Fawful Express (Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story)

From Atrocious Gameplay Wiki

The Fawful Express is the penultimate giant boss from Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story and it's remake, Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey. It's a giant train with Fawful's face operated by Monty Moles.

Such an awful fight of fury!

This boss fight is infamous for being hard (though one may argue that Peach's Castle is harder), but for the wrong reasons.

Why It Gives Fury

  1. Since the train is small, Bowser cannot use his punch to hurt it. Instead he must use his fire breath, which is less powerful. And keep in mind, the original version requires you to use the microphone, in order to deal damage with the fire.
    • In the remake, you still have to use fire, but at least you don't require the microphone anymore; you just have to tap the touch screen a bunch instead.
  2. Unlike the other giant boss fights, the Fawful Express has a condition: the player must defeat it, before the train reaches the bridge. If not done by then, Bowser will fall into the gorge, and the player will get a game over unless they have a Retry Clock, in which case they have to use it to try again.
  3. The only way Bowser will be able to fight the Fawful Express, is during its stop at a station. By the way, there are four stations, and Bowser will get only two turns for each station, thus giving Bowser a grand total of 8 turns to defeat the Fawful Express before it goes over the bridge, and his HP is not healed without having to spend a turn choosing the action for it.
  4. During the first two stations, the train will unleash small hordes of Choombas that charges into Bowser. However, a Refreshroom will also appear, which could unintentionally cause the player to hit it.
  5. There are two spiked mountains that Bowser must destroy, in order to avoid a rocket that the train will fire.
    • It gets worse in the Gauntlet (remake only), as it will cause the battle to lose thanks to the quick speed.
  6. After reaching a mountain, Bowser must defeat the Fawful Mountain. However, while doing so, the Monty Bros will REPAIR THE TRAIN.
    • You can use the fire to damage the train as well as the mountain, but it also triggers an attack from the mountain, where Bowser must destroy the clouds that attempts to extinguish the fire, as well as other clouds that are about to attack Bowser himself.
  7. During the two last stations, the Monty Bros will use a new attack, which involves them using large bombs. Bowser must attack the Monty to make sure that the other ones will be hit (and therefore, drop their bombs to the train), but it's difficult to hit all of them.
  8. The original's version boss defeat is kinda disappointing, as the train's debris hits the Monty Bros.

Redeeming Qualities

  1. The soundtrack is good, even thought is shared with the other giant boss fights.
  2. In the remake, the boss' defeat is EXTREMELY SATISFYING. After defeating the train, Bowser lifts it up, and throws it at the bridge, destroying it and making the Fawful Express fall into the gorge.
  3. The reward for defeating the boss is a Star Candy, an item that can heal all HP and FP for Mario and Luigi (and Bowser in the original).
  4. If you can successfully drop the bombs on the train, it does a lot of damage.
  5. It is more tolerable in the remake.