Developer: Radical Entertainment
Publisher: The Software Toolworks
Release Date: June 23, 1994
I play a lot of educational games in January. Typically, at the end of December I will set a goal for how many games I am going to try to complete the following year. I always end up losing my way part way through, but I am really into it in January. I like to try to get way ahead early so the rest of the year will be easier. So, I play a lot of educational and other children’s games that are easy victories. My goal this year is 100, but I did the math and with all the games I have access to if I want to beat them all by the time I turn 80 I will have to do something closer to 250 a year. That seems like a bit much even for me, but I do have a few other educational Mario games I can play at least. I even have another version of Mario’s Time Machine. Maybe I’ll do that one in January of 2023.
My background is in education, so I will admit that I enjoy educational games, and I am not going to be snarky about one just because it has another goal than the typical game. However, Mario’s Time Machine is a bit of an odd one no matter how noble the cause. It took some time just to figure out what I was supposed to do. This game has Mario trapped in a museum trying to return artifacts to their proper time periods. To get the artifacts he needs to go through doors and play a very simple version of the original Mario Bros. There’s no deaths or injuries in the game, so these sections of the game exist solely to make it feel more like a real video game. They get old fast, and they must be played at least sixteen times for Mario to find all the artifacts. All you have to do is wait at the bottom until a koopa happens by and then bump him. There’s no strategy or challenge whatsoever. It should also be noted that the titular time machine seems to be the property of the museum and not Mario, but I guess “Mario and the Time Machine That Just Happens to be Nearby” isn’t as catchy of a title.
The whole game is plagued by bad design choices. Each artifact has to be placed in a specific place in a specific time period to count. The levels themselves are small, so this shouldn’t be much of a problem. Some of the clues, which are also history facts, are very hard to get to. There are hidden blocks everywhere, and many of them just get in the way. In theory it’s nice to have some sort of challenge, but it ends up being more annoying than fun. Also, and probably not surprisingly, some of the facts are out of date. Nowadays we all know that Magellan didn’t discover the Earth was round and Cleopatra was a Greek and did not kill herself using a snake. Most of the facts are at least interesting and historically accurate so I can’t complain about that part too much. What really drives me crazy is that Mario can only carry one artifact at a time. If you put it in the wrong time period, or even in the wrong spot in the right time period, a bird will swoop in and take it away. This means you have to go back and play the Mario Bros game again to get the artifact back. I get that they want the player to truly know the correct answer and not just get it by guesswork, but some of the artifacts are ambiguous and took me several tries to figure out. Sure, we all know an apple is going to go with Newton, but how about a generic throne or steering wheel? The quill pen could fit with almost any era before the 20th century, but it went with William Shakespeare who just happened to be hanging out in the non-familiar year of 1603. I know that he was rising to the height of his popularity around this time, but I didn’t see this year and automatically think Shakespeare. It’s also confusing because some of the dates are the famous person’s birth year and some are the year they accomplished something important. It’s all a bit of a confusing mess that causes you to go to the Mario Bros screen about 20 or 30 times more than should be necessary.
The one bit I enjoyed in this game was the appearance of famous historical figures. You get to see people like Gandhi and Einstein appear at the end of levels and then get instantly killed by koopas. There’s just something really funny about seeing Neil Armstrong finally make it to the moon only to be taken out by a first level mook. It brings up some questions to say the least. Are they really dead or did they just lose a life? If they are dead than that means Bowser irrevocably changed history by killing off a dozen or so of the most important people before they had a chance to achieve their greatest goals. Lincoln wasn’t able to pass the 13th amendment and Shakespeare never wrote Hamlet just because Bowser had a silly scheme to kidnap Yoshi. That just goes to show you that if you have a museum with a time machine, don’t leave it out in the open where just anyone can use it. It’s sad because Bowser, who just essentially destroyed the world, is taken out with just three hits in an impossible to lose fight. It’s another part of the game that only exists to make it feel more like a video game. It adds no challenge or fun to the game, but a game has to have a boss and an ending.
So, Mario’s Time Machine is a disappointment. It lacks challenge but doesn’t have enough true educational content to make up for it. At least it has Mario and the gang in it, and it’s weird enough to be interesting. I’d take it over a boring bad game any day, and it does set off my nostalgia receptors even though I never played it as a kid. Yes it’s a bad game, but it’s my new top bad game. I am ranking it at number 73 just ahead of the bad but boring Looney Tunes Racing. It’s one of those bad games that I still recommend. The strangeness makes it worth playing, but I can’t objectively say it’s not a bad game. If you get a chance to play it you probably should, especially if you like bad games.
NES Quality Percentage: 13/23 or 56.52%
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