Mario is Missing!

"The fun is missing!"

And now...a game that I had been really excited about. But unfortunately, I was let down.

Story: 5/10

When I first saw what this game was about, I was psyched! Mario was the one that was captured this time, and Luigi had to go save him? AWESOME. But it wasn't because I had anything against Mario (he was actually my favorite character at the time), I just thought that the idea was really cool. Imagine, the main hero is out of the picture this time, and one of the supporting characters has to save the day. At the time, I thought I was in for a ride. I was even willing to look over the "educational" part of the game!

Unfortunately, I wasn't. Sure Mario was captured, but there's no "pressure" to save him or anything. No little cut scenes with text, like in Super Mario World. And it's not like you cut to the chase by going through the castle and hunting Bowser down. Instead, you go to a bunch of different cities and stop Koopas from stealing historical items. Meh? After awhile, I started to forget that Mario was actually missing and that I was trying to save him.

Graphics: 5/10

The graphics are mostly recycled sprites from Super Mario World. The ones that aren't, such as the civilians and buildings, are really nothing to write home about. But at least they don't look like they belonged on the old NES.

Sound: 8/10

Okay, the sound isn't so bad. The music consists of a bunch of remixes of the songs from Super Mario World, but I actually like some of them. The "boss" theme and the Moscow remixes in particular.

Controls: 10/10

No need to worry about the controls here. You won't be fumbling for buttons or having a tough time to stop Luigi here. But in a way, the controls are a moot point. And that is because you can't die! Even if the game had horrid controls, it's not like it'd matter anyway; you won't get punished for it.

Gameplay: 2/10

Ugh...where to begin?

Why don't we start with the biggest reason this gets a low score: THERE IS NO CHALLENGE. You can't get hurt, and you can't die. In the levels there is a timer, but it's only there to determine the time bonus at the end of each stage. If your timer runs out, nothing happens. Now I may like a beatable game as much as the next person, but this is ridiculous!

Now for the rest of the game. Okay, first you start off in Bowser's castle where you get locked in a dungeon with a bunch of doors. Each door leads to a different major city on Earth. Sometimes the city you wind up in is really obvious, sometimes it isn't. Fortunately, you can talk to people on the street and get a clue about where you are. You'll need this for later.

Anyway, when you first start a level and step off the pipe a Pokey will come up out of the pipe and block your way out. Of course, if you jump on the pipe while the Pokey's still in it, nothing will happen to you. You'll just notice that you can't go back down the pipe. Running around the street are a bunch of Koopas. If you run into one, no big deal; they can't hurt you. Out of the thirty or so Koopas, only three have stolen historical artifacts on them. Once you get an artifact, you need to find its information booth. If you take the artifact to the wrong place, the teller will get mad. Fortunately, there's pamphlets you can read at each booth to make sure you're at the right place. You can also talk to the people to get more info on the object you just got. When you go to return an artifact, the teller will ask you a couple questions to make sure you don't have a counterfeit. If you answer the questions correctly, the teller will take the object off your hands. The answers to questions are in the pamphlets I mentioned earlier.

Once you return all three artifacts to the right booths, you need to call Yoshi over. To do this, you need to know what city you're in. Then call up the World Map and move Yoshi to the right city. If you guessed right, Luigi will now be on Yoshi's back. Once you have Yoshi, go back to the pipe you entered from and the Pokey will duck back into the pipe. You can then exit the level. Note that you can actually call Yoshi at any time in the level. I usually did because Yoshi walks faster than Luigi. However if you try to leave the level without returning all three artifacts, the level won't be completed, and you'll have to start all over again.

Once you finish all the cities in the dungeon, the boss door will open and one of the Koopa Kids will run in. But all they do is run back and forth and remember: you can't die! Just jump on their heads a bunch of times until they die. This is only time consuming, because they are pretty fast. Then Luigi will advance to the next dungeon...to do the same thing all over again! Only with different towns. And since there's no challenge, the subsequent levels and bosses are just as easy as the ones in the first dungeon!

After three or so of these dungeons, you get to fight Bowser! Or do you? Unfortunately, I can't spoil that part for you. But don't worry...you ain't missin' anything!

This gameplay wouldn't have actually been so bad if there was a challenge factor. Being able to lose lives and lose the game isn't always a bad thing. And maybe if it had stuff like power ups and a variety of enemies like in the other Mario games, maybe this game would've actually been fun, even with it's educational stuff. I realize they probably wanted to make this for the little kids, but...I was a little kid when I played this, and even then I thought it should've been more challenging!

Breakdown!

Good points:
-At least I learned something.
-It's not a pile of glitches like Action 52.
-At least there's a password option to save you some time.

Bad points:
-Can get boring and repetitive. Very boring and repetitive.
-Mario's not the only thing that's missing; the challenge is missing too!
-Edutainment not integrated very well at all. Other than opening the boss door, what does finding all those lost artifacts have to do with rescuing Mario, anyway?
-Disappointing execution of what would be a very interesting plot. Just what the heck is UP with that ending?!

What should you do?

Don't bother. If you're morbidly curious, borrow it from somebody who has it, or just emulate it. Don't waste your money renting or buying it.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 07/25/04