Video Game / Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Showtime!

The third game in the Mario & Luigi RPG series, released in 2009 for the Nintendo DS. Its Japanese name is Mario and Luigi RPG 3!!!.

A mysterious disease, the Blorbs, are causing Toads to swell into giant balloon-like figures. This turns out to be part of an elaborate evil plan to capture Princess Peach and use her to claim the dark power of the Dark Star, an Artifact of Doom that is buried beneath the Mushroom Kingdom, and the villain behind it all is none other than Fawful, who makes his triumphant return from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. He tricks Bowser into eating a mushroom that makes him suck up Peach, the Mario Bros., and most of the Toads in Peach's Castle.

With Peach, Mario, and Luigi trapped inside Bowser's body, Fawful takes over Bowser Castle, capturing some of his minions and brainwashing the rest. Bowser embarks on a journey across the Mushroom Kingdom to take back his palace and free all his minions, eventually getting (reluctantly) wrapped up in the battle against the Dark Star. Meanwhile, Mario and Luigi aid him from inside his body when necessary in the midst of collecting the three Star Cures needed to counteract the Dark Star.

Control alternates between the pair of Mario and Luigi and, as the game's title indicates, Bowser himself, with Bowser utilizing his own unique twist on the Action Command-laden battle system the Mario and Luigi series is known for. One of the quirks of the game is that Bowser can't be controlled unless Mario and Luigi are inside his body. That's because of the new mechanic of the Vacuum Block, which allows Bowser to suck up smaller enemies or, less frequently, parts of the enemies that temporarily raise Bowser's stats. When Bowser is ingesting entire enemies, the screen cuts away to a battle inside Bowser between the Bros. and the enemy. After this battle is over, the outer battle resumes (unless Bowser ate the last enemy). Notably, this is the only way that Mario, Luigi, and Bowser can fight against common enemies in the same battle. Another feature is that while most of the world is the same format as the previous two games, a top-down view of the world, all the stages inside Bowser's body are 2-D, side-scrolling levels.

During the March 2018 Nintendo Direct, it was announced that Bowser's Inside Story would get a Video Game Remake released in 2019 for the Nintendo 3DS^note skipping over Partners in Time in the process. Like the Superstar Saga remake, an extra strategy game mode centering around Bowser Jr. is included. The remake was the last Mario & Luigi title developed by AlphaDream before their bankruptcy and closure in 2019. ^note Though the last game that would credit the studio would be Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 later that year, with the studio being among those that gave developmental support.

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Tropes appearing in the original game:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: The game caps at Level 99. The final rank for all 3 characters is level 40, a good 15 levels above what you’re most likely to fight the Final Boss at, and more than enough to demolish it. Some of the rematches of bosses in The Gauntlet do reach Rainbow Rank in recommended level but the final challenge is recommended at level 45 (3DS)/level 50 (DS), only halfway to the cap.
• Action Bomb:
  • Bob-ombs, the walking bombs that are a staple of the Mario franchise. Bowser can get a special attack where he can line up the Bob-ombs to attack certain enemies.
  • The Alarm Bob-ombs are Bob-ombs that explode when their time's up.
• Accidental Misnaming: Broque Monsieur keeps referring to Bowser as "Monsieur Turtle Bits".
• Airborne Mook: Some enemies can fly or float, and are thus immune to hammers, shells, shockwaves or any other low-hitting attacks. Bowser himself is unable to hit them via normal attacks as they either fly too high or can easily dodge his slow attacks. But he can still suck them up... as long as Mario and Luigi are willing to fight.
• Alien Geometries: The warp pipes that Bowser inhaled still function, somehow connecting to pipes in the overworld. Mario and Luigi use them to and from Bowser's body when needed.
• All There in the Manual: The names for Fawful Mountain (the mid-boss in the Fawful Express battle) and Dark Fawful Bomb (which cannot be targeted in battle) come directly from Prima's official strategy guide for the game.
• Always Accurate Attack:
  • During the tutorial battle against Midbus, Midbus will use a bouncing attack that Bowser will be unable to avoid thanks to lacking the shell defense at that point. It's mainly there to end the tutorial and knock Bowser out.
  • The Stone Blooper (whom you fight inside Bowser) has an attack where it embeds itself into the floor of Bowser's insides and drills into it, causing him damage. There's no way to stop it.
  • The "Unavoidable attack" used by Peach's Castle cannot be punched away or shot down with fire, so Bowser will always take damage from it.
  • The Junker boss has a vaccuum attack that takes Luigi out of the fight until you free him from one of the trash cans. There's no way to avoid this, Luigi can stay captured for the rest of the fight if you don't free him, and if Mario goes down while Luigi is still captured, Luigi's HP immediately drops to zero.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: Bowser compliments the final boss on creating a dark hurricane that's the "perfect backdrop for an awesome final battle".
• Angry Guard Dog: Broggy, Broque Monsieur's guard dog. He's pretty much pissed off at everything and can be unlocked as Bowser's final Special Attack. It also seems to have adopted his master's hatred of Mario since he'll growl if he comes too close.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Wiggler accuses Bowser of invading and contaminating his farm, pulling out his giga-carrot, and eating it. Even though he made you do the last part. Later the Durmite swears revenge on Bowser for eating her and her family's carrot crop.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Bowser is The Hero in this game. And this is after spending his time in the previous two games as a supporting character (most infamously as a vessel to the game's Final Boss).
  • Fawful goes from being a shopkeeper in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time to the Big Bad in this game.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:
  • Parts of the game have Bowser growing giant in order to combat opponents too large for regular size, but not before they almost crush him to death.
  • Done in a not as large scale by Bowser X, who enlarges himself as an ultimate attack trying to roast the brothers or stomp them flat in an escape sequence.
• Auto-Pilot Tutorial: Happens whenever you get a new Bros. Item or Bowser Army. If you choose to practice, the game demonstrates the move for you before letting you try it yourself.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • As Bowser, using the Vacuum Block to inhale small enemies in combat will set them up for the Mario Bros. to finish off. Conceptually, pretty cool, but unless a combat encounter requires it (such as Dark Fawful Guys threatening to drop a powerful bomb, or the final boss only being vulnerable while inhaled), it's generally better to make use of Bowser's higher stats and crowd-clearing Flame attack to eliminate fodder enemies.
  • The Fury status effect gives Bowser a big attack boost while lowering his defenses if he's taken a lot of damage in a single fight. This will probably only happen in some of the tougher boss battles, and if you're not good enough at countering attacks that you take enough damage to activate it, you probably won't last too long.
• Backbench-Hitting Attack: If Bowser inhales the Sea Pipe Statue, then he will swallow the Blooper statue and control will switch over to Mario and Luigi, who are inside of Bowser. However, the Blooper can drill itself into Bowser's insides while fighting them, hurting Bowser.
• Badass in Distress: At one point in the game, Mario gets kidnapped by Sockops and Luigi must rescue him. Bowser has his moments of this as well, frequently getting incapacitated and asking Starlow to do something in his body to fix him up. Most notably, at one point, Bowser is locked in his own safe and thrown away somewhere unknown by his own minions. You aren't allowed to return to playing as him for a sizable span of time, until Mario and Luigi finally find him in the junkyard of Peach's Castle.
• Bag of Sharing: The Bros. and Bowser share coins and items, although they cannot for the most part use each other's dedicated item — for instance, Bowser can only consume drumsticks despite also seeing mushrooms in his inventory. Neither party seems to question why they have access to more money than they've been getting from enemy encounters, or why they're able to sell each other's equipment and healing items.
• Balloon Belly: Lots.
  • It's part of Fawful's plan to extract Princess Peach from Bowser's body after tricking him into trapping her in there — later in the game, Bowser can go back and get fat again whenever he wants (this allows Mario and Luigi to gain access to Flab Zone again, but there is no need to unless you missed collectibles).
  • The Bros. use it to their advantage as part of their "Snack Basket" special, using a giant Luigi to make a quake that damages all enemies, as well as to inflate Mario with air or water for travel purposes.
  • A bunch of Toads coming down with the Blorbs. When it gets cured, one Toad seems to stay sick, until he says that it's how he normally looks.
  • Outside Peach's Castle, this happens when Mario drinks from a water spout, returning to normal after he spits out the water.
  • An ability introduced in Dr. Toadley's clinic is Mario inhaling air from an air pump and inflating. Luigi grabs onto him, allowing them to jump higher and for longer. Mario can exhale the air at any time.
• Beam-O-War: A brief fire-breathing contest ensues between Bowser and the Final Boss before the screen shatters and the final battle begins.
• Bee-Bee Gun: This game introduces Beehosses: living, walking beehives that shoot bees at Bowser.
• Big Bad: Fawful, the former henchman of Cackletta, proves himself more than capable of stepping into this role.
• Big Eater:
  • Luigi eating a bunch of snack foods for one of the Mario Bros. special moves.
  • Bowser. He gets fed a tad too much, though, opening up Flab Zone.
• Bigger on the Inside: Bowser's insides are seemingly much larger than how he looks outside, which may be a side effect of his inhaling power shrinking any living being accessing his body.
• Blah, Blah, Blah: Bowser absolutely hates being made to listen to long-winded speeches, at one point even shouting, "TOO MANY WORDS."
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Implied with Bowser's healing items: each level has an increasingly spicier-sounding name, going from "hot drumsticks" to "fiery drumsticks" and then "TNT drumsticks".
• Boisterous Bruiser: Bowser is the most physically powerful of the playable characters, and matches this with a bombastic, proud and highly emotive personality.
• Bombardier Mook: When fighting other enemies in Peach's castle, Bowser will sometimes be faced with Dark Fawful Bombs, supersized Bob-ombs carried in the air by a pair of fawfulized Fly Guys flying above the reach of his attacks. They will try to drop the bomb on Bowser's head to damage him, unless Bowser inhales them before they do this and causes the bomb to be dropped on the other enemies instead.
• Boss-Altering Consequence:
  • The Sea Pipe Statue can normally only be damaged by counterattacks, but if Bowser inhales it, then Mario and Luigi can damage it with their normal attacks.
  • During Midbus' battle, the audience will throw food onto the stage whenever Midbus successfully lands an attack. Midbus will eat the food to heal himself on his next turn, but Bowser can also inhale this food to heal himself instead or give him buffs.
  • If Bowser didn't rescue the Shy Guys from their cage and get their special move, then he won't use their attack when fought by the Mario Bros. as a boss at Toadley's Clinic.
• Boss Bonanza: The repurposed Peach's Castle holds Junker, Blizzard Midbus, Dark Star, Super Peach's Castle, Dark Fawful, and Dark Bowser and the Dark Star Core. Starting with the Dark Star, the only plot events are these boss fights and the buildup for them, and if you just go right for these bosses and do nothing else, there won't even be any regular enemies.
• Boss Remix: Bowser's Theme is remixed for the Giant Boss Battles.
• Boss Rush: Class 7 in the Gauntlet has you fight against Durmite, the two Kretin phases, Wisdurm, Bowser Memory M and L, Junker, Dark Star, and Bowser X consecutively.
• Brains Evil, Brawn Good: The idiotic but strong Bowser as the Villain Protagonist versus the intelligent Fawful.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Fawful brainwashed most of Bowser's forces so they don't recognize him.
• Brain with a Manual Control: Bowser's brain is set up half like a giant computer and half like a library. It's very user friendly when Mario and Luigi actually reach it.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Reaching the final Rainbow rank for both Mario and Luigi grants them the Excellent!! badge (which only allows Excellent ratings to fill the badge meter but offers very high bonuses for doing so), while reaching Final Boss rank with Bowser grants him the Intruder Fangs (which allow him to move twice in one turn). However, it takes so long to get to level 40 that you'll likely only get these rewards right before the Final Boss, and only with extensive grinding, at which point there's nothing left to use them on.
• Bread and Circuses: Not only does Fawful win over the respect of nearly all of Bowser's henchmen, but he turns Bowser Castle into a theater. And even Bowser has to admit that his cooking is excellent, although a bit fattening.
• Breath Weapon: Bowser's arsenal includes his trademark fire breath. However, you can't use it until you beat the bug that's blocking his flame pipe.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Poor Luigi. He gets the most humiliating of the attacks, but at least he seems to enjoy them.
  • The game's premise centers around Bowser having accidentally swallowed a small town; there are quite a few indignities that go with that.
• Caged Inside a Monster: Among the enemies encountered in Bowser's castle after Fawful takes it over are the Jailgoons, which resemble large living cages with feet and with a cannon and shield for arms. Each Jailgoon contains either a Goomba or a Bob-omb, minions that evidently remained loyal to Bowser and that Fawful thus locked away inside the Jailgoons.
• Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": While the original game used SP (Special Points), the 3DS remake uses the series standard term for Mana, BP, calling them "Brawl Points" for Bowser instead of Bros. Points.
• Call-Back: Fawful's role in Bowser's Inside Story shares a handful of similarities to Cackletta's role in Superstar Saga. Both villains steal a powerful star of some kind, awaken it but it goes wrong, are beaten and become twisted forms of themselves, go inside a Bowser and are fought and killed inside of Bowser.
• The Cameo: In addition to the Optional Boss of three Shroobs inside Bowser Castle's cryonics room, Elder Princess Shroob and eight Junior Shrooboids can be seen on the top screen during said boss fight.
• Cartoon Meat: Tenderlings, the most common enemies in Bowser's Flab Zone, are cylindrical joints of meat with a bone sticking out of each end and cartoonish eyes and feet.
• Character Catchphrase: "I HAVE CHORTLES!", by Fawful, the Big Bad. Used in place of evil laughter, or accompanying it.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Durmite, which at first appears to be little more than a filler boss. It's later revealed to be one of the Star Sages.
  • That mysterious voice that teaches Bowser how to use Chakroads seems pretty unimportant...until you reach late-game and learn that it's Chakron, another Sage.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Fawful's calling card; if an enemy is "Fawfulized", it will have his signature cheeky grin.
• Chest Monster: Trashure (and Dark Trashure, later in Peach's Castle), a fairly regular enemy that doesn't bother trying to trick you. The chest opens at low health, giving Bowser the chance to inhale the coins inside. The regular attack also sometimes spits out coins (or mushrooms). It's also a bit of a Metal Slime, however, and tends to flee the battle.
• Climax Boss:
  • Alpha Kretin. It's the last boss fought before Mario and Luigi can (momentarily) reunite with Peach before she's kidnapped by Fawful and the existence of the Dark Star is revealed. After that, Mario and Luigi can finally leave Bowser's body, opening up the second half of the game.
  • The Dark Star very late in the game, serving as the final boss that Mario and Luigi fight inside Bowser's body alone. Not much later, Bowser finally takes on Dark Fawful, upon whose defeat the actual Final Boss of the game is revealed.
• Cognizant Limbs: Dark Fawful's three legs have to be destroyed (and you have to get rid of his two eyes as well so he won't hide those legs before you attack) before the Brothers can hit his true target, the Dark Star Core. If you fail to destroy the final part, it will flee and you'll have to repeat the process all over again, though it keeps the damage done to it.
• Collection Sidequest: Finding the Blitties, which lets Bowser use Broggy in a Special Attack. Beans also return but boost stats straight away. There's also collecting the various Attack Pieces that aren't necessarily needed to finish the game and are expensive in terms of BP, though a couple can be very powerful if mastered.
• Continuity Nod:
  • There's an Optional Boss battle against cryogenically-frozen Shroobs in Bowser Castle. Mario informs a disbelieving Starlow that Luigi was instrumental during the Shroob invasion after she mocks him by asking if his "ferocious crying" helped.
  • At the beginning of the game, Peach uses her Wish Power from Paper Mario to remove Bowser from her castle.
  • There's a segment where Luigi gets stuck from the waist down inside a Sockop, a monster that looks like a green boot, a reference to the "Goomba's Shoe" from Super Mario Bros. 3. It even lets him walk safely over thorns and other hazards like the Goomba's Shoe. It's later revealed that one of the Sockops is named Kuribo, which is the Japanese name for Goomba.
  • During the Boss Battle with Junker, a bucket falls onto one of the Bros.'s heads and you (the player) must guide them around, avoiding being crushed by Thwomps. This is very similar to the premise of the Japan-only Mario & Wario, where the fairy Wanda must successfully guide Mario through a level while one of various items is obscuring his vision. The first and most iconic of said items is a bucket.
  • Bowser Memory M and Bowser Memory L's attacks are based on previous Super Mario Bros. games. Memory M finds a Super Star and charges through his enemies, or he finds a mushroom and starts breaking blocks. Memory L is chased by a ghost.
  • A Shy Guy mentions Mouser while trying to remember the name of Bowser Castle.
  • The 'Deep Peach's Castle' theme includes a harpsichord version of Cackletta's Theme as a background harmony. Fawful's old mistress would be proud.
  • Exclusive to the remake, Dark Fawful's battle theme is a Dark Reprise of the Fawful and Cackletta battle theme from Superstar Saga.
• Contrived Coincidence: The first sage's plotline: Bowser just so happened to swallow her from the Giga-Carrot he ate earlier in the story. The brothers then find out she's the sage they beat as a worm causing Bowser's stomachache. Once they spot her, she flees into the Energy Hold area behind a blockade of Boo blocks. Some time later, Bowser — who has no idea about the brothers in his body or who the first sage even is — wanders around Bubble Lake to get to the forest and ends up fighting a giant lighthouse robot that just so happens to have a mechanism in it needed to clear the path inside his stomach so the brothers can chase Wisdurm into the Energy Hold.
• Cool House: Bowser Castle and Peach's Castle. They're both ridiculously massive in size and amount of rooms (four or five floors each minimum), and both can actually become giant robots. The former can fly to dodge missiles and fight against Bowser himself, while the latter becomes a massive robot which attacks via laser beams and black holes. Neither of them normally do this, of course; these are the results of Fawful's tinkering.
• Cool Train: The battle between giant Bowser and a train nicking stuff from his vault. What's not cool is that it's timed and you can't punch it, and if you don't defeat it quickly enough, it leads Bowser over a rickety bridge that breaks and causes a Nonstandard Game Over.
• Cranial Processing Unit: The Mechawfuls definitely have whatever controls them inside their heads, to the point that the head specifically has to be destroyed separately to stop it from regenerating the body.
• Creative Closing Credits: After the final boss battle, Bowser is furious to find out that Mario, Luigi and Starlow have been in his body the whole time, and picks up a fight. Cue the closing credits, where he gets KO'd as usual, and a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue showing what happens next. After that, Bowser is shown getting a cake from Peach.
• Creepy Jazz Music: "Fawful is There" is the jazzy leitmotif of the Mad Scientist Fawful. It's never a good sign when you hear the bass guitar intro!
• Cultural Translation: In most versions of the game, Broque Monsieur is stereotypically French (even in the French Canadian one, where he's France French, with the associated language differences and stereotypes). In the France French translation, he's a stereotypical English gentleman. He speaks Gratuitous English in the Japanese version too. For example, one of his lines is "Oh my dog! What's happen!"
• Cumulonemesis:
  • The Stonks are poisonous cloud enemies who live inside Bowser's lungs.
  • Clouds bearing Fawful's face show up alongside the Fawful Express. The fluffy white clouds heal the boss with rain while the storm clouds attack Bowser with lightning.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • During Bowser's fight with his own castle, Midbus comes out and complains that Bowser is being unfair. Bowser just breathes fire on him and he immediately retreats.
  • The final confrontation between the Mario Bros. and Bowser, shown over the credits, does not go in Bowser's favor. Mario and Luigi easily defeat him in a few hits and Bowser is left beaten without really harming either of them in return.
• Cute Kitten: Blitties, living block kittens. Collect them all and you'll get Broggy as a minion. Do Broggy's attack perfectly, and all 15 of them will join him in tackling the enemy.
• A Day in the Limelight: Bowser, as one of the playable characters, finally gets some character focus on him beyond being the typical villain.
• Death from Above: Goomba Storm, when executed correctly, has Bowser set his Goombas on fire and send them flying up into the air to rain upon the enemy. Goo-Ra!
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: In the original game, the Magic Window uses a ludicrous amount of your SP and the individual attacks only do a quarter of the damage your normal jumps can do...but it will not stop until either you screw up an Action Command or everything on the other end of the field is dead. Averted in the remake, where the move can no longer be used infinitely.
• Determinator:
  • Bowser goes through a lot of abuse in this game, but despite getting squished flat multiple times, getting his usual trouncing from the Mario Bros., and getting hit with other numerous setbacks, he keeps on going and will not stop until he has what he believes he rightfully deserves (which is, of course, total rule over the Mushroom Kingdom and Princess Peach).
  • Shown through one of Dark Bowser's attacks in which Bowser has to face an onslaught of dark versions of his minions. Bowser is initially pushed back several dozen feet by the mob and the counter consists of him charging back towards Dark Bowser and punching or shelling aside every minion that comes at him.
• Deuteragonist: In two layers, no less. One layer is Bowser as one protagonist and Mario and Luigi as the other protagonists (since they are almost always together cooperatively). And, of course, Mario and Luigi are of equal mutual importance as a protagonist team.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Before Starlow explains the star menu, she accidentally knocks Luigi to the ground, making him lose 1 HP. This is done to make sure that Starlow can show the player how to use an item because you can't heal at full health.
  • All of the enemies that Bowser will One-Hit Kill if he stomps over them in the overworld have actual encounters when the Mario Bros. fight them. This includes the Borps, found in Cavi Cape, even though there's no reason to revisit that area as the Bros. except for the very small number of Beans found there.
  • All the caged enemies that are in locations Mario and Luigi can reach have unique dialogue for the Bros. interacting with them. This includes the Shy Guys and Bob-ombs, who are right on Bowser's path and would only take a few seconds to get, while the Bros. are separated from these cages by a couple hours of gameplay.
  • Relatedly, if the player did not open the Shy Guys' cage as Bowser before getting to the Toadley Clinic as the Bros., Bowser won't use the Shy Guy Squad attack in his boss fight.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Literally, in Bowser's case, as his final attack against the Dark Star, an ancient abomination of pure dark energy, is to continuously punch it into oblivion.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • The "Excellent!" badge will only fill the Badge Meter with perfect attacks, but the bonuses it grants to Mario and Luigi are very powerful like x2 damage on one attack or 50% HP recovery with status curing. The "Excellent!!" badge is even more powerful, but will empty the Badge Meter if attacks aren't perfectly executed.
  • The Magic Window Special Attack for Mario and Luigi will progressively get harder to keep going due to the interval between attacks getting shorter (thus requiring good reaction times), but can out-damage every other attack in the game since there is no limit to the amount of attacks you get in a single use. This is downplayed in the remake, where the attack was nerfed to have a definitive finishing move like all other attacks.
• Disc-One Nuke: The Koopa Corps for Bowser, which also remains useful for the rest of the game. It works on both multiple and single targets efficiently, and when done correctly its damage output exceeds several of the more expensive late-game attacks, such as the Magikoopa Mob.
• Diseased Name: The locations are all named after bodily diseases/issues, including Cavi Cape (cavity), Plack Beach, Dimble Wood, and Bumpsy Plains.
• Door to Before: Mainly happens in Bowser's body, where you'll get an easy path back to the map screen after the boss battle (or right before it in one case). Outside Bowser's body, this also happens a few times, most notably around Chakron; he provides a both-ways pipe so that you can leave easily when you first get to him, and after getting his Star Cure, he'll offer to warp you to Toad Town (where your next objective is).
• Double-Edged Buff: If Bowser takes too much damage, it will activate the Fury status, raising his attack power but also lowering his defense.
• Dragon Ascendant: Fawful, the Big Bad of this game, was originally The Dragon of Cackletta in Superstar Saga, although he does not explicitly reference the events in the first game.
• The Dragon: Midbus is Fawful's second-in-command.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Done unintentionally by Luigi at one point, when he gets stuck inside an unconscious Sockop. While his head is poking out of the top-hole, the Sockops assume that it's something that he's "chugging" and don't pay much attention to it.
• Dude, Not Funny!: When Starlow mockingly asks Luigi if he vanquished the Shroobs with some "serious crying", he's visibly saddened by this. Mario tells Starlow that Luigi actually discovered the Shroobs' weakness. ^note Ironically, it was baby tears. Starlow quickly backpedals on her comment.
• Dueling Player Characters: Midway through the game, the Mario Bros. fight Bowser after finally getting out from his insides. Bowser has all of the special attacks that he learned while in the player's command. However, he usually executes them rather poorly, despite being the only enemy capable of performing Action Commands. He also never uses defensive commands such as punching the Bros. when they hammer or ducking in his shell when they jump. To make up for this, he has far more HP during this battle than when under the player's control.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Giant battles are introduced in this installment, but they work differently from the other Mario and Luigi games. They involve the use of the microphone, you gain Exp after battle, they cannot be replayed and there are no finishing moves. The remake did away the former two while adding in the latter two. This is also the only time in the series the giant battles are not done with 3D Models done by another company.
  • Ranks are introduced in this game but when Mario, Luigi and Bowser rank up, it just allows them to equip additional pieces of gear for the first couple of ranks. Mario and Luigi's next two rank ups allow them to shop at the Toadles Shop and the Star Shop respectively and the final rank for Mario, Luigi and Bowser gives them the Excellent!! Bros. Badge and Intruder Fangs respectively. The remake changes Shine to Boomerang and has it come before Flower with the latter also allowing the Mario Bros. to shop at Toadles Shop and adds in the Master Boss Rank for Bowser and allows the player to select from a list of bonuses with each rank up like in Dream Team and Paper Jam.
• Easily Forgiven: Bowser decides to pardon Private Goomp, Sergeant Guy and Corporal Paraplonk for betraying him for Fawful as long as they help fix the castle. Bowser does care for his minions, after a fashion.
• Eating the Enemy: After eating the Vacuum Shroom, Bowser inhales the Mario Bros. upon returning to Peach's Castle. The Vacuum Block Bowser later gets from Broque Monsieur enables him to control this ability in combat, being able to use it to forcefully inhale other creatures and send them into his stomach, where the Bros. can fight them. This ability is essential in a lot of Bowser's boss fights.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Dark Star. Nobody knows what it is or where it's from, only that it's evil. Mario and Luigi start gasping and choking just from getting near it. Then Bowser steps up to the plate...
• Emergency Transformation:
  • Fawful turns into a bug-like blob of dark energy after being pummeled by Bowser.
  • Bowser can only transform into Giant Bowser when his body is in extreme danger — namely, when he's being crushed.
• Enemy Mine: Subverted by Bowser. He is not even aware of the fact that he inhaled the brothers and that they are helping him from inside. And he does not take it kindly when he finally finds out.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • One of Bowser's main motivations to fight Fawful; only HE is allowed to kidnap Peach!
  • This occurs again against Dark Bowser. Only Bowser is allowed to take over the Mushroom Kingdom!
  • Though by comparison, the Dark Star/Dark Bowser is worse than Fawful. While Fawful wants to use the Dark Star's power to take over the Mushroom and Bowser's Kingdom, the Dark Star/Dark Bowser wants to destroy it outright and cover the Mushroom World in darkness.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Subverted. The Dark Star overpowers Fawful to regain the energy he had absorbed from it, consuming Fawful along with it. However, the two seem to form a mutually beneficial relationship, with Fawful powering up Dark Bowser from within during its fight with the real Bowser, and the Dark Star's core lending its energy and assistance to Fawful in his own battle against Mario and Luigi.
• Evil Versus Evil: Bowser the Villain Protagonist vs. Fawful the Big Bad.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Bowser the Villain Protagonist vs. the Dark Star/Dark Bowser, the Greater-Scope Villain and Final Boss who is a destruction-seeking entity that gets Fawful onto its side.
• Exposition Fairy: Starlow, known as "Chippy" to Bowser, tries to assist/annoy Bowser and guides the Mario Bros. around. Bowser is not amused when he finds out "Chippy's" identity.
• Face–Heel Turn: Private Goomp, Sergeant Guy, and Corporal Paraplonk are bribed (or brainwashed, it isn't clear) over to Fawful's side and lock Bowser in his own safe. Bowser forgives them after the game, however.
• Fake Ultimate Mook: When Mario and Luigi finally get to the first areas Bowser visited, the "large" enemies are jokes, but the small enemies that Bowser instantly defeated without battle are level appropriate.
• "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: Mario and Luigi spend their half of the game shrunk and inside Bowser's body, running around within his organs and fighting a variety of parasites and animated cells. Even after gaining a way to get outside of Bowser, Mario and Luigi aren't free from this trope; Mario and Luigi enter into a giant Sockop (Shoe-like pitcher plants) at one point in Dimble Woods.
• A Father to His Men: Bowser's troops see him like this. Even though he treats them like crap, he does care for them underneath all his yelling and berating. If you try to leave the screen with the Goombas still in the cage, Bowser will stop and insist he should help those "idiot Goombas".
• Flipping Helpless: Certain enemy attacks can knock Bowser on his back, costing him several turns.
• Fighting Clown: Crawful, an enemy that deliberately slips on Banana Peels and trips on rocks to damage the player.
• The Fighting Narcissist: Bowser is very open about the fact that he considers himself ravishingly handsome, and there are numerous moments of self-worship of his own physique, manliness and abilities.
• Final-Exam Boss: Bowser X counters every Bros. Attack used by inhaling it, making you unable to access that technique until six turns afterwards. This essentially requires you to master each of the ten Bros. Attacks in order to defeat him.
• Finishing Move:
  • Invoked by Bowser at the very end of the game, in which he pummels the dying final boss with four normal punches followed by one giant one.
    Bowser: And for the finale, one KO Punch!
  • In the remake, every Giant Bowser fight ends with one in which Bowser rapidly punches the boss several times, uppercuts them into the air, and gives them a Megaton Punch to finish it.
• Fixed Encounters: The enemies can be seen moving around in the overworld, and battle only begins when you run into them. You can strike first with a jump, hammer, or punch to damage all enemies at once when you enter the battle screen.
• Food Porn:
  • The Snack Basket Bros. Move involves filling up Luigi with cookies, doughnuts, cakes and other various desserts.
  • Lampshaded when Bowser is treated by his brainwashed Boos to a victory feast consisting of cakes, giant hot dogs, turkey (a whole one at first, followed by several legs), doughnuts and ham. Bowser comments on how greasy, succulent and unhealthy the food is before declaring he's going to eat it all. The Boos also tell him the dishes are high in fat and calories.
• Foreshadowing: The first enemies Bowser encounters are morbidly obese Goombas. It may see comedic at first and resemble the Blorbs, but the Chuboombas are carrying lollipops. Bowser is later subject to similar sweets that ends in the same result.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The main story in the 3DS remake features subtle references to the events of Bowser Jr.'s Journey, like a chunk being taken out of the Giga-Carrot when Bowser finds it, Broque Madame confusing Bowser Jr. for Bowser, or Beef of the Brute Force Federation ending up in the bomb stockpile Bowser sets off under Fawful Theater.
  • If you go frame-by-frame, you can read the entirety of the Goomba's rant in Bowser's Castle:
    Goomba: So this big galoot here, right? He's all like, I have no seeeat! No seeat! And he won't shut up! But he won't stop, and we're all, we just can't do it buddy, OK? So we have no idea what to do. And this lug's getting surlier. He's not going away. And he has no seat! Nothing! Not a chance! So we do some solid thinking and totally fail. No big seats! I mean, we got small seats! We can do a small seat, sure, but this guy's huge, so he's not gonna fit into a small one! Please! And it's kinda bugging me, 'cause I'm on my feet all day! I mean, I'd LOVE to sit in ANY seat. It's like, hey, pal, how about you try our job just once, y'know? It'd break him in two seconds! I work hard, Boss! Really hard! And this dude just sits through life?! So spoiled! It makes me ill! All the suffering in the world, and this guy's seating problem is urgent? Nooooooo! Ooooo!
• Fusion Dance: After the penultimate boss fight, Dark Bowser inhales Fawful. This leads to Fawful becoming one with the Dark Star, and in the final battle, the Bros. have to deal with Fawful in order to reach the Dark Star Core.
• Gambit Roulette: Fawful slips into this territory. For instance, getting Toads infected with the Blorbs seems to have no other purpose than to draw Bowser out of his castle in concern for "his" kingdom and get beaten up by Mario, getting smacked into the forest where he'd accept the mushroom from Fawful in desperation for a means to beat Mario. The Blorbs have the added effect of keeping everyone busy with the epidemic and off his tail, effectively making his work invisible until it is too late.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: At one point in the game, the Bros. have a boss fight against Bowser. In the fight, Bowser will more than likely have no stats in common with the ones he has while being controlled by the player, having far more HP than he would have by that point as well as lower power and defense. In addition, none of the gear he may have had on will be in effect, he'll never use items (this is changed in the remake, where he'll eat a drumstick once when entering Fury mode), and never do more than an "Ok" with his special attacks. While normally Bowser's fire breath deals less damage than his punches, here, the flame is deadlier to the Bros. than the punches.
• Genius Loci: One phase of the Fawful Express battle has the train going into a tunnel to hide from Bowser, and then the hill that houses that tunnel comes to life to fight Bowser.
• Ghost in the Machine: Inside the Memory Banks, the part of Bowser's body that represents his brain, is a Guardian that personifies and manages Bowser's memory. After fighting the Mario Bros., it converses with them and they help repair his memory of what the code is for his safe, which was broken at some point thanks to physical trauma.
• The Goomba: Goombules for Mario and Luigi and Chuboombas for Bowser, which serve as the weakest and simplest enemies to be faced. Both are based off Goombas, of course. Bowser can summon his own original Goombas for his first special attack.
• Goomba Stomp: Some enemies will fire projectiles that land on Bowser, or jump on him themselves. In response, he can duck under his spiked shell, hurting the enemy or deflecting the projectile.
• Gratuitous French: Broque Monsieur and Broque Madame. Broque Madame even tries to take this into Everything Sounds Sexier in French. In Canada, the French localisation set "Monsieur DuBloc" as an authentic France Frenchperson, with all the associated stereotypes and language differences.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Dark Star is the Sealed Evil in a Can Living Mc Guffin with power that Fawful wants to obtain to continue his conquest towards the Mushroom and Bowser's Kingdom. However once it's released, it become a far greater threat than Fawful himself, absorbing the beanish villain and covering the Mushroom World in darkness to set the stage for the Final Battle.
• Green Hill Zone: Subverted. The Bumpsy Plains would be an example, if not for the fact that you clear a sizable portion of the game (3 regions, 2 Bowser dungeons and several boss fights) before setting foot there.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: The Scutlet boss that swallows Starlow occasionally spits her back out, as an attack towards the Mario Bros.. Amusingly, instead of catching her and putting her aside to safety, they delve into the trope too as they smash her right back at the boss as a counterattack. She's obviously peeved about it if the counter succeeds, before getting swallowed up again.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The requirement for getting a perfect 100-point score from the puzzle minigame, where no matter how well you do on an individual puzzle you will only get up to 99 points. The trick is that it's an event triggered by clearing all five puzzles in less than two minutes. Considering the usual scores are for individual puzzles, this isn't exactly intuitive.
  • Bowser has a self-inflicted status effect called "Fury" that activates randomly after taking too much damage in a battle, basically doubling his attack at the cost of halving his defense. This mechanic is only mentioned if you ask Broque Monsieur to explain status effects, and it is entirely possible to beat the entire game having never come across the Fury status at all.
• Healing Boss:
  • Durmite the caterpillar is able to recover HP by sticking a straw in the ground (Bowser's internals) and drink from a straw. This can be stopped at any time by dealing enough damage to the straw.
  • When fighting Bowser Memories M and L, if M is KO'd first, L can use a 1-up mushroom to bring M back into the fight.
  • The last two bosses each have the means to restore their HP entirely, and will inevitably do so. The key to winning the battle is to inhale the smaller entity healing the larger one, then defeat the smaller entity from inside.
• Heavy Voice: The speech vocalizations for the Toads are deeper when they are infected with the blorbs.
• Heavy Sleeper: Luigi at the beginning of the game. He sleeps through Mario's opening tutorial!
• Here We Go Again!: After everybody gets out of Bowser's body, Bowser becomes enraged at finding out what happened and yet again starts fighting with the Mario Bros. Cue the credits.
• Honest Axe: When Luigi is rescued from sinking by Princess Lipid, she asks Mario if he dropped him or a "treasure of everlasting wonder". You don't actually get to choose: she automatically assumes Mario wants the treasure, even though Mario insists on having his brother back. It takes multiple tries for Mario to convince her that yes, the one he wants is his brother.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The first Midbus fight, though it's more of a tutorial. You can't deflect Midbus's final attack because you haven't learned the shell defense, and Bowser comments that he "feels kinda crummy" and can't win in his condition.
• Hot-Blooded: Bowser, as usual, has a hilarious Hair-Trigger Temper, and his hot-blooded nature can even be used as a battle mechanic if he takes too much damage called the "Fury" status.
• Hub Level: Toad Square in Bowser's body, where the Bros. will occasionally return to because the Toads have set up shop there.
• Humongous Mecha: The Tower of Yikk is autonomous, and Peach's castle actually becomes robotic.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Bowser pulls out a whole bunch of minions (or Broggy) from his shell when he does a minion attack.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: Bowser's anger at Fawful abusing his minions is due to the fact that if anyone should be abusing the Koopa Troop, it should be Bowser.
• I Ate WHAT?!: Bowser has no idea that he consumed his enemies and that they've been living in his body, and isn't happy about it when he finally finds out.
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake: At the end of the game, Peach and the Mario Bros. send a cake to Bowser as thanks for his help saving the kingdom.
• An Ice Person: Midbus gets ice powers when Bowser fights him for the last time, thanks to Fawful's ray gun.
• Incoming Ham: "Did someone just page the King of Awesome?" Bowser does this multiple times. Basically whenever someone mentions his name out-of-Koopa, he shows up.
• Infernal Retaliation:
  • One of Bowser X's attacks starts off with a simple fireball attack. Upon one of the Bros. hitting it back with a hammer, it sets Bowser on fire, causing him to rain flames on the Bros., then follow it up with a spiked shell ball slam.
  • Bowser does it during a minigame in Peach's castle where a giant piranha plant sets his rolled-up shell on fire. He uses it to his advantage and rams the piranha plants to death. Later, Bowser and Dark Bowser set each other on fire, and both of them roll up into flaming spikeballs trying to tackle each other.
• Infinity -1 Sword: A-OK Wear raises all stats by a high amount and prevents all Status Effects. While you can only get it once you have the Star Rank and it costs a whopping 20,000 coins for one pair, it's possible to earn that much money by having Mario and Luigi go out and explore all the areas that Bowser explored at the beginning (as soon as Bowser rescues the Koopa Troopas). It makes the last two dungeons and the Gauntlet a lot easier.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Broggy Bonker, Bowser's reward for finding all 15 Blitties — which isn't possible until the final level is unlocked. Broggy Bonker has amazing single-target damage, has a chance to dizzy enemies it hits, and a relatively simple method to power Broggy up. Its only downside is having the highest BP cost in the game.
• Informed Ability: Bowser apparently knows how to give professional massages. He just doesn't want to, unless there's compelling compensation.
• Insistent Terminology: Double Subverted with the Miracle Toadley Cure. At first, he insists Starlow refer to the Miracle Cure by its full name, but then he seems to drop the issue soon after. However, if you talk to him later, he's muttering the full name under his breath.
• Intentional Engrish for Funny: Fawful has passed down his speaking style to his dragon, Midbus. However, it's nowhere near as bad, and he simply speaks in a somewhat redundant fashion like badly translated/dubbed kung-fu movies.
• Interface Spoiler: When you first regain control of Bowser after waking him up via Funny Bone, the command for using his flame is crossed out, revealing to the player early on that Bowser somehow lost his ability to breath fire before Bowser himself actually finds out.
• Interspecies Romance: The Koopa Troopa and Boo couple in Bowser Castle.
• It Amused Me: Fawful decided that Bowser Castle needed to be able to fly, converts it into a theater so he can perform in front of his minions, funds a railroad that travels throughout the Mushroom Kingdom, and turns Peach's Castle into a giant mech. None of these have anything to do with his overall goal, and he apparently did it all just because.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Bowser interrupts the meeting to discuss the Blorb crisis at the beginning of the game. When asked why he's there, Bowser states that even though he is a bad guy, he's also a citizen of the Mushroom Kingdom, and as such he has as much right to be at a meeting discussing a national crisis as everyone else in the room.
  Peach: What are you doing here?! We're in an important meeting! The kingdom's in danger!
  Bowser: Gee, PARDON ME! Guess what? I live here, Your Royal Genius! I've got as much right to be in this meeting as anyone!
• Karma Houdini: While Bowser does go through a lot in this game, and gets the stuffing kicked out of him for attacking the Mario Bros in the end, not even a word was said about him attempting to steal the Dark Star's power for himself after defeating Fawful.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia:
  • After being tricked by Fawful, Bowser devours the strange mushroom that grants him the vacuum breath needed to defeat Mario with. Bowser basically goes Drunk with Power at this point, and swallows up everyone. Cue evil laughter before then collapsing. When he rouses from his slumber, he forgets everything. This works to the Mario Bros' advantage, as Starlow (operating under the alias "Chippy") points out, if he recalled what happened earlier, he would never cooperate with the heroes. Their journey to escape Bowser's body would be over before it started.
  • It's mentioned that most likely the reason Bowser forgot his safe's combination is specifically because he just got hit by an entire train which damaged the memory rather than just forgetting it naturally.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Bowser's entire history with the second Star Cure. Before the events of the game, Bowser entered the house of a sage named Kuzzle, who greeted him amicably and challenged him to solve a jigsaw puzzle. Bowser couldn't figure it out, and in a rage attacked him, trashed the place and stole his Star Cure. Having no use for it, he put it away in a safe in his castle. Cut to the game's events, and in his efforts to reclaim the Star Cure in a time of need, he gets betrayed by two groups of people he had previously treated well, is severely injured by one of them, is forced to solve a jigsaw puzzle to remember the safe's combination, and is finally locked within the safe himself.
• Lampshade Hanging: When he badgers his Goombas about how they are supposed to fight, Bowser lampshades their extremely basic forms of attack.
  Bowser: "Marching straight ahead into the enemy's feet!" Didn't you memorize that in Goomba boot camp?
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Fawful claims that the "Lucky Shroom" (actually the Vacuum Shroom) will cause all of Bowser's attacks to be Lucky hits.
• Leaning Tower of Mooks: A non-villainous example. Several Emoglobins in the Airway have formed the "Emototem" that only lets you pass by completing a challenge to prove your worth.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Flame Pipe serves as an organic version of this, in the form of the organs that allow Bowser to breathe fire.
• Lighter and Softer: When compared to the previous game, the game is fairly light-hearted and silly with plenty of hilariously dumb Ham-to-Ham Combat between doofy villains. Until the Dark Star shows up, at least...
• Little Miss Snarker: Starlow, a.k.a. "Chippy". With Luigi's Lovable Coward tendencies making her doubt he's a hero, and Bowser's Dumb Muscle nature, she has a lot of material to snark with.
• Long Song, Short Scene: Every overworld location has a remix of their track that plays when you control the Mario Bros. inside Bowser, but only some areas actually require you to actually do so. The "inside Bowser" remixes of Dimble Wood, Bumpsy Plains/Blubble Lake, and Peach's Castle Gardens will usually only play for a few seconds each when you're en route to minigames or subareas that play their own tracks. The only time you need to play as the Mario Bros. inside Bowser when he's in Cavi Cape is during a brief tutorial about switching control between them, so the area's "inside Bowser" version is likely to only be heard in snippets. The Toad Town and underwater Blubble Lake remixes can easily go completely unheard in a casual playthrough unless you specifically go out of your way to listen to them, as the areas are really small and there's nothing in them that changes Bowser's body for the Bros., so there's no reason to use them. Overall, the only remixes a player will most likely fully hear in-game are those associated with large dungeons inside Bowser, which are the Trash Pit/Energy Hold (the tunnel/Tower of Yikk), the Pump Works (Plack Beach), the Flab Zone (Bowser's Castle), and the Airway (Peach's Castle).
• The Lost Woods: Dimble Wood is a dense forest with a labyrinthine layout, and is the most extensive in-game area outside of the final dungeon. Multiple paths are blocked by trees, which Bowser must clear with his fire breath. Treevils, Wigglers, and nature-oriented enemies can be found here.
• Make My Monster Grow:
  • A rare heroic version in that Mario and Luigi must make Bowser grow at certain points in the game, cueing special boss fights where he goes against a large machine.
  • Dark Star Core can temporarily double Dark Bowser's size. When this happens, punch him in the gut to make him cough up the little bastard.
• Malevolent Mugshot: Once Fawful takes over the Mushroom Kingdom, he redesigns everything to have his face. This includes pictures and statues of Bowser with Fawful's glasses and Peach statues with modified heads.
• Match In A Bombshack: In Bowser's Castle, Bowser winds up lighting himself on fire when running on a treadmill to burn off all the extra weight he put on. He finds the dark room he's doing so in to be the castle's Bob-omb storage depot, accidentally lighting one using his burning body that causes the rest to explode, sending Bowser flying all the way to the other side of the Mushroom Kingdom.
• Meaningful Name: Midbus is the midboss. (And the third-to-last boss.) Midboss is actually his name in Japan.
• Metal Slime:
  • Both kinds of Trashure run away quickly if not taken out, but they can be inhaled for lots of coins when they open, and they have a chance to drop good equipment (Trashures drop a ring that increases earnings from insta-defeating tiny enemies as Bowser, and Dark Trashures drop an SP-regenerating band).
  • Lakitu Kings and Glam Lakitus are rare (they're only found in battles with certain enemies as Bowser, and must be inhaled) and flee battle if they aren't killed fast enough. However, they constantly throw coins when they attack, and either drop equipment that sells for a lot or boots that increase coinage from jumping on enemies.
• Meteor-Summoning Attack:
  • The Mighty Meteor special attack summons a meteor that can be hammered back and forth, slamming into enemies and eventually dropping an item.
  • The Falling Star attack drops a huge star on the target, accompanied by smaller stars that were thrown at it.
• Mighty Glacier: Bowser is ridiculously powerful compared to the Mario Bros., but almost everything will outspeed him.
• Mirror Boss:
  • The final boss battle of the game is Bowser versus the Dark Star turned into Dark Bowser, a clone of him. One of its attacks is to punch him, which must be countered by Bowser's own punch, followed by a shell slam, which must be countered by Bowser's Shell Shield. He also uses Bowser's various abilities, such as fire breath, and even (when giant) mimics a Bowser Army attack. He even has a mini helper inside his body to boost his abilities as he needs them which can be dragged out to be fought by the also mini Mario and Luigi.
  • Bowser Memory M and Bowser Memory L are a particularly bizarre example, as they're formed from Bowser's memories of battling the Mario Bros. and are fought by the same duo when they reach his memory storage.
• Mix-and-Match Critter: Midbus, who's a pig with an armadillo shell.
• The Mole: Literally and played straight. The Monty Mole Brothers reveal themselves to have been working with Fawful all along, right before running Bowser over with the Fawful Express.
• Mood Whiplash: For most of the game you are treated to a cheerful, upbeat soundtrack, but then you get to the respective final bosses, the tone of the music becomes melancholy.
• Motor Mouth:
  • In Bowser's Castle, Bowser wants to sit in Fawful Theater, but the seats are too small for him. When someone asks what the problem is, a Goomba starts a giant rant, with his text boxes going so fast they become unreadable.
    Goomba: So this big galoot here, right? He's all like, I have no seeeat! No seeat! And he won't shut up! But he won't stop, and we're all, we just can't do it buddy, OK? So we have no idea what to do. And this lug's getting surlier. He's not going away. And he has no seat! Nothing! Not a chance! So we do some solid thinking and totally fail. No big seats! I mean, we got small seats! We can do a small seat, sure, but this guy's huge, so he's not gonna fit into a small one! Please! And it's kinda bugging me, 'cause I'm on my feet all day! I mean, I'd LOVE to sit in ANY seat. It's like, hey, pal, how about you try our job just once, y'know? It'd break him in two seconds! I work hard, Boss! Really hard! And this dude just sits through life?! So spoiled! It makes me ill! All the suffering in the world, and this guy's seating problem is urgent? Nooooooo! Ooooo!
• Mythology Gag: The boxart is based off the Japanese boxart for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.
• Never Say "Die": When Midbus confronts Mario and Luigi, Starlow asks if he's got a KO wish.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: The Crawful enemy is a large anthropomorphic alligator found in and around Blubble Lake.
• No Fame, No Wealth, No Service: The heroes can't enter two high-class shops in the Mushroom Mall until they've proved that they're the right sort of clientele...even though most inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom recognize Mario on sight.
• Non-Fatal Explosions:
  • Accidentally setting off an entire storeroom of Bob-ombs does nothing more than send Bowser across the world map.
  • At the end of the game, Fawful blows himself up, which not only doesn't harm Mario, Luigi or Starlow in the slightest, but propels everyone out of Bowser's body and only gives Bowser himself a spicy taste.
• Ocular Gushers: Luigi does gushers of joy when Mario saves him in Bowser's body. The Chuboombas engage in typical sad crying when Bowser eats their lollipops.
• Offscreen Teleportation: When controlled by the player, Bowser cannot access Toad Town due to an Insurmountable Waist-High Fence being in the way and Bowser being unable to jump over it. However, when the player switches to Mario and Luigi to visit the town at one point, Bowser somehow appears there with no explanation given.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The usual reaction to Giant Bowser, from the Monty Moles seeing him tower above their train to the entire Toad Town screaming in horror.
  • Also Luigi, and then Mario, freak out after unfreezing the Shroobs in the Bowser's Castle basement.
• One-Hit Kill: Small overworld enemies such as Scutlets and Fawful Guys pose a threat to the Bros., and must be fought like normal. To Bowser on the other hand, they get kicked away and drop a coin if he runs into them.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: The Daredevil Boots turn either Mario or Luigi into one of these, doubling their attack power but causing them to go down in one hit regardless of their health.
• One-Man Army: Bowser goes through the entire game fighting (as far as he knows) by himself. He literally has to fight through an army of a couple dozen mooks assaulting him just to make it to the Final Boss — and this is merely one of said boss's attacks!
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Dark Fawful/Dark Star Core can turn into a multi-limbed monstrosity.
  • Pretty much every later boss in the game as well as the giant bosses. Midbus becomes Blizzard Midbus, Fawful becomes Dark Fawful, the Dark Star becomes Dark Bowser, and the aforementioned Dark Star Core is a fusion of the Dark Star and Fawful.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Starlow's name is mentioned all of once in the prologue, once in the ending, and once almost exactly halfway between. One can be forgiven for thinking of her throughout the entire rest of the game as "Chippy" — all of the good guys know her real name, but two are silent protagonists, and Peach spends most of the game captured or sitting in town.
• Optional Boss: There are three Shroobs locked up in Bowser Castle that give you a Bros. Move for winning. It is entirely possible to completely ignore this fight.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Some regular enemies can be defeated instantly by a specific move, like Bowser's firebreath on Bob-Ombs (trapped in Jailgoons). However, some will just cause the enemies to retreat, thus netting no XP from them.
• Palmtree Panic: Plack Beach, which has an odd tooth decay theme, is a long beach area dotted with palm trees and giant rotten teeth and inhabited by shore wildlife mixed with dental paraphernalia.
• Playing Sick: Mario and Luigi do this to get a meeting with Doctor Toadley — cue Mario coughing and Luigi having comically exaggerated chest pains.
• Playing with Fire: Bowser's flame breath and the Fire Flower special attack.
• Plot Tunnel: Sometimes, Bowser will refuse to go anywhere (or is incapacitated), forcing you to use the Bros., even though you'd like the opportunity to just go back to Dimble Wood and give Broque Monsieur those damn Blitties.
• Point-and-Click Map: Bowser's Body utilizes this, for quick and easy access to areas that you have to return to several times.
• Pop Quiz: There are three quizzes in the Flab Zone, all with increasing difficulty.
• Pretender Diss: Bowser after defeating the Final Boss.
  Bowser: Hey...you just ACTED like me. That doesn't mean you ARE me. You're no match for the real deal, original Bowser...
• Product Placement: As the original game was released during the height of Wii Fit, this is parodied with such "fads" as Launch Fit, Slide Fit, etc., which are actually small tutorials teaching you how to use Bowser's field actions.
• Promoted to Playable: The game marks the first time Bowser is playable in the Mario & Luigi subseries.
• Pun: Late in the game, Fawful refers to Bowser barging into the room he's in in the verb sense, leading Bowser to make a joke that interprets "barge" as referring to a ship instead:
  Fawful: A nuisance barge barging in at a critical time for us!
  Bowser: Nuisance barge? GWAHAHA! Buddy, you're like a nuisance SUPERTANKER!
• Puppeteer Parasite: Chain Chawfuls are Chain Chomps brainwashed by a Fawfulized parasitic worm in their head. Bowser can inhale the parasite to kill it, which frees the Chain Chomp from the mind control. You don't get EXP for doing this except for in the remake, and even so, you get less of it.
• Puzzle Boss: Several bosses need a very particular strategy (such as one specific brother attacking an appropriate weak point, or using the boss's flunkies against him) to defeat.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: You must continually tap the touchscreen to make Giant Bowser repeatedly punch the waterlogged Tower of Yikk. In the remake, this is done at the beginning of the Finishing Move in every giant boss battle.
• Rare Candy: The Beans, in a change from the previous games, directly increase a character's stats when used. However, they're only found in the latter half of the game, and no enemy drops them; they must be found by drilling. In the remake, there's the Farmer Boots, a piece of equipment that allows either Mario or Luigi to occasionally get beans from enemies by killing them. However, there's only one pair in the game.
• Retraux: In the Memory Banks, Mario and Luigi go into Bowser's memory and get forced to fight old-style versions of themselves.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Does Dr. Toadley answer his own questions? He certainly does.
• Ring-Out Boss:
  • The Tower of Yikk, Bowser's second giant opponent, requires that you punch it into the lake you're fighting at so you can hit its head. Made easier by how easy it is to stop him from escaping the water afterwards.
  • Peach's Castle, when it creates a second black hole. You'll need to punch it into the black hole behind it and avoid getting knocked into the one behind yourself (it'll use an Always Accurate Attack to knock Bowser in anyway).
• Robo Speak: The mechanised form of Princess Peach's Castle, Giant Bowser's final foe. ACTIVATE BLACK HOLE ENDGAME!
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Bowser. In fact, as much of a Dumb Muscle he may be, he seems to be the only one who does something useful in the Koopa Kingdom. Any other Bowser Baddie with a shred of competence ends up working for Fawful. Lampshaded, where Bowser angrily shouts to his Goombas trapped in cages that while they're busy playing "Cram in the Cage", he gets things done!
• Rummage Fail: After defeating the Guardian in the Memory Banks after the Bowser Memory M and L, it helps the Bros find Bowser's safe combination (or what's left of it) by digging through Bowser's memories, initially picking out two wrong ones such as a giant steak and one of Peach.
• The Runt at the End: One of the Blitties in a perfectly-executed Broggy Bonker falls behind the rest of its pack.
• Schmuck Banquet: Bowser is treated to one after beating Midbus. He eats only a little and tries to get out, but the Boos force-feed him until he becomes too fat to move.
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: The Magic Window attack. The Bros. hop into a disappearing, reappearing window and continually hop out onto enemies in random order until you miss a hit; either Mario, Luigi, or both at the same time. The frequency of the hops speeds up as you continue to get it right, and when it really gets going, you can actually see multiple copies of the same bro onscreen at once.
• Screen Shake: The screen wobbles when Bowser grows to his fattest during his "victory feast".
• Seeker White Blood Cells: One room inside Bowser features a large worm boss that is eating what appear to be white knights. After you defeat the worm, the knights ambush you and send you falling. It's not explicitly stated that these are white blood cells, but Toadbert describes them as a part of Bowser's body that attacks intruders and foreign agents.
• Segmented Serpent: Wiggler is fought like this. Like most examples, the head is the weak spot. Unlike most examples, you want to target his body segments first, as its head is immune to damage until you turn all of the body segments yellow (by damaging them).
• Self-Disposing Villain: Fawful, who after being defeated, blows himself up in a last-ditch attempt to take the Mario Bros. with him. All it does is cancel the effect of the Vacuum Mushroom, making Bowser spit out the Bros. and everything else he swallowed.
• Sequence Breaking: Generally very hard to pull off, but after the first Star Cure, you can get six of the needed Attack Pieces in Dimble Wood before you should. You still can't get past the Wiggler though.
• Shadow of Impending Doom: Happens three times to Bowser, by his own castle, then by the Tower of Yikk, then by Peach's Castle. The second time, he even tries to recall what happened, but gets squashed before finding out. As for the third time, Bowser had no time to react before it squashed him.
  Bowser: Weird! It got dark! I feel like this sort of thing happened before...And then...[stomped]
• Shoot the Medic First:
  • Bowser's Memory ML. If you take out M first, L will revive him with a 1-Up if given a chance.
  • For a more indirect definition of "medic", one enemy is a Thwomp with a head cold that is more easily dispatched if you remove its ice pack first.
  • The battle against Dark Fawful has his helmet, which heals him for 300 HP very often. You need to suck it in when it detaches.
• Shout-Out:
  • The English localization seems to feature references to internet memes. Fawful's first line of dialogue in the game is "A winner is you!" and after the boss fight at the Toad Town clinic, Bowser uses the phrase "Cry more!"
  • Enemies called Fawfulcopters may also be a reference. However, they don't go "Soi soi soi."
  • After a Toad in Toad Town teaches the bros how to dig up special beans, he says, "They're a secret to everybody".
  • Midbus' final form seems to resemble Ganon. Also, that logo on his shoulder looks suspiciously similar to the Pigmask logo in Mother 3...
  • Remember the Boo and the Koopa who are referred to as "Honey" (the female) and "Darling" (the male)? Doesn't that sound familiar?
  • One of the enemy types in Bowser's Castle is a robot cage with one of Bowser's minions trapped inside. Defeating it frees the minion.
  • Fawful sings a song reminiscent of the Scooby-Doo theme when asking where the Dark Star is.
  • Private Goomp, Sergeant Guy and Corporal Paraplonk each share the same rank and coloration as Tamama, Keroro, and Giroro from Sgt. Frog.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: As can be expected of him, Bowser has very little patience for pre-battle taunts and banter when he's being controlled by you.
  Bowser: Bah! You like compost? I'll compost your FACE!
• Sizable Snowflakes: Such snowflakes appear surrounding Midbus when Fawful transforms him into Blizzard Midbus.
• Slasher Smile: Fawful. Even creepier when he gives a real chortle. Doubly so when he tries to take out Mario and Luigi as he dies.
• Smurfing: The Emoglobins have a globin of replacing a word or two with "globin". IS THAT NOT GLOBIN?!
• Snowlems: Blizzard Midbus can summon Snawfuls, snowmen with Fawful's face, to aid him during his battle.
• Somethingitis: When Mario and Luigi first visit Dr. Toadley, who makes diagnoses based on visions he received in his crystal ball, he claims that the duo have "Bowseritis," which actually turns out to be Bowser barging in, leading to a boss fight against him.
• Sound of Darkness: The Dark Star's distinctive pulsing noises. The remake has it constantly make a strange rattling noise when it moves.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • Because nothing portrays the quest of a giant angry turtle like cheerful, upbeat background music. Especially Bumpsy Plains or Blubble Lake.
  • Every single boss except for the Final Boss and giant bosses has the same cheery, light-hearted boss music. Averted in the remake, where they get their own themes.
• Spikeballs Of Doom: Bowser becomes one during his Shy Guy Sling move, as well as when he gets the ability to roll around out of battle.
• Spikes of Villainy: Subverted; Bowser's Horn stat has the same function the Bros.' Stache stat does.
• The Spiny: Certain enemies have spikes on their back or are on fire; jumping on these will make Mario or Luigi take damage. Then there's Sockops, which have a special attack if they are jumped on either manually or while attempting to dodge their charging.
• Stealth Pun:
  • Midbus and Fawful. Pork and beans, respectively.
  • Broque Monsieur and Broggy. Say "block monster" and "blocky" with a heavy French accent. "Broque Monsieur" and "Broque Madame" are also puns on "croque monsieur" and "croque madame", types of French grilled sandwiches.
  • A Boo and a Koopa Troopa are in love. This gives Ghost in the Shell a new meaning.
  • Nutsoglobin is a pun on "nutso" meaning "crazy" and "not so globin", where "globin" could mean anything in this context.
  • How does Bowser lose all of his weight after getting fat? Running so fast on a treadmill he gets set on fire - burning calories.
  • One of the locations in Bowser's Body is "Rump Command" and you go there whenever you need to save Bowser, i.e. "saving his butt".
• Steel Drums and Sunshine: The game prominently features steel drums in the melody for Plack Beach.
• Storming the Castle: With a twist; it's Peach's castle you're storming, while it's under Fawful's occupation.
• Stumbling in the New Form: Exploited by Fawful as part of his Evil Plan, in both cases involving Temporary Bulk Change:
  • Fawful sells Blorb Mushrooms to the Toads, which causes them to develop the Blorbs, a disease that makes them so large and round that they are hardly able to move beyond awkwardly rolling around. This means that once Bowser has vacuumed up the main heroes, a large number of the remaining Toads are too incapacitated to keep him from taking over Princess Peach's Castle.
  • Later, Bowser is treated to a banquet in his own castle as a reward for defeating Midbus. The food was cooked to be very fattening, making him plump up in seconds. This makes him too slow to run past the brainwashed minions who are now force feeding him the food. He eventually gets so fat that he breaks through and gets stuck in the floor, allowing Fawful to extract Peach from his innards unimpeded.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: The "victory" feast. You must control Bowser to eat food before the Boos force-feed him.
• Superboss: The Boss Rush in the Challenge Node in Bowser's body culminates in a fight against the hardest boss in the game: Bowser X.
• Supporting Protagonist: It's actually Bowser that takes center stage in this game. Mario and Luigi are just there to help him out.
• Tactical Suicide Boss:
  • If the Monty Bros. didn't come out of the Fawful Express to bomb Bowser, they would have had a much better chance of escaping and winning — countering the bomb attack does a lot of damage to the Fawful Express, even more than an "Excellent" fire breath.
  • The Dark Star is completely invincible unless you hit it with the Dark Satellmites it summons.
  • Dark Bowser growing via help of the Dark Fawful Bug. Thanks to this, Bowser is able to punch his stomach and force him to cough up the Dark Fawful Bug.
• Taken for Granite: Subverted by Chakron, who has stood in one position so long his muscles have locked like that. Also subverted in that he's happy like that, and actually becomes upset when you break him out of it.
• Taking You with Me:
  • The Dark Star tries to suck in the Bros. as a final attack after its HP has been defeated in its fight.
  • Fawful tries it on the Bros. at the end of the game. It fails, and actually frees everyone from Bowser's insides.
• Temporary Bulk Change: A running theme throughout the game:
  • The Blorbs causes Toads to swell up into massively round forms. Humorously, there's a Toad in Toad Town who always looks like this — he's just that big!
  • Bowser can grow enormous to fight equally-giant bosses.
  • After winning a battle against Midbus, Bowser's treated to a feast by his (brainwashed) Boos; they feed him so much fattening food that he plumps up rapidly. This is intentional on Fawful's part, as he needs to extract Princess Toadstool from his body, and creating a "Flab Zone" is the fastest way to do it.
  • The Snack Basket Bros. Attack involves Luigi gobbling down dozens of desserts, bloating to a massive size, and slamming into the ground, creating a shockwave.
• Tempting Fate:
  • The things the Fawful Express Mole crew say before/during the battle with Giant Bowser are exactly the most idiotic things possible, including their entire plan via villain monologue and their weakness.
  • Fawful at the beginning, giving Bowser an unintentional tutorial when watching him fight Midbus.
  • Bowser, before entering his vault: "This is one place that stupid Fawful NEVER could break into!". Then he goes in and sees the train tracks...
• Theme Naming:
  • Fawfulized enemies will have part of their name replaced with part of Fawful's name (Crocodile — Crawful, Chain Chomp — Chain Chawful, Monty Mole — Mawful Mole, etc)
  • Many locations in the outside world are named after parts or ailments of the head: Cavi Cape (cavity) and Plack Beach (tooth plaque) are the most obvious, but then there's Bumpsy Plains (Otapuku Sougen — "Mumps Meadow"), Blubble Lake (Zutsuuda Lake — "Lake Headache"), and Dimble Woods (Ekubon no Mori — "Dimple Woods")^note Many of the Japanese names are deliberate mispellings. "Otafuku" is "mumps", "zutsuu" is headache, and "ekubo" is Dimple.
• This Cannot Be!: Dark Bowser is incredibly disappointed that his plans were brought to ruin by Bowser.
  I have fallen...to come so far...so far...to lose...
• Throw the Dog a Bone: In the ending, Bowser, after helping put an end to Fawful, destroy the Dark Star, and find a cure for the blorbs, challenges Mario and Luigi to a fight and yet again gets the hell beaten out of him during the credits. However, as he is nursing his wounds at his castle, he receives a thank-you cake from Peach and the Mario Bros.
• Tiered by Name: All of the bosses from the Challenge Node are bosses from the main story made more powerful. They all have the same name as the original bosses but with "X" at the end of their names. Even the superboss Bowser X.
• Time-Limit Boss:
  • You only have a set number of turns to defeat the Fawful Express. Take too long and the train crosses an unstable bridge that Giant Bowser will break when he tries to cross it, instantly dying.
  • You have a turn limit when fighting the Challenge Node bosses.
• Toggling Setpiece Puzzle: Three levels inside Bowser require Bowser to interact with an object from the outside world to access and alter the level geometry:
  • The Pump Works is located within Bowser's esophagus. By drinking from a statue, Bowser can flood the level, which allows the Bros. to swim, moves some obstacles, and rehydrates Bubble Bloopers. This can be reverted by having Bowser step away from the statue.
  • The Energy Hold is located within Bowser's torso. By activating the Boo-ray machine (pun on X-Ray), Bowser can toggle certain platforms on and off based on the presence of the machine's light (or lack thereof).
  • The Airway is located within Bowser's lungs. By inhaling from a source of cold air, Bowser can freeze the water in the area, allowing platforms to stay put and blocks of ice to form, at the cost of blocking some areas off.
• Toilet Humour: Wisdurm farts in Luigi's face. Possibly also Truth in Television, as some types of insects in real life actually do expel gas from their abdomen to deter predators.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Bowser (with the help of Mario and Luigi, of course, but still a welcome relief from the severe case of Villain Decay).
  • The Shroobs in Bowser Castle. Before, they were just low-level Mooks; here, a pack of three of them is midboss-level power. Just take a look at their stats before and after.
  • Fawful starts as the second-in-command Dragon, is downgraded to a shop owner, and is now the primary boss of the game.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Despite their strained relationship from constant bickering and stubborness, Bowser warms up rather fast to "Chippy", who is, from his perspective, just a random person he accidentally swallowed up. Though quick to inform them he's no taxi service, Bowser frequently tells them of their whereabouts and his intentions, even though he doesn't need to. When this "Chippy" of his starts fixing up his body, the Koopa's so pleased he offers to make them an honorary minion of his. As "Chippy" begins unlocking hidden powers, Bowser forcibly welcomes them into his army. Only when the Koopa King discovers at the story's ending Starlow was his "little minion" all along does he flip out.
• Training Boss: Bowser, who is the first boss for the Mario Bros, and Midbus, who is Bowser's first boss. After that, there's Broque Monsieur who teaches how Bowser and the Bros. can fight together.
• Traveling-Pipe Bulge: Some of the pipes inside Bowser act as launchers that fire the Mario Bros. up to higher ledges or switches.
• Under the Sea: The underwater portions of Blubble Lake. Also the Pump Works inside Bowser's body when he drinks too much water.
• Underground Level: Tunnel Under Construction. It's a large circuit that can be used to get around quickly as Bowser.
• Underground Monkey: Many of the enemies are even more variations on the classic Mario foes, either at a cellular level inside Bowser's body, or beefed up for Bowser himself to fight. Some are quite creative, while others are simply regular enemies under Fawful's Mind Control.
• Ungrateful Bastard: The Goombas and Bob-Ombs trapped in the Jailgoon enemies fall under this trope depending on who's rescuing them. If the Mario Bros. free them, they'll simply run away. If Bowser frees them, they'll toss a mushroom (or Drumstick in the 3DS version) at him, restoring his HP.
• Unique Enemy:
  • Elite Goombules, which are fought exactly once in the Trash Pit, in a tutorial for the Green Shell. They never appear again, and for good reason; the game gives you the hammers after the fight, which defeats their only purpose.
  • There's also the boss-exclusive enemies, including Leaf Guys, Biffidus, Junker Cans, Snawfuls, and Dark Satellmites.
• Un-person: Happens to Bowser himself, via Fawful's brainwashing of most of his troops. None of them recognize the Koopa King, and Fawful Castle has been called that for as long as they remember, having changed its name from Mouser—Showser—Bowser a long time ago.
• Unreadably Fast Text:
  • One of the Goombas when Bowser is inside his castle for the first time after Fawful's takeover.
    Goomba: So this big galoot here, right? He's all like, I have no seeeat! No seeat! And he won't shut up! But he won't stop, and we're all, we just can't do it, buddy, OK? So we have no idea what to do. And this lug's getting surlier. He's not going away. And he has no seat! Nothing! Not a chance! So we do some solid thinking and totally fail. No big seats! I mean, we got small seats! We can do a small seat, sure, but this guy's huge, so he's not gonna fit in a small one! Please! And it's kinda bugging me, 'cause I'm on my feet all day! I mean, I'd LOVE to sit in ANY seat! It's like, hey, pal, how about you try our job just once, y'know? It'd break him in two seconds! I work hard, boss! Really hard! And this dude sits through life?! So spoiled! It makes me ill! All the suffering in the world, and this guy's seating problem is urgent? Nooooooo! .... Ooooo!
  • Some of the Magikoopas as well; when Bowser frees them, they start discussing ways to show their gratefulness. Every Magikoopa apparently came up with a different plan and they all start arguing very fast about which one they're using.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Bowser's primary attacks involve him giving his foe a powerful punch or breathing fire.
• Unstoppable Rage:
  • Any of the Giant Bowser fights, in which the Brothers must supercharge Bowser's adrenaline and turn him into a giant Godzilla-like destruction machine.
  • In normal battles, if Bowser takes enough damage he'll get angry and Turn Red (literally), raising his attack power but decreasing his defense.
• Unwanted Assistance: In the first Midbus battle, Fawful ends up doing this to Midbus by attempting to warn him of Bowser's attacks, which actually serves as a tutorial for the player. Not that it hurts Midbus much...
• Unwitting Pawn: The whole plot got kickstarted because Fawful tricked Bowser into eating a strange mushroom. Later on, the heroes pull this on Bowser themselves, keeping him Locked Out of the Loop that they have entered an Enemy Mine situation.
• Variable Mix: There are two tracks for everywhere in the game, one for when you're walking around outside as Bowser and one for when you're inside Bowser.
• Verbal Tic:
  • The Emoglobins all have very globin-ish and strange-ish speech patterns. They tend to use too much-ish of the "Globin" in the talking, but that is to be expected from creatures possessed of such a globin. IS THAT NOT GLOBIN?
  • The Moles tend to put "bro" in every one of their sentences.
    Mole (Upon seeing Giant Bowser): BRO NO!
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Peach's Castle, which has been taken over by Fawful. It's extremely long, ominous in music and atmosphere, and contains the toughest enemies in the game who are corrupted by the Dark Star’s power. The final area inside Bowser, the Airways, isn’t quite as epic.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Whenever the Dark Star is in the scene, the game suddenly gets very deadly serious, in sharp contrast to its standard whimsy. Nothing about the character is played humorously — that's how big a threat they are.
• Villain Protagonist: Bowser is a playable character. His designs aren't exactly altruistic, although the Mario Bros. do their best to manipulate him into not being a complete jerk all the time.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The Durmite for the Bros. She's the first boss in the game that can heal herself (though you can just destroy her straw to prevent that from happening), and the first Flunky Boss. Though not extremely difficult for that point in the game, she's definitely a step up from Scutlet.
• Warm-Up Boss:
  • The Sea Pipe Statue is the first real boss of the game and, while complex compared to the tutorial bosses (Bowser, Midbus, Broque Monsieur), isn't all that challenging.
  • The Scutlet is this for the Mario Bros., being the first boss they fight, and also the easiest.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Dark Star uses this attack as both itself and the Fawful bug, requiring both brothers to jump onto Starlow during the charge-up time or else take major damage. The original Dark Star (and its X variant) will also pursue the brothers after the attack for just as much damage. Bowser's fire breath acts the same way.
• Weapons That Suck: Not exactly a "weapon", but the Vacuum Block allows Bowser to suck up Blitties, small enemies, as well as parts of larger ones. It's far from sucky too, as almost all enemies that Bowser encounters are hampered by it in some way, or have an associated enemy that can be sucked up.
• Weight Taller: The Bros Move "Snack Basket" has Luigi gorge himself on sweets until he bloats up into a giant that Mario must toss into the air. If you succeed in doing it right Luigi will belly-flop and cause a shockwave that hits anyone on solid ground.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Wisdurm is never shown leaving Bowser's body.
  • The Miracle Cure, which is used to destroy the barriers on Peach's Castle, then is never heard from again. This is after the heroes talk about using it against the Dark Star. It was mentioned beforehand by Toadley that he was unsure if the Miracle Cure would destroy the barriers and take down the Dark Star, so presumably, it was used up just trying to get into Peach's Castle.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Broque Monsieur hates Mario since bashing in coin blocks "decreases their value" and makes business harder for him and thus will tell the Bros. to get out of his shop, albeit politely.
  • Parodied with the Wiggler. He tells Bowser to "take responsibility" for pulling up the Giga-Carrot by eating it for the Banzai Bill; when Bowser does, Wiggler gets mad and, rather than cough up the Bullet Bill as he promised, starts a fight! And the Koopa King needs to own up for his actions? Note that he got mad and attacked you not because you pulled the carrot up, but because you ate it, which he told you to do. When Bowser promptly defeats him, he will then whine about what a brute he is for beating him up in a fight he started.
  • If you don't break down the cage that the Koopas are trapped in with Bowser, and talk to them as Mario and Luigi, they'll talk about how cool Bowser is, and how he'll defeat the Bros., but then they realize that he didn't let them out of the cage they're stuck in, and remark that that's not cool.
• When Trees Attack: Treevils in Dimble Woods are giant trees that serve as enemies. Like most plant-based enemies, Kill It with Fire.
• Where It All Began: The game begins and ends at Peach's Castle.
• Why Won't You Die?: Fawful delivers one of these to Bowser, dropping his Affably Evil facade. At the start, Bowser was just a convenient pawn, and an unwitting dup of Fawful's scheme...now after screwing with Fawul's scheme at every turn Fawul says he hates Bowser as much as Mario and Luigi (Which Bowser takes as an insult being lumped together with Mario).
• Womb Level: The main premise of the game is Mario and Luigi venturing inside Bowser's body.
• A Winner Is You: Fawful yelling this at the start of the game aside, the only reward for beating the Final Boss after raising Mario, Luigi, and Bowser to their highest ranks is a short congratulations from Chakron.
  Chakron: Everyone grew super strong...You are amazing. Very well done! I rarely give praise to the unenlightened. But you truly are absolutely amazing! And now I go.
• The Worf Effect: Like in every Mario and Luigi game, you fight Bowser at the beginning, and he's an absolute pushover. Justified this time, as his abilities are being weakened by Peach and Starlow. Even Bowser himself is taken aback he lost so easily. You even fight him later in the game at his full potential, and he puts up quite a fight.
• Worst. Whatever. Ever!: One Toad is buying so many items and relying on victory in scratch card games that he is driving his family to financial ruin. His wife calls him the "worst financial planner ever" for his spending sprees.
• Wrap Around:
  • Certain enemies do this, by going off one side of the screen and coming back from the other.
  • The Crawful enemy after it loses its teeth—the bean it tries to eat gets shot off the left side of the screen, only to land on its head from the right side of the screen.
• You Are Not Alone: Bowser gets this at the end of the game from Starlow, who tells him that Mario and Luigi have his back. He doesn't hear them, and kicks butt himself regardless.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: You can't stop Fawful from taking over Bowser Castle, kidnapping Peach, stealing the Dark Star, and awakening it. Even Mario and Luigi's hunt for the Dark Star consists of nothing but failed attempts to stop it.
• You Have Researched Breathing:
  • It takes about 30 minutes of in-game progression for Bowser to learn the exquisite art of lying on the ground with his spiky shell pointing up for the purpose of defending from airborne attackers.
  • At no point in the game do Mario and Luigi ever have the ability to wear overalls, gloves, socks, AND shoes at the same time. They do eventually learn how to wear two or three of these four items at a time. The remake downplays this by having the brothers and Bowser start with three Gear slots by default.
• Zerg Rush:
  • Bowser's Goomba Storm has an army of Goombas dashing at the enemy, although you can shoot them with fire to turn the move into Death from Above instead.
  • If you get an excellent with Broggy Bonker, Broggy tackles the enemy twice, and then one more time followed by the 15 Blitties you collected. One of them lags behind.

Tropes appearing in the remake:

• Adapted Out: There's no longer a shot of Broque Monsieur spotting Giant Bowser.
• Anti-Frustration Features: In the original game, the Mario-compatible and Luigi-compatible nodes on Alpha Kretin were differentiated solely by color, with red corresponding to Mario and green corresponding to Luigi. In the remake, the nodes now have different facial expressions as well — red sporting angry eyes and green sporting shocked eyes — to make it easier for colorblind players to tell them apart.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Bowser's healing items are drumsticks for HP (same as the original game), and wedges of cheese for BP (which are new to the remake). His "Elixir"-type item that fully heals both HP and BP is the Cheesy Drumstick.
• Dark Reprise: Fawful's battle theme is a slower arrangement of of his and Cackletta's in Superstar Saga, replacing the generic boss theme from the original. Symbolically, this shows that Fawful has surpassed Cackletta both as a threat and as a diabolical mastermind, all the while carrying on her twisted legacy.
• Glass Cannon: The Challenge Medal now works this way as instead of putting the game on Hard Mode, it greatly increases the damage the wearer gives and receives.
• Nerf: The Delicious Gloves now only affect the user instead of both Bros.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the original DS version, after Bowser's fight with the Fawful Express, the train blows up into several debris that crush the Monty Bros. as they attempt to flee in a panic. In the 3DS remake, they manage to escape after the battle, and Bowser throws the now abandoned train on a nearby bridge, destroying them both as they fall into a ravine.
• Sudden Name Change: In the giant battles, Bowser's Fire Breath is now Fire Blast while his Refreshrooms are now simply Mushrooms.

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