Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey

To do: Debug Menu strings? In RO/HugeBattle.cro. There are various unused sprites: Ludwig in a Clown Car. Unused sprites of Iggy on the ground in battle. Bloopers Golden Eggs Toads with colors other than red. Differently-colored Magikoopas on broomsticks. Spanish and French text differences between the US and European versions. Developer interview

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey is the much-needed(?) 3DS remake of the DS game Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. While more faithful than its predecessor, it sadly ended up being one of the worst-selling Mario games in nearly 24 years (being on a dying platform that could already play the original game certainly didn't help), and was AlphaDream's last major title before its bankruptcy later in 2019.

And yes, they actually skipped over remaking the second Mario & Luigi title.

Unused Rooms#

Watch on YouTubeThere are currently five known test rooms, each one of them being set in a specific part of Plack Beach. Every room lacks loading zones, and has a bright red background.

First Test Map#

Room ID: 260

A room filled with Toads which was used to test NPC behaviors. Speaking with any of the Toads will cause something to happen to another, like disappearing, running back and forth on a set path, or temporarily increase in size.

Second Test Map#

Room ID: 264

An empty room, purpose unknown.

Third Test Map#

Room ID: 265

Similar to room 260, with the difference being that there are additional Toad colors as well as animated Goombas.

Fourth Test Map#

Room ID: 268

A room filled with Goombas which may have been used to test some enemy behaviors. In the top-left corner of the screen is a group of motionless Goombas, one simply being by itself and the others set in a "V" position with colored squares attached to the lower half, which may have been signs of a layering test.

Around the center of the room is a Goomba different from the others, not only is it animated but it can also be interacted with, making it jump when doing so.

Fifth Test Map#

Room ID: 269

A room which was used to test overworld mechanics, namely Bowser's shell smash platforms and the air/water pipes. The large central platform burns the Bros.

Unused Graphics#

Unused Attack Illustrations#

In the original Nintendo DS version, Special Attacks used by Mario & Luigi and Bowser all have illustrations showing the attack in the Specials part of the star menu, as well as when selecting the attack in a battle. In the remake, the Specials part of the star menu was replaced with an Attack Pieces menu in the Records menu, but Brawl Attacks are not visible here because they are not obtained by assembling the illustration as Attack Pieces. In the remake, viewing the attack illustration was also removed from the top screen when selecting the attack during a battle. The new Guide menu allows viewing explanations and practicing attacks, but the top screen is entirely empty, meaning Brawl Attack illustrations still cannot be seen. Despite the Brawl Attack illustrations not being visible anywhere else, when in the menu to do one of the attack challenges with Broque Madame, selecting a Brawl Attack displays the corresponding illustration on the top screen. This is the only place the Brawl Attack illustrations can be seen, and because Goomba Storm, Koopa Corps, Bob-omb Blitz, and Magikoopa Mob are the only Brawl Attacks that have minigame versions, the illustrations for Shy Guy Squad and Broggy Bonker cannot be seen. Despite being impossible to see, these Brawl Attacks do have illustrations that can be found in Lyt/US/SLyt.dat/MINIGAME_US_en/timg.

Shy Guy Squad (AP_IMG_12_L.bflim and AP_IMG_12_R.bflim)	Broggy Bonker (AP_IMG_16_L.bflim and AP_IMG_16_R.bflim)

Unused Music#

The in-game music player allows the player to listen to almost all of the music in both the Nintendo DS original and Nintendo 3DS remake; the only missing (and unnamed as a result) tracks are the inside Bowser versions of area music. Despite these tracks not being playable in the music player, all Nintendo DS original versions of the inside Bowser tracks can be found in Snd/stream. The Nintendo DS original tracks are all stored in Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format. Unfortunately, there is no unused text giving official names to the inside Bowser variants of the tracks.

Deleted Music Tracks#

To do: Add the info about duplicate tracks in the original game, to the original games page

There's some skipped music tracks according to Snd/stream (23, 24, 47, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, and 59). Comparing to how the tracks are sorted from this and the original game, 23 and 24 were another version of dark_area1_a and dark_area1_b (21 and 22). In the original game, however, those track slots (MUS_DARK_AREA_A2 and MUS_DARK_AREA_B2 in the original game) were just using a duplicate of the same songs (MUS_DARK_AREA_A1 and MUS_DARK_AREA_B1), so this is most likely why these track slots are skipped. Track 47 is likely MUS_MINI_GAME2 from the original game, according to how the tracks are sorted. This one didn't get carried one for some reason, even though they have some differences.

The other skipped tracks are likely related to Bowser Jr.'s Journey, so those are unknown. It's likely these skipped track slots are just kept for sorting reasons.

Early Character Name#

To do: Check the other localization languages, as well as other instances of Kaley's name in the Japanese version.

During the first encounter with the Best Fitness Friends in Bowser Path, Dieter refers to Kaley as "Leana", which comes out of left field as she is never referred to as such anywhere else in the game. This discrepancy does not exist in the Japanese version, which implies that "Leana" was an early English name that got left in by accident. This can be found in FMsg.dat/k_o_koopa_r_80, field Kjrpg_10_Koopa_qst04_05.

It seems Kaley is
lending her assistance.

So, you meet the real Leana.
She's not so friendly, this one.

Well then...
I'll just get her...

In fact, you might say...

To expurgate you!

She's not friendly at all!

Oddities#

In the bcsar (the game's sound archive), the Mario and Luigi Battle theme and Bowser's Battle theme each have two sound streams, which uses the same bcstm file. Mario and Luigi's are both named MUS_ML_BTL and MUS_ML_BATTLE, and Bowser's are both named MUS_KP_BTL and MUS_KP_BATTLE. It's unknown which one is actually used or if the game uses both at certain points in the game. This isn't the case with the original DS versions.

Revisional Differences#

v1.1#

Nintendo eShop Update Content Description:

• Depending on the event, sometimes the player got stuck on a certain map when controlling Luigi solo and trying to save the game progress by using the Save Block. The issue has been fixed.
• By downloading the update data, this issue will no longer occur.
• Also, if the issue has already occurred, it will be fixed so that the player can continue playing.

v1.2#

Nintendo eShop Update Content Description:

Addressed an issue where sound wouldn’t play for music from the Nintendo DS version of Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story in the Music Menu, under Records.

Unused Text#

'...But does it make sense?' The translations on this page need to be proofread. If you are fluent enough in this language, please make any corrections necessary!

To do: Restore the formatting when text viewing is more stable. Create table for files in BMsg/FMsg.dat.

Present in b_sys:

Localized text for an error message (anti-out of bounds?) is present in fcommon:

Present in i_air_21:

Present in i_energy_32, i_tainai_01, o_chika_01, o_peach_1f_01, o_town_34,:

Present in i_power_arm_01 and i_pump_16, i_tainai_01, o_chika_09_before, o_ekubon_02_after, o_ekubon_07_2, o_koopa_24, o_mushiba_05_before, o_peach_2f_04, o_test_ay_01, o_test_hk_01, o_test_mk_01, o_town_14, o_zutsada_04_after:

Present in i_pump_02 and i_test_mo_02:

Present in i_pump_04:

Present in i_pump_16:

Present in o_ekubon_15, o_koopa_19:

To do: This uses encoded text.

Present in o_evselect_U, sounds like text for a debug menu:

Present in o_ibiki_03, sounds like text for a debug menu:

Present in o_mushiba_24:

Present in o_test_ay_01, o_test_hk_01, o_test_jk_01, o_test_mk_01, o_test_mo_01, o_test_mo_02, o_test_mo_03, o_test_mo_04, o_test_mo_05, i_test_dnh_01, i_test_hk_01, i_test_ik_01, i_test_mo_01:

テスト

Test

Present in o_peach_3f_13:

Present in o_test_fh_01 and o_test_fh_02:

Present in o_test_ho_01:

Present in o_test_mk_01:

Present in o_zutsada_04_after:

Present in o_zutsuda_10_before:

Present in o_zutsuda_16_before:

English Translation Differences#

Most of these differences were carried over from the original game.

Field Text#

Battle Text#

• Alpha Kretin, Beta Kretin, and their X versions are renamed to Alpha Keratin and Beta Keratin.
• Dark Mechawful.5 is renamed to Dark Mechawful 1.5.

Menu Text#