Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story was released for the Nintendo DS this year and is the third entry in the Mario & Luigi series. It is, of course, another venture into making a Mario RPG, though I feel the Mario & Luigi series is a bit more RPGish and more in tune with the classic great game that was Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, than the Paper Mario series.

The plot of the game is typical Mario fare. Well, typical Mario & Luigi fare, anyway. A strange disease called the Blorbs begins spreading amongst the residents of Mushroom Kingdom, causing them to swell up to, well, orbs. Bowser, wanting to defeat Mario and kidnap Princess Peach (as always), buys a strange mushroom from a strange vendor, which causes him to swell up to massive size and swallow just about the entire kingdom, including the game's titular heroes. Both of these events are linked to Fawful, an amazingly funny recurring villain in the Mario & Luigi series, who is also after Princess Peach so he can obtain the Dark Star, a source of great evil. Blah blah blah.

For about half the game, you play as Bowser, walking around the overworld map from an overhead view and trying to reclaim his castle, which Fawful has taken over. For the other half, you play as Mario and Luigi inside Bowser's body in a 2-D platformer setting, exploring his workings and aiding him in tasks. Each portion has its own unique controls and battle tactics, Bowser getting the X and Y buttons as well as the stylus at times, and Mario and Luigi getting the A, B, and shoulder buttons.

This works in interesting ways. In an early level taking place inside Bowser, you need to control Bowser and drink water in order to raise or lower platforms for Mario and Luigi. In another portion, Bowser has eaten too much so Mario and Luigi must complete a digestion minigame. In Bowser battles, you can inhale certain enemies which Mario and Luigi then fight for added experience.

The battles are all timing and button presses, which keep things fresh. Every attack can be dodged or countered, every enemy has a strategy to beat. It's not the typical RPG choose-attack-and-hit-A style. Travel consists of charging, spin jumping, using the environment, switch puzzles, and everything else you can think of, always keeping you on your toes.

As already mentioned with Fawful, the game is funny. It's really funny. The cutscenes are funny, as is the animation. The characters are just interesting, and the story has just enough silliness to it. Also, it's Nintendo poking fun at themselves, as they tend to do in their Mario RPGs. There are references to old NES-era Engrish, jokes about Wii Fit, and of course jokes about the constant struggle between Bowser and Mario, as well as no one caring about Luigi.

My first complaint is that for all the wonderful cut scenes and tutorials, they go on way too long. Especially the tutorials. It wouldn't be a problem if you could skip them or speed them up, but if I know that I need to press A and B to jump as Mario and Luigi the first time you tell me, I don't need to see four more demonstrations. Also, one of the stylus-controlled minigames is incredibly fickle, your stylus motions not having as much an effect on what's supposed to happen as you'd like to think.

So, all in all, it's a fabulous game and I almost couldn't enjoy it more. That said... I pretty much can't recommend it to anyone with just about any disability. I'm sorry, Nintendo and AlphaDream. This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.

Remember the awesome battle system? If you have trouble distinguishing red and green... good luck. Some enemies are red or green depending on who they're going to attack. Others shoot projectiles and you won't know who they're coming toward. You can get by most of the time by attempting to dodge as both brothers simultaneously, but that doesn't always work. Not only that, but where you don't need to see those colors, you need to rely on audio cues.

Those amazingly fun minigames I was talking about? More of the same, and even worse. Audio cues and red and green projectiles everywhere. In fact, most of the red and green projectiles you need to hit with your own red and green projectiles. I'd say this is a lot of red and green, but it is the Mario Bros.

Two positive notes before I get into even more negatives is that all the dialogue and instructions are in text on the screen. Another positive is the few times where you need to use the stylus, the game gives you as much time as you need to switch to it and position everything as you need it.

The game is not so forgiving with any other timing though. And when the timing is for navigating with the control pad, switching character action selection with the trigger button, and performing it with the main A and B buttons, sometimes in an increasingly hard rhythm... well, you can see where I'm going with this.

So, there you have it. An incredibly fun, clever, innovative, and interesting threequel and the best Mario role playing game since Legend of the Seven Stars. I find it hard to put down, and am challenged and engaged by the battles and puzzles alike. I would love to recommend it but just be aware that it most definitely isn't what would be considered a very accessible game.