Nintendo bosses beware: one of your underlings is off-message. Twenty hours of wondrous RPG-ing confirm it: without a single concession to 'new' gamers, Bowser's Inside Story is a glorious tangle of in-jokes, ideas and fan service navigable only by those who grew up on Nintendo. This game isn't about lounging with Girls Aloud; it's about being a greasy hermit - locking yourself away for a weekend and hooting yourself hoarse.
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Official trailer
1:15E3 2009 trailer
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Official trailer
1:15E3 2009 trailer
Age Restricted Content Please enter your date of birth below in order to verify your age before watching this video
You must be at least 0 years of age.
Play Again? Missed something? Just watch it again..
Watch More Videos Browse related videos and see what's new & popular
Share This Video Email this video, or embed it into your own web page
Refusing to toe the company line, Alphadream (and the witty localisation team) go one further - they stomp the company line. When the dreaded Blorb disease bloats the in-game Toad population into huffing flab-balls, the skinny Toads are quick to ridicule the Mushroom Kingdom's sudden obsession with diets and fitness. "There are weird fads popping up everywhere," they cry. You listening, Satoru Iwata? The underlings don't want no Vitality Sensor.
On that subject... Iwata's pulse-policer promises to take us to an "inner world" but Alphadream have already delivered on this front. Inhaled by a Bowser driven loopy on vacuum mushrooms, Mario and Luigi finally get to see the world through his eyes. Or anus. Depends which end of him you're wandering in, really. Guts, heart, brain, lumbar, funny bone... Forget knowing Bowser in the Biblical sense, this is knowing Bowser in the Dorling Kindersley's The Human Body sense.
Intestines, veins, muscles - not rendered in lifelike detail, but far superior to jungle, ice and fire worlds. Carved from rainbow goo and Day-Glo nerves, they're resolutely Nintendo designs, policed by resolutely Nintendo creations, gelatinous cells known as Globins. Guiding you through Bowser's innards, these jellies crack gags about how ambiguous the art design is ("go down that pipe-ish thing"). Nintendo are self-deprecating about design charm most devs would kill for. Show-offs.
If the outer world is more sedate - Toad towns, forests, beaches and Monty Mole-carved underground railroads - Bowser makes up for it. Cast from his fortress by the syntactically dubious Fawful ("I have fury!"), his is a journey home, picking up the pieces his intergalactic enemy has smashed his life into. Minions need rescuing (Bowser's concern for his trapped goons is quite sweet) and his castle re-seizing. What's funny is seeing him cope with the hassle of an RPG.
Traditionally, Bowser is the problem that buffets heroes from one locale to the next. In many ways he still is - few things stand in Bowser's way like Bowser. Playing the Japanese version in April, we had no idea just how preposterous his scheming was. Whether trying to repurpose a carrot as a missile, accidentally destroying the foundations of the Mushroom Kingdom or falling victim to a pile of cakes, every twist's a simultaneous head-slap and chortle.
Mario RPGs always have fun with Bowser (though are we the only ones to find it odd when he reverts to his serious self in the main Mario games?) but this time ol' turtle breath really earns his place centre stage. Perhaps we're just tired of Mario and Luigi's earnest silent shtick. In a game where even minor characters can out-natter Quentin Tarantino, their silence seems unsporting, gormless even. Bowser relishes the attention. Come on, doesn't it feel right to see him on a magazine cover for once?
When inner and outer worlds collide, things get really interesting. If Bowser eats, Mario and Luigi receive. If Mario and Luigi go mallet happy in the brain, Bowser... well, let's just say things wouldn't end prettily for him. Both have the option to cause untold damage, but what with the common enemy (and Nintendo's stance against stories ending with Bowser in intensive care) they agree to work together.
Some co-operation is obvious: Bowser drinking to flood areas for the brothers. Some of it less so: Mario and Luigi volleying energy into Bowser's triceps during a tug of war. Alphadream find surprising mileage in the idea, using different mechanics and minigames to mix up 2D platforming that might otherwise grate over an adventure of this length.
Hammering muscles, lumbar acrobatics, hormone harvesting, allergy manipulation - how many other games have new ideas arriving mere minutes before the final boss? Alphadream really know how to pace an adventure. As RPGs go, Mario's dabblings in the genre have always been relatively linear affairs, almost streamlined to ensure everyone sees it through. That's not a complaint - rare is the RPG that can really hold your attention for 100 hours. Alphadream's humbler 20 are laser-targeted joy-bringers, each new hour adding something special. A new body puzzle to solve. A Bowser minion to save. A move to unlock.
Abilities unlock and unfold as in Metroid or Zelda - impassable gaps and unscalable walls await the correct skill (boringly, the brothers' moves are repeats of earlier games). Once inaccessible areas spill coins, stat- boosting beans, jigsaw puzzle pieces and Blitties (cubed kittens required for the game's biggest side quest). In Dragon Quest IX you can slave away for four hours pursuing a single boot; after an hour of Mario & Luigi you could open a shoe shop.
All of this is what makes Bowser's Inside Story good. What makes it great is buried deeper: the inside story to Bowser's Inside Story. And no, we're not talking some great philosophical truth, we're talking thumping. Combat is a big part of the game. You'll spend a good two thirds of your time unleashing hell on Fawful's minions (technically, combat is turn-based, so it's one third hell-unleashing to one third hell-receiving). Sorry, returning fans, but here's a recap...
The magic's in your involvement. Average Joe RPG lets you press a button, and off characters go. Not so here. Every move can be bolstered with timed button inputs, be it attacking or defence. Tap jump as Mario bops a Goombule (Goomba meets single-cell organism) and he'll jump again for a second bop. Tap as Luigi pulls his hammer back to the max and he'll swing to the max. When attacks head inwards, perfect jumps and swings will not just dodge, but counter-attack.
Bowser follows the same rules, albeit in super-powered form. Against the germs in Bowser's armpit, Mario and Luigi mete out double-figures of damage; outside, Bowser's sledgehammer fists bludgeon hundreds of HP. Perfectly timed swipes send rivals skidding off screen in a manga-like explosion of red. Big, bulky and very Bowser.
Part of the magic is the tactility. Hitting buttons is naturally going to keep you involved, but snazzy audio and visual cues bring out a lot more from your violent little button stabs. Heavenly light bursts from your hammer, the word 'excellent' lights up the screen and the jubilant 'ka-chunk' is every victorious TV quiz show buzzer rolled into one.
Special moves demand long chains of presses or stylus swishes to function, making the massive damage pay-off all the more satisfying. And by regularly adding to the move catalogue there's always a technique to perfect. You certainly won't struggle to fall into the rhythms, but the monotony that often set in during the earlier games is kept at bay.
If tactility welcomes you in, the variety Alphadream milk from their simple ideas keeps you engrossed. Combat plays like a visual puzzle. Solutions range from the obvious (you shouldn't jump on something spiky) to obscurer tactics playfully designed around our trio of heroes. Take Chubooma, a grotesque lollypop-sucking fiend. Several whacks will take him down, but employ Bowser's new inhale power and you'll suck in his sweeties, causing him to flee in tears.
Inhaling opens up great tag-team possibilities. Enemies with the misfortune to go down Bowser's pipe have the double misfortune of facing Mario and Luigi. Fail to beat them inside and Bowser might puke them up. In a very linear, guided experience, inhalation passes a bit more control to you. Bowser's deep breaths have great comic value, too. Inhale a dinosaur's teeth and when he comes to eat his health bean he can only gum it impotently.
The only underexplored avenues are the giant Bowser fights. Crushed by a series of battle fortresses, a brief bit of mucking about in Bowser's adrenal gland sees him grow one hundred feet tall and enter a boxing match with the architectural aggressors. With the DS held sideways, fights are entirely stylus controlled - drags winds up punches, taps blast off fireballs. The same timing rules apply, and for the five times you fight like this, glorious fun is had.
But only five times? If you've gone to those lengths to design an entire stylus combat system, why not show it off a bit? Fights are too sparsely spaced for our liking, enough that you grow antsy after three hours with no big-Bowser. This only compounds a strange to-ing and fro-ing over stylus controls running through much of the game. Stylus minigames and attacks probably account for 1% of the interaction - why bother at all?
If this sounds like we're throwing our toys out of the pram, it's a testament to the number of toys there are here. And this is where Bowser's Inside Story parts ways with Nintendo's new direction: its unabashed playfulness. There's no educational benefit here; families won't join together, and buttocks will remain flabby. This isn't Nintendo the innovators, but Nintendo the game makers. We've missed 'em.
Why is it that a lot of the good core games from Nintendo is for handhelds only? All the 2d Mario series up through the years ranging from the very first Mario Bros to New Super Mario Bros has only been avaliable on the small handheld screens. Is it because they think the handheld market competes with the tv-console market? I don't think so. I personally don't have a handheld. Just a matter of choice, I like big screens. I would love to play all of these games on my big tv. Why can't you just plug your handheld to your tv? That should be a natural thing to do. If it's because they want me to bye a handheld as well, they've got it wrong; it doesn't make me buy a hand held, I just miss out on these games instead. On the gamecube, you could buy a add-on base, that would play gba games. Why not such a thing for the Wii? I bought Super Mario World on WiiVC, but still. As Shadow complex and the hype for New Super Maio Bros Wii show, there is a real demand for quality 2d games on the tv, not just a tiny screen. So why is it like this? I think that more people would buy handhelds if they could play the games on their tv, pixelated and all. Or am I completely wrong on this? What do YOU think?
I suppose the point of the handheld is to play it on the small screen and for you to be able to play it anywhere in particular where there isn't a T.V. But I too struggle to fully enjoy portable games on a small screen whether DS or PSP, as well as angling it so the screen doesn't reflect or catch the light. I think now in this day & age we should be able to have some T.V hook up option (ideally Wifi to the Wii or PS3 for on screen display). With the DS you would need to have this option as you need the touch screen, and they would need maybe split sceen for both the screens to be displayed. So yeah I'd be up for it.
it wouldn't be too much of a problem i'm guessing. they could even do it with some kind programme. the ds already connects to the wii anyway. Then again transfer speeds could be an issue.
I thought the PSP could connect to a TV anyway. sure the 2000 at least had some kind of port in the back of it.
@ anakin22 if you want something a bit like mario and lugi's inside story i'd highly reccomend getting the paper mario games and mario RPG off of the VC.
@ Monkey, I whole heartly agree with the Paper mario option and Super Mario RPG is just fantastic. Not only is it good fun but its a great nostalgic romp through the Great days of 16bit consoling and the snes. A great example of what Square and Nintendo could of achived if they get together more often.
I think it would be fantastic if SE and Ninty hooked up again and did a Proper sequel to Mario RPG, especially if they made it in the style of the original, maybe as a WiiWare title. what do you think...?
seeing square make another MArio RPG would be fantastic, but the paper series basically picks up where it left off. So i'm not aching for it that much. What i'd really love to see from square would be a remake of FFVI for the ds like they've done with III and IV and apparently they're currently working on V. fingers crossed ay.
seeing square make another MArio RPG would be fantastic, but the paper series basically picks up where it left off. So i'm not aching for it that much. What i'd really love to see from square would be a remake of FFVI for the ds like they've done with III and IV and apparently they're currently working on V. fingers crossed ay.
Yes we are fortunate to have the Paper Mario series to take its place, but i think there is a difference in the style that would be intresting to see what a sequel would be like. But good news on FF V remake and yes lets hope that VI follows not to long after. All we need then is the same treatment to Chrono Trigger and we laughing
I saw a video of that on Youtube a while back and it was very impressive, especially when you take into account it was fan made! However it was a while back Square shut it down which seems to suggest they aren't doing anything with it. Still to be positive we can continue to hold out hope
@ anakin22 if you want something a bit like mario and lugi's inside story i'd highly reccomend getting the paper mario games and mario RPG off of the VC.
Same kind of thing.
Thanx for answering
I've played all 3 paper mario games (n64,gc,Wii) and yes, they're great but I was taking generally about core handheld games, like the whole Mario Bros series, as well as 100's of other interesting titles. I've never played advance wars or scribblenauts or whatever good handheld games are out there. Maybe they're just stubborn: Either go buy our handhelds or don't play these games. But IMO that philosophy is not smart business-wise.
mentioning Advance wars. the Fire emblem series is pretty similar as its made bey the same company. Brilliant in thier own right if you ask me. Not sure if its gotten a uk release yet, but if you've got the means give Phantom Brave we meet again on the wii a go. Then again if you've got a PS2 i would definately reccommend getting any of the Nippon Ichi games. Especially Makai Kingdom. great turn based RPG and really funny too.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
