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ruckis--rookie · 5 hours ago

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If you're seeing this, this means I've finally completed Mario & Luigi Brothership! 🎉🎉🎉

And that also means that as a vet and long standing fan of the series I get to critique it as such! Hooray!!!

I'm going to leave my thoughts under the read more, since I don't feel like dividing up any potential spoilers with non-spoilers, and so that people can read at their leisure. That said:

DISCLAIMER!!! WARNING!!! These are wholly my thoughts and feelings and do not reflect how I think other people should feel! I am not here to debate my opinions on it and I am not here to preach to, make fun of, or force my views onto someone else! This is strictly just to share my experience!!! Basically meaning like... please don't type a mile long paragraph on my post about why you disagree with me or be weird about it and vaguepost. I wont read it and I won't acknowledge inappropriate behaviors towards a simple request. If a comment has either "but" or "except" in it you've already failed.

That out of the way, I know it's a miracle that this series even got a new installment and that a new company is handling it, but if you're going to put "Mario and Luigi" in the title I'm going to judge it just as I would any other installment of the series. Said company allegedly had old developers from Alphadream on the team overseeing the project so its hardly an excuse. I am not this hypercritical when it comes to many other series, just this one and a few others. It stems from a place of extreme passion and love for the game.

Be prepared for the nitpickiest of nitpicks and high praise over the most simple of things! HERE WE GOOOOO!!!

The things I like about the game:

The Charisma. The writing is so freaking cute, the characters are extremely likeable, and even the cutscenes have so much personality. I was so worried it was going to be as stale and tired as Paper Jam was but I was thankfully proven very wrong, and for that I am grateful

The battle plugs are a really fun addition! I adore the variety and freedom to experiment. I was initially very iffy about it because some of the seemed very cheatsy and hand holdy (cough cough easy counter/auto excellent/auto luigi) but I was swayed otherwise with the compromise of it having limited uses and needing to charge back up.

Speaking of. THE BATTLES. OH MY GOD THE BATTLES. The input flows so nicely it doesn't feel delayed anymore (to me at least). The bros moves are fun and badass. I was on the fence because the way the bros attacked are different than in most of the installments, but it grew on me. Heck even the boss battles have their own personality and I love it

Hatch me if you can. OMFG. AS A YOSHI FAN IM EATING SO GOOD. I AM FEASTING. HE LOOKS SO BADASS. IHFHFHSJG but yea I really like that bros move

Also DORRIE. DORRIE IS IN THIS GAME? OH MY GOD YEESSSS.... 🥺💖 I also find it funny that the islanders reacted with very reasonable terror. They're like "OH MY GOD A GIANT FUCKING DINOSAUR STAY AWAY KIDS IT MIGHT EAT YOU" and the bros group is just like "Nah its chill this is our good friend she dont bite" HDHFHGHDS

The reefs are a very cute addition and as an artist I adored Rumbla island with all my heart. I love Maykit and I love Issarock. I love Twistee Island, and Dyode, and auuuughhghgh <3

The enemy designs are freaking amazing and adorable and oiugh 💞💞💞 I love that Capnap made a comeback unironically one of my favorite enemies from DT, and Krode is such a clever dericitive of the Treevil enemy.

Optional expert challenges that are actually difficult??? Yes. YES. YESYESYES. I FEEL HEARD.

Bruuuhgh the little rhythm games make my entire week. I love rhythm games and I love music and I love dance ajhdjajfjs it was appreciated even if it's a very minimal part of the game.

I kinda loved the Shark Bone encounter on Allsand Island? I love enemies that force you to run away. Honestly it gave me a well needed reality check haha, I was getting too confident in my abilities. It was the first and only time I had a game over.

I originally started out disliking the UFO field maneuver in place of the brother's flying twist, but once it got its secondary function I honestly couldn't stay mad at it. It had the same charm and brand of ridiculousness that made me fall in love with the Yokai Watch series so I couldn't help but laugh.

Glohm as a status effect is actually ingenious. I was legitimately thinking to myself "why don't they just do that to the bros and make them ill-cooperative. It would take apart their dynamic entirely". I was pleasantly surprised when it became the case later in the game, and it does just that. Their strength hinges on their bond, so destroy that bond, and you hinder the bros immensely. I genuinely love how genius that is, that's scary. But in a good way. I was slack jawed for a whole two minutes during the fight with Zokket when you're basically pitted up against your Glohm possessed brother.

The main villains are scarily efficient. I know that it's 100% on purpose, but you don't realize just by how much until you think about it. Usually it's normal for the bros and co. to be 1 step behind the antagonists and know exactly what their next move is. But not the Extension Corps. You're almost 5 steps behind them at every moment and you have NO clue what they're doing throughout most of the game. When interrogated about their plans they're literally like "why tf would we tell you" AND I LOVE THAT OMG I LOVE SMART VILLAINS... The trade off is that they have no sense of foresight which is understandable when you act so quickly you don't worry about consequences. as someone who has a villain OC who is absolutely hellbent on saving time and being as efficient as possible, so much so that it influences him to be very opportunistic in nature and utilitarian in terms of strategy, who lacks foresight completely, the rep is very appreciated here.

Speaking of the villains, the main big baddie is... hollly shit. I wasn't expecting some evangelical psyche horror. This is quite a few more echelons above the Dark Star, heck, as much as I like the guy Fawful has NOTHING on Reclusa. Not even the Shroobs were quite as deranged. They were just looking to cultivate. Fawful was just conquering for the sake of getting the adoration he deserved. But nah, Reclusa is hellbent on destroying the world through a slow burning rot as everyone is forced into isolation, into their own little worlds, blissfully unaware of what's happening around them. Forced into a position of helplessness where they are none the wiser. Saying Reclusa is basically a primordial god of sociopathy and isolation isn't even an overstatement. Not for revenge or anything, no, but because of his nature of being the embodiment of hatred skewing his view of an ideal world and forcing that belief onto other people. Hell, he even manipulates the one of the few people that could stand against him by using her care taking nature against her. It basically turns into Persona 5 the Mario game and I am so here for it.

It takes you like 3 tries to actually confront Reclusa just to fight him and almost lose. Once you DO square off, there's like... what, 4-5 different phases? That's crazy to me. Not to mention Reclusa nearly SUCCESSFULLY downed the bros FOR GOOD. the only reason they're alive is because Connie showed up just in the nick of time and that ALMOST DIDNT EVEN WORK because she showed up moments before it would have been too late. All of this happens within the game that Reclusa debuted in and that counts for a lot considering it took Fawful 3 games of buildup to get where he was. But Reclusa did """Die""" in his starring game so minus points for that one chief (/hj)

Holy crap they made it so the normal Magikoopas wear orange to distinguish Kamek. I'm not sure if it was THIS game that made that change, but I've been wanting it for years and it's a trope I hope continues because honestly magic turtle gramps is so underrated and badass.

ALSO HIS INTRO WITH BOWSER IS... CHEFS KISS. I was slackjawed watching that entire cutscene. Offandon Island too, the interaction with Buddy as he runs off, only for you to discover the flag with Bowser's coat of arms... MWAH. Legit made me gasp. He comes in SWINGING.

There's so many animations and so much tiny attention to detail that it's incredible. Legit has me floored as an artist. Even the title screen changes towards the end of the game. if ykyk. Reclusa searching and the screen going 👁️ 🇲 🇱before popping up and laughing at the player.

I appreciate Starlow got more positive limelight this time around. Honestly people misinterpret her so badly. They mistake her love language in the form of playful bullying for malice and its disgustang. She's a bit brash and standoffish at times yeah, but she's gone out of her way to apologize or acknowledge that she was wrong, humbling herself when need be. I blame Paperjam for doing her a massive disservice, the dialogue in that game was SO mishandled. Heck, she still "makes fun of" Luigi by not acknowledging his name. OR. so it would seem at a glance. But when things get serious and someone does get antagonistic towards the bros she acknowledges him by name pretty quickly and jumps to defend him. Showing that YES, THIS IS DONE ON PURPOSE, BUT ITS IN GOOD FUN... And her just waltzing in and visiting Bowser to give him a get better gift as a "friend" while he's still injured, despite the fact that he claims he doesn't like her, is a good reflection of her personality. Having the gal to place a meaty piece of spicy chicken on his head TO HIS FACE so playfully just like "boop!". C'mon thats endearing asf. If you honestly hate her for having a distinct personality you must be really fun at parties.

I love how we get to see more of Bowser's good nature shine through here. He's one of Nintendo's best and most classic villains because he's... not really a villain. He's a conqueror at best. Sure he's selfish and hot tempered. He's a tyrant and goes about getting what he wants the wrong way. But we see in SMRPG and BIS that he's a loyal leader who cares about his minions. In most Mario Party games he doesn't take from someone who has nothing, rather he donates to those in need. We see in this game that he's a loving father, marching straight over to Zokket to beat his ass for kidnapping his kid even though he himself was mortally injured. We see him and his minions actually caring for an island that was in trouble, giving them food and very adamant protection against Zokket's forces. We love to see it.

I love the entirety of the bros get VRd sequence. Like, it's clear from the get-go something is wrong. Through subtle dialogue text you can tell that the bros want to go back to Concordia, and that they aren't happy they're back in the Mushroom Kingdom. NPCs making comments about Concordia and how nice it was, the insistence that you smile for everyone, the urging you to continue forward with the programmed illusion, the manipulation into trying to get you to stay there with them forever. It gets even worse come the second sequence. You go into the castle and it starts all over again. You don't even see the castle's interior. It's planned laziness. laziness in a way I can accept from a development standpoint. They COULD have made the interior of Peach's castle, but they made it so much more freaky with the groundhog day vibes. It also adds to the slightly outdated tech feels. Supposedly Reclusa is ancient, but modern VR can harbor hundreds of massive maps. Reclusa could only muster the one liminal space for hundreds, possibly thousands of individuals. Not to mention its what little of Mario's world Reclusa must have seen given thats where one of the few portals opened. But anyways, the dialogue becomes progressively more stale with each sequence. You can feel Reclusa's impatience in them. They start mentioning Concordia less and less as Reclusa fights it, pushing himself to the point that the simulation starts to break down. NPCs start getting progressively more out of character until you're able to basically activate debug mode and hunt Reclusa down. Even the hidden items felt like a nod to off-map items that just haven't been loaded yet. You corner Reclusa until he's finally had enough and ushers you to enter the castle, where you're met with an empty void, a spiraling red carpet to freedom with the only thing standing in your way being a hollow mirage of you dear princess begging you to stay... I feel like they should have included a game over if you said yes but I digress, absolutely amazing part of the game.

The things I care too much about™:

The pacing is ABYSMAL. And this is coming from someone who enjoyed Dream Team as a slow burner. It takes way too damn long to get the first bros move, and the time between getting each bros move is also wayyy to gd long. There are moments where it feels like there's just. Nothing. There's too much nothing going on. It's monotonous and not in a good way. At the very least, progressing and getting to see the next cutscene or character interaction is enough to keep me engaged... just barely. My ADHD was struggling w this game ngl.

It's way too handholdy. Yeah, a grown adult is griping about a kids game being too easy, whomp whomp. A tale as old as time. And it wouldn't be an issue if they weren't very clearly trying to pander to their original, older audience as well with references and nods to past games. Honestly this is a gripe of mine that isn't exclusive to this game, its happening to a lot of modern games. At the same time it's as simple as adding a difficulty setting towards the beginning of the game that changes some of the functionality. Similar to what Dream Team did. I'm also under the firm belief that kids deserve better. We shouldn't be dumbing down video games. Kids aren't dumb. A game being difficult is so much more rewarding when you finally beat it. Volo's battle as well as Drayton's battle, Gigantamax layers, and 7 star raid dens are some of the most genuine fun I've had in a Pokemon game in a loooong while for that exact reason. Meanwhile, I've still just barely had to buy any items from the store. Get rid of that stupid fucking heal block so I can actually enjoy the charm of getting a back massage. Is that so hard... at the very least I do appreciate the fact that it ramps up in difficulty towards end game and they include the DX Glohm fights.

Not the biggest fan of the choppy animal crossing esque voices? I know for a fact it was definitely due to time constraints because Starlow as well as some of Bowser's minions don't even have anything like that 😭 but tbh they should've kept it simple, like what they did for TTYD remake. It would have been less disjointing. Or at the very least they could have taken the BIS samples and put a reverb over it, even that would have made it better.

I'm... honestly not the biggest fan of the red shell attack being able to hit flying targets. Do I like how quick and smooth it is compared to the green shell? Absolutely, I do, but it could have just as easily been applied to the green shell as well. Heck, I kinda like that it mirrors the respective bros' fighting style. It's meant to add more variety I know, but... that shouldn't be the case. Functionality wise they're supposed to mirror one another. That's how its always been. And for them to need to change the red shell to hit arial foes does more harm than good, because it speaks volumes about just how long it takes to get a new bros move to serve the same purpose. It would have been so nice if the red shell just swept in from the other side of the screen similarly to Luigi's green shell, but on the opposite side.

I don't like the copius amount of nostalgia catering. A little less than half of the bros moves being returning bros. moves from past games make me sad in a mournful sense. The one bros move that should be an exception to this they managed to mess up in my eyes. The returning moves did grow on me a little because they're genuinely fantastic recreations for this game, but I really wish they stuck to making more original bros moves. The ones that DID stem from this game I thought were genuinely outstanding. The amount of references just... it'd be fine if it were few and far in between but it's like a quarter of the game and it makes me wanna vom after a while. It's like trying to forcefeed me copius amounts of bitter sweet sugar.

Why. Why God why, Luigi's select button not the B button. WHY is it the A button. It took be a while to get used to it and even towards the end of the game I STILL fudge the attacks on occasion. Years of muscle memory down the shitter. Nuff said.

THEY TOOK MY FUCKING LEVEL UP ROULETTE BONUS >:( I know it's such a small thing to gripe about but there should be NO REASON that it's gone! It's been there for every other game, so what the eff!!!

I hate that there's no penalty for holding up your hammer forever while defending. This isn't recent, I think it's been a thing since BIS or DT...? I can't remember at the moment. But its always been something I disliked because you can already cheese the jump dodges by pressing both buttons at the same time. Having the hammers break as consequence felt like an appropriate buffer to level it out. They could have just as easily made that a feature of the easy counter plug instead of making it standard.

There's also no penalty to getting surprise attacked from behind in the overworld. Given you can still do the attack of opportunity in the overworld for some extra damage, it feels cheap as hell. You don't get stunned, you don't take damage, nothing. Perhaps the most damning thing is Luigi doesn't even count as an overworld hitbox for you half of the time >:/ a chunk of the time Luigi being run into by an enemy just. Doesn't count because of the jank semi-automation.

Luigi being semi automated is a load of garbage tbh. It messes with the platforming and the flow of things. I honestly want to know how hard it would have been to swap the model's properties. Like have him be connected to Mario normally, and when a section comes up where you need Luigi to branch off, just have him disconnect and do the thing he's deliberately programmed to do, and then have him approach and snap back to Mario when he's done! Him being fully semi automated feels so obstructive for no reason. Esp when you're exploring and Luigi gets caught on something, so you have to backpedal during a very important platform segment because of something beyond your control.

This might actually be a surprising one given I adore the tall green bro but... I. dislike. To put it nicely. The fact that the game is so luigi centric. He deserves his time in the spotlight, but not like this. It feels so shoehorned in like. Dream Team was an exception because it was deliberate and it was the Year of Luigi. It was expected. It's called Mario and Luigi BROTHERship for a reason. It's not "Luigi and Luigi Luigiship". The charm of the Luigi logic wears off quick. It feels so forced to me. Like, we've done silly solutions and hijinks like this in the past, but they always did it together as a team. They put their heads together and came up with a solution. It never was just Luigi's logic, it was the bros logic. Which would make sense, because it's CALLED BROTHERSHIP. ITS ABOUT THE BROTHERS! ITS ABOUT BONDS SHARED WITH EACH OTHER! AUGH!!! I don't want to see the same 10 second cutscene just to watch Luigi push some chubby kid through a hole in the wall when it would be just as charming, if not moreso without it! To this game's credit though, Mario fucking killing a guard on Onandoff Island with a barrel being completely his idea was a refreshing and hilarious change 😭

I hate the fact that there's still no penalty for running away, and in some cases the game even encourages you to do so. On top of making battle skill redundant, it takes away from moments like Allsand Island. When you're practically forced to run away because of the Shark Bones? Even having something as simple as dropping coins as your punishment, which the game puts a lot of emphasis on with rare and expensive items, would be good. As much as I like my fleeing to be involved and engaging, even just the chance to fail alone without doing anything else would be better.

It's good to see the bros ball making a comeback but it... feels horrible to play? It's very slow in the overworld which defeats the purpose it had in Pit. You shouldn't have to wait to get a faster option. However, I'd like to think these are foreshadowing a remake for a certain game that deserves it but... with how sales have been for the game I'm not sure that'll happen soon.

The battles play well enough at the expense of the overworld feeling empty and playing slower. At least half of the time they do, the hitboxes are jank asf. Sometimes the enemy's moves are too merciful, sometimes they're merciless. Some of the timing is dreadfully slow so that the Glohm enemies can have more normally paced attacks that you can actually dodge. The balance is very poor overall.

The fishing kinda sucks. Ngl. I'm someone who adores fishing mini games. I got very excited to see a fishing game in Brothership. I was quickly let down. I sailed across several different seas, interchanged between both bros as well as bait. Hardly any variety in fish like I was promised. And I did this DOZENS of times. Not only does this one feel highly confusing with not much direction, but it's the least engaging fishing mini game I've ever played. Even the cartoon Sims fishing games are more fun. I'm saying this as someone who enjoys chainfishing in PKMN XY. At the very least, it was neat to see it utilized as a side quest tool, but that's not saying much. If there is something unique you can get while fishing I'm not sticking around long enough to find out. The game itself is already 30-50 hours long.

Even with the fast travel that you get for Shipshape backtracking can still be extremely sluggish for much longer travels. It's not too damning, just means I can put my Switch down and focus on something else for about 3 minutes.

Not sure how I feel about the strangely anti anti-social propaganda? I know WHY it was done obviously what with the game being "the power of friendship tm". This is such a minor gripe of mine and I'm absolutely overdramatizing it but I found myself relating to Reclusa in SOME cases. I say some cuz uhhh yeah Reclusa is (purposefully and thematically) a complete sociopath. But his final words being "UGH. People." had me laughing and shouting "SAME". The sentiment that having to worry about other people is just too exhausting had me nodding. That's why I drift towards stronger, more independent people or people who are introverted and reclusive like me. I'm not mad about it I just found it funny.

I wish we saw/got to know more about Gorumbla and the extension corps. Gorumbla has a very mysterious backstory as a character that we just never tap into and the Extenshun Corps is kinda just like...??? why did they join Zokket to begin with? Even in one of the journals Zokket wrote he was like uhhh idk. they will die by my hands tho. It was explicitly stated they just joined for some reason. They weren't created like the other troops. And then after all the trouble they caused they go back on it and help you fight Reclusa before turning a new leaf. So what was. the point?????? HUH. And why do they look drastically different than everyone else? Why does Gorumbla look like he comes from a different world entirely like the bros? So many unanswered questions... And unfortunately I only speak English so I can't read flavor dialogue from other games even if I wanted :(

Adaphne. She's successfully passed Broque and Bedsmith on my disliked characters by a landslide.

Other thoughts and overall opinion:

I started out heavily disliking the game, but I desperately wanted to enjoy it so I stuck with it. Maybe it was because I was still mourning the death of the past gen's developer team. Maybe it was because I had grown oh so slightly resentful towards the series from personal reasons. But regardless I gave it the chance it deserved and I'm glad I did. It's an excellent addition to the series. I'm not going to pretend like its not an attempt to revive the series for future cash grabs. It only happened because of the recent successes of The Mario Movie and the remakes for TTYD and SMRPG. But for what it is, its an absolutely amazing game.

I wish they would have continued development potentially until the release of the next console. Not only would it have given them more time to refine what they were trying to build, but they would have had better hardware to work with. That isn't to say that it doesnt already have a lot, by god it does. I'm actually really impressed with how much content it has. But there were very small details that felt like they wanted to do a lot more with but didnt have time. Overall I want to see the series continue to thrive, but the market for M&L games is niche as is. Traditional RPGs are past their prime time with the ever dwindling attention span. Brothership kinda flopped on release day, so if this series is to see a resurgence... only time will tell. I hope with Christmas on the way it'll see more attention.

Also I know another complaint was that the game has "too much dialogue" and I find that funny. I'm sorry but if you complain about an RPG having too much dialogue you immediately lose all rights to critique it lmaooo "Role-playing" is literally in the name. My gamer in christ do you know, by definition, what that means. 😭

In conclusion If you love saccharine sweet character interactions then the game is for you. Ironically my complaint isn't that there's too much dialogue, its that there's too much in between just to get to the meat and potatoes. A lot of my dislike towards it came from the game having a chronically slow start. It isn't till the near end where you really get into the good stuff. And when it gets good, it gets REALLY good. If you have rampant ADHD like me you might be better off watching a lets play and forming your own opinions, But I encourage you to push on because to say the ending had me sulking is gracious. It had me ugly crying throughout the entire credit sequence.

#ruckis borks #mario and luigi rpg #mario and luigi #mario and luigi brothership

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