Inside Story carries on the tradition of the Mario and Luigi franchise's hilarious writing, the likes of Fawful and his minion Midbus really standing out. In terms of the overall story, however, it's pretty much the same old same old. The Mushroom Kingdom is under attack, Princess peach gets abducted, and it's up to the brothers (and Bowser, the one exception this time around, as he's usual the villain) to fight back and put everything straight. While Fawful took the role as the lead villain's minion in Superstar Saga, and made only a small cameo in Partners in Time, with Inside Story he finally gets the limelight as the lead villain. The game begins with the spreading of an ailment called the blorbs, which balloons the Mushroom Kingdom's citizens to immense sizes and it's up to the brothers to set out and locate a cure. At this point Bowser steps in in an attempt to abduct the princess once again, but the brothers will have none of it and soundly defeat the Koopa King. Angry from the defeat, Bowser comes across a rather shady merchant deep in the woods and without much thought as to any possible negative side effects gobbles up a supposedly "Lucky" mushroom. What ensues is Bowser uncontrollably inhaling anything that comes in his path, and that unfortunately includes the brothers along with most of the castle staff. At this point the adventure kicks off, and finding out the rest is up to you.
Presentation
Inside Story is without a doubt the best looking installment in the series to date, making full utilization of the DS's graphics capabilities. While the game is still strictly two dimensional smoothly animated pixel art, there are nice and flashy transitional effects when entering major battles as well as some nice visuals when you perform and execute special attacks.
Gameplay
This isn't the first installment of the series on the DS, it made the jump six years ago with Partners in Time, but Inside Story is definitely the first one to truly utilize everything that the system has to offer. In Partners in Time, there was only one interactive element throughout the entire game. Inside Story, however, has too many for me to count of of the top of my head. The interactivity ranges from controlling bowser with the touch screen and the microphone in the occasional gargantuan battle between him and some structure, to performing little mini games with the brothers to assist Bowser in his quest to reclaim the kingdom as his (including initiating the aforementioned gargantuan battles). Past this interactivity, the gameplay remains true to the series' past installments. You explore the field, solve various puzzles, and engage enemies in timing-oriented turn-based combat. As usual the bros have their share of complex and timing oriented special attacks to perform, which can definitely take some time to perfect (if you've played the game, I'm sure that you're well aware of that). While some are easy to perfect right of the bat, others take quite a bit of practice, and even some luck, to perform well. While to brothers continue using the face buttons for these attacks, the newly playable Bowser utilizes the touch screen. His attacks vary from lining up and directing Bob-Ombs to tracing a line of Magikoopas to unleash their magic, and each attack is very well executed and really easy to control.
Replay Value
Previously in the series, there was very little reason to return to the game once you made a complete play through. Granted Superstar Saga had mini-games sprinkled here and there throughout the Bean Bean Kingdom, but that offered very little in terms of staying power and creating that urge to pick up the game once again. Inside Story reverses that trend, which saw essentially no real replay value past playing through the game once again in Partners in Time. Now the special moves that Mario, Luigi, and Bowser use in combat are turned into mini-games with lucrative rewards if you reach certain score. And these special moves are no piece of cake either, demanding quick reactions and a quick eye to succeed further on as the pace gets increasingly quick and frantic as you play longer and longer. Also of note, while it may seem odd and a little out of place, located somewhere in the kingdom is a character that offers a puzzle challenge to Mario and Luigi. You get rewarded for initially completing all of the puzzles, but you can come back later on and race against the clock to complete the puzzles as fast as you can.
Overall Score - 9/10
Overall, Bowser's Inside Story is without a doubt the best installment in the Mario and Luigi series. Not only does it bring far more innovation through it's excellent utilization of the DS's features, it brings an good amount of replay value and reason to come back to the game time and time again.
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