Mario is Missing!

"Imagine discussing the history of the Kremlin on a gaming message board"

Introduction

Many Mario and Luigi games are usually heroic quests to save Princess Peach from the evil clutches of Bowser’s grip, and leave you with a feeling of satisfaction when you have completed the game. However, Mario is Missing!, developed by The Software Toolworks, takes all of the heroicness out, and leaves you with a repetitive, educational game. By first glance at the box and label of the game, and by the opening screens, this looked to be an excellent platform game where you would embark on a whole new adventure to save Luigi’s pal, Mario. However once I actually played the game, I quickly found out that I was mistaken.

You start off in Bowser’s castle, with six different doors to choose from. As you go through each of them, you find yourself in a city, rather than another room of the castle. But what really got me about this was that I was being taught things in each city; things taught about history and geography, which do not belong in a video game. Not many people I know enjoy learning things in a video game. I still fail to comprehend why Nintendo would want to do this.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like looking around a town for artifacts that I have to learn about…

Bowser’s “children” have stolen artifacts from cities throughout the world, and it is your job to get them back. How this gets you closer to saving Mario doesn’t really make any sense to me. Throughout each city you visit, you encounter five people that you can talk to in which you can get hints to where you are in the world. However, they NEVER give you a straight answer. If you are in Rome, and you ask one guy where you are, he will reply with “You might need a suit, because this country is shaped like a boot”. Why do I all of a sudden need a suit? Anyway, this could pose a problem too because if some 7 year old kid is playing the game, they might not figure out where they are. Unfortunately, you actually need this information to essentially get out of that city and back to Bowser’s Castle. This leads into another one of my problems concerning this game. Exiting the city can be a real pain if you are playing the game for the first time. I found myself wondering around the city for a half-hour before I figured out you had to go to your “Globulator” and identify which city you are in. Once again, if a younger kid is playing this, they could get lost and confused.

Your main objective in the game is to find three artifacts that are missing from important landmarks in each city. You also come across the familiar Koopa Troopa enemies in this game, which hold the artifacts you are to find. Since there are only three artifacts to find and numerous Koopa Troopas throughout the city, you have to go wondering around jumping on Koopas and hoping they leave behind an artifact, which can get very tedious after a while. However, this has to be done in every city, which makes the game, as a whole, extremely repetitive, considering there are around twenty-four cities in the game. Get comfortable, because you’ll be sitting down doing the same thing over and over again for quite a while.

A test outside of school is not cool

Once you obtain the three artifacts, you must go to the three information kiosks and give a specific article back. But the kiosk person, who coincidentally looks like Princess Peach, says you have to prove that the artifact isn’t a fake, so she makes you take a quiz on the landmark the artifact is pertaining to. Yay! More memorizing of useless facts! The quiz is two to three questions long and you can find the answers by reading the newsletter about why some artifact is missing from a particular landmark. If you happen to get one question wrong, you have to wonder around for 1-2 minutes until you can take the test again, which can really get on your nerves and make you actually work to memorize those facts. I don’t know about you, but that is something that I would not want to do after six hours of school.

Now keep in mind that you must do this three times in each level, and since there are approximately 24 levels, you will, if the math is done correctly, have to take a quiz 72 times. That is more of a chore than having fun. If you enjoy mindless wandering and taking many quizzes outside of school, than, I guess, this is the game for you. However, this game isn’t all bad…

Great, I’m invincible! Wait…is that a good thing?

This is one of my major gripes with the game. No matter what you do in this game, you cannot get hurt. If you ever come into contact with a Koopa while walking down a street, it will just simply walk right through you. Furthermore, when you reach the bosses of the dungeons, all they do is run back and forth in the room. There is no unique pattern present in the game that each boss uses on you, like in Super Mario World. All you have to do is jump on their heads three times. With uniqueness left out of the game in this section, coupled with Luigi being invincible leaves you with a very unchallenging game. I don’t care what age group this is aimed to, without challenge, there is no real point in making the game.

I don’t always like dwelling on the negatives…

The graphics may be the only strong point of this game. They are not that bad at all, consisting of basically the same graphics as Super Mario World, which are one of the best for the SNES. The foregrounds for each city are well done, with colors and the actual make of the building fit with the city in which you are located. However, the buildings are constantly repeated throughout each street in the town, leaving variety out of the picture. The backdrops are also nice, with a sort of dull look to them, which is great because it sets the foreground apart from the background. Also, whenever you are coming up to one of the three landmarks of the city, in the background you can see the actual landmark. Although the landmark may not look correct, it was still a nice touch. The characters in the game also look nice, with no real distortions at all. Once again, they all look like people from Super Mario World, which does help this game.

Sound is not really a problem in this game. There is some cheerful music when you are wandering the streets of any town, but what is clever is that there is music playing that goes along with what city you are in. For example, if you are in China, some nice samurai music will be playing in the background. Sound effects are not all that bad either. When you jump on a Koopa Troopa, they make an explosion sound which is clear enough for you to tell what it is. Also, whenever Luigi runs to another street, a small sound is heard, like a strong wind blowing through the air. Hopefully one could figure out that this sound was made to show that Luigi was running fast. Now I am not saying the sound is perfect, but that it is one of the stronger points in this game, along with the graphics, and is still good considering it is on the SNES.

Replayability: Sorry, not present here

This game has a replay factor of 0. Once I finished this game, I had no desire to play it again. I mean, who would want to go through more mindless wandering to find the same artifacts, learn about them again, and take the same quiz on it. It would just boggle my mine to see someone playing this again. Also, the playing time is very low, with it being only about 3-4 hours the first time through. Actually it would probably be the same the second time through because there is so much wandering to be done. There is no way to escape this, leaving the game boring after about 20 minutes of playing time.

Rent or Buy?

Well, since not many places have SNES games to rent nowadays, the only option that you would have is to buy the game. But is it worth it? The answer to that is no. If you bought this game at a garage sale, if I were you, I would demand my dime back. This game is not worth it at all.

Review Summary

PROS

- Graphics are not bad at all
- Sound isn’t the best, but is certainly a pro to this game

CONS

- A LOT of wandering, which results in a boring game
- Have to take quizzes on historical information
- Cannot get hurt
- Challenge is not present

Conclusion

Mario is Missing! is a game that does not live up to the standard of normal Mario games. It involves mindless wandering in cities around the world, trying to find artifacts. The graphics and sound are there, but where is the gameplay? The makers of the game, made it so that there is no possible way you can get hurt in the game, which results in having absolutely no challenge present. What is the point of a having a game made if the gamers are not challenged? The answer to this question was obviously overlooked by the makers of the game. This game could have been good, if there was an actual adventure where Luigi had to find and rescue Mario; however what we got was a waste of our time and money. It’s a pity that Nintendo has to have their trademark logo slapped on this plastic rubbish that we call a ‘video game’.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 05/19/03, Updated 05/19/03