The ultimate portable masterpiece
Bowser's Inside Story kicks off when the Mushroom Kingdom is hit by a strange disease called "The Blorbs" in order to stop the calamity Princess Peach unites a council to determine how to act. Meanwhile Bowser roams a forest and is deceived by mysterious man into eating a supposedly "Lucky Mushroom". Later, while striking the castle the Mushroom's effect kicks in and Bowser swallows the entire council, including Mario, Luigi and Peach which end up trapped inside the tyrant's body. With the sudden turn of events the evil Fawful takes over the lovely Kingdom and it is up to Bowser and our trapped heroes to save it from its new ruler's insanity.
Like it happens with every single game of the series Bowser's Inside Story is developed via hilariously silly dialogue. There is humor in nearly every single line spoken by the characters and some of the best ones are certain to make players laugh out loud. More importantly, the game sheds a light on the backstage acts of the Mushroom Kingdom giving long time Mario fans a deep look at the lives of Peach, Toadsworth, Mario, Luigi and Bowser, which happens to be the star of the game, a funny perspective that is unexplored on the Mario platformers.
Through most of the game players will control Bowser on the top screen while Mario and Luigi roam Bowser's guts on the bottom screen. All the characters are controlled with the D-pad, but Bowser performs his moves with both the X and Y buttons while the brothers do their thing with the A and B buttons. Only one screen is active at a time, but switching between one and another is as easy and fast as it could possibly be. Turning what would be an annoying task in some less polished games, into a simple press of a button on the highly well produced RPG.
Bowser will explore a huge non-linear overworld filled with different scenarios and Mario and Luigi will be controlled on a side-scrolling perspective when exploring Bowser's body. Even though these sections are in a 2-D perspective the game still throws environmental puzzles at the players requiring some backtracking, thinking and a lot of exploration. Unsurprisingly both the inside and outside worlds are fantastic, on lesser games a portion of the world would go underdeveloped due to the other's greatness, but here the two overworlds feel and play like full-fledged portions where a lot of care and time was put on.
Overall the game has outstanding level design and is at its best when Mario, Luigi and Bowser must work together in order to accomplish the same goal. At one point in the game Bowser will come across a fountain of water which will fill his insides with the liquid, and Mario and Luigi must enjoy the changing water level to reach new areas and further explore the big guy's body. At other times Mario and Luigi must travel to specific body parts and engage very compelling mini-games in order to unlock Bowser's hidden powers giving him supernatural strength for a while. It is hard to find a game as creative in its execution as this one.
Bowser's Inside Story follows the footsteps of its predecessors by keeping the very same battle system. Attacks must be performed with timed button presses in order to be fully effective, besides each and every move performed by the vast number of enemies can be avoided with a lot of practice and great timing. Not only does the constant button pressing add action to the turn-based battles, but it also demands a lot of skill from players.
The characters also have special moves that require an even bigger sequence of timely actions. Those attacks are as powerful as they are fun to perform. Mario and Luigi will join forces and it is up to players to know when to press either the A or B buttons correctly. As for Bowser, his specials are delightful. The King of Evil will have different minion squads at his command, each of these groups (Koopas, Goombas, Bob-Ombs, Kameks and etc) when called will trigger a fun mini-game on the bottom screen requiring players to use their stylus and perform different actions to fully maximize the attack's power. Instead of feeling like tacked on mini-games those are actually very natural and amusing fitting right into the gameplay. From time to time players will be going for special attacks with the sole purpose of having some fun.
The battles also take advantage of the game's core concept as there are some enemies that appear on the top screen that can be swallowed by Bowser, only to be finished by the brothers inside his body. This concept will often be used on the game's cleverly designed boss battles which, just like the rest of the title, are overflowing with creativity.
However, the traditional Mario and Luigi turn-based battles are – surprisingly - not the game's action pinnacle. Since Mario and Luigi is a naturally over-the-top series developers decided to go all out on the insane giant Bowser clashes. Whenever Bowser is faced with a life-threatening situation the brothers will be able to trigger his giant form. When Bowser grows big your DS will have to be turned sideways as Bowser faces massive structures in battle such as a train, a castle and etc. By exclusively using touch screen controls and the microphone you will be able to punch, breath fire, throw fireballs and much more to totally beat down enemies on epic affairs that had yet to be seen on a Mario game.
Visually Mario and Luigi is a delight especially on its ridiculously beautiful character models. Mario, Luigi and the others are wonderful examples of pixel art animation, and the polish put into Bowser is something that has yet to be achieved on the Nintendo DS hardware. The scenarios have definitely been improved compared to the other games, but the leap is not nearly the same achieved by the models, still they are very impressive sights to look at.
The soundtrack ranges from traditional Mario tunes to brand new compositions that will be certainly returning on upcoming Mario games due to their quality. When it comes to dialogue the game is limited to charming beeps and some occasional grunts from the major characters. As usual Mario and Luigi's gibberish Italian is hilarious to listen.
Bowser's Inside Story is clearly a game that is not content on simply being nearly flawless. Developers have gone out of their way in order to make every single second of this adventure a wonderful gaming moment whether because of its nice story, amazing battles, overwhelming creativity or fun mini-games. If there is such a thing as a big flaw in this title it has got to be its difficulty which will barely affect experienced players. The boss battles are much easier than they were on previous installments and while being occasionally lengthy they will fail in providing a maddening challenge.
Mario and Luigi Bowser's Inside Story is the defining moment of the Nintendo DS. As the handheld approaches the end of its cycle Nintendo and Alphadream have crafted the ultimate portable masterpiece that utilizes every single feature the system has to offer in a very natural and fun way while squeezing every bit out of the machine's hardware. Match that with great level design, a brilliant core gameplay concept, amazing art, the unique charm of the Mario RPG titles, over twenty hours of gameplay and you have one of the best titles Nintendo has ever put out in the market in your hands.
Actual Score: 9.8