As someone who liked Luigi over Mario, I hated how Mario seemed to always hog the spotlight from his brother Luigi. Software Toolworks apparently thought the same thing, because they decided to actually create a game where Luigi is the main character. Unfortunately, it was an edutainment game. Even worse, it was pretty bad. This is Mario Is Missing, a game that deserves to go missing for the rest of eternity.
The plot of the game is that Bowser is going to flood the world by melting down all the ice in Antarctica by speeding up the process of global warming using hair dryers he ordered from the Hafta Havit mail-order company. This storyline is like a bad episode of the Super Mario Bros cartoon if it was written by Professor Chaos. Plus, don't you think anybody in that damn company would be suspicious of someone ordering a lot of hair dryers to be delivered to Antarctica of all places? Is this company so blind to making profits that they don't care who they sell it too? The entire population of Earth can be flooded thanks to these people! But then again, trying to melt tons and tons of ice using hair dryers is very likely not to work. Also, why does Bowser need hair dryers when HE CAN FUCKING BREATHE FIRE?!
So in order to get the money to buy however many hair dryers he needs, Bowser sends his koopa army across the globe to steal artifacts and...well, that's it. I assume he's going to steal them and demand ransom money. Why he couldn't send the koopas to steal the hair dryers he needs in the first place is beyond me. But again, this is all pointless since HE CAN FUCKING BREATHE FIRE!. Anyway, the Mario Bros and Yoshi arrive at the castle, only for Mario to get captured. So now it's up to Luigi to go around the world, save the artifacts, and find Mario.
When you arrive at your location, you need to go around and stomp on koopas until one of them drops an artifact. Once you get the artifact, you have to take it to an information kiosk and they will ask you questions to prove if it's authentic. This is where the educational part comes in, and unfortunately it's not that educational. You just answer questions that already have been answered for you if you paid attention to what everybody was saying. Plus you really don't learn anything about the location you're in other then the artifacts you collect, and some of them are just downright stupid. In New York City one of the artifacts you have to collect is King Kong because it ties in with the Empire State Building. Now I understand wanting to put one of NYC's most famous buildings in the game, but couldn't they have come up with something better to collect than a giant fictional monkey? I'm probably asking too much out of these people. After all they forgot the fact that Bowser FUCKING BREATHES FIRE! When you're done you need to call Yoshi over to the location you're at so you can get back to the castle.
That's all you do throughout the whole game. Go to location, hit some koopas, answer some multiple choice questions, call Yoshi to get you out of there. There are only 15 cities in the game, and it's always going to be the same ones every time you go through that door. After every 5 cities you fight a boss, and it's not really a fight since you can NEVER get damaged. Just stomp on them several times and you move on.
What surprised me the most about Mario is Missing is that up until a few months ago I always thought it was just a lame SNES edutainment game. But then I learned it was also a lame NES and PC edutainment game! Knowing this, I wondered which of the three versions was worst then the other, so I've compiled it down into several categories to official crown which Mario Is Missing game needs to be buried in Antarctica.
Intro
Suddenly I realized why Sonic's cartoon had those educational messages at the end.
NES: Mario looks at the title of the game and seems just fine with it until he suddenly realizes what it says. This pisses him off to the point where he turns bright red and looks ready to kill the people responsible for the title when suddenly he gets kidnapped from behind by one of the koopa kids. This intro is hilarious for the fact that it's one of the few moments Mario got his ass pwned.
SNES: As Mario is looking up at the title to find out what this game is, a hole opens up beneath him and he falls through. The letters fall down as well, ready to crush him to death. Mario lands in the snow in front of the castle where Luigi and Yoshi are already waiting for who knows how long. Just when they're about to start, ANOTHER hole appears below Mario and he's kidnapped. Luigi goes into the castle to find him as Yoshi wonders what the hell just happened.
PC: Mario and Luigi are slowly walking to Antarctica and Luigi of course wants to go home instead of fighting Bowser. Damn it Luigi, this is why you don't star in any games! Along the way they exchange bad text dialogue between each other (Luigi calls Mario "M" for some reason) until they reach the castle. Mario goes in alone, and Luigi advises him to not take candy from strangers. Sounds like really pointless advice until it is shown that Mario accepted food from Bowser and got kidnapped because of it!
Most Shameful: PC Version. Words can not describe just how retarded Mario is for taking food from Bowser like that.
Graphics
Did Bowser shrink?
NES: When I first looked at Mario is Missing for the NES I thought it had to be some bootlegged title because it was using SNES graphics for some of the characters. But that is how the game actually looks like. The koopa kids or Bowser or whoever the hell they're supposed to be look bad, but everything else is pretty good for an NES game. A crappy edutainment NES game at that.
SNES: The graphics were basically copied and pasted from Super Mario World. Sounds like a cheap way to make the game, but it still looks better then some of the other crap I've seen on the SNES. However, I find it weird that the people you visit at the information kiosk all look like Peach. What the hell is she doing there?
PC: Take a look at Luigi here:
He's staring deeply into your soul...
Most Shameful: PC Version. Seriously, I think my soul is leaving my body just for starting into that thing's eyes. Not even the CD-i game looked this horrifying.
Sounds & Music
Oh Peach, you're such a dirty whore.
NES: The sounds and music in this game is actually pretty good for an NES title. Plus at one point they play the classic Mario Bros theme, so props to that.
SNES: The music isn't so bad, but it just comes off as sounding so bland and boring that you're probably better off just muting it.
PC: Fucking up in the graphics department, apparently Software Toolworks decided to make up for it by having all the characters talk (except for Luigi for some reason). Of course, following the 1990's unwritten law of "All video game voices must be done at their very worst," all the voices in this game suck. Everyone comes off sounding unnatural, mostly because they exaggerate their voices. The worst in this game has to be Princess Peach has that kind of seductive voice that sounds like the kind of whore that pops up out of a birthday cake and gives you lap dances.
Most Shameful: SNES. Why didn't the PC version get labeled most shameful? Because the thought of Princess Peach popping out of a cake and giving me a lap dance makes up for all the other horrible voices in the game.
Ending
Whiskey...Tango...Foxtrot...
NES: After beating the final koopa, Luigi grabs the key, rescues Mario, and the game ends. Goes straight to the point with no ridiculous crap happening.
SNES: After freeing Mario, Bowser shows up to fight them. Luigi, flipping the same switch that freed Mario, somehow activates a hole in the ground which Bowser falls through, and he lands oh-so-conveniently into a cannon. Bowser waves goodbye as he's shot through the roof the castle and lands face first in the snow, then freezes to death. If only he had some kind of special ability where he can create fire to prevent himself from freezing over.
PC: Luigi comes face to face with Bowser. Luigi jumps over him and rips off his shell with ease, exposing Bowser in his underwear. How did he...anyway, Luigi gets the key, and Bowser demands it back. Luigi tricks him into turning around, uses his Smash Bros taunt to kick him off, and Bowser falls to the snow defeated. At least he doesn't freeze to death. Mario is rescued, Luigi does some arm victory pump, and the three heroes leave victorious as horrible music plays during the credits.
Most Shameful: PC version. How the hell did Luigi pull off Bowser's shell like that? Do Software Toolworks not know the anatomy of a turtle?!
Winning three of the four categories, the PC Version is by far the worst of the bunch. Everything about that game is awful. The graphics are bad, the music and voices (with the exception of Peach) are bad, the intro is awful, and the ending is excruciatingly painful to watch.
If I ever see a copy of this game, I'm going to get a hair dryer and melt it.
