here's no question about it. Mario games dominated the 1990s. If you were a kid that grew up during that time, chances are you have played one of the various Mario titles. The majority of the praise usually goes to classic hits such as Super Mario 64 and Super Mario World. Unfortunately, "Mario is missing" tends to be forgotten and for good reason.
Unfortunately for Luigi, his first crack at his own game comes in the form of an educational mess that has left a smudge on the impeccable collection of Mario titles. This 1992 title was first released on the Super Nintendo and then later on the NES. This Mario game sends Luigi across the globe to acquire stolen artifacts from Bowser before King Koopa can sell all the items to buy endless hair driers, melt Antarctica and flood the entire earth.
Gameplay
Luigi travels from city to city answering riddles and generic trivia about monuments and history, all while stomping on any and every Koopa. By the way, the Koopas can't hurt you. It seems as if their only purpose in the game is to drop random items. In addition to the trivia questions, items can be turned in at information centers. If you guess the wrong answer, the information center closes for a moment, or until you harass the trivia lady over and over. I get that the questions are supposed to make the user retain information and learn something, but most people will merely guess their way through to get to the actual game portion. Unfortunately for those people, that's pretty much the extent of the game.
Like the Koopa’s, the boss’ are also not able to damage Luigi. Basically your defeating stages on god mode. There seems to be no inkling of any sort of difficulty or fun to be had for that matter. Maybe this was supposed to be a filler title for the time being, or maybe the creators at Nintendo genuinely thought that this game would be a hit. Regardless, Mario was very fortunate to be missing from this game title, as Luigi was left to take the brunt of the blame for this being such a horrid game. Try your best to forget about this title and just remember the good times. I know we will.
A push for Profits?
During the 1990's Nintendo's golden egg was the Mario and Luigi franchise which begs the question - Was this release simply a cash grab?
It's a valid question to be asking considering many companies that churn out numerous profitable franchises have followed this same strategy. Avengers, Marvel, Transformers - all of these titles are guilty of bombarding their audiences with unwarranted and sometimes unwanted movies. You can't blame them for riding the wave of their success, but like any other company who has done the same, there are just some titles that become forgotten, and for good reason.
