I was supposed to write my review of (Mario) The Music Box Remastered at least two years ago. I’m now in the sort of yucky period of my career where I need to coax myself back intro writing after continuous, traumatic events and several months dealing with severe PTSD because sitting there being traumatized doesn’t help me regain lost Patrons. Seriously though, please pledge to my Fanbox. At the very least I’m not alone, as I recently checked into the Team Ari Discord server, and noticed that lead dev Jessica had a close brush with suicide. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that I’m glad she’s still with us, and that she has my full support, especially considering my own recurring mental health struggles. And if Jessica is reading this, I know the two of us haven’t had much interaction, but just know you are more than welcome to speak to me if you are ever in need of any company or support.
Anyway, it’s best that I start talking about the game itself. (Mario) The Music Box Remastered is an improvement over the original in every way. If you read my review of the original (Mario) The Music Box, you’d know I had my fair share of struggles with it. It was plagued with game breaking bugs, immersion breaking moments, and pain inducing button mashing that really prevented me from being able to say it was good. The interesting thing is, nearly every suggestion or criticism I made in my original review was implemented into the remaster, and I know for a fact that Jessica did read my original review, so I probably played a role in that. I’m not used to seeing my work directly effect the direction of future projects, so it was nice to see.
That being said, I did make a few suggestions about deaths caused by in universe Mario hazards, but I can’t tell if they were just added to this version, or if they were in the original and I just forgot about them… I will probably look it up later and change this so I’m not sure why I’m writing this, unless I decide to include this bit in the final draft just to fuck with people… I’m totally gonna do that now. Yeah, I’m stalling… PTSD induced writer’s block isn’t making things easy.
In the process of writing this review, I decided to look up a video of the death scenes, and I forgot how chilling they are. While I have undoubtedly seen worse in terms of fucked up visuals, and the writing does come across as a bit hyperbolic at times, I have to give a lot of credit to both the music and especially the sound effects. While (Mario) The Music Box Remastered does follow a lot of the same beats as the original, the presentation makes all the difference.
What ESPECIALLY needs to be mentioned is the original voice work. There’s only a few lines used, and those lines are basically just someone screaming and crying, but they are done so effectively. They sound different enough from Charles Martinet that you can tell they’re original, yet they are close enough that it’s deeply unsettling when you hear them in game. These simple audio clips make the moments they play during so much more painful and horrifying, and they capture a feeling similar to that of a (good) creepypasta game twisting your childhood memories into something disturbing.
The new story elements that were added also did an excellent job at adding more polish to the overall game. There’s now a lot more nods to the mainline Mario canon that make this game feel more believable as part of the Mario universe, but not excessive enough that the game doesn’t lose it’s dark tone. There’s also more foreshadowing to the second game in the trilogy, and anything that made the original feel incomplete was replaced, making the overall game feel much more complete. The final bosses were a noteworthy step up from the original game, with one of them being a full on animated sequence, complete with original music that sounds like it’s straight out of out of Yoko Shimomura’s discography.
(Mario) The Music Box Remastered is Team Ari’s best work yet. It not only improves on the original MtMB, but it also irons out the jank that was present in (Mario) The Music Box – ARC. That being said, I know that Team Ari has something planned for the future. Their next game following the Remaster was initially intended to be called (Mario) The Pocket Watch, but their website indicates that this next game will be an original work. I wonder if what I said in my review of ARC influenced this decision? Regardless, I will be looking forward to it.
Anyway, this review would probably be more thorough if I didn’t take so long to write this, and if I wasn’t also dealing with writer’s block, but I felt like I had to get something out given the recent lull in content. I don’t plan to take another month to get the next review out by the way, so don’t count me out just yet.
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