Kretin

“Okay, guys! You stop them! I'll guard the princess!”

—Starlow , Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Kretin (known as Keratin in the British English version) is a molecule-like being with two forms called Alpha Kretin and Beta Kretin (called Alpha Keratin and Beta Keratin in the British English version), a form that connects itself to other Kretin units that change color, and a singular entity that is capable of cloning itself, respectively. It appears as a boss in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story and its 3DS remake, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey .

Description[edit ]

Kretin has two forms that it can shift between, which are called Alpha and Beta. In its Alpha form, Kretin has six heads, which are arranged in either a triangular or pentagonal formation, are connected by thin strands, and are spherical and have angry eyes. The bottommost head has two arms with one that can turn into a cannon and two legs. Its heads can be red with green eyes or green with yellow eyes, and have to be turned blue to dismantle it, leading it to transform into its Beta form. As Beta Kretin, it normally has a round body not unlike Kirby (albeit blue) and angry yellow eyes, but its "taken damage" sprite is portrayed with a jagged body and shocked eyes, and its sprite after the fight shows it with sad eyes.

In both forms, the creature's limbs are white.

History[edit ]

When Mario and Luigi find Princess Peach in the Flab Zone inside Bowser 's body, a cluster of Beta Kretins appear and kidnap her. After a long chase, Mario and Luigi finally reach Kretin in a room. Using the Spin Jump, Mario and Luigi free Peach from the its grip, but it transforms into Alpha Kretin and attacks the brothers. While Mario gets ready to fight it, Luigi asks Starlow to fight Kretin instead of him. Starlow does not like his idea and smacks Luigi into Kretin, starting the battle, with the brothers defeating it afterwards.

Battle[edit ]

In battle, Kretin will begin in its Alpha Kretin form. Each of the creature's individual units can be either red (with angry eyes in the remake) or green (with shocked eyes in the remake); in the DS version, only one of the Alpha Kretin's units starts green with the rest starting red, but in the 3DS remake, it has three of each color. Each head can only be damaged by the Mario brother of the corresponding color; if that happens, any red units adjacent to that unit will turn green, and any green units adjacent to that same unit will turn red. When one unit receives enough damage, it turns blue (with closed eyes in the remake) and is defeated. The ground unit is considered a grounded enemy, with the other units being considered flying enemies.

The Alpha Kretin's only attack is creating a ball of blue electric energy that will move through its body. It will then start to glow, turning its arm into a cannon shape. The Alpha Kretin will start to shoot balls of energy towards the Bros. The player can know which Bro. the ball will go toward by the order the beam went through the body, red for Mario, green for Luigi, and blue for neither bro. This means that the more Kretins defeated, the less balls Alpha Kretin can shoot. This attack is countered with hammers. If hit, the brothers will have their defense lowered.

After all the six parts of Kretin are blue, it will fall apart and become Beta Kretin. Five units disappear, but one remains. It will proceed to create five clones in a hexagon pattern. These clones are very weak and are defeated in a single attack. If a duplicate is defeated, the real Kretin will simply create another on the next turn. Creating a new clone does not take up a full turn; Kretin can recreate the duplicate and attack in the same turn. In its Beta Kretin form, it starts to jump around with the other duplicates, trying to confuse the player by jumping to a different position. Its main attack is surrounding the bros in a hexagon shape, while they all start to charge up electricity. When one of the Kretins jumps, the electricity moves on to that spot. This attack can be avoided by jumping. It will eventually reform into Alpha Kretin, with the positions of the Kretins being different. In the remake, this happens immediately after it becomes inflicted with Fury when its health drops below half. After the fight, Kretin is defeated. A stronger version of Kretin can be fought in the Gauntlet, this form is known as Kretin X.

Statistics[edit ]

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story[edit ]

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey[edit ]

Gallery[edit ]

• Kretin in Volume 41 of Super Mario-kun

  Kretin in Volume 41 of Super Mario-kun

Naming[edit ]

"Kretin" is a pun on "keratin", a body protein (from which the British English name is derived), and "cretin", a derogatory term used to insult the subject's intelligence.

Names in other languages[edit ]

Alpha Kretin[edit ]

Beta Kretin[edit ]

Notes[edit ]

• Kretin is one of the few bosses to have animated "damaged" sprites, as it flashes if its Beta form's real body is damaged. Most enemies, bosses included, have static "damaged" sprites. Shiny RoboBowser and the paper enemies would come to have animated "damaged" sprites in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam , with the former making a "What!?" gesture and the latter spinning around when defeated.
• The Beta Kretin's clones have a different "damaged" sprite to the real one, covering their heads with their eyes closed akin to Kirby.
• One of the two Alpha Kretin formations vaguely resembles the logo of AlphaDream, the company that developed Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story and its remake.
• In the original game, using Special Attacks (e.g. Yoo Who Cannon) counts as attacking either red or green Kretins simultaneously if either Mario or Luigi are using the attack. This was changed in the remake to block attacks if both Mario and Luigi are attacking.

• Bowser's body
• Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story bosses
• Super Mario-kun characters

• Articles with unsourced foreign names