Reception
Since its release, Mario's Time Machine has received negative reception. It holds an aggregate score of 60.25% on Game Rankings based on two reviews. Nintendo Power gave it a 2.65 out of five, while Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it a 6.75 out of 10. GameSpy's Brian Altano and Brian Miggels named its ending as one of the worst ever, criticizing it for showing Bowser crying. Fellow GameSpy editor Mike Drucker called it "half-assed." GamesRadar commented that those who like this game may like Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which they gave a negative review to. They later suggested that it was an unpopular game, commenting that "five, maybe six people played the NES version of Mario's Time Machine". ABC Good Game called it "awful", and was "way too complicated for any school-aged youngster to understand." Nintendo of Canada included a sealed copy of the NES version as part of a charity auction along with several other sealed NES games. In the book Video Games: A Guide for Savvy Parents, author David Sheff found the educational elements good, but criticized the gameplay. Andy Slaven, author of the book Video Game Bible, 1985-2002, accused the game of ripping off Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?, also noting that though it is not a bad game, it is not a good educational one.
Authors David Wesley and Gloria Barczak associated Mario's Time Machine with the recent "flood of ill-conceived Mario spin-offs", arguing that these games nearly destroyed the Mario license. The Independent's Janet Swift discussed Mario's Time Machine in her article on the latest generation of educational titles in 1994. She compared it to Mario Is Missing! in its execution, which she found "special", praising it for its educational value for children. Allgame's Brett Alan Weiss called the action scenes "dreadfully dull" and the presentation "merely average". He added that while he does not dislike educational games, they must be both "entertaining and enlightening." IGN's Levi Buchanan included it in their assessment of the "other Mario games," implying that the premise was boring and criticizing the game for lacking any real platform gameplay. He commented that it had "honorable intentions", but that it was "decidedly shallow". He also criticized the act of putting Mario in realistic time periods, commenting that he "occupies the imagination, a place with Star Festivals and giant piranha plants." In 2007, ScrewAttack placed Mario's Time Machine as the fourth worst Mario game, criticizing it for ruining the concept of a Mario time-travel game.
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