Turn Based Brotherly Love
The Mario & Luigi series is part of Mario RPG pantheon which of late is seeing a lot of love. With re-releases and remakes of classic games and plenty of new adventures. Nintendo fans are doing a lot of role-playing as their favourite Italian mascot. Be it paper, chibi or with his brother; levelling up to take down foes of the Mushroom Kingdom is the name of the game. The Mario & Luigi games follow the titular brothers helping each other in turn based combat, lite platforming and puzzles; taking huge inspiration and foundations from ‘Super Mario RPG’. Typically the series takes place in unfamiliar locations with a host of original characters. With ‘Mario & Luigi: Brothership’ are we going to experience brotherly love or sibling rivalry?
‘Brothership’ begins with our brothers frolicking in the Mushroom Kingdom. A beehive incident sends Luigi running for his life and Mario stepping in to save him. With Luigi safe the brothers gloves start glowing and a huge maelstrom rips through the sky. The brothers are pulled into vortex and transported to the world of Concordia. Concordia is world that has been split into many islands after a recent catastrophe. Mario & Luigi are quickly tasked with bringing this world together and stopping the villains that prefer global solitude caused by separation. Mario and Luigi navigate the vast oceans of Concordia on Shipshape Island, a island shaped like a boat. At the centre of the island is a sail forged from a giant tree. This has a passing resemblance to the Uni-Tree, the centre of Concordia that used to connect the land together.
The core quest of making Concordia whole again is achieved by sailing to discover islands to connect to Shipshape. The sailing mechanic is very simple and essentially is selecting a current for your ship to sail down. It feels very on rails and misses what could be a fantastic opportunity to explore this world. In the early game it can result in basically waiting around while your boat slowly auto sails to your destination. Thankfully a faster method of sailing is introduced but I still would have preferred control of Shipshape to engage me.
Upon finding a island Mario & Luigi fire themselves out a telescope/cannon hybrid to get to and explore the new locale. After a few of these ventures the beauty of Concordia really becomes apparent. Multiple small islands gave the developers a canvas to go wild with. The islands all feel so very different, forrest islands, desert islands, city islands even a merry-go-round island. The originality and freshness of each new island makes finding a new one to explore truly a joy.
Exploring is the core goal to connect islands to Shipshape. While adventuring the brothers must fight, platform and puzzle their way through discovered islands to giant plug that forms a connection. Upon a successful connection to Shipshape other parts of the island open up with collectables or side quest to complete upon a return visit to said island.
Exploring is very much what you would expect from a top down RPG. As the brothers you run and jump around the island. Collecting coins and jumping into questions block acting as a treasure chest replacements. Various element may have a “M” or “L” indicating which brother needs to interact with it. Occasionally you will run into obstacles that are impossible to traverse. Introducing you to “Luigi Logic”. Where upon Luigi will observe the current predicament and present you will a fun out of the box solution.
The biggest gameplay element is certainly the turn based combat. Which thank goodness is great. It very much follows the foundation this series is based on ‘Super Mario RPG’. You select an action for Mario or Luigi and simple rhythm action input sequence commences to add more damage to your attack. The way the brothers interact with each other during this sequences is just great fun. Throwing each other in the air, kicking shells at each other, swinging hammers at each other. The animations for all of these actions are so satisfyingly smooth. Improved with the haptic feedback of joy cons giving attacks impact. Using rhythm and well timed button presses the brothers can also defend and dodge enemies assaults as well.
When it feels like you have mastered the combat system the game introduces Battle Plugs. Battle Plugs add an extra effect to your attacks for a limited amount of turns. You can equip multiple plugs at one time to create synergies. For example one plug will do damage to all enemies if you attack with a hammer and one plug will drop spiky balls if you get excellent timing on attacks. Finding these synergies feels rewarding as well as dealing massive damaged to your opponents.
Narratively ‘Brothership’ for me sinks. The experience is very poorly paced. Other than lore drops about Concordia the first few hours you could be mistaken for thinking the game doesn’t really have a plot. The start focuses so strongly on finding and connecting islands to Shipshape its makes you feel like its a very gameplay driven game. So when a story starts several hours in its a little jarring. The denizens of Concordia are based on electronics and I found they have very little character. So when I have to start relating and caring about them when plot occurs I found it very difficult. I found myself yearning for actual Mario characters to appear, which they do but far too late for me to get invested in what is starting to occur. I was just happy to see peach or bowser rather than a cable person; even if that was over ten hours in.
Luckily the graphics ooze character that the writing failed to do for me. The cartoony cel shaded art direction benefits ‘Brothership’ infinitely. It compliments Luigi logic moments perfectly. The silly solutions in this cartoony vibe often make for amusing moments. Although the switch struggles in parts with frame drops here and there. It easy to look past with such a beautiful and colourful art style.
I enjoyed the simpler RPG experience. Actually finding it refreshing not needing to pull up a build guide to attempt to get through the game. With its family friendly approach to game design virtually anyone could pick this up and have a good old time. ‘Brothership’ is a testament that the Mario Brothers can still thrive in an RPG environment.
