Winner of the Interactive Achievement Award for Best Portable Game of the Year, Bowser’s Inside Story is a completely unique, multi-character experience featuring mini-games, epic battles, and a hilariously-executed storyline and cast of characters. The storyline is born of the wonderfully bizarre premise that Bowser, Mario and Luigi’s most fearsome enemy since the original instalment of Super Mario Bros., has inhaled the two heroes after eating a poisonous mushroom fed to him by his own worst enemy, Fawful. For the duration of the game, Mario and Luigi’s gameplay exists inside Bowser’s stomach, while Bowser himself fights to regain his kingdom.
Bowser’s Inside Story features hilarious dialogue (Fawful was actually runner-up for GamesRadar’s Platium Chalice Award for most quotable character), accessible role-playing, and plenty of variety with its smaller puzzles and adventures. Due to the unfortunate situation that finds the Mario Bros., the gameplay is absolutely innovative and unique to the DS. Players are responsible for controlling Bowser, who stomps around on the upper screen in his typical loutish fashion, while switching often to Mario and Luigi, who are left to contend with various catastrophes in Bowser’s stomach. Negotiating between the two landscapes creates a cause/effect scenario where players’ actions with Bowser will affect what happens to the characters in his belly, and vice versa. Each succeeding level is appropriately difficult in relation to the previous levels, so players can develop their skills at a proper pace to prepare for what comes next. The game makes excellent use of certain DS features, using both screens as well as the microphone to increase the intensity of some of Bowser’s more ferocious attacks.
Image source: http://www.giantbomb.com/
Video source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW6YDv_EhnY
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