Copyright: © Nintendo
Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood continues the flood of Super Mario-themed RPG games that Nintendo started last fall. This time, however, we sail swiftly towards the shipwreck: the adventures of the twin brothers do not get wind in their sails.
Publication date: 7 November 2024
Studio: Acquire
Publisher: Nintendo
Available on: Switch
Players: 1
Age limit: 7
Game played for review: 12 hours
Within the last year, Nintendo has released two Mario-themed role-playing games, both of which have been remakes of old favorites: Super Mario RPG in November 2023, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door in May 2024. Of these, especially Paper Mario managed to positively surprise the reviewer.
Mario & Luigi: Brothership is a continuation of an already existing game series, the previous part of which Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story was released for the DS handheld console in 2009. For some reason, the series was decided to be brought back right now, in the wake of the popularity of the other two RPGs. Because Paper Mario in particular was such a great adventure, it was expected that the Mario & Luigi series might also make a successful comeback.
However, this did not happen.
Screenshot from Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood © Nintendo
Even from the perspective of Mario games, the plot of Brotherhood is rather light-hearted. In the game, Mario and Luigi are unexpectedly absorbed into another dimension, a world called Concordia. The inhabitants of this area of small islands need the help of a pair of plumbers to connect the floating mountain plants back together and of course to smoke out the bad guys who are vandalizing the islands.
Mario and Luigi’s headquarters is Shipshape Island, a hybrid of an island and a ship, which sails along the sea. From this island, the duo sets off towards new adventures.
In its simplicity, the entire initial setup is there. Of course, things hurt and happen along the way, but the plot doesn’t evoke very strange feelings of enthusiasm. There is also a lot of humor. There are many kinds of humor, and of course it depends on the player how the jokes hit and sink. Quite often I had to roll my eyes at the funny jokes, but no giggles came out of my mouth.
Screenshot from Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood © Nintendo
Right timing in the lead role
Mario & Luigi: Brothership is, for the most part, a role-playing game similar to Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario. Perhaps the biggest difference is that Mario & Luigi is clearly aimed at a slightly younger audience due to the childish humor and hand-holding involved.
Turn-based, timing-based combat is at the core of the game. If the buttons are pressed at the right time, the duo will deal more damage to the enemy. The same works for parrying attacks: a well-timed dodge saves Mario and Luigi a lot of pain, and sometimes even knocks a few life points off an enemy.
At first, enemies are destroyed by jumping on them, but as the game progresses, the two plumbers gain access to different hammers with which to beat up the bad guys.
Enemies attack the duo in different ways, and the player has to keep a close eye on the opponent’s movements. It might take a few times to learn the right timing, but once you get to know the bad guys’ movements, it doesn’t seem too difficult. Pressing the button at the right time was, at least in my case, much smoother than in the two previous Mario ropes: the time interval when the button had to be pressed seemed longer.
Screenshot from Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood © Nintendo
There’s nothing to fault about the combat: it works exactly as you’d expect it to. Only the amount of random noises starts to get annoying at times. You usually don’t have time to run away from the claws of enemies in the wild, so you have to fight random battles every now and then. Fortunately, they earn experience points as well as useful objects and tools. Otherwise, they would feel completely pointless.
Although the name of the game is Mario & Luigi, there is still a fatter plumber in the main part of the game. During the adventure, the player moves the red-hatted brother, and Luigi runs after him, guided by the computer. After all, both heroes are commanded in battles. I started to wonder why Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood is not a co-op game played with a friend from the same couch? Of course, this is an old series that has always been single-player. But I think this game would have worked so much better alone: Cooperation is the “thing” of the game, but I would have rather cooperated with a friend than with the computer. Now Luigi feels like a bit of a useless trinket.
Of course, Luigi has a use during the game. At regular intervals, Luigi gets ideas on how to proceed next. The feature called Luigi’s logic is indeed necessary in some places, but usually Luigi comes up with ideas that the player would have come up with without help. Even when solving puzzles, the green brother is sometimes useful. Quite a few brain teasers require, for example, carrying characters or objects from place A to place B. When dragging a load, the heroes cannot jump, but the object must be handed to a friend during the jump.
Screenshot from Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood © Nintendo
Loud heroes are annoying
Audio-visually, there is nothing very special on offer: the world is of course cheerfully colorful and the tunes playing in the background do not cause an offensive reaction.
However, one thing gave me chills.
In general, Mario and Luigi are pretty quiet guys, except for the familiar “Wuhuu” and “It’s-a me” shouts. This time things are different. Mario and Luigi talk more than normal; pig chops with an Italian accent, but still. For some reason, the duo’s excessive vocalization sounded wrong and began to bother me. I hope this doesn’t become a habit, and in the next Mario game we will meet the old familiar silent Mario again.
Mario & Luigi: Brothership is a total waste of a game: why would anyone satisfy their hunger for Mario crap with this title when there’s such a great title available on the Switch like Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door? Every moment I spent in the company of Mario and Luigi felt like it was worth it. The humor was dry and childish, and none of the areas really managed to inspire, except for the fight. It just wasn’t fun to play.
Of course, if there are younger RPG fans in the family, for them this jumble might serve as a first step into the world of role-playing games. At least it raises the score a bit.
MARIO & LUIGI: BROTHERSHIP
“Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood is the weakest of the three Mario-themed role-playing games released within a year.”
Source: muropaketti.com
