So there you are as a kid, minding your own business at the video rental place, and hey look, a new Mario game to rent! Awesome, right?
Yeah, until you bring it home and realize that this game is… well, let’s just say it’s not your average Mario game. For starters, you play as Luigi. Which is fine and all, except that the entire premise of the game is to travel around random real-world cities, collect vaguely-historical items, and take them to Princess Peach (I called her the “I Lady” as a kid because she sat in a booth that had a big letter “I” on it) so she could quiz you on… I dunno, educational stuff.
Now, I have nothing wrong with educational games. I think they can be very effective ways to get people to learn. Here’s the thing though; I don’t think I learned anything from this game, except that it was pretty dumb. I mean, if you’re gonna be an educational game, at least have rivers to ford or numbers to munch. You know?
Anyways, my only memory of “Mario is Missing” is that it was a disappointing game that involved talking to the “I Lady” a disproportionate number of times. If it taught me anything, I certainly don’t remember it.
Fortunately we can all be comforted by the fact that Nintendo had nothing to do with this game; it was made by an outside company. And we all know what sort of things happen when outside companies have fun with Nintendo characters:
P.S. Turns out there was a sequel-of-sorts to this game, called “Mario’s Time Machine”. Creepy Bowser/Ganon Hybrid is disappoint:
http://i471.photobucket.com/albums/rr77/baskermannen/Weegee.png
@ linkskywalker – only in the PC version to be fair… he looked fairly normal in the SNES version.
That does sound quite terrible :<
“Congratulations! You did it…but in the wrong order.”
WTF? Either you did it, or you didn’t do it.
If the result is what counts and the order is irrelevant and you succeeded, then you did it.
If both result and order are equally important and you did it in the wrong order, then you didn’t do it.
There is no “Well, yeah, you did it, but you did it wrong.” Way to stifle creativity, Mr. Bowser-Ganon.
Oh man, I loved Mario is Missing. Like many other kids, I was disappointed to find that the Mario I brought home was not what I expected, but the game had its own charm. There’s no question that it was glacially paced, and presented almost no challenge to speak of (you can stomp on koopas, but they don’t hurt you, so why bother?), but I do recall learning a bit of geography from it, and it had the Koopa Kids as bosses! Nothing that has the Koopa Kids can be all bad! Also, you got to shoot Bowser out of a cannon at the end!
I liked it well enough that I eagerly snapped up Mario’s Time Machine years later, and it was a greater success on the education front– I actually recall learning quite a bit of history from it. Maybe that speaks more to the quality of my schooling that to the quality of the game though…
In any case, you missed out on something great by not playing Mario’s Time Machine, because it has the best music ever. Evidence. Listen to that intro every day for a week and I guarantee you’ll still be humming it a decade or two later. Also, you got surf for mushrooms, and that too had great music.
Oh man, and now that I’m surfing youtube I remember that Mario is Missing had some great tunes too, and judging from the number of uploads I’m not the only person who thinks so. The Rome music in particular is love.
@ Dhorvin – Haha well, maybe I just have to play it again to fully appreciate it… it has been years =X
Or maybe I have to play it again without a decade or two of nostalgia clouding my judgement to fully appreciate how bad it is… >_>