Well everybody knows the two educational Mario games on the Super Nintendo by the name of Mario Is Missing and Mario's Time Machine, everybody hates them and while I definitely do not like these game I don't think they honestly are some of the worst games ever made but they definitely are bad no question. I also wanted to mention I didn't hate Mario Is Missing since I had that game as a kid and for some reason I see it with my nostalgia shades on for some reason, but I definitely agree that a lot of people shouldn't like this game. You are probably wondering why I am talking about Mario is Missing well to be honest I need to talk about it since while it is a bad game, I felt like this is the better of the two games, and while sure it is a bad game, I would say it's not nearly as bad as this game.
Story: So basically it's a very simple story Bowser has taken items from the past for himself, and Mario must return them to each correct time period, brilliant... just brilliant. That's the whole story I kid you not, thanks for coming folks.
Presentation: When it comes to Mario's Time machine it's just not good, and that's because they didn't even try, most of the places you visit here, first of all our very small areas, and not only that but they just lack detail and our very unimaginative, most of the area's are just bland looking pictures from the time period in actual history. While the actual places you visit are very dull, the actual way of getting to them are really cool, don't get me wrong the gameplay to getting there is stupid(I'll get to that in a moment.) but the actual 3d look of the mini game to getting there is really cool, you can see where all the effort in the presentation went, it looks really cool and you have to admit that their weren't a whole lot of Super Nintendo games that had this type of 3d enabled look to them, so I will give them credit for that. I also wanted to mention then when you return the items back to the main character in the time period they will mention something witty about Mario, sure it's kind of stupid but I thought it had a certain charm to it and I liked it. The soundtrack isn't terrible but it isn't anything memorable either, their our some alright track and some forgettable tracks. The presentation as a whole isn't the worst thing ever but it's not too great either.
Gameplay: When it comes to the gameplay it's the same repetitive task over and over for each area. So basically what you are supposed to do is take the item you need and then go back in time, the time machine makes you go through this little mini game where Mario is surfing and you have to collect ten mushrooms and then go into a whirlpool in the water to reach the area you are trying to go to, this wouldn't be half bad if the whole game didn't consist of doing this redundant task over and over again, like I said in my presentation section the visuals are really cool during this part and it is kind of fun collecting the mushrooms, but why do we have to do this section over and over again, and I would say you have to do this at least fifteen times in the game, at least it could even be more. There is one way you can cheat at this game also, the whole point of this game is to get the high score by learning information in the time period your in and the faster you do this the more score you get at the end of solving the questionnaire they give you, however if you stay in your normal time period and just guess the answers and get them all and go back you can beat it within a second, yeah this can be very hard if you don't know the answers since after three times of missing the answer they wipe all your answers from the page you had them saved up on, but you can even bypass this by putting the questionnaire away after getting two missed answers and then look at it again and you won't have the two bad marks making it simple to just cheat your way through the game, I can't believe they did this! But if you do want to play the game right you just talk to people about the main character in the time your visiting and then fill out your questionnaire, it's not the worst thing ever but it's not very fun. After doing so finally the character of the time will take the item you have, This really shouldn't matter but I guess it's the only way they could add the actual difficulty to the game huh? It's pretty simple gameplay their really is nothing special about it and you will get bored quickly, it's nothing special.
(Spoiler Alert if you even care?) Basically after getting all the items returned to their proper times, it's time to face Bowser, well not really the time machine explodes and sends Bowser to the age of where the dinosaurs ruled the earth, and that's pretty much it, and it's also worth mentioning that if you beat the game fast enough you will get a different ending. You want to know what it is? Do you really? Nah it's not worth it, alright you asked, all it is, is the same ending with exception of Bowser getting squashed by a gigantic dinosaurs foot, I kid you not, That was totally worth is huh?
Overall Mario's Time Machine should not be taken seriously, all this is, is an educational game and unless you are interested in that, you shouldn't end up buying this game, Mario doesn't want you to remember this game, so don't remember it da#$it.