The third game in the series is the best yet, with fantastic gameplay and a great story, with loads of Mario humour!
Fast forward, you've got Partners in time on the DS, and now the third installment in the series, Bowser's inside story.
The mushroom kingdom is in peril. The residents have been infected with the blorbs, which causes them to balloon and not be able to move. This looks pretty hilarious. Mario and Luigi come to save the day... but Bowser shows up, and ends up inhaling them both along with a load of other junk.
But the real villain is Lord Fawful, who also starred in the previous game Superstar Saga. I'll let the game tell you the rest.
You play as both Mario and Luigi, as well as Bowser. While Bowser is normally the villain, he must also fight against Fawful to save his own castle, and to protect Princess Peach, just so he can go and kidnap her himself of course.
Gameplay - wise, Bowser's inside story is absolutely fantastic. This kind of innovation could only come from a Nintendo game. On the top screen you play as Bowser, and on th bottom you play as the Bros. You navigate Bowser's body, mainly to help him survive as well as activating some of his abillities. The main narrative however, happens outside Bowser's body, as Bowser. You explore the world, using your flame breath and punch ability as well as more you later unlock. There are a lot of puzzles and tricky things you'll need to work out to get by, and enemies can be seen before you enter battle.
The battles are turn based, similar to a regular RPG, but with action RPG elements. You dodge, reflect and counter attacks by using your abilities, and you must time button presses well to deal higher damage with your own attacks.
While controlling the bros, each is mapped to one button, and, as you do with Bowser, you gain more abilities as you progress through the game. There is a lot of platforming, traditional Mario style, but this is an RPG game, so the battling and levelling up is the main focus here.
Mario + Luigi learn battle abilities by finding attack pieces, and you attack with both bros. Examples are bouncing a shell at the enemy, between them timing M + L's kicks to maximize damage.
There's so much to go into here, Bowser's minion attacks unlock as you rescue your minions, and use the stylus to attac with them. This is very innovative and makes good use of the touch screen.
A few times Bowser will grow massive and you will turn the DS on it's side to engage in a battle with a huge enemy, normally a building, and use the touch screen and the mic. While there are only 3 or 4 of these in the game, they feel just right and are a welcome change from the standard battling.
There's so much more to go into but the wonders of Bowser's inside story are best served as a surprise, along with all the humour and charm that goes with it. Switching between th characters is refreshing and exciting, and it opens up door for battles involving all three characters, Bowser inhaling smaller enemies that the bros fight. It really is an amzing game, and it will no doubt be enjoyable for gamers who dislike RPG's as it is so interactive.
For this reason, hardcore RPG fans may find it too simple and too easy, and might prefer to stick to there Final Fantasies and their Personas. They may also find it too short, but I found it to have quite a healthy length of about 30 hours, and with lots of side quests you could potentially get up to 40 hours out of it. That considered, fans of RPGs who don't like Mario might not take to it. But any Mario fan will enjoy this game. The characters are loveable and you know them well, the story is quirky interesting and very funny. The game constantly innovates and surprises you, and the mix of RPG and platforming is fabulous. It sticks to traditional Mario - question blocks and 1-Ups are there, you will never forget that it's the Mushroom Kingdom. And you won't forget this game either. The best in the series so far.