piranha swings a cage in front of himself. The attack is highly avoidable but relatively swift and long-ranged. It KOs over 100% on the lower difficulties but around 60% on Intense. Deals 20% additional shield damage. |
| Jump | 12 + 3.0d (fall) 8 + 2.0d (landing) |
Petey Piranha jumps high, sending himself in the direction of the player. Petey can't go beyond the blue floor of the stage, causing him to jump in place if the player is near the ledge by him. The distance he jumps increases with difficulty, jumping just over half the stage on Easy and spanning the whole stage on Intense. After roaring, Petey will usually start jumping twice in a row. This falling hit meteor smashes the player into the stage but can't KO and deals 30% shield damage. The landing hit only affects grounded players and deals 10% shield damage. |
HP and damage taken[edit]
| Damage taken | ×0.7 | ×0.7 | ×0.7 | ×0.7 | ×1.0 | ×0.7 | ×0.7 | ×0.7 | ×0.7 | ×0.7 | ×0.3 |
| Phase changes | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | Phase 1 set | Phase 2 set | Phase 3 set |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midair Stadium | 50% | 25% | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| The Great Maze | 50% | 25% | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Boss Battles (round 1-3) | 50% | 25% | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Boss Battles (round 4-6) | 50% | 25% | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Boss Battles (round 7-9) | 50% | 25% | 3 | 4 | 5 |
The resistance values above apply only when hitting Petey's body, which will deal the resulting damage to each cage. When hitting an individual cage, no resistance modifier is applied. When either cage's HP is depleted, Petey is defeated.
Like all bosses in Brawl, Petey gains an additional ×0.6 damage resistance modifier when fought in co-op mode, effectively gaining 67% more health. This modifier is applied whenever the second player is in-game and is no longer applied if the second player loses all their stocks.
As a playable character[edit]
Trophy[edit]
The Petey Piranha trophy can be obtained by using the Trophy Stand on Petey Piranha on Hard or Intense difficulty in The Subspace Emissary.
- Petey Piranha
- A colossal Piranha Plant. Unlike its pipe-inhabiting cousins, it uses its legs to walk around. It can fly, too. As you might expect, it often appears as a boss character in Mario adventures. This may come as a surprise, but it also displays surprising dexterity in kart races and ball games.
: Super Mario Sunshine
: New Super Mario Bros.
Stickers[edit]
| Name | Game | Effect | Fighter(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Petey Piranha | Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour | ||
| Petey Piranha | Mario Strikers Charged |
![]() Petey Piranha (Mario Golf: TT) |
![]() Petey Piranha (Mario Strikers Charged) |
In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U[edit]
Despite Petey Piranha making no appearance whatsoever in either version of Super Smash Bros. 4, he has unused animations in the Wii U version that are unique and are separate from Brawl.[1]
Even more curiously, there are no leftover models, textures, sounds or parameters with which these animations would correspond, as only the animations appear to remain in the game. The lack of leftover assets would appear to imply that Petey Piranha was scrapped at a very early stage in development.
In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate[edit]
As a Final Smash[edit]
Petey Piranha appears as Piranha Plant's Final Smash, using the cages from The Subspace Emissary.
Cosmetically, Petey Piranha has a more saturated color scheme than he did in Brawl and is more smoothly textured (i.e. no cracks in his skin as in the aforementioned title).
Additionally, he is mentioned in the Palutena's Guidance for Piranha Plant, as well as Paper Petey Piranha and Petea Piranha.
Spirits[edit]
Petey Piranha also appears as two different primary spirits. He can be obtained by enhancing the Nipper Plant spirit at level 99.
The Spirit Battle for Petey Piranha (Super Mario Strikers), though his artwork is from Mario Strikers Charged, uses a Giant Ivysaur puppet fighter and is fought on the Wuhu Island stage's Swordplay Colosseum layout. During the battle, the Soccer Ball item will appear, referencing the game of soccer in Super Mario Strikers, which features Petey Piranha as a playable character.
Names in other languages[edit]
Trivia[edit]
- Oddly, while Petey Piranha is seen spitting out a cannonball at Mario in The Subspace Emissary, in his origin series, Petey has never had the ability to do so.
- If the player battles against Petey using Peach or Zelda in their default costumes, they will still be seen in the cage with the same costume.
- The models used for Peach and Zelda in the cages are of much lower resolution than the characters themselves and do not have fingers or legs.
- When idling, if Zelda's cage is attacked, Petey will make a deep grunt, but if Peach's cage is attacked, he will make two sharp grunts. He will not respond to hits on his head.
- Petey Piranha is the only boss to have two health bars, with both being dedicated to objects outside of himself. During the Midair Stadium battle, "Peach's Cage" and "Zelda's Cage" are displayed next to the health bars; in The Great Maze and in Boss Battles, the cages as aforementioned are empty and the health bars are simply labeled "Cage".
- The cages' designs have several Easter eggs, some of which can only be seen via mods that remove the in-game camera limitations:
- The rears of the hooks have a Chain Chomp-like ornament attached to it.
- The interior roof is patterned with sprites of Bob-ombs and Bloopers.
- The bottom trim is patterned with various sprites of Piranha Plants, Fire Piranha Plants, Munchers and Nippers. In addition, the back features a human-like feminine face of unknown origin; this face is modeled as opposed to textured and is reasonably large in Petey's texture files.
- After Giga Bowser, Petey is the second boss to appear in a Final Smash.
- Petey's neck is usually situated behind the petals on his head, but in the Super Smash Bros. series, it is situated in front of the petals.
References[edit]
| Bosses | |
|---|---|
| Super Smash Bros. | Master Hand · Metal Mario · Giant Donkey Kong · Fighting Polygon Team |
| Melee | Master Hand · Crazy Hand · Giga Bowser · Fighting Wire Frames (Male · Female) |
| Brawl | Master Hand · Crazy Hand · Petey Piranha · Rayquaza · Porky · Galleom · Ridley · Duon · Meta Ridley · Tabuu · Fighting Alloy Team (Red · Blue · Yellow · Green) · False characters |
| Smash 4 | Master Hand · Crazy Hand · Master Core · Fighting Mii Team |
| Ultimate | Master Hand · Crazy Hand · Rathalos · Galleom · Giga Bowser · Galeem · Dharkon · Dracula · Ganon · Marx · Fighting Mii Team · False characters |

