One of the best Mario RP Gs out there, surpassed only by the Paper Mario series.

I only have SS and Pi T, though.

One of my favorite series of games. Also one of the few RP Gs I play to completion these days.

Aside from the humor and music, I really love the animations in the series. I spent a great amount of time in Partners In Time and Bowsers Inside Story just staring at Mario and Luigi's idle batte stances (generally while listening to the music).

I think Partners In Time is my favorite installment. Inside Story was good and fun, but it's the only one I haven't played more than once. I also think Inside Story's area themes weren't as memorable as Partners (not that they weren't good; I do think Inside Story had the best battle themes, though there wasn't as much variety in that department either).

edited 27th Dec '10 8:23:30 PM by Customer

Even on it's own the mechanics are excellent, but the fact that it allows a perfect glimpse at mario's absurd world is arguably the best part of it. Alphadream's vision of the mushroom kingdom and beyond is way better than the insulting simple tales of the main games. They've got the looney-tunes esque "Made for kids but targeted to adults" feel that makes them soooo much fun. And they're hard too: Playing a saved game i notice that without my wrote memorization of enemy attack patterns i stand a good chance of getting OWNED even by random encoutners. How many RP Gs can you say that about?

I'm in the middle of playing bowser's inside story. Kinda stuck on the X-ray Bowser's insides part. Man, bowser's awesome.

edited 27th Dec '10 8:34:03 PM by ShirowShirow

Bowser's Inside Story was one of the most sublime DS games I've ever played. If a little short, but that's hardly enough to ruin it.

It's one of the only two Mario RPG series out there.

There's also Super Mario RPG.

WE DO NOT MENTION THAT ABOMINATION.

What's wrong with it?

SQUARE-ENIX AND NINTENDO WERE NEVER MEANT TO COLLABORATE.

   EVER.   

Considering elements of Mario Rpg are present in the other two series, I don't see why not. Mario and Luigi are probably a bigger successor to it than Paper Mario though  ^*

They've already collaborated again since then.

edited 27th Dec '10 9:15:58 PM by Customer

   SO? MARIO HOOPS 3-ON-3 SUCKED.   

Pretty sure that's just you.

I'm quite fond of SMRPG, and Hoops was a good time-killer.

edited 27th Dec '10 9:20:23 PM by Perseus

Indeed. Mario Hoops was actually one of my favorite Mario sports titles.

Anyways, to keep this on topic, is anyone besides me hoping that they stick with the Bowser voice they used in Inside Story? I found it was appropriate for him.

edited 27th Dec '10 9:28:05 PM by Customer

   SHOWTIME!   

Yeah, it was a pretty good voice.

Also liked the Bowser voice.

My only problem with Inside Story is that the pacing was, in a word, balls. Especially Bowser's ball move.

Well, it couldn't get any worse than his Sunshine voice (though really it was giving him spoken English phrases that was the worst part).

I regard Bowser's Inside Story as the perfect Mario fanfiction / Expanded Universe story. Never have the characters been so likable, and Alphadream even manages to undo some of the Flanderization and Character Derailment (Peach manages to actually seem like a halfway competent ruler rather than a brainless ditz). Bowser in particular, he's still that lovable idiot we've all become familiar with and he's still clearly a bad guy, but damn did that game show how utterly Badass he can be. Pity his game wasn't as developed as the Bros, as I would have liked him to have a Gauntlet equivalent as well.

By the way, I have managed to finish my Low-Level Run of the game and got the fabled Level 17 ending. I actually required two playthroughs since the guides were wrong about being able to get it with Mario above Level 17.

Yeah. Bowser got put out of commission way too much considering he's supposed to be the star of the game and the middle part was relatively weak, but the game made up for it in the end with the awesome Peach's Castle bosses, especially the castle itself. Such a well done battle, particularly the part where in desperation both Bowser and the castle get sucked into the black holes and Bowser has to whittle down its remaining HP while constantly taking damage and facing the threat of its spikes.

edited 27th Dec '10 10:02:50 PM by Cliche

Peach has been presented as competent in all the Rpgs (well, after the first I should say) as far as I can tell. I still don't understand where this "she's a ditz" thing sprang from.

And I agree that Bowser's works better in limited burst. Not sure how much I would like his voice if his scenes weren't mostly told through text.

The expanded universe aspect of the series is another thing I like (though I'm surprised there was never a lampshade hung on how the Kingdom changes every game). And it's somewhat nice to see that not everything is so black and white as they are in the main games (not saying everything's necessarily "darker", but it's nice to see snarky Toads once in a while).

edited 27th Dec '10 10:14:45 PM by Customer

The Paper Mario series was a bit closer to the mechanics of RPG, but I'd say the story of M+L was closer.

The first game is my personal favorite, mainly because I enjoyed the Bros. Attacks more than the items of the second game (which got tedious). Never played the third game. I fondly remember breaking the final boss fight by giving Luigi the pants that enabled infinite items and spamming Mix Flowers.

I like the emphasis on skill in addition to level-grinding that all three games present. The third in particular seemed to mostly be QTE-based boss fights for Bowser.

^^ Her demeanor outside the RPG's is fairly... different, though. There's a trope for it, but I think it has a Japanese name I can't remember.

Half the humor in Super Paper Mario is in trying to match her lines with her incredibly (and increasingly) light, airy, and overly feminine voice from the games.

Humor wise, which series do you guys prefer? I.E. Paper Mario versus Mario And Luigi.

I only have PIT, which I thought was good, mostly thanks to the excellent battle system.

Good thing do, as it has many problems. Both the hub and the worlds are generic and doesn't have enough hidden nook and crannys to make it fun to explore outside of the boring Beans sidequest. NPC dialogue is sparse and not very witty. The item balance is nonexistent, with support items like the peppers being totally useless while some of the Bros. Item wreck the game wide open. And it really needed some sort of Hard mode.

Still, I very much enjoyed it.

Humor wise, which series do you guys prefer? I.E. Paper Mario versus Mario And Luigi.

The l33t Hammer Bros. in PIT are perhaps the funniest thing in the whole Mario series, but overall I'd say Paper Mario TTYD (the only one I have) was consistently funnier. Most of the humor of PIT consits of "Luigi is clumsy/something midly painful happens to him".

I am not big into RP Gs, but however I really enjoy the Mario and Luigi series. I just hope a fourth game happens. Besides that, I heard that during development on the first game that in E gadd's coffee shop Nintendo was going to have other nintendo characters appear to give you the items.

Well, [PiT] is generally considered to be the weakest game in the series.

I'm still disappointed at how they didn't use the time travel mechanic as much as they could have. Having the present serve as little more than a hub between warp points? Lame. I would've liked it if they implemented it the same way that Oracle Of Ages did: traveling back and forth through time to get to places you can't in one time period, and having things you do in the past affect the present.

edited 28th Dec '10 8:07:49 AM by CandyCrazy

Wait, how does one attain the Purple Chuckola Fruit?

As much as I love M&L, I prefer Super Mario Rpg (Plus it was the first I played).

Never played Paper Mario thougt .