Mario and Luigi are fighting some baddies inside of Bowser.

At its heart Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is an RPG in which one follows two connected stories in the Mushroom Kingdom. The main plot-line for most of the game stars Bowser as the protagonist. Fawful, a laughing, grammar-challenged roboticist has taken over Bowser’s castle, and plans to take over the entire Mushroom Kingdom with the help of Bowser’s converted army. As part of Fawful’s plan to debilitate Bowser, he causes Bowser to inhale things uncontrollably, including Mario, Luigi, Peach, and many residents of Toadtown. When the characters arrive in Bowser’s body, they find themselves shrunken, and able to navigate and adventure within his various bodily systems.

Mario and Luigi need to help Bowser defeat Fawful from the inside, and most of the plot alternates between Bowser adventuring and fighting, while Mario and Luigi help from the inside. When Bowser needs to lift something, Mario and Luigi help power his arms; when he needs to remember something, they help put together the pieces of his mind; and when he nearly dies, they return his spark from the inside, causing him to grow to enormous size, and enabling him to crush his giant enemies.

Pursuit

Much of the game is classic RPG-style exploration and menu-based combat. In true Mario fashion, individual attacks and defenses are perfected by well-timed button mashes. Attack values can be tripled or even quadrupled by pressing the button at just the right moment, and almost all enemy attacks can by nullified with the right timing; many of them can even be turned around into an offensive maneuver.

Mario and Luigi each have their own button, while Bowser has two different buttons for different move types, requiring the player to think about the timing and type of move necessary for each attack or defense. (more…)

Fresh out of the Nintendo Press event here at E3, I feel good about the things that Nintendo is working on, but I don’t feel like it’s as new a direction as they seemed to think it was. Their slogan this year is “Everyone’s Game,” which is apt for their new programs. What they want to do is create experiences which appeal to both the casual and experienced gamers. They are focusing on creating games that require skill, but with controls and objectives that are easy enough to understand that even the most novice gamer can jump right in.

One of their best examples of this Everyone’s Game model is the Archery segment of the new Wii Sports game, Wii Sports Resort. With the new Wii Motion Plus, players will need “real skill” in archery to be able to accurately hit the target, instead of skill in learning the controls. This, I think, is the right direction. Simplifying the controls and bringing the play of the games into the “real space” will make the games more skill-intensive and more accessible at the same time.

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I can only hint at what’s being said here, but language is no barrier to understanding how freakin’ cool this is.