Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS) Review

iTZKooPA spends some quality time with the Mario Bros., who happen to be inside Bowser.  This could get interesting.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is the third game in the M&L series, and the second to grace the Nintendo DS.  The franchise is seen by many as the spiritual successor to the stellar SNES RPG title created by Nintendo and (then) Squaresoft, Super Mario RPG: Legends of the Seven Stars.  Others see it as the portable extension to the hilarious Paper Mario series that started on Nintendo 64, then progressed to the GameCube and now the Wii.  The reason the three franchises – as I see them – are so often bunched together is because they are all well written, witty RPG titles that feature the plumber(s) getting into odd predicaments, with matching solutions.

Developer AlphaDream and game designer Shigeru Miyamoto opted for a new mechanic this time around.  Instead of the pair time-traveling and teaming up with baby versions of themselves, Mario & Luigi are placed inside Bowser after he eats a “Vacuum Mushroom” that causes him to inhale damn near everything in Peach’s castle.  Normally, the dynamic duo and all of the Mushroom Kingdom’s most important personal wouldn’t be crammed into one room inside the castle, but an outbreak of the “Blorbs” – a disease which causes Toads to grow to insane proportions and roll around – forced an emergency meeting.  It’s during this meeting that the hilarity begins.

Whoever wrote the opening plot must have their finger on the pulse of current news, because it comes off as a critical expose on the whole Swine Flu story.  Okay, maybe “critical expose” isn’t exactly how the tale is portrayed.  Yet the entirety of the Mushroom Kingdom flies off the handle just as the American public has over H1N1.  Even the fear pushed on us by the media, and laissez faire attitude by the medical community is hinted at.  The spot on writing doesn’t stop there either.  It continues throughout the title thanks to the inclusion of dozens of colorful characters, bad guys and associates, that the Bros. and Bowser stumble into during the struggle against the insanely hilarious Fawful.  It’s doubtful that you’ll be able to finish Bowser’s Inside Story without breaking out into laughter.  Only Psychonauts’ (PS2/Xbox) comedy is comparable in recent memory.

Writing, character creation and setting can only take a game so far though.  Only crisp gameplay can get us to slog through the most unintelligible stories in gamedom – hello Street Fighter IV (360/PS3).  Mario & Luigi once again bring the gameplay in spades.  For starters, nearly everything that was loved about the series in the past was brought back, turn-based battles including action buttons for offense and defense, puzzles, special attack (now use Special Points instead of inventory items) and hidden gems. As you may have guessed by the setting, Bowser is a part of the team this time around, a fact which opens up a whole new dimension of gameplay.  Much like the babies did in Partners in Time.

The King Koopa’s (not my king mind you) impact on playable mechanics isn’t limited to his punches, fire, and short temper.  The King of Koopas shares equal face time with M&L, but due to his digestion of the Mario Bros., the pair have to work together to help Bowser fight Fawful from the inside.  The unusual location sees Mario & Luigi running through all sorts of odd areas, including Bowser’s arms, legs, flame producing area and his rump.  The locations allow AlphaDream and Miyamoto to present all sorts of unthinkable scenarios, characters and objectives for the brothers to encounter.  This drastically diversifies the gameplay from the tried and true overworld battles and puzzles, to a laundry list of puzzles, gimmicks and mini-games that revolve around bodily functions.

If there’s one thing to seriously dock the game for it’s the overuse of tutorials.  They are skippable, the saving grace, but all to often you’ll be spamming the button to get the NPC to talk as fast as possible, and accidentally launch the tutorial.  At that point, you can’t get out of it.  If you feel one coming on, just be patient and click “No, thanks.”  Everything in the game is so intuitive to your average gamer that it’ll be time well saved.

Everything Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story has to offer is about fun.  It has a great setting, audio, writing, gameplay, full use of the DS’s capabilities (vertical battles!) and even the more subtle changes to the game – gear slots unlock as you level, badges benefit players on successful action buttons – were employed to make the third installment the full entertainment package.  And it’s all capped off by a deep psychological profile of the biggest dumbass of anti-hero ever, Bowser.  Bowser’s Inside Story may not be one of those games you can endlessly replay, but that doesn’t stop it from easily being one of the best handheld games of the summer, and in contention for best of the year.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is available now for Nintendo DS.