Review of Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood – Better Together

Months have passed, and although the announcement of a new console from Nintendo seemed inevitable, there is still nothing official about it. However, the Japanese company is still making its way into the Switch gaming space, and the latest big game this year is Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood, a new entry in the RPG series after a long time. Initially, it was handled by the AlphaDream studio, which went bankrupt in 2019. For the new product, Nintendo has established an interesting collaboration with the Acquire studio, which is behind the hit Octopath Traveler and its sequel. But have the Japanese developers succeeded in the new story of the plumber brothers?

• Platform: Nintendo Switch
• Release date: 07/11/2024
• Developer: Acquisition, Nintendo
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Genre: Turn-based RPG
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• File size: 10 GB
• Game time: ~35 hours
• Price: 1349 CZK (Alsa)

The story is not surprising

While the central couple is clear, the setting is quite unique this time around. Instead of the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario and Luigi ended up in a country called Concordia. It was once a unified area full of various villages and towns, but for mysterious reasons it split into small islands and thus imprisoned all the inhabitants. Therefore, our task is clear: to help reunite Concordia, and then successfully return to our homeland.

As is usually the case with Nintendo, don’t expect anything groundbreaking in terms of story. However, this one felt like a particularly big shame given the length of the game and the number of characters that will appear in the game. It’s only been a few months since Nintendo brought us a remake of the 20-year-old RPG Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, which managed to delve deeper into some themes. Mario and Luigi barely scratch the surface, and due to the stereotypical characters with whom it’s impossible to build stronger relationships, the entire story has a relatively bland structure and lacks any major twists.

But there is one exception – a couple of main characters. The title of the game suggests that brotherhood will play a central role here, and this is true. If there’s one thing that Brotherhood can portray perfectly, it’s the relationship between Mario and Luigi and their mutual cooperation, which is what the game is built on. In this case, everything is conveyed only through movements and Italian hatmatil, which, however, sounds absolutely magnificent and as a result significantly elevates the otherwise mediocre dialogue.

Audio-video did not disappoint again

What I can praise endlessly is the artistic side. Although I had mixed feelings about the chosen stylization from the announcement trailer, during the actual gameplay I quickly got used to it and really liked it. It is ideal for a varied environment: the developers managed to capture tropical islands, small villages, large cities and even icy mountains.

The variety of locations here is really great, but the creators also put a lot of effort into the design of the characters and monsters, which somewhat compensates for their characteristics. Everything is complemented by smooth, complex animations and sometimes surprisingly hectic cutscenes.

What would a Nintendo game be without a quality soundtrack? Even the music in Brotherhood is extremely successful, and while it may not be as varied as the aforementioned Paper Mario, the individual songs are extremely catchy and have me playing in the background even while writing this review.

Varied gameplay…

However, Mario & Luigi is mostly about the gameplay, and it definitely has its strengths and weaknesses. The overall structure is quite interesting, as from the main island, which doubles as a ship, you gradually move on to explore larger and smaller islands. And while the goal is always the same – find the lighthouse and reconnect with the island – how you get there varies greatly from island to island. In addition to more classic concepts, you can go through a maze, visit a large corporation, or investigate a theft.

The gameplay can be very varied, especially with the collaboration of Mario and Luigi, whose special abilities can be used in different ways. To progress, you will have to solve small and large puzzles from time to time, which may be more difficult than you might expect. There are also stealth passages and fun mini-games like dancing to the beat.

The fights can also be very interesting. Mario & Luigi combines the classic turn-based system with interactive elements in the form of QTEs, similar to Paper Mario, and it works very well. Thanks to this, the battles are tactical in nature, but at the same time remain quite dynamic. Even if you don’t move, it’s important to be alert and ready to defend or counterattack. Especially during boss battles, which can be surprisingly long and quite difficult. On the other hand, most classic fights are too easy, which is a shame.

…but which has its drawbacks

It occurred to me that if I didn’t avoid combat completely, I could quickly outmaneuver my enemies, and fun tactical combat sometimes turned into annoying obstacles on the way to the goal. The combat system itself is surprisingly complex, offering an interesting system of electrical outlets and sockets in addition to classic and special attacks that can temporarily boost your attacks, add to your defense, or otherwise help you in combat. However, the number of uses is limited, and after that the connector must be charged, which forces you to experiment with bonuses and their combinations.

Unfortunately, even this can’t prevent a certain amount of repetitiveness that comes from not only the enemies, which are numerous by design, but also some types that behave very similarly, but mainly due to the fact that you’re playing for dozens of hours with just two characters . In a classic RPG, you’ll already have a varied party and the ability to change it up in different ways, which is completely absent here, and the basic attacks you’ll use most often will be quite useful.

Unreal Engine again

I must note one more inconvenience – the technical side, that is, optimization. The resolution is quite normal, and even the number of aliases wasn’t crazy by Nintendo standards, but from the first moments it is obvious that this is a game running on UE4.

I wouldn’t mind the game aiming for 30fps, but unfortunately it doesn’t consistently support them and you’ll often see frustrating stuttering and stuttering. On top of that, you’ll have to add very long loading times, which happen way too often and ruin your experience.

There are better ones

Overall, I liked Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood. It’s a fun game, full of interesting ideas and colorful locations, excellent audiovisual performance and an inherently fun combat system. However, more could be done with this concept, and the game can feel monotonous and drawn out after a while. If I had to recommend any Mario RPG this year, it wouldn’t be Brotherhood. Of course, this doesn’t mean it’s a bad game. If you are interested in the description, I think you will like it, despite certain shortcomings.