He jumps up and down with glee, stomping on the princess’s delicate toes.

While the second adventure in the Mushroom Kingdom isn’t quite as strong as the first was in Double Trouble, Leaping Lizards has some great things going for it.

For one, you play as Luigi this time around, who rarely if ever gets to be the hero. Luigi differs from his brother in that he’s a bit more insecure, a lot more eccentric, and generally a gluttonous layabout. When the King gets turned into a big, furry rabbit, Luigi jumps at the chance to be the hero instead of second fiddle, and maybe, just maybe outshine his brother Mario for once.

This goes like you would expect. He generally doesn’t know what he’s doing and makes hilariously disastrous mistakes sometimes. Turns out when you’re trying to use a magic wand to un-rabbitify a king, knowing the correct magic words is kind of important.

The puzzles and games are also a lot stronger in this volume than in the first. Some of them are pretty creative and funny, and generally solving them is essential to help you decide what to do next. They’re rarely time wasters that simply give you a preview of what’s coming next, but even then, the clues they give are pretty funny and foreboding, and actually relevant to the story.

And if you’re a fan of the Koopa Kids, there’s quite a few featured in this one.

The weakest thing about the book is the decathlon event where different groups compete in Olympic games for the right to win the macguffin. The event itself is fun and allows for lots of games, lots of chances to make Luigi look like a capable hero (or a total dunce), and lots of cheating since you’ll be competing against koopas. The event in itself is not the issue. The issue is the fact that this big decathlon is kind of advertised as the setting of the story, but only really comprises the last few chapters. In other words, it’s the climax, not the plot.

Now, there’s plenty going on in the course of the story, don’t get me wrong. But having the whole book revolve around this huge event would have been more engaging. If I remember right, the fourth Interplanetary Spy book did a better job weaving a dangerous decathlon throughout the plot rather than only bringing us into it in the final stretch.

Also the opening chapter isn’t quite as strong as that of Double Trouble, where Mario was literally knocked out of bed by an elaborate alarm clock system. Leaping Lizards just starts off with Luigi going to a picnic.

Leaping Lizards is a pretty good companion piece to the first book, Double Trouble, if you want to alternate as Mario and Luigi. Later volumes, like Flown the Koopa, feature both brothers working together. These first two books are a pretty solid start to the brand overall, even if the second volume gets off to a weak start; and they’re worth having in your gamebook collection, especially if you’re a fan of the brothers. Hopefully they’ll encourage you to read the Valiant comics they’re based on, which were a childhood treasure when I was growing up.

Time for bed. Uncle Mac out.