MFGG - Mario Fan Games Galaxy

Review Information

Game Reviewed	Mario Mini Game Madness, by Superadammario
Review Author	Vitiman
Created	Feb 13 2024, 10:09 PM

General Commentary and Game Overview

Well well, lo and behold. If it isn't Paper Mario World's awkward, lesser known baby brother. Or maybe it's older brother, I forget when which came out. I think Paper Mario World is from 2002? The creation date for this is 2001, so maybe this is the original.

Anyway, if you don't know what Paper Mario World, congratulations: it's not important. But a quick rundown for those of you who are curious, it's a particularly infamous game in MFGG's history, and for some reason it has managed to persist in the MFGG mythos for many decades now. Yes, decades with an 's'. It's over 20 years old. So is this! So let's take a look and see if Mario Mini Game Madness truly holds up to the test of time.

Yeah well, I think we all know it isn't. But it's fun to be surprised! I played this so you wouldn't have to, and so here is my consensus...

Pros	+ Has some of that late '90s fan game charm, the kind of charm you don't see in many MFGG games + Some of the congratulation screen blurbs were unintentionally hilarious + A fair bit ambitious relative to the creator's lack of skill in Clickteam
Cons	- So painfully, dreadfully dull - You can do everything there is to do and then some in like 10 minutes - Sounds and graphics are, well, quite grating most of the time

Impressions

Gameplay 2 / 10	To truly discuss what this game is and how it feels to play, we need to go over every game individually. So, in order: 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲 A very, deeply dull 8-directional shooting minigame. Move around, try not to get hit (but you have so much HP it really doesn't matter), and there's probably a boss at the end. I don't know, I didn't bother playing much of it. 𝗖𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝗛𝘂𝗻𝘁 A mini platforming challenge to get all the coins on single-screen levels. It's not very fun and the jumps are pretty precise, but it's really easy to clear. 𝗬𝗼𝘀𝗵𝗶 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 Yoshi from the Super Mario All Stars + World title screen is back and better than ever! He's here to take on enemies and Bowser himself with the power of fireballs, an ability Yoshi is very much known for having canonically in-universe all the time. Actually, I'm not gonna dog on the game for that, that's awesome. That's why fan games are interesting, when they deviate and do stuff differently. That's what makes them worthwhile. This is still terribly boring though. 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘀 𝗦𝗸𝘆 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 Hey, remember Surfing Challenge? Yeah. Well, that. But again. 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼 𝗣𝗼𝗻𝗴 This isn't Pong, this is Breakout. You can't get those confused. They're fundamentally different games. Yeah, they're both paddle games but they have totally different objectives. Come on, Adam. You know better than that. Anyway, it's pretty broken. It uses the default ball movement and Mario gets stuck in angles that don't help you one bit. Took me like 2 minutes to get the last brick of the first screen, and I had zero interest in seeing what lurked beyond that. 𝗦𝗲𝗮 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 Hey, remember Surfing Challenge and Marios Sky Adventure? Well, that. But, again again. 𝗚𝗼 𝗞𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗕𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 Tank control go-karting where you try to hit a flag and not hit a wall so much. Also, the worst boss fight in the entire game thus far, because you have fixed angles to shoot from and you move like molasses. Truly a game for champions only (I still beat it though, because I'm awesome). 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼 𝗤𝘂𝗶𝘇 This one's so freaking lame, man. Haha, it's just some really basic questions and no real theming or anything, and then finally it hits you with a question you couldn't possibly know the answer to because it was like "what's the secret code to unlock a hidden minigame in this game?" and I was like "What? Hell if I know, why would I know that?" Well, sure enough, I got it wrong. Oh well. 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 A proto-Paper Mario World if you will, complete with a little boss fight at the end. It's... inoffensive. Probably the most entertaining game in the lot. 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼 𝟯𝗗 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 Mario Adventure but it's top-down and uses Mario RPG sprites. Yeah, it's really exciting. You chase Bowser in a pipe once, that's kinda cool. 𝗕𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗕𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 A bunch of back-to-back, "spam fireball" boss fights with no real creativity or challenge. One of the boss fights (the first match with Bowser) is nearly identical to the Mario Adventure one, complete with the same sprites. It only adds an offense attack from Bowser himself, who now can throw his own fireball-type projectiles. Very original stuff, not repetitive at all! Yeah, all told, this stuff is very... by the numbers. It's not strung together with a funny narrative or anything, so it all feels very... time wasting. Not in the fun way either, just like you wasted a lot of time putting energy into playing this. It's very much a kid goofing around in a game making tool and not much else. For that, it's charming. But... yeah, on its own? It's really dull and boring.
Graphics 4 / 10	I think when you factor in the circumstances of this game's creation, the graphics are decent! They're all right. Serviceable. Just your usual low color Clickteam library rips from official Mario games of the time. It's... yeah. I mean, it's pretty barren too though, seldom any backgrounds. Lots of solid colors. Can be an eyesore at the worst of times, but it's not the absolute worst thing I've ever seen from this site.
Sound 3 / 10	You run out of what to say about the same MIDIs and sound rips after the thousandth time. Go read one of my older reviews about one of these ancient fan games. They all use the same SFX anyway, and a lot of the MIDIs overlap too.

Final Words

If Paper Mario World is the Son, then Mario's Mini Game Madness is the Father. Removed from its historical context, it's an extremely dry and repetitious experience that feels exactly like some kid making his first video game would feel like. Because that's what it literally is. I honestly think this is worse than PMW, and yet there's not swarms of reviews dogging this one into the ground. I mean don't get me wrong, the reviews already on this game are not flattering of it in the slightest, but it doesn't have this... aura to it. Does that make sense?

Anyway, this isn't good, hahaha. Don't play it unless you are a Paper Mario World mega fan and crave more. It's gonna leave you pretty hungry though.

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