Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions (2017)

It's official, I love Mario RPG's and I think I'm going to love the "Mario and Luigi" franchise. I played the Super Mario RPG remake for the switch last year and enjoyed it for the most part. I had my gripes, mainly with the platforming mechanics outside of combat, but it was a cozy and enjoyable game overall. I knew even before I played Super Mario RPG that I wanted to play through the Mario and Luigi games. They've been on the back on my mind since my teenage years. The series was always something I thought of when I had "I should play those games" thoughts. Hence, the Mario and Luigi series were among the first games I added on to my backlog when I created this account. I thought to myself "someday." I had originally planned to play through the Mario 3D platformers that I had missed (or not played since childhood) first before diving into this series, but this summer the Mario and Luigi series was revived with the announcement of Mario and Luigi: Brothership. Set to release just a few months from the writing of this review, I knew my timer had started.

I really, really enjoyed this game. I know everyone usually brings up the story in these games, and while it's good and serviceable, it's nothing too crazy. It kept me engaged, but it wasn't the reason I became addicted to the game for the past two weeks. The combat, world, music, art, and humor are what stuck out to me most. First off, the combat here is even better than Super Mario RPG. I like that Mario and Luigi have a variety of moves to choose from rather than just a basic attack and a few special moves like in Super Mario RPG. The "timing" section from Super Mario RPG returns here, but it's improved upon. Bro attacks are flashy, well animated, and fun to use. There's also a ton of different variety in Bros Attacks. The combat here is excellent, and I never felt frustrated or like I was being cheated. No level grinding is necessary at all, though I will admit I hardly ran from any random encounters. The leveling gimmick is also fun here. Each time Mario or Luigi levels up, the player gets the chance to through some bonus points into whatever stat they desire. This occurred in Super Mario RPG as well, so I was happy to see it return. I didn't really focus on "building" Mario and Luigi to be a certain "class" or fit a certain role as I distributed my bonus points pretty evenly each time they leveled up, but the fact that a player could make Mario more offensive and Luigi more defensive is fun to think about. I'm sure a lot of players actually did end up playing this way and I love that. I kept my stats pretty even as I noticed if I kept throwing my bonus into the same stat each level up, I'd get diminishing returns. It's simply not worth it to "bonus" the same stat time after time as you get diminishing results. Boss encounters were never too difficult, but kept me on my toes. That is except for the final boss, Cackletta. This boss was a nightmare and took me two hours to beat over the course of two days. The timings on some attacks were hard for me to get down for some reason, and the boss hit like a truck. I eventually managed my way through with lots of 1-Ups and Golden Mushrooms, but man that was brutal. I'm sure a no items run would make for a fun challenge. The additional things to do outside of combat were also fun. The mini games, hunting down little beans, collecting beans for the coffee shop, etc.

After beating the main game, I decided to try out the side story: Bowser's Minions. It's a pretty simple setup. You control Bowser's minion's as they search for him. The story runs parallel to the events in the main game, but nothing too crazy happens within the story. It's a charming story about a simple pawn in an army rising to greatness. It's fun and simple, and that's all it needs to be. The main story is definitely more interesting and fun to play through, but Bowser's Minion's is a really good side dish.

The combat is Bowser's Minion's is quite different from that of the main game. It plays more like a strategy game where troops fight automatically with occasional button presses for "super moves" or blocking enemy "super moves." I actually really enjoyed this gameplay as well. I've heard a lot of negativity surrounding this mode, but allow me to paint a different picture. Going into each battle, you can customize your 8 man army. There's a simple rock paper scissors triangle gimmick between troops, and certain minions are effective/ineffective against other minions. I enjoyed strategizing which minions would give me the best shot at victory. The game wasn't hard at all, until about halfway through. The difficulty spikes, hard. At least for me. When I got to the Morton boss battle, that's when I realized how under leveled I was. Even knowing this, I refused to go back to older levels to "grind" and level up my minions. I knew I could push through and beat the entire campaign without grinding, and I pretty much did. There were a lot of tough battles after this point, but it was kind of fun swapping out different minions to see what I could work with. I probably would have saved myself a lot of time if I got over my stubbornness and just went back to older levels to grind exp, but I was determined to win my way. I did end up having to grind a little bit for the final two levels in the mode, as I was about 6 levels shy of the recommended level, but I don't regret that. I know a similar mode returns in the Bowser's Inside Story remake, so I am definitely looking forward to that. However, since this mode is pretty simple, I don't expect too many changes to occur in Bowser Jr's Journey combat wise. I am glad this extra mode was included in this remake, but I do understand why some find it to be slow and mind numbing. Most of time, you're simply watching the minion's fight on screen without doing anything yourself. I understand why that can turn some away, but the strategy elements in the mode really surprised me in how much I enjoyed it. Once again, the art and music are good here as well.

I probably missed some things in my ADHD rambling, but those are my general thoughts. Between the main game and the side story, I clocked in at 43 hours. A lot longer than I originally anticipated, but a lot of that was due to me refusing to level grind in the side story. Main story took about 25 hours to complete, with the side story taking around 15ish (You could def beat in 5-10 hours if you go back and level). A very good start for this series, and I'm excited to play the future titles! Glad to have finally started crossing this series off my backlog. I promise I'll try to make the reviews of future titles in this series shorter.

Yeah, this was not fun to play at all. I played the GBA-original some years ago, and was excited to re-experience the wacky humour and timing based battle system. Instead I was disappointed at how haphazardly the narrative unfolds, and how unenjoyable this series actually is to replay.

I think one major reason for this shift in opinion is due to me having played the original Paper Mario, a game I found a lot more immersive and finely tuned in terms of comedy and more sincere elements. The other problem for me lies in what this remake actually consists of.

Basically, this is the same game as before, but made in the Dream Team Bros graphics engine and with a new score. I wont say that it looks or sounds bad, but the spritework of the original definitely felt more expressive than what we get here. The reinterpreted soundtrack is okay, but I feel they could have made more interesting arrangements of the GBA-tracks. The only major upgrade I appreciated is some UI-elements making combat and advanced moves more easy to pull off. However, some of the unbearably tedious tutorials are still here, halting progress ever so often.

What they did put resources on was the extra mode, Bowser's Minions. I haven't actually played it myself, due to the almost unanimously negative response it has gotten. Maybe they could have skipped this in favour of creating some interesting gameplay twists to the actual remake.

What we're left with here is the same old light JRPG from before without major areas of improvement, begging the question if a remake actually was needed? Superstar Saga for the GBA plays perfectly fine as it is. A half-reimagining/half-sequel in the same vein as A Link Between Worlds might have worked better.

This game has lots of personality, which makes it a joy to play. The writing is well-done, and managed to get an occasional chuckle out of me.

There's plenty of nostalgia in this game, and it pulls characters from almost all prior Super Mario Bros. games (which begs the question: is it canon for SMB2 characters to be chillin' with koopas?).

The graphics are a clean combo of 2D & 3D art that look great.

The music is catchy, with more than a couple earworm songs. The little voice emotes from characters (mostly Mario & Luigi) are also fun.

Battling is relatively simple. No need to memorize a bunch of elemental counters here. It's mostly comes down to timing your attacks and dodges/counters. It's also not a particularly difficult game, and you can mostly disengage your brain and coast through it. I didn't even see the Game Over screen until the final level (where I probably saw it about a dozen times -- that final boss is a beast).

Most of the puzzles are straightforward, but they start to get a bit obtuse near the end. In particular, the "replacement surfboard" puzzle was 80s point & click adventure levels of nonsense.

I liked it. On to Partners in Time.