Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood Review

Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood is the most recent in Mario and Luigi ARPG spin-off series and should not be confused with some of the more traditional platformers that Mario is known for. Although its RPG mechanics are quite light, the game is a very fun addition to the Mario and Luigi programming, especially because it is the first entry to come out since 2018. Set in a world far removed from the Mushroom Kingdom, there are still many familiar faces besides the citizens of Concordia, and Mario and Luigi are once again destined to be the heroes of the land.

Many fans of Mario and Luigi series feared the worst for the spin-off after waiting nine years since Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam was released in 2015, followed by a few remakes in 2018. Unfortunately, the development company that created the other games in the series, AlphaDream, no longer exists. Nintendo was quick to assure fans that some of the original developers were now involved in making Brotherhood in your new development team, Acquire.

The ARPG styles of Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood It may surprise some people who aren’t familiar with the series, but it has similarities to Mario Paperjust with obviously different graphic styles. Unlike the previous Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam game, Brotherhood does not include any 2D Mario Paper styles in it. In truth, Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood offers a new beginning to the series in gameplay and art style, moving away from the Mario Paper series entirely.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership has a creatively electrifying story

Set in the world of Concordia

After the familiar faces of the Mushroom Kingdom are strangely teleported to various locations in the land of Concordia, Mario and Luigi are reunited and meet up with the young and adorable Connie. Connie is a new Wattanist who explains to her brothers the difficult situation in her world. Once connected in harmony by the strong Uni-Tree, the world of Concordia was destroyed on several floating islands, completely isolated from each other.

In this electricity-based terrain, full of fantastic puns and creative uses of electrical termsConnie planted a new Uni-Tree seed on a floating island ship called ShipShape Island, with the goal of connecting all the islands again. Personally, I would like to live on ShipShape Island in real life. Sailing around the world on a huge boat-shaped island sounds pretty cool.

Naturally, things won’t be easy for Connie, even with the help of her Snoutlet, who is definitely not a pig, and her new friends, Mario and Luigi. The evil and mysterious Zokket and his minions are behind the original destruction of the Uni-tree and are now working to spread Glohm throughout Concordia. Glohm appears to be essentially a form of negativity, depression or angercausing everyone to become gloomy and not want to interact with anyone and just become bitter and sad.

The story flows well and traveling through all the islands, meeting new characters and finally connecting the islands in a strange tail behind ShipShape Island, Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood It’s a very fun story. It’s a clever premise that’s expertly told in a way that somehow seems even a little plausible, at least in the film. Super Mario universe.

Turn-based combat, overworld encounters, and more

The basic gameplay of this ARPG

Following the same game pattern as the older entries in the Mario and Luigi series, Brotherhood It has an overworld setting and separate battle sections for turn-based combat. While walking around the overworld, players may see a monster and if that monster attacks them, or if Mario attacks the monster, the game will jump to a battle arena where the monster is often accompanied by several of its friends.

In turn, Mario and Luigi can choose whether they want jump attack, hammer attack, use an item, run away, or use a Bros. special attack move.. With any type of attack, players need to time their commands to deal damage. With perfect timing, the attack gains an additional “excellent” bonus.

As is often the case in games like these, There are certainly times when it seems like there are too many monsters in the overworld when players need to get somewhere. This can be frustrating, but luckily there is no penalty for running away from a battle to continue. It can still be a little annoying from time to time, especially when you’ve done enough battles to level up for your current quests.

Mechanics for Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood is smooth but slow

Fun skills to use, but the game gets tedious at times – especially with “Luigi Logic”

Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood continues some of the same abilities as the older titles in the series, with many attacks and abilities that feature both brothers working together and controlled by just one player. The single-player game works well when managing both characters. Its AI for Luigi, surprisingly, does what it’s supposed to do when following the player-controlled Mario, and there are generally no problems dealing with both characters.

The staple of the series, Bros. Attacks is back but with some new iterations of the mechanics. The Bros attacks. allow Mario and Luigi to work together in clever ways to do a special attack in battle, although they often require more advanced button-pressing timing on the player’s part. There is also the “Luigi Logic” feature, where Luigi can find intelligent solutions to problems, in and out of combat.

However, the best of the new features introduced for Brotherhood These are Battle Plugs that can add strengths and passive abilities to battles. Some of these plugs even create entirely new comboshow to combine the Dizzifying Attack plug with a Fire Attack Plug to create a fire tornado. New plugs can be created by finding and collecting Sprite Bulbs on the different islands, which are a small type of collectible creature that usually requires players to return to a completed island.

Unfortunately, there are also several things that were disappointing about Mario and Luigi: Brotherhoodthe gameplay. Especially when it comes to rhythm. Not only were the loading screens painfully slow (and prevalent in the game), but there were also several other slow moments where it would have been nice to skip past cutscenes and interactions. Watching Luigi have his “Luigi Logic” moment was fun the first time, but after watching it 30 times it got a little tiring.

Sailing in the ocean is well controlled, after the ability to accelerate appears

Following the currents to find drifting islands to connect to

Why ShipShape Island is essentially a giant ship, players can use it to sail the ocean. Connie wants to find all of Concordia’s separate islands to connect them back together, while Mario and Luigi are also tracking down the evil villains who have taken over the Great Lighthouses. Meanwhile, there are several small islets to explore and silly rock formations called reefs to find and report to a sculptor.

Opening the Ocean Map, there are many currents that the ship can follow to reach new areas, but navigating takes time. Once players unlock a certain character, this can be speeded up considerably, making exploration much simpler.

Characters and setting are truly enjoyable

And the art style is beautiful

The artistic style of Brotherhood It’s beautiful. Sometimes it feels like we’re watching a cartoon come to life, and the characters’ facial expressions, even those with electrical outlet faces, are expressive and engaging. Whether it’s helping organize a wedding for a Cheese and guava excessive royalties situation or help the group of IDLE children find their purpose in life, the small stories within the larger narrative are wholesome and fun to watch.

The lovely Connie, the young Wattanist at the center of these heroic efforts, is absolutely charming, and her little moments of growth throughout the story surprised me with how engaged I was.

Final Thoughts and Review Score

Screen Rant gives Mario and Luigi: Brothership 7/10

Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood is not without flaws. The pacing of some scenes, the long loading screens and the overload of monsters in the overworld seemed to weigh me down and often took me out of the game. There were also a few moments where, after being very leveled and having easy battles, I was suddenly thrown into a battle that took an hour, like when I faced Koopa Troopas and Goombas who were constantly calling for reinforcements. The drastic contrast to the ease of the previous fights was a bit shocking.

Even with these negatives, though, this is a game that I really loved playing. The story, the fun skills and abilities, the citizens of Concordia, and so much more came together to make this a really fun experience. Mario and Luigi are perfectly portrayed, with Luigi having more of a chance to be a hero than he usually doesand Princess Peach is as much a symbol of charm and heroism as ever. I really hope that Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood it will serve to inaugurate many more games in this series in the future.