Now I’ve just recently stumbled upon Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story and I thought I would talk about it a little here. We’ve all played Mario here at Pixel Well, in all his four-hundred plus incarnations (and some even dared to watch the live-action movie), and so maybe I feel like I have some “cred” in the way of Mario commentary. Syndic and I have watched Mario turn from side scrolling to 3d platformer to RPG to sunshine (yeah, that one) and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Mario is analogous to a layer of bedrock: documenting the change in the course of video games since the dawn of digital interaction.
Now, what’s most curious about Mario, like Sonic, is to see where each developer takes the franchise. Sonic, I’m afraid to say, has seen some dark times. Mario is doing a lot better I would have to say, despite my knee-jerk reaction to Inside Story. Let me get the gist of it out here. Its the third installment in the Partners in Time arc, and with most Mario games I can at least say that the most recurrent element are the characters. The point here is that you’re inside Bowser, as the name implies. And while you may also knee-jerk something to the tune of “doesn’t a typical living orgasm include a colon?” once you get past that I hear the game takes on quite a nice style. The rub is in the division of gameplay elements. You platform/rpg your way through Bowser as the dynamic brotherly duo, while simultaneously participating in an isometric Bowser adventure.
I have to hand it to Nintendo on this one. It sounds like a fun game. Yeah, body parts, I know. Sure there’s been other inside-the-body-exploration games, but this sounds like it barely reaches gimmick escape velocity. Plus, something about the game appearing on the DS platform allows it some slack. Imagine if it was on the Wii and trying to live up to the Mario Galaxy production… I’ll just say that Nintendo is doing a good job maintaining their track record with Mario. I can’t say the same for Sonic (here’s looking at you, Sonic and the Black Knight). Check out some screenshots to get a feel for the style. I’m digging it.
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