Mario and Luigi Brothership Review: A Somewhat Grand Return

We Mario RPG fans were eating good last year. After years of lacklustre output and Nintendo seemingly forgetting what made a good Mario RPG, we got two back-to-back remakes of both the original Super Mario RPG and the fan favourite Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door.

I did full reviews of them if you want the full run down, but long story short I adored both. Not only did they serve as excellent visual upgrades to the originals but also offered a multitude of gameplay and quality of life improvements that made them close to the definitive versions.

I say close because the Super Mario RPG remake did have some difficulty balancing issues the original didn’t that held it back a bit. I still loved it though and it still retained a lot of the charm of the original.

As for Thousand Year Door, well I did a nearly hour long review gushing over how much I love it. It’s my favourite game of all time and the remake only served to make it better. I don’t think I need to say more.

So yeah, eating very well indeed. But while those games were fantastic, there was one last core pillar of Mario RPG gaming that had yet to return. A series that, despite my unceasing Thousand Year Door admiration, was actually a much more consistent and debatably better overall. Mario and Luigi.

Starting on the Game Boy Advance with Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga, this series was developed by Alpha Dream. A small studio that worked under Nintendo specialising in handheld games. They also worked on other games, including several for the Hamtaro series, but the Mario and Luigi games are their best-known works.

This series served as the handheld Mario RPG series, whereas Paper Mario served as the home console RPG outings. That is until Sticker Star, but I like to think that was intentional considering that game seemed tailor made to ruin absolutely everything.

Anyway, I loved Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga. It was my first Mario RPG and I fell in love with the strong comedy, great art style, the inventive and fun battle system, the creatively bizarre world and characters; it’s a masterpiece I hold near and dear to my heart.

But for as good as that game was, it wasn’t until the DS where the series truly came into its own. Partners in Time was a decent enough follow up, but the third game, Bowser’s Inside Story, that was something special.

Bowser’s Inside Story is the best Mario RPG. Objectively nothing compares to it. While I love Thousand Year Door and will always claim it to be my favourite, I can’t deny that Bowser’s Inside Story is closer to the perfect MARIO RPG.

There’s a lot of reasons why, far too many for this brief introduction and something I may have to go into another day. Suffice to say though it’s brilliant on every level, and if you ever find a copy I highly recommend. It.

Sadly, after this point the series started to decline in quality. While I think Dream Team is a fine game and a solid sequel, it suffered from some egregious pacing issues that made the game an utter slog to get through.

And then there’s the disappointing Paper Mario crossover, Paper Jam Bros. To date the only Mario and Luigi game I have not beaten. Not because it’s a broken godawful mess, but simply because it was boring.

The story lacked any of the charm of either series, because it was made at a time where Nintendo wanted Mario RPG’s to be as bland as possible, and the gameplay was more focused on minigames and battle gimmicks than actually moving the series forward.

After that we got two decent remakes of Super Star Saga and Bowser’s Inside Story that reviewed well, but did not sell well. Both due to releasing late in the 3DS’ life span and the fact you could already play one of them on 3DS thanks to backwards compatibility. Oops.

Sadly, those so badly that Alpha Dream went down with them. They were always a smaller team focused on handhelds, but the increasing power of those and the costs to make games on them were too much for them to keep up. And with the Switch basically ending Nintendo’s run of dedicated handhelds, AlphaDream decided to simply close up shop.

After that I thought this series was dead. Nintendo were already uninterested in making a proper Mario RPG at the time, so I felt that was it. The series was done, and we’d never see it again.

Sometimes it’s good to be wrong. Because the series did come back with Mario and Luigi Brothership. A brand new Mario RPG adventure that came out in November of last year.

If you’re wondering why it took me long to get to this, well it just came out at the wrong time for me. It was the holiday period, I had presents to buy from other people. I couldn’t afford it until recently, and even when I did get it Amazon took forever to ship it out for whatever reason.

You get the idea. I may be late but I can finally look at this. Though here’s a quandary before we start, who is the developer? Alpha Dream is gone, and no new studio was formed in its wake, so who made it? The answer is Acquire, a studio known for creating Octopath Traveller and Tenchu Shadow Assassins? Ok that’s a weird connection, but they at least have some experience in RPGs at least.

Still, It is a brand new team. This can only end in one of two ways, either they breath fresh new life into the series, or they completely fuck it up by changing absolutely everything. And I’m happy to report that the former is the most accurate.

Do not get me wrong, this game has problems, a lot of which are retained from the most recent games in the series that I’m sad to see have never been addressed, as well as some strange changes that I don’t understand.

I can’t say this is the grand return to form we were all hoping for. The mixed reactions from fans and critics are completely understandable, but at the same time I really like this game. For all its faults this game was still a blast that managed to capture the spirit of the series.

In fact, I’m going to get the major fault of the game out of the way. Because I feel like it’s the one thing that might kill the game for a good chunk of players. That issue? The pacing is horrendous.

Now, to be very fair, the pacing here is noticeably better than it was in Dream Team. To be less fair, that isn’t saying much. Dream Team was infamous for how bad its pacing was; it’s practically the only thing people remember about it which is a shame because it wasn’t that bad of a game once you got into it.

Brothership doesn’t have it nearly as bad. Dream Team’s pacing problems came down to how over tutorialised it was. Every time they introduced a new mechanic or what have you it stopped dead in its tracks to explain it to you in excruciating detail, emphasis on excruciating.

Brothership isn’t like that. It has tutorials, a lot of them actually, but they’re all done via text boxes that can be easily skipped over in less than 5 seconds. Not too bad all things considered, but that’s not the problem here.

The problem is just how long the game takes to get going. I know RPGs are slow in the beginning; they need to establish a lot of things both narratively and mechanically. It usually takes them a few hours before they really open up. Even the Mario RPG’s do this to a certain extent, it’s simply a quirk of the genre.

But the other Mario RPGs kept the slow introductions largely contained within the first chapters, and because those games were episodic in their structures it didn’t take long for them to start building momentum.

Even the Mario and Luigi series, which are not episodic, or chapter based and instead structured more like a traditional RPG adventure, picked up the pace after the opening prologues. Dream Team excluded obviously.

But in Brothership it takes a while for the game to start getting into its groove. The game is split between five seas and the first sea is one of the most painfully dull introductions I’ve played in a Mario game.

It isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just not interesting. The game drops a ton of exposition on you early on to explain the world that doesn’t feel natural and makes learning about it a chore, the characters aren’t all that engaging and the combat system is far too limited because it takes forever for it to introduce all of the mechanics.

The first couple of hours are an absolute drag. I was physically yawning while I was playing it; that’s how boring it was. I’ve heard people dropped the game after 2 hours, and while that’s not fair to do for an RPG since you’ve barely seen any of it, I can’t blame them for doing so either.

But here’s the thing, once you get past the first sea, that’s when it starts getting good. The world building is delivered much more naturally, the places you visit become much more engaging and start introducing more interesting and fun characters, and while it still takes some time for the combat mechanics to fully come together, you are given more to play around with.

Basically, once you hit the 3–4-hour mark or so is when the game gets going. After that it keeps building momentum and gets better and better as it goes on. Granted it still has its slow moments, including a part in the end game where you have to backtrack to previous areas, but by that point the story has kicked into high gear, 68and you’re fully invested in seeing what happens next.

That’s the thing, the opening of the game isn’t bad because it’s slow going, it’s because what you’re doing isn’t that interesting. It’s just a lot of fetch questing and block puzzles, with the series normally quirky writing and characters not landing this time around. If both the gameplay and writing were better, it wouldn’t feel as bad.

That’s why the later slower moments are still more engaging, because the writing and gameplay context is far more entertaining. There’s still a lot of fetch quests, but the context in which they are happening are more interesting.

One of the late game islands has no combat, instead it’s mostly just talking to NPC’s. Sounds boring right, except it isn’t because you’re playing detective and trying to solve a mystery. It’s one of my favourite islands in the game because I love that kind of thing

That’s why a lot of RPGs keep you going despite the slow introductions. Because even if it is slow to introduce everything there’s still something interesting going on. But Brothership is so uninteresting to start it makes sticking with it a hard prospect. Sure, it gets better 3 hours in, but that’s the problem, it shouldn’t take 3 hours for a game to get good.

Even when it does start getting good it is still a noticeably slower adventure compared to previous outings. A lot of that is down to the length. The game is roughly 50 hours long, nearly 60 if you go for 100% like I did, hell it took my slow ass 70.

I know that might not seem that bad. 50 hours is typical for a lot of RPGs, but it’s not typical for a Mario RPG. Most of those are usually around 30 hours or less. It’s one of the reasons I love them; they’re tight compact experiences. But this game isn’t quite like that.

It is roughly the same length as Dream Team, which considering that games molasses like pacing is not a good thing. And this isn’t something I found out after the fact either, I could feel how long the game was by the end. It was exhausting and I felt burned out by the end; despite the ride being enjoyable it takes a lot out of you to see it through.

To be fair though, a lot of the length is due to a larger emphasis on side quests. Most of which are skippable and doing so brings the game to around 40 hours. Still long for a Mario RPG, but not too bad. I wouldn’t recommend skipping them since there’s added story beats you’ll miss out on, but the option is there if you want to speed things along.

My one advice with this game is to go in with patience. It starts out weak and it is a bit long in the tooth but believe me it does get better. In fact, the late game stuff is great. Some of the best stuff in a Mario RPG.

The pacing is the main issue, but it isn’t the only one. The performance is also pretty bad in places. And I mean in places, because it honestly only gets bad when things get too busy which only happens in one part really late in the game.

It’s not ideal though. It runs ok for the most part, but it isn’t exactly smooth either. The loading times are also annoyingly frequent for a 2024 game, though maybe that’s because I’ve been spoiled by modern games with almost no loading whatsoever.

It isn’t even like the game is that demanding. I’ve seen the Switch run far more impressive games in terms of graphics and scope. Like Anton Blast this is clearly an optimisation issue. I hope the Switch 2 improves on this because recent Switch games have been struggling with performance.

Alright I think I’m done critiquing for now. I don’t usually like to start negative, but I felt it necessary here due to how major these problems are. Because when you get past them, Brothership is a damn fine game.

The story of Brothership is that Mario and Luigi are transported to a new land called Concordia. A place that was once an interconnected land mass inhabited by a race of sentient socket people. As in electrical sockets like you find on a wall.

Glad to see them keep the series tradition of having a race of people based on objects alive, but what a strange choice. I mean we went from bean people, to block people, to pillow people, and now we have electrical socket people. What a strange evolution.

The thing is, the electrical socket idea isn’t just an aesthetic design choice, it’s tied to the world building of Concordia itself. The whole world was connected to a massive tree called the Uni-tree which was the source of Connectar, the main energy source of Concordia

There’s a lot of electricity theming going on, as well as a major theme of connection. See when Mario and Luigi arrive the Uni-tree has been destroyed, with Concordia now being divided into separate islands floating out to see.

The Bros thankfully landed on the island of Shipshape which houses a new Uni-tree. Said tree having been grown by Connie; a Wattanist in training whose job it is to maintain and grow the Uni-tree. If you haven’t picked it up by now, the game is heavy with the puns, and as an avid lover of puns both good and cringe I couldn’t be happier.

Anyway, with the Uni-tree acting as a sail and Shipshape Island acting as, well I think you can figure that out, Mario and Luigi must travel across the sea and try to reconnect the islands to restore Concordia to its former glory.

Like a lot of Mario RPG’s, the plot is straightforward. It has a simple set-up, a clear goal, and definite bad guys to fight. Said bad guys consisting of Zocket and the Extension Corps. Plug people, because of course they would be, who want to keep Concordia separated by spreading Glohm, a strange energy that cause people to become emotionally distant from everyone.

You’ve probably noticed there’s a large emphasis on the theme of connection. The whole game is centred around that theme; reconnecting the islands is the obvious one, but the process of doing that sees Mario and Luigi interact with and help the bonds of a cast of colourful cast of characters.

The bonds between characters is a major part of the games emotional core. It isn’t just the typical power of friendship thing you see in anime or JRPG’s either, we see a bunch of different types of bonds throughout the adventure. The bonds of family, the bonds of friendship, the bonds of rivalry, the bonds of partnerships, the bonds of student and mentor, and the most obivious one you can think of based on the title the bonds of brotherhood.

This theme is made apparent from the very beginning of the game. The opening has Mario alone on a deserted island and shows how deeply he misses his brother. Hell, the reason they’re in Concordia to begin with is because of how strong their brotherly bond is.

So yeah, there’s a very large theme of the connections and bonds we make. Which is kind of odd. Not the theme itself, but the fact the game has a theme to begin with.

Most Mario RPGs don’t really focus a lot on exploring themes like this. They’re mostly just fun adventure stories with a heavy emphasis on comedy. Even Thousand Year Door which had some really strong writing didn’t have a core thematic throughline like Brotheship does.

In fact, Brothership’s writing doesn’t feel like a Mario game at all. It feels closer to a more traditional RPG than a Mario one, even more so than Super Mario RPG did. Acquire apparently hired some outside help with the writing of this game, and it certainly feels that way.

I do not mean to imply any of this is bad. On the contrary, the writing here is remarkably refreshing. It’s nice having a Mario RPG with an actual thematic idea in its writing. It leads to some great character development and some of the best emotional moments in the series.

The game also doesn’t use a lot of the common tropes found in the Mario and Luigi series. Peach doesn’t get kidnapped by the main villain this time around; instead, she spends most of the game going on her own adventure with a group of kids she befriended.

She does get kidnapped at one point, but it’s done intentionally so they can get information from the bad guys and she’s the one who recommends doing it. Yeah, Peach agrees to be kidnapped as part of an infiltration mission. That is some awesome character development.

While the various residents of Concordia are given the lion’s share of the character development, I’d dare say this is the most likable cast in a Mario and Luigi game, the main Mario cast also get their fair share of character moments.

It plays with the Mario casts established roles in some fun ways; even giving some of them genuinely touching moments. The most shocking of which comes from Bowser Jr who has an adorable friendship develop with a young Concordian that ended on such a bittersweet note I nearly choked up at it. I nearly got choked up at a Mario story, and it came from Bowser Jr of all characters.

Having a Mario story that actually attempts to have some emotional resonance is interesting to see. There’s even a bit of social commentary here when it comes to what the main villains goal is, andnd unlike a lot of modern games it’s actually subtle. Mario is doing better social commentary than most other games are. What timeline is this?

Now is the story especially deep? Not really. It’s still a simple story, and the themes it does explore aren’t anywhere close to as deep or interesting as some other RPG’s. Final Fantasy 7 it most certainly is not, but for a Mario RPG it might as well be.

However, the increased focus on themes and emotional story telling comes at a cost of the series trademark humour. I’ve said before that Mario RPGs are more like comedies, and nowhere was that more apparent than the Mario and Luigi series.

These were the most comedically oriented of the Mario RPGs. The writing was not only frequently hilarious, but it also had a greater emphasis on slapstick. It’s the Mario series that leaned most heavily on the cartoony side of the franchise.

In short, Mario and Luigi is known for being a very funny series. Brothership sadly does not live up to that legacy. That isn’t to say there are no funny moments. There were multiple times where the game did get a laugh out of me, but they were noticeably fewer and farther than in previous entries.

The writing does try to pepper humour throughout in the dialogue, but it very rarely gets a laugh. It’s not groan inducing, well not unless it was intentional as part of the joke, but it doesn’t really get much of a reaction at all.

The games strength lies in its character and thematic writing. That’s when the game’s writing shines brightest, and its humour while occasionally funny is one of its weakest elements.

I can see this alienating a lot of fans of the series. The comedy is what drew a lot of us into it. A Mario and Luigi game that fails at comedy is like a Resident Evil game that fails at horror. So basically Resident Evil 6 and we all know how that turned out.

Personally, I liked the writing a lot. As I said I found it refreshing, but I can see why a lot of fans might be more divided on it. Not helped by the pacing issues making it so the story doesn’t start coming into its own until a few hours in. Perhaps stronger humour could have helped with that.

But there is one part of the series humour that Brothership does nail and that’s the slapstick. While it doesn’t have as much as prior games, it does have plenty of slapstick moments, particularly as you enter each island and Luigi’s continuously botched landing attempts.

The reason the slapstick still works is largely straightforward, the animation is absolutely incredible. This was one area they couldn’t afford to get wrong. Besides the humour, Mario and Luigi is known for its very expressive sprite animations that gave the Mario world an absolute metric ton of personality.

Acquire clearly understood the assignment here. This game is oozing with so much charm and personality just from the character animations alone. It’s some of the bounciest, cartoonish animation I’ve seen in a Mario game in quite some time. When even the idle animations in the battle scenes when picking things from a menu have personality you know the dev team went above and beyond.

There’s a clear mastery of squash and stretch which gives the animations an almost Looney Tunes feel to it. This is a primary reason why the slapstick works, because it took inspiration from the master’s at it. Well that and the big expressions and exaggerated reactions, but at this point I’m just looking for reasons to gush.

Bottom line the animations rule and the game perfectly captures the series signature art style. Apparently Acquire wanted to change the style and make it a bit more grounded but Nintendo advised against it. I’m glad they did because seeing this style again, but in the new 3D engine, was nice to see.

Besides the animations, the whole game is very pleasant to look at. It’s bright and colourful as you would expect, but the island exploring theme with the ocean gives it a very relaxing vibe. Reminds me of Wind Waker a little bit.

There’s a good variety in the environments too. Each island has a different look and feel which keeps things visually interesting. And while it uses a lot of familiar themes it also has plenty that are unique.

The one area of the visuals people seem split on are the character designs. Specifically the Concordians. Some reviewers and commenters have opined that the Concordians don’t fit with the Mario characters, and some just don’t like the designs in general.

I don’t really agree with the latter. It’s all subjective and if people don’t like the designs, I can’t say they’re wrong. A lot of the minor NPC designs get repetitive, and I can also see why they’re blocky aesthetic might be a turn off for others.

Personally, I think they look adorable. They somehow took electrical sockets and got some decent characters out of them. There’s even a lot of nice details added to them like how they use plugs for hats just to hammer in the theme.

I don’t agree that the designs are bad, but I at least understand it. The former statement, that they don’t fit with the Mario cast, is one I really don’t understand. Not because it isn’t true, but because them not matching is the point.

Concordia is supposed to be a different world. It lies in a separate universe alien to the one we’re familiar with from the other Mario games. Wouldn’t it make sense for the people of that world to look different.

The whole point of the Concordians looking different is to emphasise the fact that Mario and company are strangers in another world. Unlike previous games which did take place in different lands found on the same planet, this is an entirely separate dimension. So I would argue that the clashing designs is 100% intentional.

Mind you if it is another dimension that does raise certain questions on why there are so many references to past games found in the different ocean reefs you can find. Is it just one giant coincidence or is this the same planet after all and I just made myself look like an idiot.

I’m probably over thinking things. These references are just fan service and not anything more. The game has quite a few of these and even some call backs to past games events.

These are kept to a minimum though, the game is very newcomer friendly and outside of Starlow, who was the main partner in previous games, most of the cast should be familiar to most Mario fans who haven’t played the RPG’s.

I’m just glad they didn’t treat this as a reboot. A soft reboot perhaps, but still clearly a continuation of the series. So it works both as an entry point and a continuation, meaning both newcomers and veterans will be able to jump right in and not miss a beat.

That said, if you are a fan there’s one element that is going to be noticeably different. That being the music. Now the music itself it’s actually really good. It’s catchy and upbeat enough and the battle theme is great, so it got the important stuff down.

The music was composed by Hideki Sakamoto who also composed music for the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series and wrote the main theme to Super Smash Bros Ultimate, as well as holding a world record for the longest musical piece for a video game. No joke look it up.

He's a good composer with a solid track record, but he’s following the work of Yoko Shimomura. I’ve praised Shimomura’s work multiple times before so I won’t go on to much, but it put it bluntly I think she’s the best video game composer of all time, and the Mario and Luigi games represent some of her best work.

These are some of the catchiest soundtracks you will ever listen to. They have such a unique upbeat vibe that can only really come from Shimomura herself. So how the hell do you follow that?

The short answer is you can’t. Nobody can do Shimomura’s style other than Shimomura. To his credit though, Sakamoto does at the very least try to capture the spirit of the original soundtracks. Tonally he gets it pretty close.

But it is still different. It leans more heavily into ambience and atmosphere. While the previous games soundtracks were more based on being catchy and upbeat while only leaning slightly into atmosphere this soundtrack does the opposite. It’s a different style of music but it does still try to sound suitably Marioesque.

The rest of the games sound is also done well. Sound effects have a nice punch to them, and while there’s very little voice acting, the game does give the characters a Banjo Kazooie style speaking pattern that did help give them a bit more of a distinct sound.

The one thing they needed to nail was Mario and Luigi’s own brand of pseudo-Italian babble, and thankfully they did. It’s about as ridiculous as you think and that’s why it works. I think this is the only Mario media that actually has the Mario brothers speak in Italian, even if it is the Family Guy version of Italian.

This is also the first Mario RPG to feature Mario and Luigi’s new voice actor Kevin Afghani. We first heard him in Super Mario Bros Wonder, but we get to hear a lot more of him here.

And honestly, I think he’s doing a good job. I view him in the same way I view Mickey Mouse’s new voice actor after Wayne Allwine passed away. He’s clearly doing something similar to Charles Martinet, the previous voice of Mario, and still trying to find his own take on it. He’s not as high pitched as Martinet, which makes Mario sound a bit more masculine, if that’s the right way to put it.

It’s familiar but different. And that description is also a perfect description of Brothership’s gameplay. The main elements fans remember from the series are here, but there’s a lot of small changes that make it a little different from other games in the series. Some changes are good, others make me confused.

The game follows a similar mould of other Mario RPG’s. Overworld exploration that mixes in platforming elements? Check. Turn based combat with action commands? Also check. Simple customisation system? Another check. Easy difficulty and simplified systems that make it accessible to newcomers while also having enough depth so as not to become shallow? Massive check for that.

What makes Mario and Luigi so unique is, well it’s in the name. The entire game is based around Mario and Luigi. They’re the only two party members you ever get, and the game is all about controlling both brothers at the same time.

If that sounds like a headache, it isn’t. Really all this means is you control them with different buttons. Mario uses the A button while Luigi uses the B button. That’s it.

It’s pretty intuitive and easy to grasp. Luigi will follow behind Mario when running around the overworld, so you don’t need to worry about positioning him or anything. In fact you won’t need to worry about controlling Luigi much at all.

Luigi’s automation also affects him in the platforming segments. He’ll automatically jump over any gaps, unlike in past games where you had to do it manually. I’m torn on this.

On one hand, it does make things much faster. It speeds up the process and makes it easier for you to get where you need to be. From a convenience standpoint I see the benefits, but the convenience comes at a cost of the game’s interactivity.

The whole thing with Mario and Luigi was controlling Mario and Luigi. But now you control Mario and only occasionally control Luigi. The only time you ever need to directly control Luigi is either when you need his help to get over a ledge, need him to use a hammer to activate a switch, or in one of the minigames you can play.

Aside from that, and combat which I’ll cover later, Luigi usually just follows along with Mario. It’s a lot less engaging than in previous games. Despite this I do think Brothership succeeds in making Luigi feel like an actual partner.

While not having direct control sucks, Luigi does still frequently helps when it comes to the puzzle solving. This is thanks to the big new thing in Brothership, Luigi Logic.

As you travel across Concordia, Luigi will come up with a bunch of ideas that only Luigi and his unique brand of weirdness could. Sometimes its hiding in a barrel to block searchlight, other times it’s standing in place to hit a switch at the right time, or sometimes he’ll just help out by breaking blocks with his bro.

Whenever Luigi glows you press the L button and he will go towards whatever he can interact with. Sometimes his pathfinding gets a little messed up, but this is rare, and he does get into the proper position when you tell him too.

The Luigi Logic prevents Luigi from feeling like a passive presence in the game. He does feel like a true partner helping you out in the game. Plus it all plays into Luigi’s characterization in this series of being the oddball who is more than what he appears. Like with Dream Teams Dreamy Luigi it puts a bigger emphasis on the forgotten plumber brother which is always appreciated.

There’s a lot of great puzzles that come from this, although that isn’t surprising. This is an area that Mario and Luigi always did better than the other Mario RPG’s. The puzzles aren’t brain busters, but they’re frequently clever, creative, and integrate platforming into them well.

That’s another area Mario and Luigi did a little better. While other Mario RPG’s mix in platforming elements, the Mario and Luigi series always felt like it more fully embraced the series platforming roots.

Not only is there a lot more platforming challenges, but there’s also a variety of different platforming challenges thanks to the Bros Moves. Team up techniques that let Mario and Luigi traverse and/or interact with the world in fun ways.

From rolling into a ball or spinning in the air like a UFO, they offer some creatively fun ways to traverse the environment. There’s only three of these, the smallest number in the series, but each move has an extra function, so it balances out.

One thing I like about them is how quick they are to access. Just flick the right analogue stick in the right direction and you’re golden. Way more convenient than in previous games. The whole user interface has been improved to be much smoother, like how hammers are now done by pressing the X and Y buttons, no need to swap between jumps and hammers now.

The overworld exploration is done very well. While losing control of Luigi is a downgrade, everything else is great. The puzzle and level design is solid, and there’s plenty of secrets and hidden treasures to find making it rewarding to explore.

There is some backtracking involved if you want to find everything, but the game is very good at naturally bringing you back to area’s you’ve already been to. Either doing so as part of the main story or a side quest. It never feels like you need to make extra time to backtrack.

What makes Brotherships overworld stand out from past titles is its structure. Instead of having one big overworld like in previous entries, you now have a bunch of smaller islands interconnected by the Concordian sea. You explore the sea by charting courses through currents, and when you find an island, you can launch towards it and explore on foot.

Sea travel is always active in the background. While waiting until you reach your destination you can look around the hub of Shipshape to buy some items, do some side quests, or explore past areas for things you miss.

Or you could just wait until you get there. The ship starts out slow, but you get a fast-sailing option very early on that gets you there in no time. Combine that with the games incredibly generous fast travel system letting you travel to and from completed islands effortlessly and backtracking was a non-issue.

Which was great because I had to do a lot of it for the side quests. Which is new for this series. Previous games had side content like collectables or minigames but never dedicated side quests with actual stories to them.

Most of them are simple fetch quests, but they have fun stories that expand on the characters and world building. Some of them are also temporary, and these end up being the ones that give the characters more depth.

The game nudges you to completing those ones in particular. It will remind you every time you get one that some side quests are temporary. That’s fine the first time they introduce them, but after that I think we can tell which ones are like that. You already had an indicator change to differentiate them we can figure it out on our own.

I get they don’t want people to skip these since they do expand on the characters, but if that’s the case don’t make them side quests. Just make them part of the main story. Some of them should be in my opinion.

I don’t think any of the side quests are bad. I never dreaded having to do them, but I never got excited when a new one popped up either. The character focused ones were the best because of the character development, but the other side quests were worth doing thanks to the rewards you get out of them.

As for sea traversal, it’s ok. Charting course from the map is fine enough, but it isn’t as fun as sailing yourself. Wind Waker it isn’t, but it also isn’t trying to be either so I can’t really compare the two. Only an idiot would do that.

It does have a few optional Islets to explore for extra goodies, so at least it rewards you for engaging with it. It also has a bunch of reefs that will reward you with special items if you find them all. The references to past games are only a bonus, a sweet bonus but a bonus nonetheless.

The reefs aren’t the only major collectible. You can also find Grampy Turnips buried on several islands that will also reward you when you find them all. You just have to sit through a long rambling speech that doesn’t go anywhere, they’re like the vegetable version of Grandpa Simpson.

Also for some reason half of the Grampy Turnips are hidden in a single room in the final dungeon of the game. Which is weird because there’s plenty of places to put them to spread them out a bit more. Wouldn’t be surprised if these were a last-minute addition and they didn’t have time to plan them all out.

My only major issue with the sea traversal and backtracking involves the Great Lighthouses. These are essentially the games main dungeons, and unlike the islands aren’t connected to Shipshape, meaning you can’t fast travel to them.

Granted you don’t need to do this in the main story. You only need to do them once and that’s it, but three of the side quests require going back to them. And it isn’t just the last one you did; you have to go back at least two seas to get to them. Even with the faster sailing it takes a while to do. This is where you might want to start multitasking to help with the wait.

But that’s all I have to say about overworld exploration. Despite some setbacks involving Luigi, I do think Brothership adds more than enough new mechanics and ideas that do make up for that. There’s a lot to find and do here and while the islands are smaller than the worlds in previous games, the number of islands and the sea exploration do make the game feel larger in overall scope.

Aside from the main story and the side quests, you also have a bunch of challenges to complete. These aren’t much to talk about, most just involve you collecting a certain number of coins, defeating enemies or getting excellent ratings for all your attacks a certain number of times.

They’re entirely harmless. There is a tangible reason for doing them as you get things on doing so, but the things aren’t so good that you need to do them either, and most of these you’ll complete simply from playing the game anyway. There was only one where I needed to go out of my way to complete.

They are noticeably easier than the challenges in Dream Team and Paper Jam though. I really did not like them there because they required you to do everything in a row which made it infuriating when you inevitably screwed up and had to start all over again. Thank God you don’t have to do that now.

All the challenges are combat oriented, which I guess brings me to the combat system. Like every other Mario RPG there are no random battles. You can see enemies on the overworld and engage in combat by touching them and like in Paper Mario you can get a free hit in by jumping or hammering an enemy first.

It did seem a bit harder to avoid combat here due to the narrower level design. It got annoying getting into fights I didn’t want. Thankfully running from combat works every time you select it. There’s no chance of failure or any button bashing needed, just select it and you’re golden.

As for the combat, it’s a turn-based affair with action commands you use to boost the power of your attacks. You know the typical Mario RPG battle system.

The big thing that separates this battle system from the others is you control both Mario and Luigi with the A and B buttons respectively. Much like you do in the overworld. Although strangely Luigi doesn’t use the B button for selecting things in menus’, he uses the A button.

I know that makes a bit more sense given that’s how most games do it, but it isn’t how Mario and Luigi did it. It always made sense for Luigi to select things with B because that was the button he was associated with; it was actually really intuitive and I don’t know why it was changed.

My muscle memory from the old games was so strong I would sometimes mess up the attack because I forgot to switch to B or not select anything because I kept instinctively pressing B. I did get used to it, but it took a while for that to happen.

Each bro has the same kind of normal attacks as in Paper Mario, the jump and hammer. Much like that game you can use either attack, but certain enemies require a specific tact to defeat.

If an enemy has a spike or flame on their head better use a hammer, if they’re floating in the air better jump. You don’t need to worry about enemy placement like in Paper Mario, but the same basic strategy applies here.

So far so regular. If you’ve played any of the previous Mario RPG’s then you’ll be able to jump into this no problem. The only difference being you now have two party members that stay with you through the whole game.

The game puts a much larger emphasis on the teamwork of Mario and Luigi. Remember the Bros Moves they used in the overworld, well they have a combat equivalent called Bros Attacks. These are very powerful and have more elaborate action commands that act as a sort of minigame.

These cost Bros Points or BP to use, and Mario and Luigi each have their own set of Bros Attacks and BP pools to pull from. This makes a change from other Mario RPG’s where FP was a shared resource among the party.

It makes more sense to do it this way in this case. You only have two party members meaning it’s already limited, and it allows the two brothers to be a bit more distinct. The two both have their own stats; their own strengths and weaknesses that balance each other out. Teamwork is the main emphasis, but good teamwork comes from contrasts and compliments.

The emphasis on teamwork isn’t just in the Bros Attacks, even the regular attacks will see the two brothers work together. This is new, before their main attacks were solo but now they work together. Not sure if they’re stronger, but I will say they do look a lot more stylish now.

Then there’s the status ailments. Yes, even the status tie into the teamwork aspect. See most of the status ailments will incapacitate one of the brothers briefly. In fact, outside of burning which deals a small amount of damage each turn, every status ailment will prevent the bros from moving temporarily.

Some are worse than others. Tripping is the tamest since the brother affected will pick themselves up on their turn, while dizzying can last a few turns leaving them wide open unless you use an item. While a bro is incapacitated not only can they not move, but the other brother can’t use bros attacks, and they need to use regular attacks solo.

You’ll want to keep both bros healthy to prevent that. You have plenty of healing items at your disposal, inventory isn’t limited like it was in Paper Mario, but the best way to keep them in prime condition is to avoid getting damaged entirely.

See, unlike in other Mario RPG’s you don’t just block attacks to mitigate the damage, they can dodge attacks to avoid damage entirely and even counterattack enemies to deal damage back. You could counterattack in Thousand Year Door via the Super Guard, but that was a more difficult to pull off consistently; it was more of a high skill ceiling thing for people looking to master the game.

Here dodging is a basic skill you need to learn. The HP values in this game are higher than in Paper Mario, but enemies do far more damage. Sometimes doing multiple hits at once. You need to learn to avoid them if you want to survive.

That’s easier said than done. There’s a lot of enemy types that each have their own attacks, with some being so elaborate they’re almost a minigame. Certain enemy combinations even having team up attacks of their own.

The brothers also have two ways of dodging. Some attacks require them to leap over them while others require their hammers. Both of which have timings and controls to figure out. The bros will automatically use whatever method needed, so at least you don’t have to worry about that.

There’s a lot to learn, but enemies do have obvious tells that make it clear what attack they’re going to do. While some are hard to predict, and you are guaranteed to get hit at least once, most are easy enough to dodge if you pay attention and trust your instincts. Or you can use a Boo biscuit to learn the patterns safely, you know if you’re a coward.

Dodging is almost in and of itself. Combine that with all the action commands, and this is the most action focused Mario RPG of the bunch. If you enjoyed the action commands of Paper Mario and Super Mario RPG the most, this is the Mario RPG game and series I would best recommend to you.

This is the kind of turn based combat that everyone can enjoy. Because the action elements can appeal to people who aren’t fans of turn based combat systems. I loved this system as a kid because it always felt faster paced and kinetic than most turn-based games I’d played.

Now that I’m older, while I still love it for those reasons, I recognise it’s not as strategic or as deep as Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door. It’s a much simpler system overall. Thousand Year Door had so many interlocking systems to consider, but Mario and Luigi always kept things relatively straight forward and to the point.

There’s no thoughtful item management since you can carry as many as you want, and items are everywhere so you won’t be without, and this unfortunately has an issue of making the Bros Attacks unbalanced.

This has been an issue with the Mario and Luigi series since inception. The Bros Attacks are perhaps too powerful; not only doing massive damage but in some cases hitting multiple enemies at once. They can make a lot of fights outright trivial.

I think the idea behind balancing them is that you need to learn the timing for them and the BP cost of the moves. While early moves are simple and cheaper to use, the later ones have much more elaborate commands and cost far more to use.

Neither of these fix the issue. The attacks are not hard to learn, and even if you struggle there’s a practice mode where you can learn them. Even the later ones I only needed one or two tries to sus them out. And you have so many BP restoring items that running low on BP is almost a non issue. So even if the stronger attacks cost more, there’s nothing stopping you from spamming them.

I can’t blame Brothership exclusively for this, as I said it’s been a problem since the beginning. I remember when I first beat Superstar Saga and being amazed at how easy the Bros Attacks made the end game. It was disgusting how broken they were there.

That being said, the Bros Attacks are a lot of fun. A lot of them are returning from previous games, but there are a couple of new ones thrown in that are some of the best in the series. I don’t want to give too much away but let’s just say the phrase “ZA WARUDO!!” came to mind for one of them.

Even the old ones have something new about them to make them feel fresh. Either having a slightly different control method or having some additional flourishes that make them not only more impactful but also very stylish. These are easily some of the coolest looking special attacks in the series.

Unbalanced? Oh yeah, but the Bros Attacks are still fun. I don’t think this imbalance ruins the combat in anyway but rather see it as a quirk to the larger focus on action. Paper Mario is more balanced because it has more strategy, it needs to be balanced to make you engage with the systems more.

But Mario and Luigi is more simplistic and action focused. It doesn’t need to be as balanced for you to engage with its systems because it’s much more upfront with them. So long as you’re still dodging enemies and doing action commands then you’re using everything the game offers. As long as both those remain engaging that’s all that matters.

I don’t mean to make the game sound shallow because it’s really not. There is still depth here with the amount of action commands and the variety of enemies. The depth comes more from the action parts of the game rather than the strategy.

I still really like this combat system. It’s a great system that should appeal to everyone, and it really comes alive in the boss fights. They’re the most challenging, though that isn’t saying much admittedly, most creative and fun fights the game has to offer. They even integrate Luigi Logic into them which adds some fun spectacle/minigame action.

The final boss is the big highlight for me. It was suitably climactic and epic in all the right ways while also throwing in some nice surprises. Most of the bosses have some unique gimmick to make them stand out, with my favourite being Pipegunk with his temperature changing room, that one was a lot of fun and was one of the more challenging fights in the game. Especially his Glohmed version.

Oh yeah Glohm. As you progress, you’ll encounter Glohm versions of enemies which are simply just powered up versions of regular enemies. Not that much harder, but they have some tricks you need to watch out for.

Three of the games bosses have been Glohmed too, and these are easily the most challenging fights in the game. They act as the games optional super bosses and man they are brutal. They not hit harder but they’re attacks are faster too, making them very difficult to dodge. Some of their attacks have been changed, their health pools are larger, it took me 10 tries to beat these guys.

And I loved them. it’s nice seeing the Mario RPG’s introduce these kinds of optional boss fights that actually test your skills with the mechanics. Firs Prince Mush and now this, I hope they continue this because I appreciate the added challenge. Granted I wish the super bosses were entirely original, but baby steps you know.

Glohm doesn’t just affect the enemies, it’s also a status ailment that can affect the bros. When it does they won’t be able to use Bros Attacks and the bros use regular attacks solo. That’s what Glohm does, it makes you a turbo loner.

You really don’t want to get Glohmed. It goes away after combat, but the only way to get rid of it during combat is a rare item that isn’t easy to find. Refreshing Herbs help, but only 50% of the time, and it’s the only ailment that doesn’t go away on it’s own. So yeah, best to avoid it as much as you can.

The last thing to touch on regarding the combat are the Battle Plugs. These are interesting because they’re both a new mechanic, but also a replacement/reworking of the Badges system from previous Mario and Luigi titles.

Before you ask, no it wasn’t like the Badges in Paper Mario. Instead the idea was Mario and Luigi could equip a badge each and build up a meter in combat. When it was full they could activate a special effect that was a combination of the two badges they had equipped.

It wasn’t a bad system, but it wasn’t all that interesting. The effects you could get were basic, and there weren’t that many combinations that made experimenting with it all that fun. It was serviceable, but also one of the weaker mechanics of the series.

The Battle Plugs are far better. For one there’s way more to choose from. There’s 41 of them you can get; that’s nearly four times as many Battle Plugs as there were badges in Dream Team. You have a lot more to experiment with.

Second, there’s a lot more interesting combinations to make. The way Battle Plugs work is each plug equipped has a different effect ranging from creating shockwaves with regular attacks, adding elemental properties to attacks, increasing the power of bros moves, using items automatically, preventing damage etc.

While each plug is useful on its own, but when you combine them together is when they go from useful to busted. For example, if you combine the shockwave plug with the plug that drops a spike ball then you’ll drop a spike ball on every enemy hit by the shockwave, use the double attack badge with those and you’ll hit them with two shockwaves and two spike balls. You can even use two shockwave plugs to create a bigger shockwave.

Those are some of the most basic examples, there are dozens more combinations to try out. You can have up to five plugs equipped, though you only start with two slots and need to unlock the rest, letting you create some truly busted combinations.

And I mean busted. Some of the stuff you can make renders a lot of fights trivial. I would say this breaks the game in half, and it does, but only briefly. Every plug has a charge on it, and when that charge runs out the plug is unusable for a while. And by a while I mean up to thirty turns in combat.

There’s also no way to charge them until after they’ve already been used up either. Meaning it’s usually best to use up all of plugs then swap them out, which is thankfully free to do in combat without costing a turn. At first I thought it should, but it makes it wouldn’t because in longer fights you might be swapping out a lot.

More powerful plugs have less charges, and even the mid tier ones only have a little over a dozen charges. Still plenty to plough through fights, but not so many that you can go on auto pilot for very long. This prevents the plugs from being too broken but still allows them to feel powerful.

Naturally, some plugs are better than others. Some were so good I used them all the time, while others I barely touched, and others were only good in specific situations. I used the Loot Finder plug a lot to find items I needed to craft some equipment but not in any serious fights.

Speaking of crafting, that’s how you get the vast majority of plugs. You make them with Connectar found across the islands, and the more you make the more kinds of plugs you can build. You’ll want to make sure you get as much Connectar as you can so you can make plugs as early as possible.

Strange thing is though, I couldn’t get all the plugs in my playthrough. I got all the Connectar but was still short to make the final plug. Maybe I missed some, but it said I got them all on the island select screen, so either there’s a secret stash I missed or there’s only so much Connectar so you can’t get everything.

Which if that’s the case is weird because I only missed one plug. So it isn’t like I had to make tough decisions on what to make. I don’t know, but regardless you should have plenty to get the plugs you want.

The Battle Plugs are a great system. They add a lot more depth to the combat that the badge system didn’t, again not the Paper Mario one that’s still better, and it gives a small degree of customisation to it as well. Which is great because the customisation in this game is lacking.

To be fair to Brothership the customisation in the series has always been weak. When you compare it to Paper Mario and the Badge System it isn’t even a contest, even Super Mario RPG arguably had it better with the different team combinations you can make.

That said, the customisation isn’t awful. You’re at least given some freedom in how each bro plays. Both Mario and Luigi can equip up to four different items. Overalls which act as armour, boots and hammers that increase your attack, and two accessories that give additional perks or abilities.

Besides increasing stats, equipment may also have additional effects. This usually comes at a cost of being weaker, but the difference isn’t so major that it undermines the effect, so pick your poison. There’s also plenty of equipment to collect so you have some degree of choice in what you want each bro to wear.

Speaking of choice, while you can equip two accessories, you’re also restricted in the type of accessories you can equip. Accessories are broken up into two types, gloves and treasure or miscellaneous, and you can only equip one of each type. So there is some decision making with regard to what accessory of each type you want each brother to have.

Of course the problem with this is that you will inevitably find the combination you like best and stick with that throughout the whole game. That’s what happens to me anyway. I always find accessories early or midway through the game that suit my playstyle and proceed to just keep them on for the rest of it.

Brothership gives you some freedom, but not that much. You have plenty of equipment you can get, but not so many that you can come up with a bunch of weird combinations. I suppose given the Mario RPGs are meant to be more accessible, beginner friendly entry points to the genre this is perfectly acceptable. It at least gives you some degree of choice in building each character and trusts you to come up with it on your own.

But Brothership makes one change that I do not understand. In previous Mario and Luigi games, every time you gained a level you would get a boost in stats. No duh right, that’s what always happens, but aside from the standard increase, you would also get a bonus you could add to any stat you wanted.

This gave you some greater degree of customisation in how you built the two brothers. It’s also a feature that every other Mario RPG had in some capacity. And Brothership decided to remove it.

Yep, you no longer get the bonuses. All you get are the standard increases from levelling up. I do not get this. Why remove one of the most crucial customisation options? Something that’s been part of the series from the start.

You could argue that it’s for balance reasons. Maybe they didn’t want players to make certain stats too big by constantly adding to it. Except they already figured this out in the first game. The game did let you focus on one stat, but the bonuses would get smaller every time, incentivising you to mix it up.

So it can’t be a balance thing because it was already balanced. So why remove it? Please tell me, I legitimately cannot think of a reason. It doesn’t improve the game in anyway it just takes away options from the player. It’s the one major change that is an absolute net negative.

Alright, that sucks but there are other ways to boost stats and there is one thing that almost makes up for this. For one the beans are still a thing. These are items that boost stats so you still have some way of customising them further. You can’t find them in the ground anymore, but you get a ton from side quests and challenges. Good enough reason to do those.

Then there’s the ranking system. When you reach certain thresholds, you unlock a new rank. When you do you can choose from a bonus with more options being unlocked at higher ranks. This includes getting a new accessory slot, yes you can potentially only have one accessory if you so choose, increasing the amount stats go up by on level up, or additional perks like decreasing the BP of Bros Attacks.

This is not a bad system. It’s similar to the one found in Dream Team, but it’s been expanded upon with more bonuses to choose from and more ranks to allow you to have more of them. You can only choose one bonus per rank, with the final one giving two as a nice extra reward, and there’s no way of changing things once you’ve picked them. So your decisions matter when it comes to what bonuses you want.

I like this system a lot. And the fact that you can choose to give stats higher stat increases does arguably make up for removing the bonuses. Except, Dream Team had this system and the bonuses, so I repeat, why remove it?

See what I mean. No matter what angle you take the removal of this feature makes no sense. Previous games showed that it worked fine and could be balanced well while still allowing for more player expression.

I suppose being generous I could say you still have options of editing the stats, but there’s no getting around the fact that are fewer methods of doing so which means less player expression. And because of how limited it is, I find it best to focus on the brothers latent strengths,

For Mario I focused on making him a speedy attacker with weaker defence, while Luigi I made a slow tank because their base stats lean in that direction. I usually do that anyway, and you can try to make them different, but previous games made this a lot easier. As someone who has grown to value customisation in RPG’s, Brothership is a major let down.

So, how does Brothership hold up overall. Well in my opinion it’s a very well made game that has elements holding it back. The major issues are the pacing, performance and the lacking customisation, and the latter one is only really an issue that longtime fans will have.

Newcomers will probably not notice or care since it’s not like the customisation options are bad if you take the game on its own, and performance is only bad near the end when things get too busy. Really it’s only the pacing that serves as the games biggest roadblock, but if you can get past that then you’re gonna have a good time.

It has some of the greatest moments in the series. The endgame alone makes it worth the price of admission. Those moments are so good, it is dangerously close to beating Bowser’s Inside Story, but the pacing issues prevent it from doing so.

But the writing, gameplay and presentation are all top notch. So if you are patient enough to stick with it I do recommend the game. Especially if you’re a fan of Mario and Luigi.

It is different from past games though. The writing, while still quirky, is less focused on humour and more on telling an emotionally resonant story with an actual narrative theme, and while the gameplay is mostly the same there are a lot of smaller changes that do make it feel different.

It’s still Mario and Luigi at its core, but it is different enough that I can see some longtime fans being turned off by it. For me I thought a lot of the changes were innocuous. Neither good nor bad. The only big negative change is the loss of level up bonuses, the rest are fine for the most part.

But maybe these changes are expected. After all, this isn’t Alpha Dream, it’s Acquire. A new team with a different way of handling things. What Alpha Dream brought was special, but only they could make Mario and Luigi in the way that they did.

Acquire captured some of that essence, but they have their own vision for the series. It’s clear that they understand and respect the series, but they want to put their own spin on things and that’s fine. If we want this series to continue, we need to accept that it won’t be, or rather can’t be exactly the same as what it was before.

And I do want this series to continue. Mario and Luigi Brothership showed the series still has plenty of life left in it. If Acquire can iron out the pacing issues, we could have the best Mario RPG of all time. They’ve shown they have the ability; they just need to hone it.

So I do recommend Mario and Luigi Brothership. However, I do find it the weakest of the recent Mario RPGs. The Super Mario RPG and Thousand Year Door remakes are better overall, and I would say play them first, but Brothership is the best NEW Mario RPG in years.

Mario RPGs were in a rough spot for what seemed like years, but these recent games have shown me there’s hope for this weird little Mario sub-genre. With all three major series now back in the spotlight there’s no telling what will happen next, but whatever it is I’ll be there to support it. Unless it’s a Sticker Star sequel. Then it can fuck off.