Mario and Luigi: Brothership is the first new installment in the long running, iconic franchise of Nintendo. There is some controversy on the release of this title due to who the developers are behind it, but it is no doubt a brilliant game containing the charm and humor of its predecessors and fun light hearted gameplay.
The Mario And Luigi Comeback
This game is notably not developed by Alphadream, they unfortunately went bankrupt after their last two Mario & Luigi titles failed to generate revenue. This game has been developed by Acquire this time, they are the developers behind the brilliant Octopath Traveller.
The story is what we’ve come to expect from Mario titles; they aren’t meant to be stories that strike at the heart or bring forth existential awakenings because the main target is children, yet there is a lot of discourse online criticizing the story for its “lack of depth”.
The main premise is that some world ending event is happening and it is slowly destroying the world as we know it. Mario & Luigi then set out to stop this event by connecting some islands together and heal or grow a mystical tree that helps in stopping the event.
Following The Footsteps
Like its predecessors the story doesn’t take itself too seriously there is a good spread of humor throughout the journey with a unique cast of characters who we befriend along the way. The general gameplay loop being we explore the world, encounter NPCs who unveil more of the story, come across puzzles or enemies.
When we face enemies we see the RPG side of things for this game, it follows the traditional JRPG setting with turn based gameplay against multiple enemies. We of course can jump on enemies to damage them, use hammers to multi-hit enemies, use items and use green shells and red shells just like in the past installments.
Something new added to the game is the addition of the Battle Plugs, these can be created once enough sparks are collected from the overworld and bring change to the combat once certain conditions are met. For example, a metal ball can drop on enemies if the player obtains an Excellent rating when using hammers or a jump attack.
Luigi Felt A Bit Distant
A decision to the game’s discredit is the fact that we can’t actually play or control luigi outside of combat, we exclusively control Mario and Luigi is the companion who follows us around. We can’t even control Luigi when solving puzzles. Instead we can order Luigi around with the press of a button and he will go wherever we tell him to in a sort of disconnected manner.
This implementation of Luigi made him feel distant and made feel less like a playable character in a Mario & Luigi title and more like a party member we don’t really care about from fantasy JPRGs.
Nintendo Just Give Us The Switch 2
The Switch has been running for 8 years now, the point for raising this point is because the game runs noticeably worse and suffers some technical issues. People are speculating that this issue is due to the fact that the game has been made in Unreal engine 5 which doesn’t play well with the Switch.
But the general public at this point have the same question on their minds, why is Nintendo releasing games that its hardware cannot or has a struggle in running. It may not be as bad as how the Switch struggled to keep up with Tears of the kingdom but it is still noticeable.
A Worthwhile Addition To The Series
While there are some technical issues and bugs such as long load times or low resolution textures here and there, they do not by any means take away from the experience of playing a Mario & Luigi title.
The game has an in-depth story, lots of fun combat change ups, tons of puzzles to solve and some playful humor or banter. The game is by no means perfect, but it is still a worthwhile addition to any fan of the series who were waiting for a new release to the Mario & Luigi franchise.
