That's right, kiddies! Nintendo actually licensed a game starring Luigi before Luigi's Mansion came out on the Nintendo GameCube! Way back in 1993, Nintendo trusted Software Creations to make a Mario game - thing is, it was actually starring Luigi. And like in Luigi's Mansion, your goal is to save Mario. However, unlike Luigi's Mansion, Luigi has to endure a journey across the world, collecting artifacts and returning them to their rightful place. You see, this here game is an educational game, also known as "edutainment" by some folks. Luigi is going to be learning about the history of many places, including that of Egypt, Japan, and even good ol' crazy Russia! Personally, I love my history classes at school, and I always enjoy learning facts and information about past cultures, as well as modern ones. While that concept alone would make me want to give this game a 10, the biggest problem with the game is the fact that it isn't fun and is actually kind of boring.
You see, the game starts off when King Koopa (that's Bowser, for you tykes who don't know your gaming history) plants a castle in the real world - our world, planet Earth. He erects this castle in Antarctica, where there is practically no civilization at all, excluding the few and far polar scientistsstudying the climates and penguins (but aren't anywhere near the castle at the moment). From this newly built castle, Bowser sends his men forth across the world to steal parts of famous landmarks. With this, Bowser hopes to sell them back to their respective countries for enough money to construct a hair-dryer like device that can be used to melt both the ice caps, flooding the planet and drowning all those who chose not to live in the mountains. With this, the Mario Bros. and Yoshi find his castle and arrive at the entrance when a trapdoor springs from underneath Mario, tossing him downward into who-knows-where. Now that Mario is out of the picture, Bowser can resume his chaos. Or can he...? Luigi enters the castle, hoping to do Mario's dirty work for him and rescue the red plumber, as well. As Luigi, your job is to go to several cities and reclaim artifacts, returning them to their respective countries so Bowser can't sell them off.
Now then, you can't really say you were expecting a lot out of a Mario title, since the franchise was never known for their amazing storylines. However, even a long-time Mario fan like myself finds Bowser's whole concept farfetched - first off, what exactly does he have against Earth? Did we offend him somehow? Plus if you consider the fact that his creator lives on Earth and that Bowser is going to drown him, it seems a little extreme. Think about it, that's like a Christian going up to heaven and beating God with a seven-iron. You don't just beat up your creators, let alone kill them - after all, they brought you into this world, and they can take you out of it. But putting this matter of creators aside, I don't want to start another Crusade or anything... the story is overall not a very good one, even by Mario's standards. No thank you, Software Creations - I'll stick with my princess-rescuing fairy tales.
But anyway, since Luigi is going to have to be searching for artifacts, he's going to have to travel to various cities to find them. After all, the Koopas haven't had time to regroup at the castle, and they're still wandering around in the cities they raided. Using the warp doors in Bowser's castle, Luigi must travel to different cities and take the artifacts from the Koopas, and from there return them to the nice lady behind one of the three information kiosks in each city (who looks a lot like Princess Peach, no?). To get the artifacts, Luigi must stomp on the Koopas and merely hope that he or she was carrying one of the artifacts. Some levels have a lot of Koopas, and making this happen will become tedious. Now this could've been a little more fun if the Koopas could actually hurt you. The shelled monsters simply pass through Luigi, making our green machine invincible by default. The levels have no power-ups to enhance Luigi, no skills to learn, and no real amusement at all. In short, getting the artifacts just isn't fun. A suggestion to make it fun would be to possibly give Luigi a health bar, and to actually have him get hurt. Adding to this could've been power-ups, healing items, and maybe even make the boss fights actual boss fights. Yes, this game has boss fights! However, there is no strategy at all to them; Luigi just has to stomp their heads six times to win. And like the regular henchmen, bosses can't hurt you. With that said, they don't even fight - they just run around the arena mindlessly until Luigi beats them. I was very disappointed with this, and it only made the game more depressing, if not trying to prove how little, if any, fun it contains.
Even though the game isn't fun, Software could've been slick and let the player finish early, hoping they didn't realize such a fault. However, Luigi moves so dang slow, even while running, it's hard not to notice. This is where Yoshi comes in. You see, on your pause menu, you have something called the Globulator; from here, you will see a Super Mario World-themed version of our global map. Yoshi will be sitting at the bottom of the map, in Antarctica. Once you figure out where you are (you don't get told where you're going), you can control Yoshi and send him to the city you're in to increase Luigi's speed considerably by having him ride the dinosaur. However, if you're like me and have to go for the full 100% for each level, by which I mean talking to everybody about who, what, and where - it still moves amazingly slow. Some levels have complex amounts of roads and turns, while others are simple and straight-forward. However, in each city, you'll find five people wandering thestreets, even in this chaos. That really defies logic, especially since these people often act as if nothing has happened. I mean, think about it: if you saw mutant turtle people wandering the streets and stealing parts of landmarks, don't you think the National Guard or something would show up and deal with them? Wouldn't people be running everywhere, screaming about aliens or sewer mutants or something? I mean, Luigi doesn't even have to do anything; he could've just sat back and watch militaries across the world deal with the Koopas through artillery and machine gunfire... Really, making a game where the N.Y.P.D./Red Army/Bobby Officers launch assaults on the Koopas for the artifacts would've been more fun.
Another aspect of this game can be noticed through the Globulator (mentioned earlier). Excluding Bowser's Castle in Antarctica, Yoshi could've wandered to 49 real cities (including 16 in Europe, 9 in Asia, and even one in Iceland). However, having played through the entire game, Luigi only travels to 15 of them. I was really disappointed by this, since those other cities were just there for "filler", especially considering that some of them actually have quite a history to them, as well as their own landmarks. The fact they're skipped over shows just how much Software tried to gather on world history. However, the amount you can learn in the cities actually available is impressive. This can range from learning of how Ivan the Terrible ordered the construction of St. Basil's Cathedral (often mistaken for as the Kremlin) in 15th century Moscow to the structure of the TransAmerica Tower in San Francisco and how the tower's base is made of a rubber-like structure, making it the safest place during an earthquake. Everyone might be willing to like learning these facts if Software actually made it any fun, but instead the lack of fun makes for more of an insult to history. The game was able to keep a history buff like me enticed soley for the sake of absorbing knowledge, but when it was stopped short, I was obviously upset, especially considering they could've added more. You see, the bosses Luigi fights are really the Koopa Kids - you have to take them on after you clear all the cities in a level (there are five per level). However, Luigi only fights three of the Kids: Ludwig, Lemmy, and Roy. If all seven Koopa Kids had levels, Luigi could've had 35 cities to explore. And if Bowser had his own level (oddly enough, Luigi doesn't fight him in this game...), that could've made for 40 levels. Forty different learning experiences, and we only got fifteen! Valuable knowledge wasted... shameless!
As far as these cities in general go, they are graphically good. Not great, but good. The foreground has some nicely detailed homes and walls - some even with words on them in their own language - but after Luigi crosses all the streets in that city, you learn that Software wasn't too creative with their avenues and boulevards, as all the streets look alike. With that said, Luigi is forced to take out his map (which he oddly enough starts off with in each city without having to buy it off of someone) a few times too many, just to make sure you got him where you want him to be. However, while the cities may look repetitive, Luigi will get to take a photo of each landmark he saves. The photos (which can be viewed in the Photo Album, located on the pause screen menu) themselves looked great and very much like their realistic counterparts, albeit some of the backgrounds were very bland in the photos, and sort of derails the structure itself. All the Mario sprites were taken from Super Mario World, so that's good, I guess... albeit a little too unoriginal; whatever happened to customization? Software, apparently, has never heard of the Shy Guy Kingdom... but the game was made in 1993, so I guess they couldn't go there...
The music is mostly remixes from Super Mario World. Again, shameless unoriginality, but the songs aren't that bad. I mean, they can even fit in with certain places. For example, upon entering Beijing, you'll hear an oriental version of Donut Plains being played on the biwa lute. If you go to Kenya, you'll hear a tribal-esque version of the same song. Going to Moscow will give you a booming, quick-paced version of it. While most of the remixes in the cities you visit are mostly from Donut Plains (real original), there are also remixes from the Starman's theme, the credits music, and Yoshi's Island from Super Mario World. While it will tend to get repetitive, the music actually isn't too bad, but the orchestration could've been slightly better. Only slightly... however, it's still good to an extent where I can enjoy it.
All in all, this game could've been good if the developers had actually made it fun. However, because of the fact that Luigi can't get hurt, there are no secrets to really behold, nor is there any sign of actual gameplay innovation, Mario is Missing falls behind as one of the worst Mario games ever made. The game would only catch a few bucks by today's standards, but even then, you may want to reconsider what it is you're buying... After playing it, it's very difficult to want to actually finish it, let alone replay it.
Scores
====================
Story - 2 (Horrible)
Game Play - 1 (Abysmal)
Educational Value - 8 (Excellent)
Visuals - 7 (Good)
Audio - 7 (Good)
Replay Value - None
Estimated Value - $10 or less
Overall - 4 (Sub-par)
While this game might be good for history buffs, I find it very hard to recommend. Although the game did have some good if not repetitive visuals, some decent music, and an great educational value, the game just isn't fun. In the words of another reviewer of this game (on another site), "There's nothing wrong with the game, except it's not fun." That's possibly the most accurate thing to say about the game in one sentence. Looks like Nintendo didn't know that fun was supposed to be an important aspect in terms of making an edutainment video game. Obviously, it is... better luck next time, fellas. If there'll ever be a next time, to be exact.
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