Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story

[toblix]

After much waiting

This game is out, and I just ordered it. I'm so excited I just can't hide it!

[miffy495]

I'm about 5 hours in myself. The Bowser sections are great, but the fact that the M&L bits are side-scrollers rather than the isometric that the series has always done in the past seems really weird to me. The top screen is bowser play, and it's traditional Mario & Luigi series gameplay (with jump and hammer replaced by punch and breathe fire) but the bottom screen is just a platformer with Mario & Luigi where instead of dealing with enemies in a normal way you get booted to a battle screen. It's like the 2D bits of Super Paper Mario. Feels weird. Still, Fawful is back and the game is fun, so I don't have much to complain about. And the map I'm exploring as Bowser has all sorts of question blocks and areas that you need Bro powers to get to, so maybe in the second half of the game you get a more traditional Mario & Luigi experience? Dunno.

Anyway, it's rad. I hope it lives up to your hopes, blix. I know you and I are the two main proponents of the series on the forum, so I'll gladly talk game with you.

One warning I have, though: It's even more linear. It's done well, so I don't mind so much, but if that was a complaint with PiT, this is done even more.

[lobotomy42]

A few years ago, I'd have been excited about this, but Partners in Time left such a bad taste that I don't think I'll ever play another Mario & Luigi game.

[toblix]

A few years ago, I'd have been excited about this, but Partners in Time left such a bad taste that I don't think I'll ever play another Mario & Luigi game.

That Partners in Time is awesome is one of the few universal constants, like the speed of light in vacuum and the mass of an electron. I think you should carefully reconsider your statement.

edit: DISCLAIMER -- I'm joking. In fact, I would like to know why you didn't like it.

[Irishjohn]

I'm pretty excited about this game, but it's probably going to have to wait a few weeks. My wallet and time aren't in a position to squeeze it in right now!

I downloaded Paper Mario last year (the 64 game) on my Wii and it rocked my world. I have never touched a Mario RPG otherwise. This looks really good.

[Chris]

That Partners in Time is awesome is one of the few universal constants, like the speed of light in vacuum and the mass of an electron. I think you should carefully reconsider your statement.

edit: DISCLAIMER -- I'm joking. In fact, I would like to know why you didn't like it.

I don't remember what I didn't like about it in a lot of detail, I just found it fairly boring, and I didn't get anything out of the two pairs of characters. It was much less memorable than Superstar Saga for me.

[toblix]

Superstar Saga, yes. I'm wondering if I ever got around to playing that. I have to equally credible memories, one of me almost buying it and then not, and the other of me buying it and playing it, and not liking it as much. Ah well, it's too late now, with my GBA slot not existing anymore.

It could be that Superstar Saga was even more awesome than M&L, so that if you had played the former you would experience disappointment at the relative awesomeness, but if you hadn't, you'd only experience the absolute awesomeness. Sounds scientific and right.

Also, I could just be liking mediocre games.

[lobotomy42]

I don't remember what I didn't like about it in a lot of detail, I just found it fairly boring, and I didn't get anything out of the two pairs of characters. It was much less memorable than Superstar Saga for me.

It was completely linear, in a way that Superstar Saga pretended not to be. And 99% less Fawful.

[toblix]

I've heard so many people commenting on the linearity of the game, which is puzzling. I never found the linearity of PiT to be a problem. Are you saying that the game suffered from being more linear than SS, or do you just not like linear games in general (which would be totally weird)?

[lobotomy42]

I've heard so many people commenting on the linearity of the game, which is puzzling. I never found the linearity of PiT to be a problem. Are you saying that the game suffered from being more linear than SS, or do you just not like linear games in general (which would be totally weird)?

Normally, I'm the one jumping out and defending linearity. But PiT took it to an extreme. It felt like "Now you're in this room. Now you're in this room. Now you're in this room." That, combined with its sheer un-funniness compared to Superstar Saga soured me on it.

Bah. Maybe I was just in a funk that year.

[toblix]

I think that, maybe, in the process of trying to find out what we like and don't like about Partners in Time, we end up finding out what we like and don't like about ourselves.

[Shakesbeard]

I've never played any of these (still DS-less) but the sprites are adorable.

[toblix]

Yes, this and Minish Cap. I do so love awesome pixel art.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah, Minish Cap was the most gorgeous 2D Zelda game I've ever seen. I was actually surprised that the GBA could display those kind of graphics for whatever reason even though it probably wasn't pushing the handheld system all that much.

I own the first M&L game though and have yet to start it, so I'm not authorized to post in this thread. I've been trying to play all the Mario related Nintendo games in order for years now and I'm currently stuck in 1994 on Donkey Kong for Game Boy.

[Garple]

(still DS-less)

That's no way to live.

[Shakesbeard]

That's no way to live.

You can barely call it living at all...

[toblix]

I've played this for about an hour, and holy shit is this thing smooth. It's slick. It's polished to a mirror sheen. Its appearance is flawless. Hello, awesome hand-drawn pixel art with smooth animation! Hello awesomely well translated, hilarious dialogue. Hello novel game mechanics.

If you have even just a little of your inner child left, buy this game. It's fun and makes you smile.

[miffy495]

I got stalled right before the final boss. I haven't touched it in over a week. Thanks for reminding me to go back and wrap it up before it gets added to *that* pile.

[miffy495]

Still playing 'blix? Turns out I was further from the end than I thought. I ended up beating the game on Wednesday, and am very satisfied with it. A little disappointing that so much of the game is Bowser-centric rather than the Bros, not so much from a story standpoint but because Bowser only has 4 actions that he can use, rather than the plentiful bro actions that Mario and Luigi have had in the previous two games. Made if feel a bit shallower, unfortunately. Even though it took around 20 hours for me to beat it, it kind of feels like a companion piece to the series for me. Still, really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to whatever Alphadream does with the series next. You?

[toblix]

I suck, so when I find a game that that's so good I consider it "precious", or whatever, I end up stupidly trying to prolong the gaming experience by playing in shorter sessions further apart, always to the detriment of my final experience. I do this with all of Valve's games, the Phoenix Wrights, the GTAs, the awesome Zelda games (currently only Minish Cap) and also the Mario & Luigis. So I'm probably somewhere around 7 or 8 percent in.

However, as is indicated by my short and sparse sessions with this game, I find it totally awesome. I still feel like I'm in the beginning part (mostly due to still getting introduced to new mechanics, although I seem to remember this went on almost all the way through Partners in Time), so I'm not really able to give a full impression, but the fucking shitting sweet stuff I loved so much from the first game is also very much present in this one, too, as well: the music, the sweet pixel art and ultra smooth animation, the awesome and hilarious dialogue (the French guy is great), the interesting fighting moves, etc.

[miffy495]

Yeah, the only art problem I had is that when Bowser inhales something and it zooms in to his belly, it just zooms the same resolution image of Bowser, so by the time the transition happens it gets ridiculously pixelated. Oh well.

[toblix]

I always find it charming when pixel-art games make a conscious decision to zoom in on the graphics like that. I can't remember if they're trying to cover it up with some effect or something, but whenever it's really blatantly zooming in without any filtering I love it.

[Psych]

Still playing 'blix? Turns out I was further from the end than I thought. I ended up beating the game on Wednesday, and am very satisfied with it. A little disappointing that so much of the game is Bowser-centric rather than the Bros, not so much from a story standpoint but because Bowser only has 4 actions that he can use, rather than the plentiful bro actions that Mario and Luigi have had in the previous two games. Made if feel a bit shallower, unfortunately. Even though it took around 20 hours for me to beat it, it kind of feels like a companion piece to the series for me. Still, really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to whatever Alphadream does with the series next. You?

I thought the Bowser sections were the best part of that game.

[shammack]

I always find it charming when pixel-art games make a conscious decision to zoom in on the graphics like that. I can't remember if they're trying to cover it up with some effect or something, but whenever it's really blatantly zooming in without any filtering I love it.

I always loved the part in the Bowser fight in Super Mario World when his little clown-car flies directly at the camera, blowing you away with the graphical effects. My friends and I always tried to pause the game on the last frame of that animation so we'd have nothing but a white screen with a giant blocky eye. Good times!

[miffy495]

I thought the Bowser sections were the best part of that game.

I really enjoyed them too. That's why the fact that he had such a limited action set by the end of the game was so disappointing. Feels like they good have done so much more than "he's heavy, punches things, and sometimes breathes fire." Oh well. The spiky ball thing was cool, but you get it so soon before the end it feels almost inconsequential. The game needed more of that.