Jeremy Gallen's Game Reviews

The Body Koopa

One of the last roleplaying games for the Nintendo DS was the AlphaDream-developed Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, the chronologically third entry of the Mario & Luigi subseries of RPGs. Years later, on the 3DS, the very first game in the subfranchise, Superstar Saga, would receive a remake with added content, the second game, Partners in Time, overlooked. However, the third would receive its own rerelease entitled Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey, which is essentially two games in one akin to the enhanced port of Superstar Saga.

The main quest opens with a disease known as The Blorbs affecting residents of the Mushroom Kingdom, causing Toads to become morbidly obese, akin to Violet Beauregarde from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its film adaptations. As Princess Peach and her cohorts, including siblings Mario and Luigi, discuss what to do about the pandemic, Bowser invades. The classic Mario antagonist is defeated, sometime after which he eats a Vacuum Shroom, making him engorge everything in sight, including Mario, Luigi, and Peach. The game’s action frequently alternates between Bowser and the Mario brothers as they unknowingly work together.

Bowser Jr.’s Journey follows Bowser’s son in parallel events as he conspires with his father’s seven primary minions, the Koopalings, their origins pretty much unexplored, alongside Junior’s matronage. The game tells both its stories well, with plenty of humor and a semblance of originality, at least in the Mario mythos, with other media like the film Fantastic Voyage exploring body exploration when miniature, and RPGs such as the original Star Ocean have featured the goal of curing a mysterious affliction. The translation is an admirable effort, given its humor, but odd onomatopoeia abounds like “oog” and “muh,” and characters addressing Bowser’s son as “Lord Junior” sounds asinine.

Luckily, the main quest fares well in the gameplay department, with enemy encounters visible on side-scrolling (within Bowser’s body) and top-down maps. Mario and Luigi can jump on or hammer them to get the initiative, dealing premature damage when the subsequent battle commences. Fights are mechanically like those in Superstar Saga minus fire and thunder attacks, the siblings alone facing several foes, able to deal damage by jumping on them, hammering them, or using BP-consuming attacks with minigame-esque sequences that can either be easy or hard to master.

Bowser himself faces off solo against various enemies, able to get the initiative in fights with his own map abilities, and can punch foes, exhale fire on all, or use point-consuming minion skills that can ultimately be more powerful, if ably executed, than his standard free attacks. Sometimes, he can inhale enemies for the Mario brothers to finish off, with all participants in combat after a victory receiving money and experience, the latter allowing them to level occasionally. In these instances, their stats increase, and players can use a roulette mechanic on an individual stat for a bonus increase that lessens at a certain threshold.

Bowser Jr.’s Journey is also mechanically like the Minion Quest in the 3DS remake of Superstar Saga, with customizable unit formations introduced, some of which can grant all participants in combat bonuses. Also new is the ability for Bowser Jr. to have a second officer, with players ultimately able to make Junior of melee, ranged, or flying type. The automatic real-time battles transpire with the Rochambeau formula, where melee units beat ranged units, ranged beats flying, and flying beats melee. Minions randomly and collectively or individually execute special skills, which the enemy faction can cancel. However, players can accomplish the same in return, with other Captain Point-consuming skills in the mix.

The gameplay mechanics in the main quest generally work well, aside from some annoying enemies and wildly unpredictable antagonist attack patterns (with the warning indicators the player can turn on and off in the game menus often not helping here). However, Bowser Jr.’s Journey is a different ballpark, necessitating frequent grinding to stand a chance against story maps, and leveling itself carries an all-or-nothing risk if the player loses even one of a stage’s fights. While some battles may leave players with beans to grant free experience and status increases, leveling units on lower-level maps can be difficult, and overall, the subquest could have used a once-over.

Control, though, fares worse, with the developers loving minigames, most mandatory to advance the storyline and repeated at times. One that requires the stylus near the end, in particular, enraged me. Players can also accidentally switch between the Mario brothers and Bowser, given the proximity of the 3DS’s face buttons. Furthermore, while the primary storyline features detailed in-game maps, they aren’t wholly foolproof, with some passageways to other chambers not even indicated, leading to the player losing themselves at times and having to consult online guides. A redeeming aspect is that the game menus are easy to navigate, but interaction could have used a greater reevaluation.

Returning composer Yoko Shimomura’s soundtrack, however, is good as always, with most characters having their own squeaky voices that are fortunately skippable in most instances, although there are some common silent parts of the game.

The graphics are nearly identical to those in the 3DS rerelease of Superstar Saga, which isn’t a bad thing as they border on perfection, and many areas, like the various chambers of Bowser’s interior, contain superb design, along with character and enemy sprites that face most directions. The only real shortcoming is the lack of three-dimensional capability.

Finally, finishing both games will last players around twenty-four to forty-eight hours, with some lasting appeal (particularly in the main quest) of achieving one hundred percent when it comes to things such as digging around the world for stat-increasing beans alongside achievements in Bowser Jr.’s Journey as well. However, no New Game+ modes or narrative differences exist, and the mentioned minigames and grinding can be frustrating.

Overall, the collection has many things going for it, such as its enjoyable gameplay systems, humorous parallel narratives, superb aural presentation, pretty visuals, and reasons to play onward. However, there are issues, particularly regarding Bowser Jr.’s Journey, with the repetitive grinding necessary to make it to the end, not to mention problems with the main quest like mandatory minigames and the ease of getting lost a few times despite in-game maps. It’s certainly not the best Mario RPG of all time, but it’s far from terrible and warrants a look from fans of Mario and Nintendo games.

This review is based on playthroughs of the main game and Bowser Jr.'s Journey to their standard endings with many achievements not obtained.