Geon's Gamer Gallery!: Hotel Mario (Part 1): It's no Holiday Inn. · 7:59pm Jun 14th, 2012

There isn't anyone out there that's picked up a game controller without knowing the name of Mario. I don't care if you're 6 or 60, or what your favorite type of game is, even if you're sick of Mario's smiling, mustached face, you must recognize his iconic status. I can't blame you if you are sick of him, though - I mean, it's common knowledge at this point that he'll accept a new Nintendo game in just about any genre imaginable, but recently, he's been seen whoring himself out to every company that comes calling. However, there was a time when Mario made these types of deals under the table, thinking no one would find out, just like when Bruce Willis goes to Japan to film a BBQ Sauce commercial. Back in the mid-1990's, the N64 was still years away, Baby Mario and Yoshi were getting all the play on SNES, what was a fat, Italian plumber to do?

Contrary to what you may believe, Super Mario Sunshine wasn't Mario's first foray into an evil hotel. And those of us who pine for a simpler time can rejoice in the fact that Super Mario World wasn't the final appearance of the Koopalings (aside from a recent boss appearance). While many Zelda fans are painfully aware of Link's lamented CD-I appearances, far fewer folks seem to remember Mario's deal with the devil/Philips that came a little while later. Of those who do, even fewer actually know what the hell the game is all about. Fear not, Retroholics, for your old pal Geon is here to serve as your tour guide through the scenic, two-star facilities of Hotel Mario.

Wow. All right, I'm gonna try to do this story justice, but you'll have to take my word that it's far worse to actually watch and hear it. A trend you'll notice with Philips games is that they weren't exactly what you'd call "high budget". Or "medium budget". In this case, it's somewhere around "You can probably find better animation at Newgrounds ". For example: Mario regularly fluctuates between 150 and 400 pounds depending on the way he's standing. Then there's the voices. The few times you hear Toadstool (Peach, you younguns), she sounds like the late Julia Child. If you don't know who that is, and you probably don't, either google it or consider yourself lucky, one of the two. Mario sounds like the token fat, bald, old guy from any 10-15 year old Nyquil commercial. You know, where he sits up and says "Ohh, my achin' schnozz!" in a deep voice and thick accent while his wife (wearing curlers) looks on disapprovingly. Luigi is actually the closest to what Nintendo and Charles Martinet eventually made him sound like - sometimes. You see, there are times when Luigi seems very distinctive. There are other times when Luigi sounds like the Mario guy doing a higher voice while holding his nose. My guess is that the $25 fee and deli sandwich could only be paid to one of the male voice actors, and Luigi therefore walked soon after the intro scene. Speaking of which, let's get to it.

We begin with Mario and Luigi happily entering the Mushroom Kingdom. All is well, as Mario thinks aloud about how nice it was of Princess Toadstool to invite them on a picnic, and Luigi hams it up by saying "I hope-a she made lotsa spaghetti!" while practically smiling and winking at the camera. But hark! From a distance, the nefarious Bowser laughs to himself, as the Bros. are about to discover his evil plan. Indeed, Mario finds a curious note pinned to the ... next door to the Mushroom Kingdom, I guess. You'd think by looking at the "Klub Koopa Rezort" sign that Bowser isn't the most literate giant turtle thing, but he was able to write an entire "Dear Pesky Plumbers" letter. Mario reads out loud, informing Luigi and the 6 people who have played this stupid game that Bowser has turned the Mushroom Kingdom into his own personal luxury resort, and that Mario and Luigi have been dared to siege his hotels and rescue the Princess. A plot worthy of Captain Lou Albano himself. Seriously, this could have gone in between the "Bowser dresses like a cowboy" and "Bowser dresses like Napoleon" episodes of the Super Show, no one would have noticed.

So Mario exclaims that he and Luigi must rescue Toadstool, then Luigi really does point into the camera, and says "And-a-YOU gotta help!" In a final, egregious breach of video game kayfabe, Mario slyly raises his finger and also looks into the camera, then helpfully tells you to consult your manual if you don't know what the hell you're doing. Sadly, I do know what to do, and that's begin the journey through the seven hotels seen in the above map screen. To quote Mario from a slightly more popular game, here we go!

All things considered, this game falls into the old-school puzzle genre more than any other. Remember Elevator Action? That's the best comparison I can give you. Of course, it's that type of game completely Mariocized. To be fair, despite some funky designs, Fantasy Factory did a decent job with the source material here, as there are are no glaring errors or misrepresentations of the characters or major Mario themes. Although, rumors persist that Nintendo had more involvement in this game (and the Zeldas) that they're willing to admit.

First of all, you can clearly see some Mario World influence in the background design and font. I can assure you that this is as close as the actual gameplay gets to SMW. The object of the game: close all of the doors. I'll give your blown mind a few moments to recover .... good? Okay. You're supposed to ride the elevators between floors, shutting doors (Button 2) all the while. I'm pretty sure there was a half-assed rationale to this, something about checking every nook and cranny for the Princess, but one, that makes no sense if you're closing the doors.

If you're able to accomplish your lofty goal, Mario will perform a happy dance and you will advance to the next stage. But as you're running (riding) between floors, Bowser's minions are, you guessed it, attempting to undo your hard work by opening all of the doors. Some emerge from within, forcing you to either stop the enemy flow or be quick with the other doors before a new enemy can pop out of the occupied one. They also like to emerge right as you walk by, which usually results in death due the shitty analog control of the robot dildo controller. Either that, or they'll come out four floors away just as you're about to close the last door. Some enemies are already walking around closing doors, and can usually be taken out with a standard Mario hop (Button 1). Best of all, there are times when you'll ride an elevator to a certain floor for the first time, and four Koopas will emerge from four doors. It's just that type of game. Hey, wait, is that Fire Mario doing the happy dance? Indeed - more on items soon, but enemies can be dispatched with a fireball just as well as a hop, and some enemies can only be beaten with flame.

Standard Mario damage rules apply: Fire Mario -> Super Mario -> Normal Mario -> death. As seen above, Mario can open a door and cower inside, avoiding damage from most normal enemies. However, if you take too long or fall asleep, the bad guys will succeed in opening every door on the stage, which is the same as a "Time Up" or dying. On later stages where every door except one is open, this proves to be a decisive pain in the tokus. There's one other good reason to open doors, and that's the precious items that are sometimes contained within. Just make sure that you're facing the opposite direction you want the item to move when it escapes the door, or it'll quickly glide off the screen and be of no help. If an enemy opens an item door on the floor above you, you can leap up and touch the item to grab it, which is good. Of course, touching an enemy in this fashion, despite defying several universal laws, results in pain. The game is about 50/50 on whether an item pops out of a door when you open it, or if you get the item's effects once you actually enter a door. There is no reason why.

COINS: Defying the Mario tradition, it only takes 30 of these to get you a 1up. To make things easier, the multicolored coin = 10. To make things even easier, 1ups are essentially useless, as you just have to put up with a "Continue?" screen when you run out of lives to start at the same place you died. So yeah, don't go out of your way for coins, even though they're plentiful and a good number of doors yield them. Still, it's fun to open a certain door, go inside and get a rainbow coin, and repeat 5 times. Another unexplainable item glitch.

SUPER MUSHROOM: Makes you Super. Since Mario doesn't begin this game as a freakish midget, the only indication of "Super" is Mario's eerily glowing overalls. All it means is that you can take an extra hit.

FIRE FLOWER: Now we're talking. Not only do you get to shoot fireballs at enemies (by pressing buttons 1&2 simultaneously ... ugh), but your overalls continue to glow in a show of ultimate power and fashion.

STARMAN: Man, he looks positively alarmed about having to be seen in this game. Probably why you hardly ever see him. Randomly pops out of a door about 3 times in the entire game, and grants the usual invincibility for a limited but fair period of time.

Sometimes a stage will contain one (non-coin) item door, sometimes three, sometimes none. They'll always be in the same place, however. If you're normal Mario, a Mushroom will always appear, a Flower if you're Super. If you're Fiery, a Mushroom comes out and moves really fast. The smelly manual calls this "Toad", despite the fact that it looks exactly the same as the regular 'shroom. That's a 1up right there. Good luck finding the star. Items do carry over, so feel free to go back to Level 1-3 every time you want some easy power-ups in order to tackle the tougher stages.

Ah, the stages. Seven hotels/levels, each (most) containing 10 stages each, a stage consisting of a single-screen with doors and enemies as seen above. You'll see later on why this is misleading. The most important part now is that before every new hotel, you get a cutscene like the one where Mario reads Bowser's poorly-written letter. They vary in length, and purportedly give you advice about the upcoming area. Since the first cutscene's "advice" is Luigi telling us that "looks can be deceiving when Koopas are involved", and the only other occurence is Luigi and Mario alley-ooping into Morton's Treehouse, it doesn't even get posted. Fear not, there's more goodness to come. Oh, about Luigi. Take a good look above, because that's the only time you're gonna see Luigi outside of a cutscene in this review, as he only appears in the 2-player game. That could be why they decided not to pay his voice actor. In any case, Morton Koopa Jr. is waiting for us in the first hotel: MORTON'S WOODOOR-HYSTERIA HOTEL.

Yes, all the hotels are :cough: clever plays on the names of real hotels. Morton decided to build his in a giant tree, but I gave up asking questions like "Why don't Mario and Luigi just get a big ass saw?" long ago, so we'll have to do things the hard way. Through the ten stages of all the hotels, the background art and music will shift slightly, the number of doors will increase, the layouts will become more complex, etc. You'll also get to meet new and exciting enemies, by which I mean the same enemies you see in every Mario game that may or may not resemble their actual design. Let's meet the bad guys that debut in Morton's level:

GOOMBA: Forever and always, these large-footed evil mushroom things will slowly bumble at Mario. That's pretty much what they do here, except they're taller and can open doors. Even if you're on the same floor as one, it'll just keep aimlessly walking in whatever direction it was going.

KOOPA TROOPA: What would be good is if you could stomp one of them and kick the shell to take out the rest of the enemies on the floor, or even better if it ricocheted down through the floors. Well, you can't do any of that. Stomp and die, just like a regular foe. Koopas move quicker than Goombas, are taller and therefore harder to stomp, and will pursue you once you reach their floor.

WIGGLER: There's a reason the Forest of Illusion was saved for 5th in earlier times, and that's because Wiggler is a pain in the ass. To beat him, you must stomp on his head. Much like a Pokey, which does not appear in this game, the head will fall off and the next segment will become the head. If you touch a non-head segment at any time, you will die. Very bad if he corners you.

One thing I'll say for the game is that the pacing is pretty good. The hotels obviously get tougher from 1-7, but the 10 stages within each one also have a nice flow. Hotel 1 is very straightforward; elevators that go up/down a floor at a time, not too many doors, and few enemies. Also, the serene jungle motif. One problem is that if you run too far in either direction, you fall out of the stage and die. This only occurs in the hotels with no walls, which while bafflingly realistic, isn't terribly consistent. The other problem is those damn Wigglers in the later stages. Fire Mario's a nice thing to have.

Stage 10 brings you to Morton's Tree House 'O Pain (seriously), and indeed, as long as Mario gets out his seat and jumps around before getting down, he'll be fine. That's the reason ol' Morton's picture up there is largely unspectacular, there's really not much to this battle. The elevators will switch directions on you, and will from this point on continue to do so in every level. Morton moves between floors trying to open doors and eat you. If you are in an elevator and a boss uses it, you will be eaten. I'm not kidding, Morton, or any boss, will consume Mario and spit out his poor red "M" cap. This is the vicious streak that's been missing in the Koopa Clan lately, considering Bowser's killer strategy in Sunshine was to lounge around in a giant hot tub. While we're on the subject of awful plots, let's check back in with the dynamic duo now that Morton's been defeated.

Morton falls out of the tree and apples begin to grow, which is as everyone knows how trees express their gratitude. There's still the pressing Princess problem, as Mario and Luigi's "stand around and look clueless" strategy doesn't seem to be paying off. Up in the tree, Mario Bros.! As Toadstool is waving, unfortunately, the branch she's standing on snaps, and she falls into the waiting arms of Roy Koopa, who whisks her away to the next level, with the plumbers in pursuit.

As we approach ROY'S HARD BRICK HOTEL, the lights begin to flicker, and Mario mumbles something about finding a light switch, then does the trademark "you're an idiot so let me spell it out for you" glance into the camera and says "remind me ta check!" Don't worry, I will, but let's first find out who we'll be facing for the next 10 floors.

BOB-OMB, PARA-BOMB: What's better than a Bob-Omb strutting around a floor with a lit fuse? If you were gonna say "Bob-Ombs that parachute into the stage at high frequency and take forever to pick a floor to land on in order to screw up your jumps", you're either a damn liar or one of those fortune-teller chicks from Paper Mario. Good timing can take them out with a jump if they're still falling below you. Once they lose the 'chutes and become normal Bob-Ombs, they'll automatically go off after a length of time. If you stomp one, that'll immediately trigger the fuse, at which point you need to awkwardly run like hell. The resulting explosion can take out enemies as well as set off surrounding bombs.

NINJI: A firm believer in affirmative action, Roy hired all black enemies to debut in his stage. Of course, you'll still encounter some enemies from previous levels along the way for the entire game. The manual says "Mini-Ninja", but we know better. He does perform very Ninji-like hops, and other than that doesn't really do too much.

The stages where Bob-Ombs keep dropping on you at a frantic rate are kind of nasty, and for some reason I really hate the goofy expression on Ninji's face when he's opening a door I closed 3 floors ago, but otherwise the Hard Brick Hotel isn't too hard to dispatch of. But while Roy may employ equal-opportunity hiring practices, he must be late on the electric bill, which causes the lights to flicker on and off in strategic parts of a stage. If you have a very good eye and are lucky, you can catch some miniature lightning bolts coming out of a random door. Enter this door, and you'll find the real reason behind the lighting problem: A BUNCHA TOASTERS IN A SINGLE ROOM.

Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best one, as any sap could figure out that the real dilemma is that Roy had about a dozen or so toasters plugged into one outlet, something expressly warned against by the signs posted in every decent hotel's toaster room. A simple problem requires a simple solution, so Mario obviously finds a loaf of the Mushroom Kingdom's third most popular wheat product laying around with a glint in his eye - "ya know what they say!", says Mario, then he proceeds to rattle off some parable that includes the word "toast" about 6 times that I've certainly never heard them say. After overloading the appliances of doom with surplus sourpuss toast, the lights will be fine for as long as you continue playing without quitting. Don't you wish the electric bill explanation was the real one?

Amazingly, there's another good point about this game, and that's the fact that the bosses keep getting more and more off the wall, "off the wall" being a synonym for "fucking cheap", but at least it keeps things interesting. Here on Roy's Rowdy Rooftop, Roy isn't too out there, but is a step up from his freaky little brother in that he can walk on the ceiling (didn't he [and morton] do that in Mario World, too? [probably coincidental] CONTINUITY~!) and drop down on Mario. He also boasts one of the most feared, tried-and-true bad guy moves of all time, the dreaded extendo-punch. This can go above or below, so it's best to jump into a door or elevator rather than walk past him if you're on a floor adjacent to him, as long as you don't stay there long enough to get chomped. It helps to get on the same floor as Roy, rendering his horizontally-challenged punch useless so you can stomp on his head. By the way, one stomp will temporarily immobilize Roy (or any boss), two will send him out of the stage, although he'll reappear in a few moments. Once the doors all get closed, Roy goes down and we move on.

Look at these two nimrods. They're so proud of themselves, putting up their cute little "Condemned" sign, that they're too busy to notice the Princess screaming and waving to get their attention ... on top of a huge warp pipe. I have to give Toadstool the "worst judgment" award on this one. Mario and Luigi use their favorite strategy to figure out what to do next...

...until they somehow stumble upon a dark, old, abandoned mine. I'm guessing the giant engravings helped on this one. With some trepidation, our heroes enter LARRY'S CAVE HOTEL.

Look for the Rest of the review soon!

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DJ DASH3R

DJ DASH3R #1 · Jun 14th, 2012 · · ·

TO long but I read part of it. I'm not that big of a Mario fan.
Funny part is I went to school in a city last year named Marion. <----and that is the correct spelling.

Dragon Emperor Geon