Let's Wander the World- Mario Is Missing!

Wow. That's bad.

The game teaches proper Chinese pronunciation as well as geography! You'd have to be a fool not to buy!

I've gotta say, it's good to see that they actually used real sprites for Mario and Luigi in the SNES version of the game, rather than the stuff they used in the DOS version. They were... Special.

In fact, here's Luigi now, so you can actually see what I'm talking about.

Good Lord that's hideous and creepy, it's like pedophile luigi...

Creepy Luigi (or Weegee as he's called) has become somewhat of a fad among disreputable circles which I occasionally travel.

This is an absolutely hilarious LP. I'd heard of but never played this game before. This game seems truly....special. Thanks for doing this!

....is the thing lying on the ground supposed to be the dead Koopa Troopa's feet?

I actually preferred the PC version at the time, for the more detailed graphics and voice acting (!). Only recently did I look it up on YouTube and realize, to my horror, that it was the source of Weegee.

Glad you like it so far!

The item is the generic "artifact" sprite. Each of the three artifacts in each city look like that, and they look exactly the same for every city. But you get the little drawing in the pause screen, so that's something.

Awesome! Once upon a time I had the DOS version of this game on a stack of 3.5" floppies. It was significantly different from the SNES version; it played like a point and click adventure game so stomping on koopas wasn't quite the same--you just clicked on them. Also you'd take taxis to get around town. With hula girls on the dashboards. And I don't recall the map screens looking anything like Super Mario World's, they were more realistic.

It was pretty terrible, though. Yoshi looks absolutely horrifying.

Man, I'm so glad I'm playing the SNES one now.

Anyway, onto the next city (technically the first one!)



So, some ruins off in the background, eh?



And there's a lot of clues in one conversation:



It isn't the same without the artifact or the Pope? I can imagine both are fairly important...



And since we've seen the oh-so-exciting Koopa killing, I've skipped that and collected all three artifacts. Note the fig leaf!:

Have I mentioned that the conversations are sometimes in rhyme (yes, I know everyone is excited for the Kenya one, be patient!)?







Also, by the way it was the 90s:

A quick note that I found displeasing: A couple stupid-ass coins from the fountain are worth more than the Sistine Chapel ceiling? And the fact that a couple coins are missing resulted in the fountain closing????





And more for the photo album (oh God God what are you wearing?)

And now to really explore the city.

First, a quick in-game note: the map and city design notices when you're on the bridge over the river! Amusing!





And, as noted before, the game map is a lot like the real thing.

I highly recommend zooming in on Trevi Fountain (point B). You can see the Fountain and the people there quite nicely.

And if you'd like to know more about each of these sites:

The Colosseum



Trevi Fountain



Sistine Chapel

I don't know what's more amusing: That you found the entire coliseum, or that someone stole just the ceiling of the chapel.

Now to head back to the castle!

Except we can't get down the pipe.

Oh, right. Yoshi. Yes, that is the only point of Yoshi, and the only reason why you need to know what city you are in (although it's easy to figure out).





There's a zoomed-in version of Europe as well. Nothing happens if you select the wrong city and you can go right back and move Yoshi to the next one.



And after walking almost all the way across the world we lock Yoshi in the wall again. Nice!

Fun fact: The day before I saw the Trevi Fountain, it looked like this.

I assume that's for some sort of holiday? Elaborate, please!

If you scroll down it says that a vandal threw red paint in it. I'm not sure why, but there you go.

I found it cute how they took the Super Mario World map design and used it on the earth.

Dracula, perhaps?

Maybe it was wearing fur.

Yeah, it was a vandal. According to the BBC, it was in protest of a film festival.

Pretty sure there was a massive march through Rome that day as well. Something about gay rights. And legalizing pot. At the base of Vesuvius, you can buy ashtrays which have a message for the legalisation of pot.

Man, those Italians really like their pot.

They never told me that.

They were just trying to up the odds that you'd get the answer right, is all.

I don't intend on digging out my copy of this to play for this thread, but I will say I remember the music being oddly chill

I really want to know the thought process on that one. How you get from "I don't like this film festival" to "I will put red paint in a really old fountain" is beyond me. Maybe it was a film festival about fountain vandals.

Youtube is a nice source for the soundtracks, I assume it's okay if I link them here? The city soundtracks are slightly different versions of Super Mario World themes. My absolute favorite is for cities we haven't gotten to yet, I'll post them later.

Beijing (probably my second-favorite track)
Rome

And now for everyone's favorite city.

As shown in the "City Secured" picture earlier in this thread, whenever you finish a level you get a code for it. Turning off the game and entering the code has Luigi enter the castle again through the metal door and temporarily removes the Koopa Kid.



Since people have mentioned the music, here's this level's.

And right off the bat it's an information booth! And the thatched roofs and background should give you a pretty big hint as to where we are...



Nairobi! I had some trouble with the Google map on this one. The #2 marker is Nairobi National Park, and I went with a large Masai game reserve instead of trying to pick an individual village. Unfortunately this means the Missing map and the real map aren't really related, but oh well.

We'll get Yoshi right away. Kind of amusing that all of Africa has six options while Europe gets it's own sub-map...



Is she saying Mario is fat? Does she think Yoshi is an elephant? Is she just going to take Luigi on a safari? Is that a standard reaction when video game characters appear in the world?

[/IMG]

Anyway, I collected all the artifacts... and just realized one is an elephant which is probably what the lady above was talking about. Now I feel better!



Way old! Way old!



Honestly for pixel art I'm really impressed by this one.

And you thought not having four Chinese names showed they were lazy?





Yay! Zebra!



The Masai Village didn't have any terribly interesting quotes or questions, so here's the picture:



And I can guarantee there wasn't anything interesting because I did bother to fill in the whole stupid computer, which as mentioned before doesn't do me any good:

And, if you want more information:

An overview of the Masai since I picked a national park instead of a village for the map.



Nairobi National Park



National Museum of Kenya

From looking at the article it seems there are actually a group of museums, so here's a picture of one of the sons of the founders working with a skull:



Hmm. I feel like I've forgotten something... ah, yes.



You're welcome.

You know, every time I see this topic I start to sing the "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" theme.

Wow, just like the fountain in Orlox's Quarters.

Is the voice acting for that Mario is Missing DOS game for real? Because man, that's some terrible shit. I kind of figured Larry Koopa was 10 or so, not 50.