HOME :) BLU-RAY + CD VIDEO GAMES ANIMANGA ENGINEERING

(MARIO) THE MUSIC BOX REMASTERED

(sorry, i don't have too many screenshots for this one cuz there aren't any on the internet and i forgot to take some during my playthru)

Introduction

This was a weird one to see. During the pandemic, I got addicted to playing RPG Maker Horror games, which is what I call RPG Horror games even if they're not made with RPG Maker. Deal with it. Anyways! I always knew this game existed since I had seen it in a YouTube video someone did about creepy Mario games, but the first time I tried to play it (during the pandemic), I got stuck and frustrated so I dropped it. However, I decided to finally come back to it just to give it another chance and I am GLAD I did.

MTMB by all rights should not work this well. However, it does. The creators mentioned that they were inspired by other RPG Horror classics like Corpse Party, Mad Father, and The Witch's House, and you can see this pretty much everywhere in the game. Overall, it does well at creating engaging puzzles and a great horror atmosphere.

What I liked

Art

Goddamn, can we talk about it!?!? Seriously, this art is genuinely so good. The shading is incredible, all the characters are drawn incredibly, and it's just so good. Sorry, I don't have a lot of words to describe art because I'm STEM-brained. But you all get the point, right? Seriously, even just the two wallpapers they provide on their website are masterfully done. The first one is at the top of this page, but take a look at the other one!

Phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. It was kind of a tough decision to decide to stop going for other endings to the game, and finishing the art gallery was one of the reasons! I found myself purposely dying often so that I could take a look at the next bloody CG; all of them were well-done. I only wished they used an engine newer than RPG Maker XP so that the images didn't have to be compressed to such a low resolution.

Story

The story is pretty standard for an RPG Maker title like this one. The original plot of having Mario visit a mansion to investigate it is good enough, but everything that unfolds afterwards is pretty great. Think of it like a more violent, bloody version of Luigi's Mansion, only Luigi takes a secondary role in this game. As you go through the game, the overarching story of the Aduraices and what happened at the mansion becomes intriguing and encourages you to keep playing so that you can find out.

Gameplay

One thing that many RPG Horror games can have trouble with is gameplay. Essentially, since there are no battles, your game is just a walking sim with puzzles, so you have to make sure that those puzzles are pretty good. MTMB does not seem to take that challenge seriously, which I will go into more detail in my "didn't like" section. However, the gameplay is still acceptable to me. Finding items, making decisions, going into rooms, watching cutscenes, and more. There are still some puzzles, and these are pretty good, too.

The game also shines in the numerous endings you can get based on the actions you take. One thing that I really appreciate this game for doing is alerting the player before a decision that can change the ending is made. Sure, you can argue that it takes away some of the mystery and thrill of actually finding the different endings, but for a lot of people, unless it was obvious what to do for an ending, they might never figure it out. However, this game does pretty well on that front. All of the decisions that can alter the ending are pretty obvious even without the warnings... that is, if you've been paying attention -_-

Music

Yeah, I recognized a lot of the music as the ones that other RPG Horror games use. For some reason, every Japanese dev discovered the same five websites at the same time and decided to use the songs for their games. Not like I'm complaining though! These are some pretty good songs. H-MIX is pretty great imo, and Presence of Music has some great atmosphere. Either way, the ones they chose were pretty good, and the main theme does its job well enough. There are even some standout music tracks!

What I didn't like

Gameplay + Last Boss (SPOILERS!!!)

Okay, so the gameplay isn't all that. It's an RPG Horror game, so I was already expecting most of my interest in the game to come from the story. However, at times it feels like The Music Box doesn't even try. It can when it wants to, but other times it's just "get this item, use it here, read this book, run from this thing." I know that a lot of other games in the genre do this, but it doesn't really work in this game (or those games either to be honest). Ib, for example, had very creative and engaging puzzles as well as numerous decisions to keep track of. The puzzles in MTMB are good but far and few between. But oh well, it's more of a nitpick.

What is definitely not a nitpick, however, is the final boss in the "Better Off Lost" ending. Alice Aduraice, the bitch supreme herself, possessing Mario. Luigi has to do his best to... extinguish the candles? Before the bell goes off five times? Yeah, whatever, I don't care about the premise. The gameplay sucks balls. You have to rush to each structure, time some bullshit QTE, and rush off to the next all the while Alice and some shadow beings are chasing after you. Those things are so fast that if you don't time everything completely accurately, you're fucked. One attempt I was literally surrounded by the fucking things and had to let myself die and restart the boss.

Well, I guess these QTEs were slightly easier than the boss in the "Omitted Memory" ending, which was a turn-based battle of holy water. But whatever, I digress.

The window of error is so low. I understand that they wanted it to be challenging, but this is way too much. The controls of RPG Maker XP are not good enough to warrant such strict timing. Oh yeah, on that note...

Controls

Well, I do have to praise them for adding diagonal movement to RPG Maker XP, but it is still pretty clunky. However, one thing that I will not understand is changing the default keybinds. Z and X have become so familiar to me that I was shocked to realize this game uses Space, Shift, Escape, and Enter. What? Why? Those keys genuinely make no sense and require inconvenient manuevers to reach. If they thought that ordinary gamers would be more accustomed to those keys, they were wrong. Hey guys, plenty of people played Undertale. You don't gotta worry about Z and X being foreign.