Mario & Luigi 3 Review
Article by Toby Jones, Illustration by Kelly Abeln
Nobody is fleshing out the world of the Mushroom Kingdom like Alpha Dream and their consistently excellent Mario & Luigi series. Each installment is almost like a 20-hour Mario Bros. animated film, filled with clever writing, high production values, and some of the most expressive and colorful 2D sprites in video game history. I can't say if it's my favorite game in the series or not for sure, but it doesn't really matter. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is one of the best games I've played in months and a delight the whole way through.
The Mario & Luigi games play almost like an antidote to traditional RPG tropes, which makes them ideal for me. You see, Inside Story is actually only the third RPG I've ever played to completion (the other two are Persona 3 and 4), as I often find myself too weary of random battles and grinding to go on very long. Even the first Mario and Luigi, one of my favorite games of all time, scared me off near the end with a mind-numbingly arbitrary section of backtracking for beans. Inside Story is special not only because it avoids grinding and spruces up battles with timed button presses, but because it almost never feels like it's wasting your time.
The central dynamic (splitting up the play time between Bowser and the mustachioed Italians inside his body) works well, and offers up one surprising moment after another. I was worried that it would complicate things (like the babies in Partners in Time) but it only enriches the experience by adding more variety. My only complaint is that the minigames you play as the Mario Bros. in order to help Bowser vary wildly in quality. Most are fun or at least short enough to not cause frustration, but some can be boring or tedious. There are also occasionally sequences where Bowser grows to a colossal size and engages in Godzilla-esque battles. These are excellent, though it was admittedly a bit embarrassing to have to blow into my DS while in the waiting room of a car repair shop.
Bowser fills the shoes of a (co-)star very well, thanks to the game's completely spectacular and hilarious writing. Near the beginning I was a bit worried that theings were skewing too much toward "internet humor", but my concerns were quickly alleviated. Fawful is as funny as ever, but Bowser really steals the show. In particular, a scene where he is asked to perform a massage to a giant block-shaped woman stands as one of the absolute funniest things I've seen in a video game. The player really learns a lot about Bowser- you laugh at him, you pity him, you cheer him on and even relate to him. He's generally played for laughs, but over the 20-or-so hours playing I started to sense an underlying pathos to the giant turtle beast.
My problems with Inside Story are extremely minor. There is a tiny bit of backtracking here and there, though it is more in the Metroidvania style and never lasts long enough to be troublesome. Another complaint is that the music is fairly dull and not up to the standards of Mario's main platforming efforts. I was also disappointed that there were fewer in-jokes and references than its predecessors (I would have liked to see an appearance by Prince Peasley, for example) but that's such a minor quibble. The only thing that really consistently bugged me is the constant tutorials; usually they're optional, but when I saw that I was still getting them ten hours to the game I realized that it was a bit of a problem.
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story deserves to be played, but I worry that it's already been somewhat lost in the fall release shuffle. Even in its week of release it was overshadowed by the heavily hyped (and mildly disappointing) Scribblenauts, so I worry that it's audience may have already missed it. To that end, if you are a fan of platformers or RPGs in any capacity I wholeheartedly recommend this purchase, as it's a shining example of both.
Nobody is fleshing out the world of the Mushroom Kingdom like Alpha Dream and their consistently excellent Mario & Luigi series. Each installment is almost like a 20-hour Mario Bros. animated film, filled with clever writing, high production values, and some of the most expressive and colorful 2D sprites in video game history. I can't say if it's my favorite game in the series or not for sure, but it doesn't really matter. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is one of the best games I've played in months and a delight the whole way through.
The Mario & Luigi games play almost like an antidote to traditional RPG tropes, which makes them ideal for me. You see, Inside Story is actually only the third RPG I've ever played to completion (the other two are Persona 3 and 4), as I often find myself too weary of random battles and grinding to go on very long. Even the first Mario and Luigi, one of my favorite games of all time, scared me off near the end with a mind-numbingly arbitrary section of backtracking for beans. Inside Story is special not only because it avoids grinding and spruces up battles with timed button presses, but because it almost never feels like it's wasting your time.
The central dynamic (splitting up the play time between Bowser and the mustachioed Italians inside his body) works well, and offers up one surprising moment after another. I was worried that it would complicate things (like the babies in Partners in Time) but it only enriches the experience by adding more variety. My only complaint is that the minigames you play as the Mario Bros. in order to help Bowser vary wildly in quality. Most are fun or at least short enough to not cause frustration, but some can be boring or tedious. There are also occasionally sequences where Bowser grows to a colossal size and engages in Godzilla-esque battles. These are excellent, though it was admittedly a bit embarrassing to have to blow into my DS while in the waiting room of a car repair shop.
Bowser fills the shoes of a (co-)star very well, thanks to the game's completely spectacular and hilarious writing. Near the beginning I was a bit worried that theings were skewing too much toward "internet humor", but my concerns were quickly alleviated. Fawful is as funny as ever, but Bowser really steals the show. In particular, a scene where he is asked to perform a massage to a giant block-shaped woman stands as one of the absolute funniest things I've seen in a video game. The player really learns a lot about Bowser- you laugh at him, you pity him, you cheer him on and even relate to him. He's generally played for laughs, but over the 20-or-so hours playing I started to sense an underlying pathos to the giant turtle beast.
My problems with Inside Story are extremely minor. There is a tiny bit of backtracking here and there, though it is more in the Metroidvania style and never lasts long enough to be troublesome. Another complaint is that the music is fairly dull and not up to the standards of Mario's main platforming efforts. I was also disappointed that there were fewer in-jokes and references than its predecessors (I would have liked to see an appearance by Prince Peasley, for example) but that's such a minor quibble. The only thing that really consistently bugged me is the constant tutorials; usually they're optional, but when I saw that I was still getting them ten hours to the game I realized that it was a bit of a problem.
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story deserves to be played, but I worry that it's already been somewhat lost in the fall release shuffle. Even in its week of release it was overshadowed by the heavily hyped (and mildly disappointing) Scribblenauts, so I worry that it's audience may have already missed it. To that end, if you are a fan of platformers or RPGs in any capacity I wholeheartedly recommend this purchase, as it's a shining example of both.