Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

From: AlphaDream/Nintendo

ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief, mild cartoon violence)

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is, in a few words, a whole lot more of the same stuff that comprised the first two Mario & Luigi games.

And that, frankly, is perfectly fine. AlphaDream's Mario & Luigi games are practically a genre unto themselves with the way they infuse traditional role-playing game conventions with an extensively satisfying element of action, and it's hard to object to another chapter of what has emerged as the funniest and smartest piece of storytelling ever to emerge from Nintendo's extensive library.

The basics of the game should ring familiar to Mario & Luigi vets. You control Mario and Luigi at the same time, and most of the action outside of battle consists of helping the brothers get from story point to story point through a mix of puzzle solving and traditional Super Mario-style platforming.

The battle system follows the same rules as those of a traditional turn-based role-playing game, but most of the attacks, dodges, and counterattacks play out in real time, as in a traditional action game. Every attack - be it the classic jump attack or a tag-team maneuver involving both brothers - has an extra measure of effectiveness if you time its execution perfectly. Figuring the ins and outs of all this stuff is, once again, a ton of fun.

Bowser's Inside Story, for its part, raises the series bar in both the game-play and storytelling departments by giving the brothers' arch nemesis a share of the starring role. Bowser exists in two forms - as a third playable character and, as the title implies and the blissfully absurd story explains, a living dungeon - and both roles inject the game with far more freshness than appearances would otherwise suggest.

For starters, Bowser has his own bull-in-a-china-shop style of getting around, which lends new dimensions to the action that plays out between battles. His brutish fighting style naturally gives way to a wholly unique set of combat tactics, including some brilliant touch-screen tricks in which he can mobilize Goombas and other minions to do his bidding. The trajectory of the story line has the brothers working in tandem with Bowser, and the game comes up with some pretty clever ways (no spoilers) to have them work together despite being at odds and in wholly different places and predicaments.

But Bowser's most memorable contribution to the game may be to its story, which ranks among the sharpest and most infectiously funny sagas to grace a game all year. Mario & Luigi games have never been hurting for great characters and fantastic dialogue, but Bowser's crabby, perennially confused but deliriously proud turn here is pure gold from start to finish. The game occasionally gets a little too wordy for its own good - especially when it comes to detailing the basics of play to players who already know what to do - but when there's so much good stuff to experience, a few dry bits are more than acceptable.