In Which You Get Bowser Plug-Ins

A long, long time ago, in a past obscured by the badly-rendered mists of processing time, in an age where backstories were contained in manuals and in-game tutorials were unheard of, no one could have imagined that the green mass of pixels encountered in the X-4 levels of Super Mario Bros. might someday be the focal point, and main scene, of an entire adventure. It's Bowser's Inside Story (Co-Starring Mario And An Associate) - the third RPG in the beloved Mario & Luigi series. This post is a collection of first thoughts on it, more in-depth treatment of the game will come later in separate articles.

-Curiously, these might not be role-playing games in the primordial sense of the word - the player is not assuming anyone's role more than he/she would in any other Mario series entry, and the level of "customization" that can be exacted upon characters is minuscule to laughable. In fact, the bonus wheel is set up in such a way as to discourage, and later impossibilify, any value distribution leaning towards building up only one or two stats - all the player has is an illusion of control where the characters' strengths are heading, while the program pretty much has all decided in advance. Kind of reminds you of real life, doesn't it? A game of this sort would be more suitably dubbed a "turn-based action-adventure", but this is a topic for a later date.

-AlphaDream has tried the "please the fans" approach in both prequels, but this time, it seems like the company was at least partially brain-controlled by a mad, but crafty Marioficionado. So many mentions of nostalgic Mario elements have been thrown in that they even start sounding conspicuously out of place - one Sockop, a Kuribo's Shoe-like enemy, is called Kuribo - something cringeworthy enough to assume they're just trying to out-reference Intelligent Systems, which raises (not begs!) the question: will the next entries in the two companies' series be Mario & Luigi: Awkward Allusion Adventure and Paper Mario: One Big Francis Chapter? Not that Waluigious won't idolize both games, though.

-It's amazing how the game manages to show the insides of a big, nasty turtle without becoming gross at any point. This is accomplished at the expense of realism, however - very rarely can you even tell it's supposed to be the innards of a body. There is no blood save for the Piranha Plorps, which are obviously based on blood vessels but for some reason spit blue drops, pools of abstract liquid fat replace bottomless pits, and the game's understanding of relative size is about as good as Masahiro Sakurai's grasp on what constitutes a good story. Amoebae, little chunks of meat, singular atoms, memories (?) and tiny floating fish are all roughly the same size within the wonderful world of Bowser. Yet, despite all the kid-friendliness, AlphaDream smuggled in some less-obvious suggestions like the location of a node in Bowser's body that makes him grow (bottom center).

-The inclusion of a challenge mode with replayable boss fights might just be the best thing about the long-term appeal of BiS. After all, bosses are the highlight of all RPGs - and being able to fight even 7 of them over and over again adds to the fun immensely. No boss of the ones offered - and, in fact, almost no boss in the entire game - is defeated just by attacking a single target like 99% of RPG final battles, no, there is always a gimmick to every fight. A lot of the bad guys have 2 forms, being either only or more vulnerable in one of them - and it's your job to make them change forms. It's almost like Zelda, but without swords, without boomerangs, and the dancers hit each other.

-Peach... what is UP with the display of power at the beginning of the game? In short briefs, Bowser gets quickly downed by Mario, then Starlow (who is basically Luvbi, but with less personality and no antique speecheth) and Peach hold him down with some sort of forcefield, upon which Peach raises her hand and levitate-throws Bowser out of her castle so hard he crashes through the roof. Allow me to quote Doopliss here: "No... Why... HOW?!" Let's examine this. If she is capable to throw a knocked-out Bowser with Starlow's help, then, accounting for his resistance when trying to kidnap her, and the usual absence of any yellow balls, she should at least be able to keep him away from herself by pushing. Logic flies out of my ears as my brain collapses on itself. This is worse than the premise of SPP. What adds to the ludicrousness is Peach kissing and thanking Mario after catapulting Bowser out with a wave of her hand. "Thank you Mario! But your princess is ruining the foundations of Marioverse canon in another castle!"

Any disjointed morsels you'd like to throw onto the pile? We're happy about every opinion! After all, one man's trash is another man's Trashure, and a Sneed doesn't fall far from the Flifit.

~Waluigious: After this game, you'll know 1000% more words to rhyme with "awful".

In Which. Just In Which.

The Music of the Week from April 27th to May 3rd is...

...what do you mean, it's October already?! Wait a second... what is an "NSMB Wii"? And a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy? The revival of the Koopalings... another Mario & Sonic game... "The Story Of Bowser's Insides"? And this all happened? You see, all I can remember is Dr. Mario Express, and then there was this fancy mushroom I won from a mechanical Geno and then there was Fortran who told me how the tiny train and the book in the ruins were connected and then I woke up in a bathtub full of ice and my Game & Watch Collection was missing.

Anyway, to keep it brief, there will be no lofty and unrealistic goals like "three articles a week" this time, just good, old-fashioned "whenever we can"-style blogging. Also, as you can perceive with unaided eyes, my writing skills are so rusty, they're... mossy. See? You'll have to endure that for the time being, just as you have to endure the Thousand Year Intro Sequence to SPM before the fun begins.

A separate paragraph of thanks to our loyal readers. Without you, we'd be nothing! Not that we're all that much otherwise... Thank you for your continued support even as the site and the authors were down in The Dump, The Vice, and the Galactic Stadium.

In the immortal words of Waluigi, "Wa-lu-i-gi, yeah, yeah, YEAH!" Let's get this party re-started!

~Waluigious: Shoot for the 3-Up Moon, land among the Power Stars.