Mario & Luigi: Brothership

What a time to be alive! The Mario & Luigi series is one very close to my heart, for various reasons. I got the first game as a birthday present together with my GBA back in the day, and I played and beat every game in the series up to this point, something I rarely accomplish. The series had its fair share of ups and downs, and unfortunately its original developer Alphadream had to file for bankruptcy back in 2019, after the misguided remake of Bowser's Inside Story positively tanked in sales. This left the series' future uncertain, until the surprise announcement of this game during a Nintendo Direct in June 2024. This was unexpected for multiple reasons; for one, nobody was expecting the series to make a return in the first place, and it also came after remakes of Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, two previous RPGs in the series, which led most fans to believe M&L would remain abandoned.

Even more surprising is the choice of developer, this time being handled by Acquire, perhaps best known for Square's Octopath Traveler and, to a lesser degree, the Akiba series. So did the new developer manage to breathe new life into a long-dormant IP successfully, or was the series better off fondly remembered? The answer is... complicated, but mostly yes, and I'm gonna take you on a deep dive as to why exactly.

While the main series isn't typically known for its groundbreaking storytelling, this particular subseries is often well-regarded for cleverly playing with the RPG tropes while also giving much more personality to the series' staple characters, this game being no different. 

The story has the brothers, and half the Mushroom Kingdom, sucked into a mysterious portal that drops them in Concordia, a large, open sea with many individual islands which all used to be connected, but whose connections have been severed and its inhabitants left in isolation - worse yet, the islands are being drained of their power source for obviously nefarious reasons, with this game's villain troupe being made up of a bunch of mechanically themed baddies, often incorporating themes of electricity. Naturally, the brothers rise up to the challenge of reuniting all the islands by lighting their lighthouses and restoring unity, helped along by various allies, most notably Snoutlet, this game's exposition fairy, as well as adorable inventor Connie, whose former mentor has gone missing.

On the outset (bahaha!), this seems like your typical Mario story - just an excuse to get you going. Those familiar with this particular subseries, however, will known that this is an absolute fakeout. In all actuality, the plot turns out to be much more nuanced and well-rounded than it initially appears. In addition to finally introducing new characters - a rarity with Mario games nowadays - it also goes to certain lengths to flesh the existing ones out more. Peach, going with the recent trend of portraying her as more of an active player, actively helps you as much as she can, even weaponizing her knowledge of getting kidnapped at one point, and even a few surprise returns of semi-forgotten characters, such as Plessie! The game also retains its excellent writing quality, skillfully alternating between goofiness, seriousness, cuteness and pretty much any other adjective the situation demands - it's always engaging, and I actively seeked out talking to NPCs because they felt engaging or at least made me laugh.

Moreover, the twists and turns the story takes are genuinely unexpected, no matter what you might think initially. Brothership is, overall, the one game that feels like closest to an actual RPG in terms of emotional stakes, even moreso than its sister series Paper Mario. Like pretty much everything else in the game, it takes about ten million years to get good and serious, but once it does, the story is actually fairly gripping and will make you want to keep playing - something I never thought I'd ever say about a Mario game's plot! Note that I haven't really brought up any plot details, the simple reasoning being that it's extremely easy to accidentally spoil important things by talking about anything but the game's basic premise. So please know that there's more to do in the game than setting up lighthouse tethers!

The game abandons the usual series' structure and harkens back more to the second entry, with Shipshape Island itself serving as a hub with an increasing amount of characters present, also including shops and the like, and featuring a cannon that allows you to travel to the various islands. Said islands are themselves divided into two categories, the "main" islands (for the lack of a better term) where the plot happens, as well as the smaller islets, which typically contain little challenges, battle gauntlets or just puzzles. The latter are entirely optional, while the former obviously need to be completed, although the game gives you a certain degree of freedom in which order you wanna tackle these - at least most of the time. Once you activated the lighthouses on each part of the sea, you are allowed to progress further and explore more.

Initially, the ship itself moves rather slowly. However, you unlock the ability to speed up your travel speed rather early on, making exploration a breeze, especially in light of the amount of backtracking you are expected to do. Furthermore, once an island has been cleared, you get the option to use a pipe to instantly return to Shipshape Island, which is especially useful for sidequests. Along the way you'll also discover various landmarks, and if you chronicle enough of them, you are rewarded with rare items and equipment. Amusingly, these landmarks are all references to the greater Mario series (and a piece of poop, for some reason).

Once you are on an island, the action will feel very familiar if you played any previous entries, combining 3D platforming with RPG battles. In essence, each island can be considered a puzzle in and of itself, as getting to the lighthouse is never as easy as just walking there, there are always various obstacles in your way that need to be cleared out, and which naturally become more complex as you go along. Initially, the brothers can only jump and swing their hammers to destroy obstacles, but the moveset quickly becomes rounded out by more actions you can perform - some of these are contextual, triggered by so-called "Luigi Logic" moments, where he gets a random moment of absolute genius, such as figuring out how to carry stuff, climb up ledges with half-ladders on them or just acting independently of Mario. While you no longer split up the brothers (except for one optional instance early on), Luigi can be made to perform various actions on his own, such as pulling out turnips, collecting coins or just smashing crates.

Beyond that, you also gain several non-contextual moves later on, such as the bros performing the UFO jump to cross larger distances (a staple of the series), curling up into a ball to fit through small openings and several more things. The puzzles feel surprisingly organic, if never particularly challenging, a few instances aside, such as a stealth section that did require rather precise timing. Sadly, even with the ability to make him walk around on his own, Luigi's presence while exploring makes him feel more like a tool than a character of his own, which is in part due to the changed controls. In previous games, Mario would jump with A and Luigi with B, which required you to push both buttons in rhythm to jump across obstacles. Here, while you still can make Luigi perform his jump with B, it's never actually necessary, as he will jump automatically after Mario, rendering that feature rather pointless. There are also several points where the top-down view becomes somewhat problematic, one being an islet where you have to jump on floating platforms to go up really high, judging the distance you need to jump is actually rather tricky without the being able to see your shadow, but it's entirely doable.

Some other sequences simply felt a bit boring. At one point, there's a lengthy sequence where you play detective and need to gather clues and then answer a quiz, which features a heavy dose of the tired old trope "you shouldn't know this already", which ended up interrupting the action for a bit too long, not helping the game's weird pacing much, but we'll get there later.

The battles are another core aspect of the game, and they are as fun as ever. As per series tradition, there are no random encounters, all enemies are visible in the field, and coming into contact with them initiates combat, and the way the enemies are touched plays an important part. You can jump on them or hit them with your hammer to deal some damage at the start, or they can surprise you from behind, leaving the affected brother unable to act until their turn comes around. The battles themselves are turn-based, with each participant's speed determining when their turn comes around. Very important are the action commands, where you need to push the right button at the right time, either to strengthen your own attacks (now involving both brothers teaming up!) or to evade enemy attacks, either by jumping or hammering. Evading attacks is especially important, because early on your HP and defense are low, so you can't afford losing too much, and if one brother dies, the other one will carry them, which makes evasion commands harder. 

Thankfully, you can also simply defend attacks if you can't evade them, which halves their damage, escaping always works with no penalty and you can use an item called Boo Biscuit to practice evading attacks, which can be helpful if you're struggling. There is also a modicum of logic that needs to be applied to these battles, trying to jump on spiked enemies damages you, and hammer attacks against flying foes will miss. Later on, you will start to get the series' trademark Bros Attacks, which are this game's version of magic, allowing you to expend BP to unleash much stronger attacks, which either deal a lot of damage to one enemy or hit all of them at once, sometimes both - these also come with their own action commands, which tend to be a lot more elaborate. Unfortunately, these moves don't show up until at least ten hours into game, which means combat until then consists only of you using your regular attacks, which is somewhat lame. Thankfully, you also unlock the Battle Plugs, this game's take on the badge system, much earlier. Basically, you get two slots and several plugs which can be used to add passive effects to battle - such as making evasion easier, adding an elemental property to an attack, making attacks deal splash damage, dealing more damage to spiked enemies, and so on. Interestingly, and surprisingly, you are encouraged to experiment with different combinations, as these come with various synergies of their own - combine the splash damage effect with the one that can paralyze enemies, for instance, and you can get several free turns if they connect. With every major section of the ocean cleared, you obtain another slot, and you can craft new plugs with the energy bulbs you collect on the islands themselves. Naturally, each plug only lasts for several turns before needing to recharge, the duration depending on the type of plug used, but thankfully switching them out is a free action that doesn't consume a turn, and it adds an amount of strategy that was never present before, and makes it a worthwhile replacement of the somewhat situational badges.

Sadly, as far as Bros Attacks are concerned, there are only five for each brother in the game, for a grand total of ten, and you always obtain two at the same time, often hours apart of each other. However, unlike later games, this does mean that older moves still remain useful late in the game, whereas they would diminish in power previously, but it still feels like a missed opportunity, even if the Battle Plugs do make up for it somewhat. Also, a minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things is how the battle controls were changed - it's a tiny but important change, as Luigi previously selected his actions in battle with the B button. Here, he uses A, but his action commands still use B, which can trip you up, especially if you're a returning player, but you do get used to it after a while.

Once you gathered enough experience points, the bros will gain levels, which increases their stats. Unfortunately, the little minigame to increase another stat by a random amount is still missing, limiting the amount of customization, although thankfully ranks are still present. Once you reach a certain level threshold, your bros will gain a new rank, which allows you to pick a bonus for them, either an additional point to the growth of a particular stat when leveling up, or other passive boosts, such as another equipment slot - the amount you can pick is limited and cannot be changed later, which does offer a bit of customization and replay value.

Gear itself can either be found while exploring, crafted on Shipshape Island or just bought from shops. The equipment is mostly linear, at least as far as hammers, shoes (your weapons) and pants (your armor) are concerned. Accessories and other things, such as gloves, do offer different effects, which is a neat addition. The crafting itself isn't particularly impressive, though, as there isn't a huge selection of things to craft, and I never found myself short of the required materials. And just overall, the difficulty is balanced enough - it's neither super easy, nor devillishly hard, it's just fine.

The boss battles are where the real meat is. The bosses are absolutely towering monstrosities, and while you do attack them normally, each major boss battle has some sort of gimmick that is triggered through Luigi logic, such as manipulating the flow of air to throw one enemy off-balance and allowing you to get more damage in - nailing these sequences can be challenging, but also very satisfying when you pull them off correctly, which adds to the charm, and does make these battles feel like an accomplishment.

In-between major plot beats, several small sidequests will also open up. A lot of the time, these are just little fetch quests, at other points you have to fight strong enemies, and sometimes they just consist of talking to the right people. They're nothing to write home about, but at least they help break up the monotony a bit, and the game keeps a handy log of them at all times - some are even timed, so it's always best to do them immediately, especially since the rewards are often worth it. The backtracking required for these, as you'll often revisit an island multiple times, also reveals another aspect that proved somewhat polarizing: the elimination of the interconnected world in favor of a more traditional world map. Some say that the semi-open nature of past games is what made them special, others say that this makes navigation easier - whatever your take on it is, you're gonna be dealing with a very segmented feeling world, which is totally fine for what it is - I imagine the game's pacing would've been worse if it had you traveling places on foot.

The game's biggest fault is its extremely wonky pacing, no matter how you twist and turn it. While this was also a problem in previous entries, especially Dream Team, it's for entirely different reasons here. Whereas previously it was due to long, unskippable tutorials, this is no longer the case. Tutorials are now just short, non-intrusive popups that can be skipped, and cutscenes can be both sped up and some just skipped altogether. Instead, the game simply takes ages to open up its mechanics - as mentioned before, before you unlock fast travel, the ship travels at an absolute snail's pace. And it also takes about ten hours before you gain your first Bros Attacks, and then another five until you get the next set. There is also a lot of backtracking. It's not so bad when you have to go back to an island, due to instant travel, but if you need to return to an islet with a later ability, it's a massive slog, even with fast travel. This is also by far the longest entry in the series, easily lasting 40 hours, and about 60 if you go for 100%. And even the story itself, while possibly the best in the series, takes its sweet time going, not introducing major players in the story until the halfway mark, and then throwing several revelations your way close to the end, with a lot of cutscenes and dialogue that further slow down things. However, once you attune yourself to this, the game is still a very worthwhile experience, perhaps meant to be a more relaxing romp? Either way, this game has pacing issues for very different reasons than its predecessors.

The graphics are one of the game's strongest points, being the first title in the series to be completely 3D as opposed to featuring 2D sprites in polygonal environments. Instead of the more "rendered" (for lack of a better term) of the other Mario games, this one opts for a slightly cel-shaded look, while retaining the cartoonishness of the series. It can't be stressed enough just how pretty the game truly is - not only are the character models well-animated, but the environments themselves are also drop-dead gorgeous. There is a huge amount of variety between areas, and even within them, and there is a ton of attention to even the most unnecessary details, which truly helps this world come to life, finally bringing it up to modern standards, and the clever use of cel-shading means it will age far better than its contemporaries, probably still looking great ten ears from now. The few motion-captured cutscenes are particular standouts, and always a treat to watch - except maybe connecting a lighthouse for the twentieth time.

Now, when talking about a Switch game that was released in 2024, the question about performance naturally comes up, and thankfully the game runs well. The battles are fast and snappy, which is important due to the timed inputs, and it almost always runs at a solid 30fps. The only exception is Shipshape Island later on, which does drop frames due to the ever-increasing population, but considering you don't spend too much time there anyway it's no big deal, and the rest runs perfectly fine, both docked and portably.

Along with the change in developer, this also marks the first game in the series not to be scored by Yoko Shimomura, instead that honor goes to Hideki Sakamoto, who outside of the (excellently scored) Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games still needs to make a name for himself. His score is also a notable departure from Shimomura's more bombastic, high-energy orchestral pieces, instead opting for a much more subdued, low-key jazz score. This isn't a bad thing, however, as not only is his music absolutely fantastic, but the tunes go along well with the slower pacing, and it does pick up urgency when it needs to, meaning he was a good choice for a successor. Curiously, remixes of classic pieces from the series are almost completely absent here, but it's no big loss. The usual standout list is as follows:

• Battle Theme (a given, really, but it's still super addicting)
• Desolatt Island 
• The Great Conductor (beware of unmarked spoilers in the comments!)

The sound effects themselves perfectly underscore (heh!) the music and work well, I especially enjoyed the "pop" the hammers made, which made them feel so much more impactful.

This is also the first game in the series to feature Kevin Afghani as the voice of the brothers, and he does a fine job, even nailing the vaguely Italian gibberish the brothers speak in lieu of written dialogue, and it's just as fun to listen to as before. The rest of the cast has remained the same, but it's notably the first title in a long time not to reuse voice clips from previous games, which is a breath of fresh air.

As it stands, Brothership is a solid title on its own, and Alphadream can rest assured that their franchise is in good hands, but the pacing can make it a hard sell for some - after all, how do you tell someone to stick with a game, "because it gets good after ten hours"? Once it opens up, it features strong gameplay with a surprising amount of fidelity, gorgeous graphics and a pleasant soundtrack. So the verdict on this highly anticipated game is...

80% - a slow-paced return to form

Pros:

• The series isn't dead!
• Gorgeous visual design
• Varied and surprisingly deep mechanics...

Cons:

• ...that take forever to open up
• Sidequests are mostly boring
• Why does Luigi select his actions with A?

Fun Fact: in France and Quebec, the game is called L'Épopée fraternelle. That has nothing to do with the score, but I found it funny.