Mario's Time Machine

Mario's Time Machine
Mario and time travel? How do you make this NOT awesome?! The Software Toolworks found a way.
Genre(s): Edutainment Platform(s): MS-DOS Super Nintendo Entertainment System Nintendo Entertainment System Release: MS-DOS NA: 1993 NA: 1996 (Deluxe version) Super Nintendo Entertainment System NA: December 1993 Nintendo Entertainment System NA: June 23, 1994 Developer(s): The Software Toolworks Radical Entertainment (NES) Publisher(s): The Software Toolworks Nintendo (NES) Country: United States Canada Series: Super Mario

"But educational or not, these games are horrible abominations of space and time that give insult to the very fabric of nature itself! In other words... they suck."

— The Angry Video Game Nerd

Mario's Time Machine is an edutainment game made by The Software Toolworks and Radical Entertainment for MS-DOS, NES, and SNES, released in 1993. Along with Mario is Missing!, this game is one of a series of Mario-themed educational games called the Mario Discovery series.

Plot

Bowser has stolen various artifacts from the past using a time machine to stock his museum. As Mario, the player must return the artifacts back to their correct points of time.

Why We Should Travel Back in Time to Make Sure This Game Doesn't Exist

1. The levels are too convoluted: they start with the player collecting a random artifact and having to give it back to its owner, which would be okay if it was just it. But no, you have to a fill out a document with way too many options that as a kid, you'll more likely not know which is the right one. After that, you must surf around an ocean and collect mushrooms to at long last return the item to its right time period.
2. Confusing time machine controls.
3. In the NES version, if you put the artifact in the wrong period of time, you're forced to return to the museum and fight the Koopas in a poor man's version of the original Mario Bros. game to recover the artifact.
   • In the SNES version, Mario will go surfing to collect ten Mushrooms within a time limit. Due to tedious controls, the minigame becomes a pain to sit through. Making this worse is the failure to provide any indication that Mario needs to enter a whirlpool after collecting the ten Mushrooms.
4. The SNES version is extremely boring due to a lack of action-oriented gameplay that was at least present in the NES version.
5. Like Mario is Missing!, the sprites are literally from Super Mario World. Also, in the NES version, Bowser's sprite was recycled from Super Mario Bros. 3.
6. Mediocre graphics.
7. Speaking of the NES Port, it feels more like of a reskin of Mario Is Missing! because it has the same music and some of the sprites, even though they originate from Super Mario World, like the developers were too lazy to make different sprites and music.
8. This game contains lots of historical inaccuracies. To name one, Mario receives a tea bag from a librarian in 1455 even though tea bags were naturally first made in the early 1900s.
9. In the NES, if you're picking items, you must pick them up correctly.
10. The ending that shows Bowser saddened and crying is extremely disappointing.
11. The time machine interface is unbearably slow.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The soundtrack is very nice.
2. The concept had so much potential but was executed poorly.
3. In the NES version, the proper Bowser sprite is used, unlike the previous game.
4. The NES version is fairly decent compared to the other ones, as it feels more like a proper Mario game.

Trivia

• Along with Mario is Missing!, the sprites of Mario and Luigi in the MS-DOS version spawned the "Malleo" and "Weegee" memes respectively, especially the latter due to their unsettling designs, especially when depixelated and became a part of YouTube Poops.

Comments

"What were they thinking?" The Shit Scale Games that are debatably bad High level of shit contamination The very high category The severe zone Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Major code red 👆 This game/console belongs to the "High Level of Shit Contamination" category of the AVGN's Shit Scale.

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