Greetings, 'Shroom readers. This is Lord Bowser here with a new edition of ''Lord Bowser's Inside Story'' for you all!

Today, I'll be covering the namesake of my section; ''Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story''. Within Bowser's body, there is an optional area that Mario and Luigi can visit, known as the Challenge Node. As the name suggests, this place is where you can test your skills against extra-hard versions of bosses and where you can see how long you can keep a special attack going.

[[File:Challenge_Node.png|thumb|left|The Gauntlet is on the left, and Cholesteroad is on the right. That is not a healthy color for a door.]]
At the bottom of the area, you're greeted by special Emoglobins telling you about what those two doors contain. In the leftmost door is the Gauntlet, where massively buffed up versions of bosses await; in the rightmost door is Cholesteroad, where you have to keep a special attack rally going for as long as possible. Let's begin with the Gauntlet, as that's the far more exciting one.

There are six bosses that must be defeated in the Gauntlet; Durmite X, Kretin X, Wisdurm X, Bowser Memory MLX, Junker X, and Dark Star X. As you can probably tell, these are buffed versions of bosses fought during Mario and Luigi's part of the game; their respective X boss is unlocked upon their defeat, but in no way does that mean Mario and Luigi should go and fight it right away. All of these bosses have their base stats at least doubled, and you are given a preset limited item inventory, making them nearly impossible at lower levels without expert dodging techniques. To further add onto the pain, all battles have a set turn limit; if the battle goes over the number of turns allotted, you automatically lose. Luckily, instead of grinding for an arbitrary amount of time and hoping you're strong enough for the challenge, the Emoglobins within the Gauntlet just tell you what the recommended levels for each boss is. At or around these levels, the bosses aren't especially terrible; in fact, they're a pretty fair challenge at that point. They have rather disappointing rewards though, as every boss simply gives you coins... after taking away some of your own coins as a fee to fight them. What a smart idea.

Anywho, after defeating all six X bosses, a new challenge is opened up for you; all six X bosses again! This time, however, they must all be fought consecutively, with no intermissions in between. Since the recommended level for this challenge is 50, this makes pretty much all of the bosses before Junker X a complete cakewalk, Junker X himself a pushover, and Dark Star X quite easy when fought at this level. However, this new challenge doesn't stop there. Not at all. After defeating Dark Star X, you are presented with one last fight to battle your way through; Bowser X. And oh boy, is it a doozy.

[[File:BowserXVaccuum.png|thumb|right|250px|Welp, there goes easy mode.]]
Bowser X is the superboss of ''BIS'', and true to the term "superboss", he pulls absolutely no punches. He has insanely high stats all across the board, and many of his attacks require very precise timing to successfully counter, as they all happen quite quickly. To make matters worse, you still have a very limited inventory and a 35-turn limit, which sounds like a lot until you realize you've probably wasted at least 15 of those on the previous bosses. His attacks are all of the attacks used in the Bowser fight in Dr. Toadley's office, though much more powerful and faster. He also gains three new attacks; the first is a counter move used whenever you use a special attack. After the special attack ends, Bowser uses his vacuum ability and swallows the attack, leaving you unable to use that attack for five turns. The second attack he uses is spamming fireballs at you, which thankfully don't deal very much damage alone; however, when the fireballs are countered with hammers, Bowser X will curl up into a ball and rain down fireballs at you. Afterwards, he'll try to quickly ram into you;  this deals big damage if you're hit.

[[File:GiantBowserX.png|thumb|left|250px|hELP]]
The last new attack is him turning giant, breathing fire at you, then chasing after you while having you dodge the flames in your path. Getting hit by the flames or running into them while being chased will deal massive damage to you, often leaving you unable to survive more than a few misses. To make matters worse, you only have two 1-Up Mushrooms and one 1-Up Super in your inventory for the entire boss rush, lowering your chances of successful revival. In short, Bowser X is a pain in the ass even at the recommended level 50, and nothing but torture any lower. Grinding to level 50 is no small task, either; though the Emoglobin near the Gauntlet recommends grinding in the Airway, that simply just gets boring, as you're not likely to gain more than a level by the time you go above 40, even after beating every enemy in there. That's actually the main reason I have yet to ever defeat Bowser X on my own; the grinding for it simply got too tedious, and I gave up.

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The next big thing in the Gauntlet is Cholesteroad. In Cholesteroad, the challenge is to keep a special attack going for as long as possible, and hit certain (often ludicrously high) milestones to earn ranks, coins, and then ''stuff''! The special attacks featured here are the Green Shell, Yoo Hoo Cannons, Super Bouncer, Spin Pipe, and Magic Window, along with a special mode called "Juuuuuump Mode" (with 6 u's) that uses the the Jump Helmet. The special attack animations speed up over time (or decrease in time limit in the case of Yoo Hoo Cannons), making them harder to keep going as you progress.

[[File:Cholesteroad.PNG|thumb|right|250x375px|What riveting gameplay.]]
The gimmick of Cholesteroad is that you are challenged with defeating an endless swarm of Cholesterons, yellow enemies which basically act as punching bags for Mario and Luigi. Small ones are encountered at the beginning of your rally, then are temporarily replaced with larger ones as you approach a rank. The rank thresholds for each special attack are as follows;

{| style="text-align: center; margin: 0 auto; border-collapse: collapse;" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1"
|-style="background: #ABC;"
!width="10%"|Special attack
!width="10%"|B Rank
!width="10%"|A Rank
|-
|Green Shell
|100 points
|150 points
|-
|Yoo Who Cannon
|80 points
|120 points
|-
|Super Bouncer
|20 points
|30 points
|-
|Spin Pipe
|20 points
|30 points
|-
|Magic Window
|70 points
|120 points
|-
|Juuuuuump Mode (Jump Helmet)
|30 points
|60 points
|-
|}

The Green Shell is a particularly tough one to swallow, since even getting a B rank on it is very difficult, let alone an A rank. It doesn't help that it's the very first challenge presented to you, and remains the only one available for quite a while, as Yoo Who Cannons aren't encountered until much later in the game. The B rank reward for the Green Shell is a measly 50 coins, while the A rank reward is the Challenge Medal. The Challenge Medal essentially turns the game into hard mode, as it multiplies all enemies' HP, Speed, and Defense by 1.5x, and their attack by 2.5x. It also multiplies coins gained by 1.5x, but that's a pretty small boost when the entire game gets significantly harder when it's equipped. The rest of the special moves give you pretty situational or otherwise insignificant gear (such as the Daredevil Boots, which doubles your attack power but makes any hit an instakill), along with a bunch of likely useless coins.

Juuuuuump Mode is different from the rest of the special attacks, in that you aren't defeating an endless swarm of enemies; rather, you use the Jump Helmet to travel forward indefinitely until you miss a jump or run out of time. Points are earned by traveling a certain distance, approximately the length of the biggest jump possible with the helmet. Fun fact; the points thresholds were increased in America and Europe. In Japan, you only need 25 and 50 respectively to get B and A ranks. And they say Nintendo isn't biased...<br>
Anyway, there are clocks scattered around the path which can either increase the time limit, decrease it, or temporarily stop it from ticking down; the ones that decrease the time limit become much more frequent as you go up in points. It's slightly less unfun than the rest of the special attacks, but it's still pretty annoying and tedious to get through. Getting an A rank on all special attacks and Juuuuuump Mode will earn you the Master Wear, a gear that... isn't even the best gear in the game stats-wise. That belongs to the A-OK Wear, and while it sells for a hefty 20,000 coins, it's still much easier to earn than this ''single'' gear piece; only one is provided, meaning one bro will have to go naked. <small><small><small><small><small><s>according to certain headcanons at least</s></small></small></small></small></small>

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[[File:Brirosetalk.PNG|thumb|left|250px|This is unusually provocative language for a ''Mario'' game...]]
In a similar vein to Cholesteroad, Bowser has his own mode for spamming special attacks at things. In Blubble Lake, you can find Broque Madame's house in the northwest portion of the map. Inside, Broque Madame... asks the player for a massage.

That's right. A ''Mario'' game asked you to massage a lady made out of blocks. Let that fact sink in.

...Anyway, this is how Bowser is able to spam special attacks, by subjecting his minions to possibly the most demeaning task conceivable; pelting them against this lady's back. This is nearly identical to Cholesteroad, with the exception of the... backstory behind it. The special attacks Bowser can use here are Goomba Storm, Koopa Corps, Bob-omb Blitz, and Magikoopa Mob, and the rank thresholds for these are as follows;

{| style="text-align: center; margin: 0 auto; border-collapse: collapse;" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1"
|-style="background: #ABC;"
!width="10%"|Special attack
!width="10%"|B Rank
!width="10%"|A Rank
|-
|Goomba Storm
|150 points
|250 points
|-
|Koopa Corps
|250 points
|350 points
|-
|Bob-omb Blitz
|120 points
|150 points
|-
|Magikoopa Mob
|200 points
|300 points
|}

If you thought the thresholds for Mario and Luigi's special attacks were insane, these are literally several times worse. This is alleviated somewhat by being allowed three strikes until you are forced to restart, but still... ''350 points''?!?! I believe that meets the definition of cruel and unusual punishment. Anyway, again like Cholesteroad, meeting these ranks will earn you coins, more coins, and then ''stuff'' again!!! Unfortunately, also like Cholesteroad, all of the gear given is also situational or insignificant, such as the Heroic Ring, which increases the power of special attacks by 30%, but their price by 50%. Man, if they're gonna make us do these incredibly tedious tasks, at least make the prizes good. Getting all A ranks in these challenges will net you the King Shell, which actually is the best shell in the game for Bowser, giving him some pretty nice stat boosts across the board. Too bad its necessity is pretty low, since Bowser is absolutely useless in the endgame besides freezing the Airway... :'(

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And that's it for the extra challenges featured in ''Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story''. Overall, the Challenge Node and Broque Madame receive a final rating of...

<big>'''5.5/10 (F)'''</big>

As much as I like ''BIS'', and for obvious reasons, its extra content is... pretty bad. It's either grinding for levels to beat overly-hard bosses, or repeating special attacks a mind-numbingly high number of times for a poor selection of gear. There's definitely a lot that could've been done to make this portion of the game better, but Nintendo unfortunately missed the target on this one by a pretty wide margin. It's not nearly on the level of sinful as games such as, say, ''Super Paper Mario'', but it's still not as good as it could be.

Well, that's all for this month's edition of ''Lord Bowser's Inside Story''. Friendly reminder that I am taking requests for games you'd want me to cover; feel free to send me a message on [[User talk:Lord Bowser|my talk page]] or [https://www.marioboards.com/index.php?action=pm;sa=send;u=4626 on the forums] if you're interested, though please note that requesting does not guarantee your suggestion will be covered. Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you again next issue!