Mario is one of the most well-known and beloved video game series of all time, and it always will be. Nintendo’s pride and joy won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, however, that’s not true for every aspect of the series. One of the most beloved parts of the games to me, and to many others, is the Mario RPGs. They were always amazing. Paper Mario, Mario RPG. They were all amazing. Whenever they tried that genre out, it was outstanding.
But then, it all happened. Sticker Star came out and everything amazing, charming, and wonderful about Paper Mario vanished, and ever since they could never capture what the series had before. And Mario RPG, while beloved, wasn’t likely to ever come back. However, the Mario RPG fans finally had some hope. Mario RPG got a remake on the Switch out of nowhere, and the best Paper Mario game ever, Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door came back for a Switch remaster also out of nowhere and did amazing. They know we have an interest in these games and they’ll hopefully keep providing them.
And then we have the Mario & Luigi series. These are pretty traditional RPGs overall, but where the combat generally revolves around timing-based button presses for actions and dodges mixed in with whatever gimmicks that game in particular has. While the games had some ups and downs, every game was good. Sadly, the company that made the series shut down, so for years we had no hope. But then again out of nowhere, Brothership was announced and it is amazing. But let’s talk about the past before the present!
A Superstar Start
The series began back on the Gameboy Advance with Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga. This is by far the most basic game in the series as it is the first, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing either. The simplicity is something the later games could use more of, to be honest. The story is pretty typical. Peach gets captured and jazz but we get to explore the Beanbean Kingdom, introducing us to a lot of new characters and the series continued fascination with beans. Even today they’re used as stat buff items.
The very basics of the series is simple. Every action in the game is controlled by Mario, whether in battle or not uses the A button. The same applies for Luigi with B. So though they follow each other around the world, you navigate with both buttons controlling both bros. For combat, this means timed button presses for actions, and around the world it typically means simple platforming.
The combat is nothing but those button presses and most of the strategy comes from the equipment you have as well as what you choose to level up. Every level you get this roulette you can time to get extra buffs to a stat you choose. It’s something they would remove later, however I really like the feature. It means you can min max if you want and mixed with some of the gear abilities you can have some fun builds for the simple combat.
The other main mechanic is counterattacks. You get the opportunity to either dodge or counterattack every single attack the enemy does. This forces you to learn the patterns of each enemy. And if you do well, you’ll never take a single point of damage. There are also often fun glass cannon builds to go with that too!
The Beanbean kingdom is fun to explore. While the story or concept is nothing special, it doesn’t have to be. This is the framework that the entire series would continue to run on afterward and approve upon in certain ways. Exploration can feel pretty sluggish since you have to press multiple buttons to select different movement skills, but it only feels as bad as it does looking back. The remake added some nice quality-of-life stuff from later games, but I still prefer the original for the art and just the general vibe. All in all, a simple but good start to an amazing series.
I wish I had more to say about it, but the game really is the introduction. Every following game will take the mechanics this one introduced to build atop. The starting foundation must be good, and this one really is, even if it seems pretty simple by the series’ standards now. It’s up to the later games to improve.
The Future is in the Past
The second game in the series was always my favorite as a kid. I’m not sure if that’s still true now, but it’s the one I have the most memories with, for sure. Partners in Time expands upon the last in what I think is the perfect way. While you got used to A and B, for Mario and Luigi, Partners in Time takes advantage of X and Y for the baby version of our heroes.
Partners in time is all around jumping from the past to the present. Not only does this create some pretty cool-looking areas, but it gives an opportunity for our characters to meet their past selves and give Baby Mario and Luigi something else to do besides drive a car and cry on the back of a dinosaur. This progression is perfect.
The series can often be pretty easy and adding two more buttons and bros in the equation keeps the combat a lot funner and more dynamic. Also allows for more interesting counterattacks when you have all bros or only one pair, as the game will split them up occasionally. It feels like exactly how you’d logically continue the premise. It’s just more of what we got before.
This time we don’t get any Beanbean Kingdom, just one of the villains from the last game making a slight cameo, which is cool. Partners in Time also does this interesting choice where the bro attacks that work like your magic, I guess, or stronger attacks in general are items you collect, instead of taking BP like in the first game. I don’t hate this decision or anything, it’s just a strange choice and they clearly knew this as well since they went back to SP/BP right after this game.
The game still feels pretty slow exploring. Even worse now since you have two sets of bros that all have to do things separately and together. All the slow inputs and access to movement options are a big thing that drag this game down a lot, though it’s not enough to stop it from being great.
The Mario & Luigi series is so charming with all the little fun cutscenes that happen. It’s just a really goofy, funny series that showcases the characters and how they interact with each other. Partners in Time is some of the best. Seeing the bros interact with the young bros is so wholesome, but also hilarious depending on the different scenarios. Some of the cutscenes in this game are my favorite representations of Mario and Luigi. It all just makes you want to smile.
All in all, Partners in Time is an amazing sequel that does a fantastic job expanding on the simple, but solid foundation that Superstar Saga gave us. This is one of my childhood games I’ve adored forever, and it makes me happy I enjoyed it just as much, if not more on this recent playthrough. It’s an absolute joy.
This Story is Inside
As I mentioned, Bowser’s Inside Story brings back the bros attacks as special attacks and not items. Definitely not the most important thing to start with, but I just find it hilarious how quickly they backed out of that idea. Anyway, the gimmick of Inside Story is what it sounds like. It takes place inside of Bowser. He gets big sucking abilities and goes around eating people and things, Mario, Luigi, and Peach are some of those things. Or people.
This game starts a bit of a mechanic that will return a bit in the future. 2D sections. Crazy, right? During the game, you will control not only Mario and Luigi but also Bowser as well. Bowser runs around in 3D areas while everything inside of him takes place in 2D with the bros. You do get 3D sections with Mario and Luigi later when you can exit his body, but the majority of the game follows this pattern of exploring with Bowser a bit, then the bros, and cycles through with that. It has a really nice flow. Things you do outside with Bowser also alter the area the bros explore. It’s fun!
All previous problems about movement being sluggish are still here, but it is much less so since the bros and their movement skills are typically in 2D. Bowser also has a lot of fun movement skills and is super fun to use in general. Bowser feels super powerful, and the way his counterattacks work just feels so much more raw than the bros. That duality of the game is amazing. While I still think I like Partners in Time more, I’m willing to admit Inside Story is the best game in the series to this point, even if it’s riddled with useless, often unskippable tutorials. Most games are bad with it, but this game is atrocious with them.
The Mario & Luigi series often likes to break up the game’s flow with little minigames throughout, but they take it to another level with Inside Story. I won’t say they’re fantastic or anything, but I never found them repetitive. They don’t happen enough for that. It is a good touch to break up the flow of the game here and there to stop it from being samey, and with all the ways you play as you go through Inside Story it’s probably the best at it.
Inside Story introduced badges, which are these buffs you can give the bros mid-battle. This is something the series really like so they’ve tried different ways of doing it. Based on the combination of badges that Mario and Luigi have you get different buffs or effects at different intensities. This mechanic is great, honestly. You can do really broken things like healing without wasting a turn or mega-buffing a move. The battles are great this time around.
You also get an introduction to giant battles in this game. Bowser gets massive and big and you have to flip the DS sideways for a new epic turn-based fight. They’re fairly simple, but super cool and I always looked forward to them. They’re fun movements and a fun use of the shape of the DS. Inside Story is really good and I think the game most people look back on fondly. Most games to this point were well received, but Inside Story does stand out a lot in my mind for really being the formula of the series mastered IMO. It also has the best premise, the most interesting use of it, and one of the best final boss themes in any video game ever, so it’s pretty good in my book.
Dreaming of a Sequel
Mario & Luigi Dream Team was the first game in the series to be on the Nintendo 3DS and also adapted the new art style that a lot of people know the series for, I’m sure. I personally have always appreciated the older art more, but I do enjoy this art as well. I think it just hurts the overall look that we ended up getting four whole games in this style with the two remakes. That’s just a lot of games to all look the same when they all play very similarly as well. Dream Team has some new gimmicks. It just doesn’t feel like it.
So Dream Team’s big gimmick is that some of the game takes place in Luigi’s dreams. Like Inside Story, these sections are the 2D parts. In these, you can tug on different parts of Luigi in the real world to cause different effects in his dreams, like moving objects or freezing water. Now you might see the problem. This is basically the same thing that Inside Story did. The mechanic is the same really. Except in this game, you’re always controlling the bros all the time which can make it feel like the game drags a lot more. This is also the longest game in the series to this point. So people tend to think the game just lasts too long.
Everything you’d expect to be here is there. Bro attacks, along with some new dream attacks that utilize Dream Luigi. Badges return. The different 2D to 3D sections you can affect. I feel like the biggest problem with Dream Team is that it basically just does the same things that Inside Story does. It just does them in a much less interesting way. Bowser and the bros working together is way better than Luigi sleeping around. Causing changes in Bowser’s body is cooler than touching Luigi in his sleep. In that way, I really don’t think Dream Team is bad, it just isn’t as good as Inside Story, nor does it do things to make it stand out more.
The music is amazing, and the art is good. The combat is still fun. The world and writing are still fun, admittedly less so, but still there. But it just doesn’t stand out in any real way, besides the fact that it lasts the longest. This game even has its version of giant battles where Dream Luigi grows to a massive size to take on foes. I love these sections. The models they use are amazing and they’re super fun. However, it’s just the same idea as the Bowser stuff but not as interesting in concept.
Dream Team is definitely a good game and we shouldn’t take that away from it. However, it’s definitely one of the less interesting games in the series with nothing to really make it stand out. That mixed with how oversaturated the art style got makes the game just seem pretty fine these days. To me at least. I still loved my playthrough though so I’d still recommend it.
The Paper Jams
So Paper Jam is probably the most controversial game in the series. It was also the last new one for years until Brothership was released almost a decade later. Paper Jam does a ton of things right in my opinion, but also a lot of things very, very wrong. How much any of this matters really is all about what you like about the series and the previous games or RPGs in general. It’s a good game. But in certain ways.
Paper Jam has no story. Like, really. If you’re a fan of the goofy characters and writing of the previous games, none of that is here. They really put no effort into making a story. The Paper Mario world combines with the Mario & Luigi world and the bros team up with Paper Mario to take down Bowser and Paper Bowser to save the two Peaches. That’s it. Really like no new characters. It has Sticker Star syndrome where everyone is just a variant of a toad. It has the worst story by far because they didn’t even bother to write one. Same with the world. It’s pretty boring.
That’s really the bulk of what’s wrong with the game, however. It’s good in most other ways. The gameplay is outstanding here. It’s the best gameplay in the series, to this point, at least. Having a third character on the Y button still feels different than the baby bros in Partners in Time because you’re using all three at the same time in battles. They really use the layout and position of the characters to make all the counterattacks satisfying and utilize the different movements Paper Mario has. It really feels like the right balance. One more character would be too much. Three? It works perfectly and everyone is fun to use.
What I never found fun was all these random toad hide-and-seek minigames you’re forced to do to process. They honestly suck, but you have better movement than ever, which helps. They designed this world with running in mind. If you thought the series was too slow-moving before, this game has you constantly dashing and hovering around. it’s a really odd choice I never would have expected, but always dashing around like a Sonic game to stop for battles and items actually works incredibly well and I think this is by far the best to move around in. Despite the world being boring the movement is not at all, which makes it seem a lot better.
The boss battles are super fun. There are special attacks that utilize Paper Mario to help the bros escape attacks or deal big damage. Again, gameplay, battles, exploration, Paper Jam is actually amazing at all of these things. Music as well. It just does a lot bad too, but not enough to ruin it. That being said, the boss battles in this game go on a little too long. I wasn’t even underleveled and some took 15 minutes or more. Eventually, animations and attacks will repeat and you’ll lose a lot of that novelty. Still, all in all, it’s really good.
This game also introduces these papercraft battles instead of giant battles. I won’t say that I prefer these, but they aren’t bad and I do respect them for doing something different but still fun. You ride around on these giant paper characters with tank controls and you have to fight these other papercraft tank characters basically. It’s largely just about timing jumps and dodge, but they don’t last too long to be offensive, even if I think there are too many in the game overall. Still a fun feature. Paper Jam has some problems that can’t be ignored, for sure, but the game is overall really solid and I do wish more people would give it a try instead of just ruling it out right off the bat.
After All These Years!
And that was a look back on all the Mario & Luigi games throughout the years! This was the longest post I’ve written for the site in a long time. Again, I plan to do an entire post centered around Brothership pretty soon because the game is long enough and has enough changes to warrant an entire post. Also, this ended up way too long anyway. That being said, I had a lot of fun making this. It only seemed right since I was playing through these all in my spare time anyway!
I don’t know when I’ll have the Brothership post out. Sometime in the next two weeks. I’m not even done the game myself, but I am pretty far into it. The game is amazing so far, so I am looking forward to writing down my thoughts. Anyway, this went on for too long. See ya.
