THE GOOD:The different characters had different strengths and weaknesses
Good boss design, which took more than just button bashing to beat
THE BAD:
Some parts of the game were too easy
SUMMARY:
This was one of the first Mario games I'd played in years because I've never owned a Nintendo console. I was a Sega person when I was younger and after that I swapped to Sony. So any Nintendo games I play are rare nowadays. My brother got this for the Game Boy though and I played it and found the game to be very enjoyable.
You can pick to play as Mario, Luigi, Toad or Princess Peach. Each character has different statistics, which do make a difference in the game. Mario is well rounded (in more ways than one), Luigi has a high jump ability at the expense of others, Toad is very powerful but can't jump that high and Peach is low on all stats but can float down when she jumps allowing her to travel further in the air. I personally played the whole game as Mario because his average ability in everything was more than enough for me although in retrospect having a lot of jump would have helped in some parts.
I can't even remember if there was a storyline for this game but if there was I can't remember it. Basically all you have to do is get to the end of each level and ultimately beat the end boss to win the game.
One of the things that impressed me so much about this game was the way you had to do the levels. You couldn't blindly charge in through all parts of the level. At times you did need to stop for a second to see what was going on and decide when the right moment to go ahead was. Also, the bosses required you to work out what their weak spots were. One boss in particular springs to mind where you had to utilise overhead ladders to avoid some attacks was one of my favourite ones in this game. The end boss is one of the better ones I've ever seen. Not only did it take a while to navigate the last level, the end boss was no walkover. It took me a while to work out the weak spot and exploit it. Even when you do that you're only halfway there.
This game is different to other Mario games I remember playing. The fact that there are 4 characters to play as adds more life to the game. And there is actually another mode you can play which can also be played with other people via a link cable. In this mode you have to beat as many levels of enemies as you can. This mode does feature at some points in the main game and provides fun for a while to see how far you can get.
Despite the fact that I don't remember too many things being amazing in this game I did enjoy playing it. There were plenty of enemies to defeat along the way and some of the levels took a long time to get round despite the fact you could see where you wanted to go in the same screen at times. A game for Mario fans anywhere in my opinion.
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