I happened to catch a commercial for Bowser’s Inside Story the other day, wherein a series of kids excitedly describe moments from the game to the camera – presumably in that awesome kind of way that makes other children scream until someone buys them a copy.

It would be slick to suggest that there’s a subtle undertone to the ad, suggesting that the game can make the rest of us feel young like that again. I certainly remember babbling on about boss encounters and the plot points of pixilated characters while my parents pretended to be interested. And while I can’t say that the game is a time machine for those feelings, there are some moments that genuinely make me remember why I play videogames.

Though the review scores have been glowing, I still feel as if the game has been pushed aside as far as hype is concerned. It’s a reliably solid game that continues the series without ever feeling unnecessary, offering an experience that would earnestly be hard not to enjoy – you’d really have to try hard not to like the majority of what this game offers. But with titles like Professor Layton and Scribblenauts on the same shelf, Bowser’s Inside Story could easily become the type of game that we come back to later exactly because we have a pretty good sense of what to expect.

Any three of those titles are great gaming choices, but Bowser’s Inside Story is what I’ve currently spent the most time with, and its worth more than a few words, so I’ll certainly toss a few in its direction after the break.

I’ve developed some bad gaming habits overtime, the worst of which is how incredibly lazy I can be when it comes to playing. If a game allows me to slip by simply by hacking and slashing, I’ll sometimes take that route instead of investing myself more in learning combo and defensive moves. And RPGs certainly help worsen this condition at times, so many of them allowing me to slump on the couch and simply tap the same attack buttons, without paying any real attention to the results. This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to play these games, but keeping the player from sinking into such habits when encountering repetitive situations is a key challenge for designers, and even games I love can succumb to bouts of time I’d rather fast-forward through.

So I suppose what stands out the most with Bowser’s Inside Story is the fact that I never really feel as if I’m grinding to get from one area to the next. That said, there are times when moving Mario and Luigi together can drain my enthusiasm, but it’s a minimal complaint since there’s always a puzzle or boss encounter just around the corner to break it up.

The boss encounters prove a showcase for what I enjoy most about the series, the level of active participation required to play. Being able to manage enemy encounters with the potential of not suffering a single hit is a continually terrific incentive to sit-up straight while playing. The platform elements synonymous with Mario are all present, allowing attacks to be dodged and Koopas to be squashed with hammers and head-stomps.

Enemies also engage the player by offering “tells” as to how their attacks are going to occur, from the type of attack, to whether it’s going to be aimed at either Mario or Luigi. In addition to this, there’s a continually expanding list of ways to deal with enemies, from basic attacks to special moves. These special abilities play out like mini-games in most cases, using a mix of touchscreen interaction, platform agility, and memorization. After learning some of these enemy patterns, it can be tedious waiting for them, but once again, areas and enemies change so frequently that there’s never really any one spot that causes it to drag.

I did earnestly expect more from the central concept of switching between Bowser and the Mario Bros., which is necessary for changing the environments within Bowser, and in aiding him in accomplishing tasks spread throughout the Mushroom Kingdom. It takes a really long time for this to develop and trust the player, the first instances suffering a lot of handholding as the game teaches you that making Bowser drink water fills his stomach with, you guessed it, water.

After a considerable amount of time, there are some better occurrences, specifically when causing Bowser to be x-rayed reveals hidden platforms for instance. The means of manipulating Bowser’s insides to make him stronger or faster presents a series of mini-games to players - fine for getting the job done, but not as memorable as I might have hoped.

What’s really left an impression is just how much of a draw Bowser proves to be as a lead character – he really steals the show from Mario. He spends a good portion of the game agreeing that he is awesome – which I can certainly relate to – and the situations where his troops are rallying him on are one of the features I felt the most compelled to babble on about when the game first came up for discussion within the 4cr forums. Odd as it sounds, that’s what’s made the greatest impression on me to date - Bowser’s Inside Story is a great opportunity to get more familiar with the Koopa King and take some delight in rooting for his side, even if just a little.