Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions

Genre: Turn-Based RPG / Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is an RPG with Action-RPG elements released on Game Boy Advance in 2003, the first game in this series. 14 years later in 2017, this game was remade for Nintendo 3DS with completely redone visuals, as well as new content and features. This new release was titled Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions.

In a way, this game feels like something of a throwback, even with the new presentation and features. Superstar Saga lacks a lot of the fun experimental features of more recent games in the franchise like Dream Team and Paper Jam, instead simply focusing on the core gameplay concept of an RPG with real-time elements that has you using the A button to control Mario, the B button to control Luigi, and various combinations of the two to use different attacks or abilities.

Despite the stripped-down nature of the gameplay, it all still works surprisingly well – Superstar Saga may not have all the bells and whistles, but it has a more distinctive focus that the later games lack, and the game’s story is still as delightful as when it first released.

The plot in this game is that Peach has been cursed by a new mysterious foe who has left her without her voice, instead only able to speak with language that is literally explosive. Even traditional Mario arch-nemesis Bowser is taken aback at her current state, and decides to work with the Mario Bros. to hunt down her attacker and restore her to normal. However, Bowser’s airship is attacked during the pursuit, leading to Mario and Luigi being grounded in a foreign land, and Bowser blown away to parts unknown. This is overall a great subversion of the typical Mario plot, and it’s helped by some really excellent writing that makes the story a highlight of the game.

As for the rest of the presentation, everything here has been completely redone using visuals that are closer to what we saw in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (albeit without stereoscopic 3D). This means we have colorful 2D visuals for backgrounds and characters, with some really good animation for those characters, as well as more modestly improved sound. Overall, this all looks good, though I wish the game took things a bit farther and gave us 3D environments like what we saw in Paper Jam.

As for the new content, the game of course adds dual screen and touchscreen support that wasn’t in the original title, as well as the ability to save anywhere (though save blocks are still here too, oddly), and while none of these are truly monumental improvements, they are genuinely nice additions, making it much easier to consult the map, or swap between the Bros.’ numerous different types of jumps and overworld moves using a single touch on the touchscreen.

Less successful is the new gameplay mode, Minion Quest: The Search for Bowser, which becomes unlocked a few hours into the game. In this mode, players nominally take control of an army of Bowser’s minions led by a Goomba as they fight their way through the game’s locales in search of Bowser. However, I say “nominally” because control over your minions in this mode is extremely minimal, to the point where the most gameplay you’ll see here is in the menus in between missions where you’ll select which minions to include in your army. The story in this mode is wonderful, with writing on par with the rest of the game, but the gameplay here is so bad you may not want to bother with it. Thankfully, this game mode is completely optional.

Finally, as a part of Minion Quest, this game does add Amiibo support… but only for the Goomba, Koopa Troopa and Boo amiibo figures, which I suspect the overwhelming majority of Amiibo owners don’t have. On that note, I don’t have them either, so I wasn’t able to test this feature. Sorry!

Overall, not everything added in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions improves on the original game, but the stuff that does work is very nice, and the stuff that doesn’t can be easily ignored. And what remains is the absolute best version of a truly wonderful RPG, and while it is a bit quaint compared to modern entries in the series, it is still a delightful game and a must-have for RPG fans.

tl;dr – Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga is the first game in Nintendo’s Mario & Luigi RPG series (with real-time Action elements), with this Nintendo 3DS release updating the visuals and adding a slew of new features. Not all of these new features are successful, but overall this is a definitive version of a truly excellent RPG. If you’re a fan of the genre, you should absolutely get this game.

Grade: A-

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