Mario's Time Machine: Difference between revisions

In the year 1993, [[Bowser]] uses a time machine, traveling backwards to different points in [[Earth|human history]] and stealing significant artifacts to place in his personal [[Bowser's Museum|museum]] inside his [[Bowser's Castle|castle]]. With his collection nearly completed, Bowser gloats that not even Mario can stop him now. Mario realizes that history will change forever if he does nothing, so it is up to Mario to use Bowser's own device against him by returning the artifacts to their proper places in time.

The home console releases add that Bowser plans to destroy his time machine (called a ''[[Timulator]]'' in console manuals), deliberately planning to irreversibly damage history and send the world back to the Dark Ages. In the NES game, Bowser's Museum has been fully built and already established itself with history's greatest artifacts. [[Yoshi]] joins Mario in his quest to stop Bowser's plot, but instead gets captured when he scouts ahead. In addition to fixing the timeline, Mario must also rescue Yoshi from peril.

The central hub of ''Mario's Time Machine'' is the museum within [[Bowser's Castle]]. The museum is three floors high, and on each floor lies five artifacts, giving Mario a total of fifteen periods of time to travel to. Mario must take an artifact from a pedestal, look at the date and location labeled on it, and then program that information into the time machine and travel to that point in the timeline. Mario surfs the ripples of time, collecting [[mushroom]]s and avoiding hazards.

When the player arrives in the time period, he must explore and converse with the various residents that live there. In doing so, the player learns about the artifact, the time period, and the person associated with it. To get more information, the player must receive items that some residents possess and give them to others in order to satisfy their needs. For example, in Vienna, one resident will complain about the heat until Mario retrieves a fan and hands it to the person, who will then continue to give information. After the player has talked to everyone, the player fills out a History answer sheet. The answer sheet consists of a two-page biography about the person associated with the artifact and the time period, with blanks replacing several words. The player must use the information they received to correctly fill in the blanks. If the player fills in the wrong answer more than twice, they are forced back into the present; if they succeed, Mario can return the artifact to its owner and return back to 1993. After all of the artifacts on a floor have been returned, Mario moves upward to the next floor.

There are three different endings which are decided by how many points the player has scored and the order in which the artifacts are returned. If the player spends too much time returning all the artifacts or returns any artifacts in the wrong order, there is a non-standard [[Game Over]] in which Bowser escapes to "[[Paradise]]" using the time machine; or Mario gets sent to the Cretaceous period where he looks in different directions of the screen (both being notable for being the only ways to get a Game Over). A message reminding the player to return all the artifacts either in a more timely manner or in the correct order appears on the screen. After that, the player must start over from the beginning, or use a password to go back to a previous point. However, if they meet these two objective conditions, the time machine overloads, self-destructs and sends Bowser to the Cretaceous period where he gets stepped-on by a Tyrannosaurus Rex (humorously, right beforehand when he notices it, his eyes shrink with realization of what will happen to him and he meekly opens an umbrella in the hopes it will protect him), and a raptor then grabs his squished remains and throws them like a Frisbee.

*1994 — [[Novato]] ([[David Grenewetzki]]'s [[Floppy Disk]])

;[[Novato]] (1994)

*In the PC version, Mario travels to 1994 and helps the development team ''Mario's Time Machine'' finish the game, despite the SNES version having been released in 1993. However, even that release carries a 1994 copyright.

Timulator in MiM SNES opening.png|Bowser and his minions with the [[Timulator]].