How streamlined can a role-playing game get before it's no longer an RPG at all?
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is an RPG in the Nintendo style, which usually means that there has to be some crazy twist on the standard formula. In this case, the RPG elements are blended with action: You can't just select "fight" and "heal" from a menu. You have to make the Mario brothers jump and attack with the same sort of fast fingers that carried you through the twitch games that made them famous.
The Nintendo DS game was released last month, and I've been playing it like a true portable game – on buses, in cars, on planes – ever since. As a largely inoffensive time-killer, Bowser's Inside Story is well-suited to the task. The art design and animation are beautiful, the script is hilarious, the controls are tight.
And yet I'm unfulfilled. I just put 20 hours into an RPG. Where's that reward I usually feel? The sense of accomplishment that comes with taking a party of characters from weaklings to powerhouses, customizing their attributes, forging my own path through an epic tale?
The short answer is that this type of classic RPG gameplay doesn't really exist in Bowser's Inside Story, the third title in the Mario & Luigi series. Sure, the form is there, but the function is not. You gain levels ... but it doesn't matter, because your character doesn't really change. You find new armor and items ... that are only marginal upgrades. You earn new special moves ... but you don't really need to bother using them.
The story is hilarious: The Mario Bros. have to find the cause of the Blorbs, a disease that turns the Mushroom Kingdom's fungal residents into giant blobs, but before they can solve the mystery, they're swallowed by King Bowser. It's one of the best-written game scripts this side of Brütal Legend, but it's also almost perfectly linear. You have very little, if any, choice as to what you're going to do next.
Compounding this sense of not really being in control is another unique story twist: At different times during the adventure, you'll be playing as the evil dragon king Bowser himself. Is this awesome? Yes: Bowser's segments are perhaps even funnier than the Mario levels, and playing with his power-packed punch and fire attacks is definitely more enjoyable.
But the fact that the game switches you back and forth between the Marios and Bowser means there's even more of a disconnect. You feel even less like you're making progress when you're constantly being shuttled back and forth between two distinct story lines.
That said, I probably put in all the time I spent with Bowser's Inside Story because of what the game adds to the RPG formula. I like that after I pick Attack, I have to press the Jump button with the correct timing to score extra damage. Or that I can avoid or even counterattack enemies' salvos by jumping at the right moment. It's a great way of keeping the player alert, and it's rewarding, because you can really kick ass and blast your way through the battles if you play perfectly.
And Bowser's Inside Story adds even more action to the design. There are tons of mini-games that you play as you're progressing through the story that are completely disconnected from the RPG progression. These, too, are usually pretty fun and well-designed. The Mario segments, inside Bowser's body, are all in 2-D, meaning that playing them feels quite similar to playing a classic (if slower-paced) Mario game.
Taken by themselves, all these attributes are pluses. But after three games in the series, it's hard not to notice that Bowser's Inside Story really doesn't need all the RPG trappings that it adopts. Without leveling up, without swappable armor, without hidden pointless doodads, it would be an almost identical experience.
For all its undeniable polish and fun gameplay, Mario & Luigi is starting to feel less like a clever bridging of the gap and more like an indecisive straddle. It's time to rethink the Mario RPG.
WIRED A highly polished, very very funny game.
TIRED Why even bother calling it an RPG?
$30, Nintendo
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