Mario & Luigi RPG 3 finally hits the U.S. tomorrow, in the form of "Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story."

Release Date: NA: September 15, 2009 / EU: November 27, 2009
Official Site: http://bowsersinsidestory.com/

IGN awarded the game with a 9.5, proclaiming it to be the best of the three M&L titles, and fan feedback has been unanimous that it's miles ahead of Partners In Time, and close or equal to the excellent Superstar Saga.

For those picking up the game this week, a heads-up that Toys R Us is offering a $10 gift card with purchase.  Due to the fact that their circular mistakenly advertised the game to be available this past Sunday, they'll be offering an additional $5 to the gift card (or $5 off the $34.99 retail price) as reimbursement for the error.  Pretty sweet deal.

Thanks for the heads up.  I still haven't picked up Partners in Time, so I'll be grabbing both and taking advantage of this little deal.

Picked mine up today.  Very much looking forward to trying it.

Is the TRU deal going on all week, then?  If so, I might have to bite.

I've only just begun, but the game so far is aces.  The writing is excellent as expected, with Bowser's and Fawful's dialogue being the best of the bunch.  The beginning sequences are extremely tutorial heavy, though; like the first two games, they'll cover everything from overworld movement to battle commands.  They can be skipped, but they're worth sitting through to experience the cleverly wordy exchanges amongst characters.

There's also a much welcomed graphical face lift; further animation has been given to the characters, but more significantly, the fonts and menu screens got a total revamp, resulting in a sleeker new look.  There also appears to be a new sound font set in place, so even standard sound effects like hammer hits and voice overs are refreshingly different.  All this makes the game feel like a much more nominal sequel to Superstar Saga than Partners In Time was.

The Mario/Luigi portions have been enjoyable.  I dig how these sections are played out in traditional 2D plane style, so you've got a definite Paper Mario vibe going on here.  Bowser's is fun too.  The big guy doesn't jump, so you need not worry about having to fumble around with dual-leaping platforms (one of the main faults I had with the previous two games).  His appears to be more puzzle oriented, where you use your two primary "smash" and "fire" button techniques to get through.

And Shimomura's music score is terrific as usual.  Especially the battle themes; Bowser's Battle Theme, in particular, is quite excellent.  And those opening bars to the end of battle Fanfare theme are way infectious.

Picked this up with Scrib the other day, but I'm still trying to finish Superstar Saga after all these years; those last few parts are BRUTAL.
Good to hear it's solid, in any case.

So, I wanna say that I'm maybe halfway done with Bowser's Inside Story.  I'd hate to render judgment before it's completely over, but this has been the most fun I've had with a role-playing game in quite some time.  Between the cleverly intersecting story lines, ingenious use of the DS's mic and touch screen features, mini-games, and ultra-refined battle system, I'm almost confident that this will end up being THE best Mario RPG-related title thus far.  (And that includes Legend of The Seven Stars and the Paper Mario series.)  It's just that good.

I almost completely agree with this, except that I still prefer Mario RPG by a small margin.  I haven't had this much fun with a video game in ages, and I'll be sad to see it end when I finish it tomorrow.

I have both of the Mario and Luigi DS games... but I'm honestly losing interest with "Partners in Time" just two hours in. I'm halfway tempted to skip to "Bowser's Inside Story" as the subject matter sounds more interesting to me. That and I'm a big Bowser fan.

with a few exceptions, Partners in Time is generally considered the worst Mario RPG (unless you count Super Paper Mario, which most people try to avoid doing). I didn't find it as bad as I expected from the negative way people talked about it, but it isn't that well-designed. There are a few bright spots (the attack items are kind of clever and demanding, some of the story scenes are quite amusing), but it's nowhere near as well-rounded an experience as Superstar Saga, and I've seen several people say that they were surprised by the quality of Bowser's Inside Story after Partners in Time.

I'm still holding out for a Wario RPG, though. Or even a decent Sonic RPG.

I seriously do not get all the hate towards Super Paper Mario.
I absolutely loved everything about it.

Come to think of it, I've really enjoyed all of the Mario RPGs so far, and Bowser's Inside Story is definitely no exception.

Well, I started Bowser's Inside Story and got about two hours into it. So far, I'm much more satisfied. No annoying babies to juggle! I also like the story and think the areas to explore are more diverse.

And I love Bowser.

A great game!! Great music, great gameplay, great dialogue and characters.... im completely satisfied. BTW doe anybody know where I can download the Giant Bowser theme??

well, what quality are you looking for? there's bound to be at least three or four full playlists of the game's music on Youtube. I could probably dig up a tagged 2sf set somewhere on hcs64's forums, although I'm not quite as confident about finding a good quality recording from the headphone port itself. There's also a promo CD out there with songs from the game, but I'm not sure which tune is the giant bowser theme, but I just realized that in typing this all I might as well check what the giant bowser theme is on youtube and then see if anyone has ripped the promo album.

tl;dr - The Giant

it rather reminds me of Castlevania, specifically Castlevania 64 (Masahiko Kimura's work, although I guess it could've been Furukawa or Egawa)

Speaking of battle themes, the final boss theme - presumably "In The Final" on the Sound Selection promo CD - is flat-out dope.

Shimomura's battle/boss themes in this series are all top-notch. I can't wait to hear this one in context. It's catchy!

what no

partners in time last battle theme :(
not only didn't fit the scene at all, but it was essentially one extended fumble of good ideas

Never heard that one.