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| Title | Mario & Luigi: Brothership |
| Developer | Acquire, Nintendo |
| Publisher | Nintendo |
| Release Date | November 7th, 2024 |
| Genre | RPG |
| Platform | Nintendo Switch |
| Age Rating | Everyone |
| Official Website | |
Mario & Luigi: Brothership is the second Nintendo release I asked to review a few months ago, before the winter holidays. Before Brothership, I had never actually played a Mario & Luigi game. Going into this, I thought Brothership looked like it could be a fun adventure. Based on what the game turned out to be, though, I don’t think I really knew what to truly expect. This was a brand new RPG experience for me.
Brothership takes place in the world of Concordia. Mario and Luigi are both randomly sucked into this other world where they find out the residents are all in trouble and need their help, of course. Concordia was once a connected land with each area linked to the Uni-Tree. Now, the Uni-Tree has been destroyed and Mario and Luigi will need to fix things, seeing as the world is now a bunch of islands drifting among currents. Early on, you’ll end up on Shipshape Island where you’ll meet Connie, a wattanist who has a seed to grow a new Uni-Tree on Shipshape. Throughout the game, Mario and Luigi are tasked with searching for the various broken apart islands of Concordia and connecting them to the new Uni-Tree.
Gameplay involves pulling open a map to direct Shipshape to various ocean currents and hoping to stumble upon the other broken islands. Some islands will have different issues to solve. But, the ultimate goal is to locate each island’s lighthouse and connect them to the new Uni-Tree on Shipshape. As you explore these islands, you’ll run into enemies and enter into turn-based battles. These turn-based battles mostly require you to use either your equipped hammer or boots to attack enemies. Mario’s attacks require you to time the use of A to properly inflict damage, and Luigi’s commands you’ll control with the B button. In addition to timing your attacks, you’ll need to time dodges and counters when enemies attack. You can use items as well, mostly to heal Mario and Luigi as needed.
Throughout the over 40 hours I spent playing Mario & Luigi: Brothership, I honestly did not really enjoy it. Here and there were some fun parts, and various important new characters from Concordia had a bit of charm to them. But, the game didn’t have nearly enough charm for me to want to play it and make significant progress every time I sat down with it. To be honest, playing this game constantly felt like a chore. See, you only have Mario and Luigi for battles. You don’t get any other partners to help you out. Now, only having two party members isn’t a problem in certain Paper Mario games. But in Brothership, enemies seem to attack numerous times, bosses especially, for every one command Mario and Luigi get. Bosses will hit them hard over and over and over. The battles drag on forever, simply because you’re so busy trying to stay alive in between the few chances you get to attack. Yes, you can dodge attacks. Still, bosses have a wide variety of hard hitting attacks you will have to keep dodging or countering perfectly, all in a row. Anything you don’t dodge will take a good chunk of HP, and it adds up fast. You are able to collect these equippable plugs, some of them making dodging easier. However, they do little to help when they have limited uses and take a ton of turns to recharge.
Along with your regular hammer and jump attacks, you also get a select handful of Bros. Attacks throughout the game. These Bros. Attacks, much like dodging bosses, require multiple instances of perfect timing with correct button selections between A and B. Many of them are difficult to pull off perfectly on the regular, and they don’t do that much more damage than normal attacks with good equipment. You are able to practice them outside of battles, the menu contains a practice mode for them. Regardless, boss battles mainly, have many button mashing required parts, and the Bros. Attacks also often contain button mashing in addition to the timing elements. Around 35 hours into the game I was tiring out my hands so much just trying to survive bosses and mashing my way through each battle’s special little quirk to do major damage, that then I couldn’t properly perform Bros. Attacks anymore.
Ultimately, Mario & Luigi: Brothership was an immense pain to play. Between trying to constantly time things perfectly and button mashing my way through to inflict damage, plus constantly having to heal when enemies finally stopped attacking, it was not a fun time. I wouldn’t call it a bad game necessarily, I do think some people may enjoy it. If you love button mashing and timing stuff and don’t mind getting very few turns in between your enemies’ attacks, then this may very well be the game for you. But for anyone who wants a fun RPG adventure with an amazing story, atmosphere, charm that actually sucks you in and enjoyable battles that don’t take an eternity and kill your button mashing muscles, this is not the game for you, whatsoever. I feel like if the story, characters and everything else outside of battles, was just better and more worth going through these battles for, I would’ve liked the game a lot more. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be picking up another Mario & Luigi title anytime soon.
Review copy was provided by the publisher. A copy of the game retails for $59.99.
