Revisiting this gem of a game recently and I still love it. Some minor issues out of the way: the tutorials early on are obnoxious and there's no way to get through them fast. There are some annoying enemy types. The one thing I also never liked is even if you go to the same area bowser is in as the bros, he is nowhere to be seen. I get WHY this happens, but it just felt off. Finally, I never liked using the mic. Mine broke years ago so I could never get past the first giant battle.

Ok so why is this game amazing? First of all, the way it utilized both screens to separate the playable characters is brilliant. It's practical and flavorful at the same time. There's a clear vision here presentation wise and it's a knockout. Having Bowser in the story is the real appeal and it adds a really fresh new spin on the franchise. Unintentionally working together with the antagonist is just such a fun premise and they run with it. The setting in his body gives way for many creative set pieces.

The combat is perfectly tuned. And switching to Bowser is done at just the right moments to avoid repetition. Theres tons of side content that's worth doing and it feels rewarding. The music is excellent. Tons of fun mini games. Good levels of customization and unlockables to power up the characters. And it's worth it to explore old areas with new powers.

So much to love and so much going on here. This is one of the best DS games ever and the best Mario RPG ever. A classic that I will come back to for many many years to come.

There's a ton I could praise about this game: the music, the spritework, the combat, the writing, etc. But the thing that really sticks out to me is how well it does Bowser. Not only is he funny and a great main character, but the game does everything in its power to make him feel like a playable boss. He has free heavy-hitting and AOE attacks, his stats are high, and he straight-up tramples enemies the bros would have trouble with.

TTYD might usurp it once I play the remake later this year, but for the time being, this is my favorite Mario RPG. It does a ton right and very little wrong, and there are enemies called Stonk and Sneed. If that doesn't convince you of this game's quality, I don't know what will.

While personally not my favorite Mario & Luigi, I heavily respect it. An interesting, potentially gross take on literally being inside Bowser's body. It's done very well though, with the trademark eccentric humor that AlphaDream is known for. Just getting to play as Bowser makes it an instant majesty, and Bowser's brawns-over-brains forthrightness and arrogance makes for the setup of some truly hilarious jokes. If I were to critique it, it would simply be that the giant-Bowser battles often dragged on a little too long, making them cumbersome to have to repeat. Another critique would be that the locations of the world map itself I found to be a little dull, for example there is only one major town in the game - and I didn't find locations like Plack Beach or Dimble Woods to have much exciting landmarks like interesting buildings to explore, or just general landmarks. I think this may be to the limitations of Bowser as a playable character, which limits explore-ability a little bit due to the limits of his abilities (for example, Luigi going below gates like the Bros. could do in this game and Superstar Saga). Finally, I found the game was a bit too frugal on giving out experience points, and maybe a bit too heavy on the amount of enemies - I found it kind of took a long time to level up. Overall though, genuinely and generally a joy to play. I might just go on an AlphaDream binge now!

there are pipes in the mushroom kingdom that lead to the inside of bowser's body. there's one at the toad town mall. What are we suppose to think of this.

BIS is good. It's got a fun core gimmick thats used well throughout the game (swapping between Bowser in the overworld and M&L inside his body).

There's not much really going on under the hood combat wise outside but thats kinda M&L thing. You aren't doing much outside of using whatever your highest cost bro move and dodging attacks, but honestly its fun to press button and there's interesting attack patterns from enemies and bosses so who am I really to complain. Some bosses do have their own mechanics to keep you from just Pressing Highest Damage Skill but also pressing big damage skill also worked just as well.

If anything I wish they had gone harder with boss mechanics. Some bosses had cool thins like Bowser Swallows Boss > Swiches to M&L > Counter attacking well as M&L launches boss out > boss gets stunned giving bowser multiple rounds of free attacks, but not enough bosses did stuff like this in my opinion.

I also hated all the giant bosses, but thats less of an actual boss problem and more of I Fucking Hate Using DS gimmicks. Stop making me blow into my mic. I swear my stylus is kinda busted because I had my stylus motions just get ghosted soooo many times it drives. And this happens in a lot of things on this game, minigames that use stylus motions and shit all kinda drove me insane. It was only going back to DS/3DS that made me think I hate gameplay related console gimmicks. Please god nintendo if you can hear me no more stupid console gimmicks for switch 2, i really enjoyed that the switch 2 was just a console and i played it on my television and thats it.

Obviously theres nothing to actually write story wise its a fuckin mario game but i do like Bowser being able to talk a lot. Love that guy. They should stop being mean to him. The game has some great sprite work; I THINK i like this game's sprite work more than the remake's art style but i'd be lying if I said the remake was ugly.

Funny, looks nice, cool core gimmick, main gameplay is pretty shallow but pressing a button with a right timing to do bonus damage or dodge damage is one of life's simplest pleasures, and I fucking hate doing stupid DS console gimmicks. Give it a shot, and dont think about how the remake bombed so hard it sank alphadream almost instantly.

La concha de la lora este juego.

Esto era ser dificil. Enemigos con patrones, niveles, equipamiento, bosses, mare meua. Y lo peor de todo es que hay hasta un secreto antes de la ultima batalla si tienes el maximo nivel.

Ciertamente, esta guapo meterse dentro de bowser.

This is the most memory-filled M&L game for me. So many wacky characters, great writing, and you can go inside Bowser?! Awesome.
I used to think that RPGs "just wasn't my genre" but looking back at it they were TOTALLY my thing.... if it had Mario on it. I had this, Partners in Time, Paper Mario 64 and TTYD... what a liar.
It looks like I played the wheels off of it too - one file has Mario and Luigi both level 30, Bowser level 28. another file has 12.5 hours, all on level 19. There was probably another file too, judging my my 3DS time count of 55 hours.