Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, known as Mario & Luigi RPG 3!!! (マリオ&ルイージRPG3!!!, Mario ando Ruīji Āru Pī Jī Surī?) in Japan, is a role-playing video game developed by AlphaDream and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld game console in 2009. It is the third game in the Mario and Luigi series, following Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and preceding Mario & Luigi: Dream Team.

The game's plot is unrelated to that of its predecessors, and involves Mario and Luigi being shrunken and inhaled into the body of their nemesis, Bowser. The Mario brothers learn to assist Bowser, who is unaware of their presence, as he combats Fawful, who has taken control of the Mushroom Kingdom. The gameplay focuses on the co-operation of the trio, who use their specific abilities to solve puzzles and fight enemies and thus progress through the game. Similar to its predecessors, its role-playing style emphasizes a turn-based battle system focused on timing accuracy, and is comedic in nature.

Bowser's Inside Story was first revealed at Nintendo's Tokyo Press Event on October 2, 2008, and its English title and Western release dates were announced at E3 2009. The game was both critically and commercially successful, gaining an aggregate score of 91% from GameRankings and 90 from MetaCritic, and selling 4.13 million copies worldwide as of April 2011.