Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story review

Mario and Luigi are fighting some baddies inside of Bowser.

At its heart Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is an RPG in which one follows two connected stories in the Mushroom Kingdom. The main plot-line for most of the game stars Bowser as the protagonist. Fawful, a laughing, grammar-challenged roboticist has taken over Bowser’s castle, and plans to take over the entire Mushroom Kingdom with the help of Bowser’s converted army. As part of Fawful’s plan to debilitate Bowser, he causes Bowser to inhale things uncontrollably, including Mario, Luigi, Peach, and many residents of Toadtown. When the characters arrive in Bowser’s body, they find themselves shrunken, and able to navigate and adventure within his various bodily systems.

Mario and Luigi need to help Bowser defeat Fawful from the inside, and most of the plot alternates between Bowser adventuring and fighting, while Mario and Luigi help from the inside. When Bowser needs to lift something, Mario and Luigi help power his arms; when he needs to remember something, they help put together the pieces of his mind; and when he nearly dies, they return his spark from the inside, causing him to grow to enormous size, and enabling him to crush his giant enemies.

Pursuit

Much of the game is classic RPG-style exploration and menu-based combat. In true Mario fashion, individual attacks and defenses are perfected by well-timed button mashes. Attack values can be tripled or even quadrupled by pressing the button at just the right moment, and almost all enemy attacks can by nullified with the right timing; many of them can even be turned around into an offensive maneuver.

Mario and Luigi each have their own button, while Bowser has two different buttons for different move types, requiring the player to think about the timing and type of move necessary for each attack or defense.

Classic RPG battles

The special attacks all consist of quick mini-games. For the Brothers, the moves are all based on timing or memory, while Bowser’s specials all require a certain amount of stylus dexterity. Bowser also has an enlarged mode that he uses several times throughout the game, in which the DS is turned on its side, and he takes up one entire screen while the enemy sits within the other. These are essentially Bowser’s boss fights, making each fight unique.

In this mode, all moves require the stylus or microphone. Every monster type has unique attacks that are telegraphed with a tell that the player needs to watch for so he or she can react appropriately. This keeps the battles from turning into the auto-pilot button pushing that goes along with most straight RPGs.

Bowser gets enlarged at various key points

This RPG stuff is not the only way the game functions, however. There are also some puzzle mini-games to play, especially when the Brothers need to help Bowser directly with some internal issue. There is even a literal jigsaw puzzle in Bowser’s brain.

There is also some classic platforming. All of the environments inside of Bowser are 2D, and the outside world is 2D for Bowser, since he can’t jump, so the 3D environments are slowly phased in around the middle of the game, as the Brothers begin to venture outside of Bowser’s body on various errands.

The characters get some interesting special moves

The great thing here is how it all fits together. Almost all of the components are interesting and fun enough that they could stand alone as their own game, yet they are masterfully combined to create a well-paced adventure that feels perpetually new, and never leaves you doing one thing for any real length of time. It also manages to make you feel like each new thing you learn really contributes to the progress of the game.

Panorama

The graphics here are typical Mario. They are as crisp and as nicely styled as New Super Mario Bros. Every puzzle and game aspect has a slightly different style to it, and that improves the feel a bit. Each of the world areas, and each of Bowser’s internal areas have their own full graphics set. There was only one enemy I found which was a palette-shifted version of another—otherwise, they were all unique.

Bowser's insides are stylistically squishy, but not gross.

The graphics in the “giant Bowser” sequences are clever. Bowser is heavily pixelated, but the background is not, which really gives the impression that that this is a highly unnatural state for Bowser. One feels that he is constantly on the verge of “snapping back” to size. The graphics inside of Bowser are also clever, managing to give a squishy internal feel without being gross.

Bowser fights across screens when enlarged.

The screens are used very effectively. Whenever Mario and Luigi are adventuring inside of Bowser’s body, they do so on the lower screen. Bowser’s current location stays apparent on the upper screen, and any external adventuring takes place on the upper screen. If it’s Bowser, then the location of the Brothers within his body (the player may only take control of Bowser while the Brothers are inside) is shown on the lower screen.

Bowser takes a break on the upper screen, while the Brothers go shopping in an unnamed body part.

Noise

The music is always appropriate and blends well with each area. The few times I really noticed the music was to make note of how the music is skillfully blended to create similar undertones in Bowser’s music (which matches the Brothers’ music) for each area. Bowser’s music is more ominous, while the Brothers’ is a bit bubbly—yet still they fall together perfectly as one switches between them. It’s especially noticeable in the few spots where the player is required to flip back and forth several times to complete a task.

The only voice acting is a bit of nonsense syllables that Mario and Luigi use to convey their non-dialog, which the other characters seem to understand, but which is totally unintelligible to the audience. However, the tone that the gibberish comes in, and the wild gesticulations that they make (especially Luigi,) really sells it. I found myself laughing at the Brothers’ crazy dialog more than the jokes in the actual text, despite being very well written and clever.

Some situations are downright silly, but all of them are cleverly presented.

Reigns

At first, it was a bit tough to get used to the two-button system for controlling the Brothers. If there was any one part of the game which was a bit annoying, it was the rare jumping puzzles. This is because although Mario and Luigi must always be directly next to each other while exploring, and they both move together with the D-pad, they don’t jump together. Mario jumps with A, and Luigi jumps with B. After awhile I got used to the quick double tap that gets them both to jump from the same point while moving, and it became as easy as any other Mario game, but it was a little annoying at first.

Mario and Luigi must move together.

Otherwise, everything is controlled about the way one would expect. Menu navigation and battle controls were intuitive and easy to remember, which is important since so many aspects of battling depend on hitting the right button at the right time. Most of the time, the game even subtly reminds the player of which buttons do what with a small icon in the corner of the screen.

Some attacks require timing or button mashing to work effectively.

While it’s true that the player can switch from the Brothers to Bowser at will through most of the story, there didn’t seem to be much reason to. One will play Bowser’s part until the Brothers need to do something, then play the Brothers until Bowser needs to do something. There are a few points in the game where the player may choose the order in which things get done, but for the most part the plot is linear. The game does not suffer for this however, as the story is well told, and masterfully paced.

Last Word

Bowser’s Inside Story is one of the most fun games I have played on the DS. It has a perfect balance of RPG, platformer, and puzzle elements, and the writing is terrific. If you enjoyed any of the Paper Mario games, you will certainly love this new game, and I heartily recommend it to everyone who has a DS, especially those who already know they enjoy the Mario Bros.