#squoinker

Name: Squiglet, Squig, Squog, Squoinker

Debut: Super Paper Mario

Did you have your fill of Paper Mario piggies with Pigarithm and Hogarithm? Well I hope you made room for desserts, because now it’s time to talk about the whole Squig family!

While Goombas do appear in Super Paper Mario, the developers went “to heck with it!” And decided to design another enemy that just sort of walks along and is easily flattened. Squiglets are a little beefier than Goombas, but it shouldn’t be long before you level up and squish them just as easily. As the catch card says!

“Awww...look at that adorable little Squiglet. So adorable under your foot.”

That description feels a little cruel! It’s not inaccurate at all, but it feels a little cruel nonetheless! To me, the Squig family is sort of a good example of “abstracted animals,” which might be some of the best kinds of animal designs! They might not look anything like pigs, but from a glance you can tell they represent pigs, and that’s what really counts! Heck, what looks like a pig snout is actually its mouth! They shoot boulders from it! Except for Squiglets, which just hop in place when they see you.

There’s a lot more I have to say about these enemies, but I don’t know how to format it, so here’s a list of miscellaneous Squig factoids!

Obviously, they are named after different names for pigs or pig-like creatures, though I’ve never heard the name “oinker” used to describe a pig prior to Super Paper Mario, and it shows up on my computer with a red squiggly-line underneath. Couldn’t they have called it Squoar or something?

And the “squ” in their name is derived from the word “square,” which is why they are all squares. You know how it is! Interdimensional enemies just love their basic geometry!

Despite their English naming convention, however, the Japanese names make no reference to pigs at all! They are just named after the prefix “tetra,” referring to their four-sided appearance. Despite this, the pig connection is made in nearly every translation!

Did you know Squigs are integral to one of the biggest point-grinding tricks in Super Paper Mario? It’s long and tedious and difficult to set up, but you can see it in motion here!

Squoinkers and Headbonk Goombas are the only enemies in Super Paper Mario that aren’t encountered anywhere other than the Flipside Pit of 100 Trials!

Aside from hopping when Mario encounters them and being slightly more bulky, Squiglets also don’t walk off edges, making them more or less proto-Goombrats!