Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is the third game in the Mario & Luigi series of games. Players control Mario and Luigi simultaneously in the side-scrolling platform environment of Bowser's body, while…

96 11 February 2009

Adventure Role-playing (RPG) Action Comedy Fantasy

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is an adventure developed by AlphaDream, released 11 February 2009 on Nintendo DS.

Verified 29 Sep 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is an adventure game developed by AlphaDream and released in 2009. It was published by Nintendo. It is available on Nintendo DS only.

The premise, in the publisher's words

A dreadful disease dubbed “the blorbs” has begun to spread throughout the peaceful Mushroom Kingdom, causing the citizens to balloon up and roll around helplessly. With even the Star Sprites at a loss for what to do, Mario and Luigi set out on an adventure to find the cure! And then there’s everyone’s favorite brute, Bowser, who, as always, tries to abduct Princess Peach, only to be thwarted once again by Mario. Angry at his defeat, he meets a shady merchant deep in the woods who gives him a “Lucky Shroom,” with the promise that it will make him really strong. “Strong enough to beat Mario?! Really?!” Bowser swallows the mushroom in one gulp…and instantly starts inhaling anything and…

Description from the publisher · source

How it plays

It is played from a bird view / isometric perspective. Its themes are action, comedy and fantasy. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component.

Where it sits in the Mario series

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is the 450th of 668 entries we hold in the Mario series. The next entry was Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! in 2009. Its critic score of 96 is 19 points above the series average of 77. The highest-rated entry is Super Mario World at 100.

See all 668 Mario games in release order →

How it was received

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story holds a critic score of 96 out of 100. That places it above 99% of the 7,527 rated adventure games in our database, which average 72. Games released in 2009 averaged 67, so it scored 29 points above the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 93, across 154 votes.

What it launched against

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story launched on 11 February 2009, within three weeks of Demon's Souls, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, Killzone 2 and Empire: Total War. It reviewed better than all of them.

Released around the same time: Demon's Souls, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, Killzone 2, Empire: Total War.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

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