Let’s see… ah-ha! So we last left off defeating Belome and being swept away to the Midas River. Aside from it being absolutely gorgeous with all of the brilliant colors in the caverns, the river course itself to me was much easier to understand and control than the Super Nintendo version of this same course. I really enjoyed its incarnation as opposed to the original. I’m still not particularly good at it, but it’s very enjoyable. It starts off falling down a waterfall sprinkled with coins and frog coins with cave entrances (like the featured image above) and the occasional spring to bounce one back to the main waterfall. The second part is to roll on a barrel down a flat river with coins that one can jump up to reach while also avoiding some angry cheep-cheeps along the way.

Once the course is completed it ends with a toad offering a conversion for a certain amount of coins collected on the course itself. If the bar is met, then one keeps them, otherwise the coins are withheld until the course is re-ran to hit that bar. Once that’s all squared away, it’s onwards to Tadpole Pond! Upon entering for the first time, one is greeted by the tadpoles and the Frog Sage himself who tells Mallow is not a *shocked* ‘not a tadpole!

From here, it’s a fun-quick run through Rose Way, where we meet back up with Bowser and his army wanting to take back his castle. Mario & Mallow hide from sight to hear what has been happening with the Koopa King.

Upon entering Rose Town, things are… a bit off. It’s gloomy, the music is the same when the Mushroom Kingdom was under siege and arrows are raining from the sky, so it’s very obvious as something is incredibly not right in this town.

After exploring the town, and heading into the Inn, a whole adorable and wonderful scene happens. It starts off with a young toad named Gaz playing with figures of Mario, Bowser, and Peach reenacting the trio’s many adventures through the years. It’s all so cute and then when Mario comes in, Gaz asks for him to play for a spell and introduces another doll named Geno. While Mario plays as his ‘nemesis’ Bowser, Gaz uses Geno’s arm attack and knocks Mario out cold.

After Mario is sent to bed, a new cut scene for the Switch version plays out. The Super Nintendo didn’t have this scene and I got really emotional. The entity we come to know as Geno comes through the window, looks at the figures, and picks the Geno doll as its chosen body to go and help fix Star Road.

Mario wakes up, and comes down to hear Gaz talking about Geno heading into the Forest Maze to their mother. The Forest Maze area has one banger of a song and has lived rent free in my mind since the Super Nintendo days. There’s some hidden spots in here and the maze itself: there’s two routes here one is explained by the feller in his house on top of the staircase, and the other is following Geno.

Mario and Mallow catch up with Geno, we’re introduced to Bowyer, a talking bow-like entity that is associated with the Smithy’s Gang, and also who has been shooting arrows at Rose Town. Mario tries to go ‘fists’ flying into deal with Bowyer, but Mallow stops him. They hide for a moment while one of the arrows brings to him the 2nd star piece, and then Geno gets involved very quickly thereafter. Geno pleads with Bowyer to stop and hand over the star, but of course does not for in which then Mallow allows Mario to get involved (while also running off without Mallow… oops.)

The fight itself is a lot of fun, and Bowyer uses ‘X,’ ‘Y,’ and ‘A’ disabling buttons to try and slow the party down. Ultimately leading to Bowyer getting irritated enough to disable all three buttons at once. Geno speaks up and states the trio make a good team, and leads into introducing the player into using a Trio Attack, which is kind of like a Limit Break if one is familiar with any of the later Final Fantasy games.

With the wheel at 100%, it’s time to use the ever first Trio Attack in the game to end the fight, and claim the 2nd star!

With Bowyer defeated, the 2nd star piece is ours! Just a quick stop back in Rose Town afterwards, then it’s back on the road heading to the Pipe Vault, then ultimately to Moleville!