Mario is Missing, the first educational Mario NES game by The Software Toolworks, is wrong for so many reasons. Right off the bat, you're treated to a horrible introduction seqeunce. Mario walks onto the screen and notices the title of the game is "Mario is Missing." He attempts to run away, but is captured and bagged by the WORST BOWSER SPRITE IN THE HISTORY OF ANY VIDEO GAME EVER. I can't get over how horrible Bowser looks in this game. You can tell the programmers had never touched a Mario game before, and were probably just given a screenshot of Super Mario World's Koopa Kids for reference because that's kinda how Bowser looks.

What's most upsetting about this game is that, like it's "sequel" Mario's Time Machine, it was a great concept that was ruined on an educational game. A lot of people were excited to hear that Luigi was finally going to get the starring role in a game. I'm pretty sure Nintendo only released this game to get the Luigi fans to shut up. Luigi wouldn't have another starring role until Luigi's Mansion on GameCube some nine years later, so I guess that proves my theory.

The story of the game is something about how Mario is kidnapped by Bowser, who plans on melting the world's icecaps to flood Earth... I'm not sure what he assumes that will accomplish, but as we all know, Bowser is the dumbest villian in the history of video games (although Dr. Wily gives him a run for his money with his "ingenius" theme-robot schemes). I guess he kidnapped Mario so he wouldn't be able to foil his plans. He must've thought that Luigi wasn't cool enough to try and save Mario. Well, he was wrong - DEAD WRONG! Because Luigi most certainly IS cool enough, and he proves it by answering world trivia throughout his totally rad adventure. Because nothing is more fun than the excitment of learning!

Jokes aside, this game is horrible. To this day (a good 11 years since it's release), the National Suicide Hotline still recieves over 20 calls a day due to this horrid "educational" waste of space. It's the worst Mario-themed educational game I've ever played (and I've played Mario Teaches Typing).

(Note: I've been told the SNES version of "Mario is Missing" is not only better, it's actually quite fun. While I have yet to play it, I'll take their word for it.)

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