Inside is the New Outside

That is one shockingly misleading title I just spontaneously typed. This post has literally nothing to do with the new age adventurers the Indoorsmen. Except, of course, for that last sentence which, now that I think about it, is entirely self defeating. BUT NO. This post is about a fantastic little game called Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story for the Nintendo DS. It is the sequel to the Mario and Luigi series of Game Boy Advance titles which loosely followed up the revered Mario RPG. The difference between the main console Mario RPG type and the Mario and Luigi games is that the latter contains unique dual timing and button press conditions to elevate standard RPG controls. Having never actually played the two GBA games it's hard to judge their worth, but if they're anything like Bowser's Inside Story I can pretty safely say that they are bitch crackers crazy.

You may ask why I would make such an assertion. As an answer let me say that the first cutscene features a giant bloated talking mushroom crashing through a wall of his house, and that he got that way by eating mushrooms. Not crazy enough? Well then, within 10 minutes of having assumed control of Mario and Luigi you are sucked inside Bowser's body (after he ate a different mushroom given to him by a foreigner), where more talking mushrooms have set up a mini mall. If that's still not enough I'm starting to doubt your grasp on reality, but let me just add that Bowser then befriends a Frenchman made of blocks, and the Mario brother's are led throughout Bowser's body by a sentient star. Still not insane enough? Oh my God what do I have to say that will convince you? That there are pipes inside Bowser's body that lead to other preexisting pipes scattered around the Mushroom Kingdom, suggesting some sort of bizarre conspiracy? Nah, that all sounds completely rational huh?. But doesn't it also sound totally rad?

All that aside I have to say that I was struck at just how good the game looks. It's super crisp with tons of frames of animation, and a clear, colorful, 2D art direction. If I could go back in a time machine and jump out of a bush at my 10 year old Sega Genesis playing self to ask him what the future of games looked like he would probably describe something visually simlar to this. Well, he would probably scream and try to run, but several sedatives later I'm sure I could get a coherent answer out of him. Or me. You know this hypothetical is starting to bring up a lot of unsettling issues. The point is that the damn game looks great.

But that is not the only amazing thing about the game. The writing is equally superb as the graphics. Each character has a distinct way of talking, usually complete with a linguistic idiosyncrasy, or a strange grammatical structure. And the jokes throughout the journey are always fresh and above all weird. The first time I ran into a moody cellular character called an Emoglobin I couldn't believe it was game humor. Every time I got into an in-game conversation it felt like a treat because it was all so well written. Except for the plethora (yeah I wrote that) of tutorials the dialog was pert near perfect. That seems a little odd coming from a game about plumbers that can jump. Ha! Fiction.

All in all I spent about 30 hours playing a game I thought would take ten at max. And It's important to note that I was playing Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story while I was too sick to stand, eat, or keep fluids contained in my body. It was seriously that good.