Retro Review: Mario is Missing (SNES Version)

By 1993, Mario was the most famous plumber in existence, having starred in a variety of celebrated platform games as well as a racing game, several animated series, and more. It was during this year, however, that Nintendo's most beloved superstar would find himself in some rather bad productions. Rest assured, not everything that involved Mario in 1993 was terrible-Super Mario All-Stars was a superb compilation-but in addition to the rather forgettable Mario Bros. movie, there was Mario is Missing, released for the PC, NES, and Super NES (this review is based on the latter version). From the title, one would initially think that this was an action-adventure type game in which it is Mario's turn to be captured, but instead, it turns out to be an educational game designed to teach children about geography. Unlike the terrific Carmen Sandiego franchise, the attempts to have kids learns about our world fail miserably here.

It seems that Bowser has somehow transported himself from the Mushroom Kingdom to the real world, and he has set up his castle in Antarctica. His diabolical plan is to melt all the snow in Antarctica and flood the entire world, though some may argue that global warming is doing just that, but at a much slower rate. Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi make it to Bowser's Castle, but no sooner do they arrive than Mario falls through a trap door and becomes Bowser's captive. Now it is up to Luigi to become the hero for a change and save Mario and the entire world before it is too late. I like the idea of Mario becoming the captive and Luigi being the hero, and Nintendo would use the same idea for Luigi's Mansion eight years later. At least in that game, there would be plenty of fun to be have for a few short hours. Here, you can expect a few hours of nothing but boredom.

You see, in order to rescue Mario, Luigi will need to go through special doors throughout the castle. Behind each door is a famous city such as New York City, Sydney, Australia; London, England; Paris, France; and more. Each city has been overrun by Koopas, and Luigi will need to take them out. Like in more traditional Mario games, a simple stomp is all it takes to defeat these mischievous turtles. However, if you run into them, you will not get hurt. In fact, it is impossible to die in this game, which takes away some of the challenge. Some of the Koopas will die in a more cartoon like fashion, such as breaking apart into pieces or exploding. When that happens, they will drop an item that was stolen from the city, and you will need to pick it up and return it to its rightful place.

Every level has three famous artifacts and as many information booths where they must be returned. Each booth is run by a secretary who looks suspiciously like Princess Peach. Simply offering to return the item is not enough, and this is part of where the educational portion comes into play. In order to ensure that the item you have is not a fake, Peach will ask you some multiple choice questions about the item. You can opt to read a newspaper article that has answers to some of the possible questions. However, some questions have answers not found in the article, and require research via reading, the Internet, etc. or trial and error.

If you get a question wrong, Peach will assume that you do not have the real item, and will turn you away for a while. If you try to talk to her again, she will say that she is busy and to come again later. Thus, for about a minute or so, you will need to run around before she will speak with you again. Since Peach apparently has a bad memory, she will forget about you and offer to have you try her quiz again. You may get different questions this time, however. Should you complete the quiz, the item will be returned, you will be awarded money (which is useless), and you can take a picture of the restored landmark (equally pointless save for the fact that the photos look pretty good for a 16-bit title). You will need to complete three quizzes in each of the fifteen cities in order to secure it, though they get rather annoying pretty fast.

When you first arrive at a city, you may be clueless as to where you are. There are some people whom you can talk to and learn which city you are in. However, they give somewhat vague clues that only someone who knows a little about various cities may know about. When you do figure out where in the world you are, you can use the Globulator to call Yoshi and bring him to your current location. While on Yoshi, you can run a little faster and scare away the Pokey cactus that blocks the entrance pipe. Riding Yoshi makes things go a bit faster, but it does little to relieve the game's overall boredom level.

As for other flaws, there are pipes that can warp you from one part of a city to another. The problem is, you do not know where the pipes will take you until you use them. Consequently, you may end up further away from your destination than you would like to be. Also, when Luigi crosses the road to get to another part of the city, he may have to stop and wait while a pedestrian crosses first or look both ways beforehand. While I appreciate the message of being courteous to others and staying safe while crossing the street, it just makes things that much slower. Lastly, you receive a password when you clear a city, though the game is brief enough to feasibly beat in one sitting, and since it is impossible to die, the passwords are useless except if you have to turn off the game for whatever reason.

There are three floors in Bowser's Castle, and each one contains five doors. When all of the doors on a floor have been conquered, you will need to fight a Koopa Kid in order to move up to the next floor. These battles, however, are a joke: not only can you not die, but the Koopa Kids merely run back and forth, and several well-timed jumps will take them out. Also, you only fight three of them instead of all seven. These fights are therefore rather pointless...far better Koopa Kid battles can be found in such games as Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Just when things could not get any worse, there is the game's ending, in which you are led to believe that you will fight Bowser. Instead, after freeing Mario, Luigi merely shoots him out of a cannon, and the Koopa King lands in the snow. There, he freezes solid and breaks apart in typical cartoon fashion. The credits roll, and then you return to the title screen. I guess it is only fitting that a bad game has an equally bad ending, one that you can probably watch on YouTube and spare yourself having to play the game to see it.

This game was meant for elementary school children, but I can see where even they might get restless from playing it. The questions are confusing, and based on facts that were relevant back in 1993, but may be outdated seventeen years later. The pace is quite slow, and completing the same basic tasks in each city can get old quickly. Having to take out enemies and bosses seems largely pointless when you cannot even get hit. In the Carmen Sandiego games and TV shows, geography was made into something that kids would want to learn about as a result of being associated with plenty of entertainment. Here, kids would just as soon use a textbook rather than play the game to get the facts that they seek and perhaps become more enlightened that way.

About the best things about Mario is Missing are the graphics and music. The cities look pretty decent, as do the photos of the landmarks. Character sprites are recycled from Super Mario World, and many of them are still fairly good-looking. Bowser, on the other hand, looks a little funky. The music consists mostly of remixes of the Super Mario World tunes, and they actually sound great. The oriental remix in China and Japan and the Starman remix in Mexico are particularly neat tracks. Otherwise, this game is one of Mario's biggest messes...perhaps it is a good thing that he mostly missed out on the action this time around.

It is possible for a educational game to be entertaining, but Mario is Missing failed to reach that goal. It has rightfully been considered to be one of Mario's biggest mistakes. Those who blame Nintendo for the mess should take note that the company merely offered the rights to the characters to The Software Toolworks, the real culprits of such a huge debacle. Luckily, Mario has long since stopped starring in educational games and has been featured in a lot of far better spin off titles. Avoid this game like the plague, or watch it on YouTube if you really want to see how poor it is. Mario should have just left teaching geography to the Carmen Sandiego franchise, and then we would have all been spared such a massive misfire.