Ever since the inception of the character of Mario back in 1981, Nintendo has tried to expand his odd universe of the Mushroom Kingdom and reinvent the core essence of his character into multiple genres like racing games, board games, sports games, etc…
Most of these endeavors have been successful and have led to well-regarded and enjoyable experiences for all, but the one genre the Mario Bros have dived into that captivated my attention the most has always been Role Playing games, since the world of Mario brothers features such iconic imagery and outlandish concepts that would feel right at home with the immersive qualities and world building of an RPG.
Along comes Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars on the Super Nintendo, the well regarded cult classic developed by Squaresoft that popularized the idea of a Mario Bros Role-Playing Game and served as inspiration for many titles to come.
Due to difficulties with the Intellectual Property of the game, which still belongs to Square, Nintendo had to brainstorm and find ways to further develop this franchise without taking concepts from this original game, and as such two of its household Mario franchises were born: Paper Mario, released on the year 2000 for the Nintendo 64 and on 2003 on the Gameboy Advance Nintendo released:
It is a very important day for both the Mushroom Kingdom and the Beanbean Kingdom as the latter’s ambassador, Lady Lima, has made an official visit to deliver a present to Princess Peach. The situation takes a turn for the worse, as Lady Lima is revealed to be none other than the sorceress Cackletta and her minion Fawful, who were on a mission to steal Princess Peach’s voice and replace it with explosive words. As the kingdom is left in distraught, Bowser is assembling an expedition to the Beanbean Kingdom to get to the bottom of the issue accompanied by none other than the Superstar: Mario! … and his brother Luigi
And as such, our hero and his less fortunate shabby brother’s journey begins, one that will lead them to encountering many silly situations and plenty of goofs along the way.
One of the things I must commend from this game’s writing, is that it knows that the core of the Mario franchise relies on goofiness and in turn doesn’t really take itself too seriously, offering jokes and absurd situations along their way with a sense of humor that gives this journey very few moments of dullness and keeps the player interested at every turn.
Aside from having a constant sense of humor throughout, Superstar Saga also has a lot of memorable characterization throughout, like the smug yet unaware Prince Peasley, the overly anxious Toadsworth and the infamous Fawful, who speaks in broken English. Although, while some of these characters are memorable and have a lot of personality, most other characters feel rather shallow and lack any meaningful characterization, like Cackletta, who doesn’t make any attempts to set herself apart from the most generic of villainous cartoons.
This certain lack of character can also extend to some of the writing. While the humorous segments can be pretty funny or charming, the rest of the game seems to just follow the motions of a conventional RPG adventure, with very few subversions or twists to make the experience feel unique, despite the plot trying to throw a couple of twists here and there; and not enough charm or confidence to make them seem interesting again.
Another problem the plot faces, is that it features a very uneven structure that never offers a clear goal or motive for the player to carry out. The beginning of the game meanders for a while, then offers the player a short lived motivation that leads them to the halfway point, then the game gets distracted with something else, and then it finally gives them a quest to fulfill, which is done so rather quickly and then the game goes through a series of events that lead to the finale. In short, the structure is not strong enough to carry the plot either.
Though, this game’s biggest twist comes not from the story, but from the gameplay itself. Superstar Saga’s gameplay is framed like any other RPG, where the player must face enemies in turn-based battles to gain experience and higher stats to be able to fight even stronger enemies. The biggest and most welcome twist to this formula is that performing attacks now requires player input to maximize the amount of damage possible. In other words, the player must press buttons with the correct timing in order to be able to deliver the maximum amount of damage possible. Aside from this, the player must also dodge the enemy’s attacks, which changes the combat from managing the amount of damage taken in contrast to the amount of damage delivered though stats to managing this through player skill, which is a great way to keep the player engaged in every battle. Players will have a variety of attacks, ranging from hammers, jumps, fire, thunder and the special Bros Moves, which are unique to Mario or Luigi and require timing specific button presses in order to be carried out.
This idea is what makes Mario and Luigi stand out from its competitors, and it also helps reinforce Mario’s platformer roots, where timing was a key to success and peak player performance.
Outside of combat, Superstar Saga is a light platformer whose’s design principle is to divide the actions performed by a team of two and carry out different actions to perform a single goal. This approach seems to work well enough for the game, though I must say that the platforming doesn’t have much difficulty and there’s very little, if any strategy to the cooperation as it just requires the player perform special moves earned throughout the game. This approach works best when exploring each area from the game, as the player must use these variety of moves in order to go across obstacles that may block the path leading to special items, or coins hidden in blocks.
In general, Superstar Saga does a very good job of capturing a Mario esque vibe and re-contextualizing most of the elements from an average Mario game to make them fit into an RPG. For instance, Mushrooms are the primary healing items in this game, the currency are coins, Overalls are your primary gear items, attacks are carried out through jumping, etc…
The art style also captures the cartoony and adventurous vibe that the Mario games have, and offers some very nice looking sprite work that is appealing to look at. The environments, which are well crafted and have good looking art, also show quite a bit of creativity that meshes well with the kind that you’d expect from any other mainline Mario game.
And the soundtrack, handled by Yoko Shimomura of Kingdom Hearts fame, stays completely true to the Mario essence, by featuring tracks with a catchy melody and also upbeat rhythms that stand out in the front line and keep you pumped for each battle. A perfect example can be seen with the game’s main battle theme, which urges one to dance along to the well constructed beat of the music.
Aside from these though, the best thing Superstar Saga does is establishing a world parallel to that of the Mushroom Kingdom, with its own rules, lore and culture, that is similar enough to be recognizable, but not alien to the point where it doesn’t belong in the franchise its a part of. This kind of world-building is key to converting the Mario franchise into a Role-Playing game, as it expands upon its own franchise.
Though what really breaks every single good aspect of this game is the game’s difficulty and poor balancing. Superstar Saga is very easy, incredibly easy and also very easy to exploit. This is mainly because of how enemies by themselves don’t offer much resistance to the Mario Bros and their moves aren’t exactly hard to dodge or predict either, plus the attacks that can be performed by the bros are also not hard to pull off at all, which makes boss battles feel repetitive at times. Aside from this, grinding is very common place in this game, since there are plenty of enemies on any given area and they offer enough EXP to surpass the recommended level for each boss encounter, aside from this, there’s nothing to discourage the player to grind in such a way because of how unimposing the enemies are and because of how the tedium of grinding is mitigated by the engagement the player has with the combat system. Besides all of this, the game also has game breaking items, that can be easily exploited to make the game even easier. Of course, this doesn’t stop the game from ending with a difficulty spike final boss that comes unexpectedly.
When all is said and done though, Superstar Saga is at the very least an enjoyable game that captures the essence of Mario and transforms it into a competent Role-Play game that you are probably going to have fun with.
Superstar Saga was very well received and it turned out to become one of the most well regarded games of the Gameboy Advance following its release, which prompted Nintendo to make a sequel on 2005 for the Nintendo DS. Which recieved the name of:
Professor E.Gadd has completed what might be the most important invention for the Mushroom Kingdom, a Time Machine! This machine, powered by the Cobalt Star was sent years back into the past along with Princess Peach and her most trustworthy toads to give their salutations to their younger counterparts. Little did they know, that the past was currently facing an alien invasion carried out by the Shroobs, who are bent on conquering and consuming the Mushroom Kingdom. After Princess Peach suffers an accident which renders her unable to return to the present, mysterious time holes appear all across Peach’s castle, allowing Mario and Luigi to go back to the past to save her. Along they way, they encounter their younger counterparts, which are babies, and team up with them to put an end to these unwelcome visitors.
Saying that the basic setup for this game is complicated would be a bit of an understatement, since this may as well be one of the most, if not the most, complicated setup for a Mario game. The disappointing this is, that it only ever gets worse from here on out.
The plot in Partners in Time has issues, a lot of issues. Starting with the fact that the time travel rules in this universe either make no sense, or aren’t established at all. Events in the past seem to have absolutely no bearing in the future, as the complete takeover of the Mushroom Kingdom by the Shroobs doesn’t seem to overwrite any of the events in the future or create any paradoxes, but this doesn’t mean that the game takes place on a stable time-loop that requires the Bros to go back in time to defeat the Shroobs to secure the present, since in certain events our main characters alter the past in ways that make an impact in their future timeline and because none of the Adult characters have any recollection of these events from the past; which also discards the possibility of this event creating an alternate timeline parallel to that of the start of the game, since these events take place after the Shroob invasion in the past, which means that they would alter the second timeline and not the original timeline. Aside from this, its impossible for it to be either of these two because the bros travel back in time after the invasion has already happened and probably made a change of sorts in the timeline.
In short, Partners in Time makes no sense and its riddled with plot holes that cheapen the whole narrative and make it very hard to get invested. But this is not the only problem the plot suffers from, as it suffers the same problem as the first game except its a lot worse now. Just like Superstar Saga, the game’s plot seems to meander the entire time, not having a clear goal or motivation besides a very basic one, except that this time it lacks the non-linear McGuffin hunt of the first game, instead offering up these items randomly as the story goes along, which makes the ending of the game fall a little flat because of the lack of build up or importance the acquisition of these items have. Aside from this, the game has a very repetitive structure of going from one level to another with very little variation when it comes to how each area progresses, which makes the experience feel like you’re doing the same thing over and over, a problem that causes the final dungeon of the game to fully bring out the fatigue of the whole experience because of how long it is.
Even with all of these narrative problems, Partners in Time might actually be one of the most unique Mario games out there, and I actually like it more than the first one. The game has a generally darker tone than other Mario games, the stakes feel much higher and there can be plenty of ever so slightly depressing moments, scenes and areas in the game. There’s a prevalent feeling of oppression from our antagonists, supporting characters are put out of commission, at least until the ending of course and in general you can see how the invasion has lead most of the mushroom kingdom to ruin. Aside from this, I can see that the game at least tries to introduce new concepts to the Mario mythos and even tries to pull off new narrative plot points that are rarely seen in any Mario game.
But despite the darker tone, Partners in Time still knows how to have fun and make a few jokes along the way, most of them revolving about how miserable Luigi is as a character. In general I can actually say that the dialogue in this game is an improvement over the original, since this time around the writing seems to revolve less around delivering a standard RPG tale with a goofy overtone and instead focuses on trying to deliver as strong characterization and jokes as it can, while not taking the narrative too seriously, the only downside to this approach is that it doesn’t take full advantage of the darker nature of the plot and leaves it as a bit of a missed opportunity at times.
Characterization seems to be another improvement this game has over the first game, and is one of the reasons the comedy seems to hit more than in the first one. This time, characters have more defined personalities, which are used to comedic effect in the game’s more charming scenes. Quite ironically enough, the highlight from this game must be the dynamic between the babies and the Mario Bros. Even though baby or child characters are often frowned upon in games and other kinds of media, with good reason, Partners in Time actually manages to use the babies as a way to create a great dynamic between them and the Mario bros, as the bros try their hardest to take care of them while still forming a bond through their cooperation. This is a bond that makes you care more for each individual character and when its time to see them part ways, you can’t help but feel a little emotional about it.
This particular aspect made me realize though, that the only reason why the game revolves around time travel in the first place is just to get the Mario Bros and other characters reunited with their younger counterparts. This is due to the fact that the game rarely utilizes the contrast between the two time periods to its advantage, making time holes serve more as warps to different locations, rather than gateways to a different time period.
That’s not to say that the environments aren’t any good, because they are. Environments in this game are varied and often feature creative backdrops that give them their own unique flair, all represented with rather well crafted artwork, which is a little flat looking, akin to most of the character sprites in the game.
But which truly gives the environments their own unique flair, is the soundtrack by returning composer Yoko Shimomura who truly does an amazing job with the new soundtrack which is a step up from the first game. While Superstar Saga offered mostly forgettable melodies with a catchy rythm, Partners in Time builds upon this rythmic approach and offers songs that are actually quite memorable and set the stage very nicely while also keeping the player excited for combat. This is, of course, without mentioning the game’s spectacular final boss theme, which is one of the most, if not the most underrated videogame theme in history.
Another aspect which has received an improvement ever since the first game has been the gameplay. While the linear nature of the game can be a bit off putting, and there’s barely any interaction aside from cutscenes, the balance of the game has received a drastic improvement over the original. Partners in Time is a more challenging game than the original, mainly due to the artificial increase of difficulty created by controlling four characters instead of two, and requiring to alternate between four button prompts instead of two. But this artificial increase in difficulty is not the only one, now that enemies’ attacks are actually harder to dodge thanks to the integration of the upper screen and the Bros’ moves now require you to press the attacks in sequence following a rhythm until you can’t keep up anymore, creating a system where the damage output is now entirely dependent on the player’s reflexes.
Another great change that has been made to the combat is replacing the Bros Moves with items, which are more unique than the aforementioned moves and require more skill and input from the players. Aside from this, it also keeps a steady flow of combat, by making players manage a finite number of different items instead of constantly having to replenish BP every few turns once it runs out.
Outside of combat, the games’ light platforming has also received an improvement, by making it so that traversing the environment is less about dealing with enemies and more about completing the puzzles that block your path. The game’s focus on dividing a whole team into multiple sub-teams has also been changed with the addition of the babies. Now, the babies and the adults form two separate teams that can be reunited into a whole and have their own specific set of abilities that they will use once they separate themselves from the whole and perform actions in a cooperative sequential manner in order to reach their goal. This approach to gameplay is helped by the Nintendo DS’ dual screen, which allows each bros to have their own dedicated screen space.
All in all, I actually think Partners in Time is a marginally better game than its predecessor, despite its many flaws as it is one of the only Mario games that tries something new with the world and characters and delivers a story that, while it could use a lot of work, still presents enough interesting ideas to make it worthwhile. Aside from that, the gameplay is really fun and should be the main reason to play the game, as it has the right balance of player engagement and difficulty required for this kind of game to work.
Up until this point, the Mario and Luigi franchise had been an interesting concept but, unlike Paper Mario, it still didn’t have that one entry that took full advantage of its ideas and executed them with a degree of mastery and confidence to make it something unforgettable.
That is, until…
The Mushroom Kingdom is being threatened by a new kind of disease called: “The Blorbs”, which causes Toads to grow multiple times their size and roll around uncontrollably after eating a faulty mushroom. The representatives of the Mushroom Kingdom reunite to discuss the matter, until the fearsome Bowser arrives and vacuums every single one of them, after having eaten a strange Mushroom he received from the evil Fawful. Now, Mario and Luigi have to find their way out of Bowser’s body, or cooperate with him until they can find a way out..
While Superstar Saga and Partners in Time were great games, the Mario and Luigi franchise didn’t really deliver a game worthy of standing out amongst any other RPG released on it’s respective systems, but with Bowser’s Inside Story so many of the components that made the previous game have been polished and executed with the confidence necessary to make this one of the best RPGs on the Nintendo DS.
The biggest overhaul Bowser’s Inside Story received comes from the art department. Simply put, this is one of the best looking 2D games on the Nintendo DS. Sprites are very well animated, offering a fluid motion to each of the character’s actions while still presenting a certain bounce to them that contrasts with the relative stiffness of the older sprites of the franchise and finally gives justice to the cartoony designs of the characters. Environments are also very good looking, since there is a great deal of attention given to how the colors mesh with one another in the game, presenting characters and environments that are very pleasing to the eye.
The levels have also been greatly overhauled from the previous game, being designed as individual areas that stand on their own while also being interconnected to other areas in the world. This makes the world of Bowser’s Inside Story feel organic and interesting to explore, in contrast to Partners in Time’s linear isolated level-by-level design. And for once in the franchise, there is plenty of side content to discover, which is sure to give you a good reason to explore as most of the overworld as you possibly can.
Returning once again as a composer, Yoko Shimomura delivers an spectacular job with the soundtrack of Bowser’s Inside Story, by retaining the same elements that made the Partners in Time soundtrack so good while also making it more exciting and upbeat than the previous one. Another great thing made with the soundtrack was the decision to make each area music different when you play as the Bros inside of Bowser’s body, deconstructing the rhythm and basic melody of the song into a techno-esque remix, that makes gameplay with the Bros feel different from Bowser’s while also making the soundtrack more varied.
Keeping up with the series’ primary design of splitting multiple characters to perform actions together and cooperate to reach a certain goal, Bowser’s Inside Story now makes Bowser one of the main characters, creating an interesting dynamic where the changes Bowser experiments on the outside have a direct effect on the inside and vice versa, which makes it so that you’re constantly leapfrogging between the two to progress throughout the game. I think this approach works much better than the other games since you’re no longer splitting and then reuniting a whole, but instead controlling the individual parts of one whole without having to undo said whole. The only drawback to this, is that there isn’t much complexity to the actions each team has to make to change up the other. For instance, to allow the Bros to progress through a dungeon, Bowser must usually stand in a place that causes a change in his body like a water tap that makes him drink water; or in the opposite case, to improve one of Bowser’s conditions, the Mario Bros just have to complete a minigame or go through a dungeon while Bowser waits for them.
Aside from creating a more interesting back and forth dynamic, adding Bowser as a main character also helps the party dynamics by correcting the mistake Partners in Time made of having both parties behave almost exactly the same, by giving Bowser entirely different moves from the bros and several new enemies to fight, which makes him feel a lot different from the Bros and keeps the gameplay feeling varied and somewhat fresh.
But Bowser’s inclusion as a main character really shines when it comes to the writing, which has been improved drastically from the two previous installments. Bowser brings a whole new perspective to the cast, because he is the very first talking protagonist of the franchise, and it truly works in this case. His rash and no nonsense personality makes his interactions with each character something completely entertaining, as the writers do a very good job of making his personality play off with each character, especially that of Fawful, who works great as a villain and as a contrast to Bowser because of his scheming and non-serious personality. Aside from those two, characters are not only memorable, but lovable at the same time and while the plot isn’t all too original, its delivered with such confidence and personality, that it makes it one hell of a fun ride all the way throughout. The biggest drawback to the plot is the inclusion of a last minute villain aside from Fawful, who doesn’t have as much of a personality to make it remotely interesting.
While the writing was drastically improved from the previous games, the gameplay in Bowser’s Inside Story isn’t all too different from the previous games, since Bowser plays almost exactly the same as Mario and Luigi except that his sections have no platforming. And when it comes to combat, the biggest difference is that the item system has been phased out to return to the older Superstar Saga system, except that items now retain the creative and reflex intensive mechanics of Partners in Time, which is a marriage of ideas that creates a perfect balance between the two games. Another interesting concept is that Bowser can now swallow small enemies in combat that Mario and Luigi can then engage, which is a mechanic that helps keep both teams invested in each battle, though it is a bit underutilized.
One of the key additions to the Bowser’s Inside Story gameplay are the inside bowser segments for Mario and Luigi, which take place entirely in two planes, left and right. I think this change works really well to differentiate the Bros from Bowser and it makes it so that inside his body feels strange and alien in comparison to the outside. The biggest drawbacks to these segments is just how linear they are and how very little reason there is to revisit these areas once you’re done with them.
The other mayor key addition to the gameplay in Bowser’s Inside Story are the Giga Bowser segments, which involve Bowser growing in size to become a giant in order to beat enemies larger than him. These segments are controlled entirely with the stylus and are great as a means to keep the gameplay fresh, but have very little substance to make them particularly noteworthy aside from the spectacle.
The biggest issue with Bowser’s Inside Story comes in spite of all of the things the game does to keep the gameplay varied, and its that the game is just rather repetitive. While you’re playing the game, you’ll notice that every single event that involves any of the elements I mentioned before plays out almost exactly the same, with very little variation and it makes the experience feel like it doesn’t have a clear goal rather than stringing along events that are very similar to each other. The biggest offender when it comes to repetition are the stylus minigames that the Bros have to perform to make a change in Bowser’s body, since there are a finite number of them and each subsequent time you do they they only ever increase slightly in difficulty.
But aside from this mild repetition, Bowser’s Inside Story is still a really damn good RPG that any DS or 3DS owner should play at least at some point to experience the very best gameplay that the Mario and Luigi franchise has to offer and one of the most memorable incarnations of the Koopa King in Mario Bros history.
As a whole, these first three Mario and Luigi games have been a generally positive experience and I appreciate how each game has been a subsequent improvement of the last, even if its by a small margin. Following Bowser’s Inside Story though, I can’t really say anything noteworthy has come out of the franchise, so I hope we can all remember the original three Mario and Luigi games and enjoy them for their wit, charm, character and all the fond memories we’ve formed by playing them. And these games will form the bread of the sandwich of the Mario and Luigi franchise, and this review will be the delicious mustard on that bread.
The mustard of your doom!
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Yeah, I don't really like this one. There's not much creativity to it, and the writing feels rushed and doesn't have much to it. Definitely one of my least favorite reviews. And oh god that ending. What was I thinking?