Game review 19 November 2024, 00:13

author: Giancarlo Saldana

Mario and Luigi: Brothership Review: Sailing and Waiting

The iconic plumbers are back for their latest adventure since 2015, and their first one is on consoles. What could be their biggest adventure yet is also one that tends to drag more than it should.

The review is based on the Switch version.

In 2018, Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story was re-released on the 3DS, but the iconic duo’s last original adventure was back in 2015 with the release of Paper Jam. Nearly a decade later, their latest game is also the first to release on consoles so it’s safe to say that there is a lot of pressure riding on this entry to not only bring the series back in the spotlight but to hopefully reignite its charming potential for future titles.

While not without its flaws, Mario and Luigi: Brothership is the kind of game you would expect from the series and feels like a breath of fresh air after Nintendo’s recent re-release of classic RPGs like Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Super Mario RPG. It’s the kind of game you can’t help but smile at but it’s also not without certain design or gameplay choices that will make you question its intentions.

A Story That Takes Its Time

Brothership brings the brothers back for another adventure except this time they are exploring a new world called Concordia where all of its regions have been split off into islands when their “Uni-tree” was destroyed. The people of this world also all resemble electrical plugs, various extension cords, and cables, and this motif of connecting everyone together again is equal parts charming and “punny” and in all aspects of its design. The island you land on also doubles as a ship that lets you travel to these various islands and is home to Connie, the “wattanist” who is responsible for nurturing a new Uni-tree to grow big enough to bring the world together again—and yes, wattanist is a pun on botanist. It’s these clever naming conventions and inside-jokes that make its world a charming escape from the Mushroom Kingdom.

Its story also slowly comes together as you visit each island and befriend unique characters with their own set of problems, but when I say slowly I mean it took the game about 10 hours to actually introduce the villains of the story. Your main goal in the game is to travel to all these islands, help the natives solve whatever issues they are dealing with, and reach their lighthouse to connect it to your Uni-tree. Getting to each island also requires you to manually change your ship’s direction and once you reach a visible island you can then launch yourself onto it via cannon. The thing is that you need to actually wait in real-time to get to these islands so you’ll have to find things to do in the meantime to pass the time. You eventually gain the ability to speed this up, but why this waiting time was introduced in the first place just feels like it was done to slowly introduce this feature to new players. What it actually did was slow you down.

Remember that this is Mario and Luigi’s first foray outside of the handheld realm and onto your big screen so it may seem that Brothership wants to give you an experience worth your money. But longer doesn’t necessarily mean better. The nice thing about the story is that the series finally features some cinematic cutscenes and plenty of action that its previous games just couldn’t deliver. These cutscenes are also filled with so much life and color as is the rest of the world you explore. Its visual style may no longer be the pixelated one from its previous games, but its updated art direction and catchy soundtrack make the game feel super inviting and a joy to play even during all the waiting you’ll be doing.

Lots and Lots of Battles to Get Through

Battles, on the other hand, are more energetic and require your full attention. Because you will always be playing as Mario and Luigi during a battle, you will need to alternate what buttons to press for dishing out an attack—A for Mario and B for Luigi. Once you select your attack, you can also get more combos in by timing your inputs at the right time so that both Mario and Luigi get a hit in by working together. Of course, you can only do these extra combos if both brothers are alive, but getting the timing in isn’t difficult and becomes a necessity to take down enemies quickly and effectively.

Defending against attacks, on the other hand, takes more practice because the various enemies you’ll encounter have unique attack patterns that will require some trial and error to counter. Even during an enemy’s turn, you can actually do damage to them if you manage to time your jump or hammer attack at just the right time. Not only do you avoid damage, you get in a free hit, too. This not only makes battles a hands-on experience each time, but it also keeps you on your toes as enemies feature many attack variations and movement patterns you need to memorize.

Boss battles also require the same type of finesse, but one of the differences is that they will also come with a Luigi Logic section where Luigi will have an epiphany and figure out a clever way to damage the enemy and also incapacitate it for a turn, leaving them vulnerable for some free hits. These instances will usually require you to time your attack just right and are essentially a free pass to do tons of damage. They don’t make the battle easier, but they do help speed up how quickly you get to defeat a foe as—you guessed it—these battles can take a while to finish as well.

That’s the other issue with Brothership—there aren’t many boss battles in the game and they are spaced out so much that you will be mainly fighting regular foes you will encounter as you explore each island. This wouldn’t be a problem except the game throws many of these regular enemies your way as you are exploring the world almost to remind you that you need to level up. While its story takes time to pick up speed, you will be doing a lot of these regular battles during the first 10 hours and more all the way to the end which will take you around 35 hours to finish.

Later in the game, you also get access to special plugs you can equip that provide your attacks with new effects such as area damage, fire damage, or even the ability to not have to worry about timing your combos. You only have a limited number of turns you can use them before they need to recharge, but they do offer some variety in your attacks are just fun to use and experiment with until you find the right combo that works for you. The downside to them is that you need to wait for them to fully drain before you can start recharging them instead of simply having the option to use other ones and letting your current ones cool down for a bit.

Final Thoughts

There is plenty of exploration to be done on each island, too, and some of these moments require you to use certain Bros. Moves to solve simple puzzles or even split up to hit switches at just the right time so that one brother can make it one switch to let the other brother inside a gate, for example. There are light platforming elements that are tied to puzzle solving as well making each island a unique experience. Once you connect an island to your ship, you can easily visit them again for side quests, but these side missions really don’t provide much besides just some extra recovery items you get for completing them. Bigger rewards would have made them more fun to do so there really isn’t a benefit for revisiting some of these islands beyond the initial visit.

At the end of the day, Brothership has plenty of great elements to it but they are also trapped behind a game that just wants to take its time to squeeze as much juice out of itself as it can. Combat is engaging and requires you to be on your toes, but there is probably too much of it that it becomes repetitive at times. There are also plenty of islands you can visit that each offer a unique environment and puzzle or problem to solve, but your main goal in each one is pretty much the same with just a few changes here and there.

Finishing the game is worth it once you become invested in it so it does have that power to draw you in. Don’t expect a concise adventure, but also don’t expect a long RPG with an expansive story or evolving combat system. Mario and Luigi: Brothership offers enough oomph and pizzazz that make the adventure well worth the wait but here’s hoping the next one is a bit more refined and less time-consuming.