Mario & Luigi: Brothership Review

Although the platformers get most of the attention, Mario has carved out a solid library of RPGs as well. Super Mario RPG is a Super Nintendo classic that held up when it was brought to the Switch last year, and the Paper Mario franchise has largely delivered quality releases since it first debuted on the N64. There's also the Mario and Luigi series, which despite its solid reputation, has gotten lost in the shuffle over the years due to a lack of new entries and being relegated to handhelds. While original developer AlphaDream is no longer around, the series has managed to not only return, but also arrive on a home console with the debut of Mario & Luigi: Brothership.

Brothership almost immediately throws you into the action. Mario, Luigi and the rest of the Mushroom Kingdom have been sucked up by a magical portal and dumped into the world of Concordia. Not helping matters is that Concordia itself has been sliced up into several smaller islands instead of its usual continent sized self. This fracturing was due to the wilting of the Uni-Tree, a sort of mystical tree that connected all the masses of land. A new Uni-Tree is currently in bloom, but Connie, the young Wattanist in charge of maintaining it, is in over her head. Fortunately, with not much else to do while they try to figure out how to get home, Mario & Luigi agree to help Connie nurture the Uni-Tree by working to reconnect each individual island. To do so, they'll need to travel via Shipshape Island to each island and reconnect their lighthouses.

One of the critical aspects of the Mario & Luigi series was its humorous tone, and Brothership tries with mixed results to achieve that. There were plenty of times I chuckled at the game, but there were also plenty of groans and fast-forwarding of cutscenes. A lot of the recurring bits of the game just didn't really work for me, and going back to the same well repeatedly for these jokes only reinforced my dislike of them. The overall plot itself is fine enough but comes across as a little too childish. There's a strong focus on friendship and relationships, which makes sense considering the title of the game and a perfectly satisfactory direction to take. However, I struggled to care for the supporting cast, and often found my attention drifting during some of their lengthier dialogues.

Shipshape Island serves as the brothers' central hub for this adventure. It starts off empty, but the more islands you link, the more bustling it becomes. Eventually you'll be able to visit a handful of shops, uncover side quests and even do some light fishing. There's also a warp pipe that allows for easy return to any of the islands you have previously connected to the Uni-Tree. To reach new islands, though, you'll need to discover them while sailing the high seas. A constant map on screen shows where your ship currently is on a designated route. Additional routes get unlocked as you progress through the game. Once you discover a new island, you are literally fired from a cannon to reach them. It's a suitably silly way of travel for this adventure.

Upon crash landing on the island, you'll typically be greeted by one of the locals who is surprised to see a visitor. The cool thing about the islands is that each of them has their own style and gimmick. One island is a metropolis where you fight your way through office buildings, while another is covered in quicksand and requires you to carefully navigate its traps. They don't really overstay their welcome either, so you are consistently having the chance to do something new. And if you don't care for the gimmick, you don't need to worry about it dragging on too long. The controls for exploration lack the precision of the Mario platformers, but they are suitable enough for this third-person adventure. There are plenty of items to find on each island, with additional areas getting uncovered once it has been reconnected to the Uni-Tree. Enemies are also freely roaming around, so you can either choose to run past them or confront them in battle. Either jumping on them or hitting them with your hammer will even grant you an early attack.

The combat engine will feel familiar to those with prior Mario RPG experience. It's a timing-based system that requires you to press the attack button for the respective brother when it appears on screen. Missing the prompt will cause you to only deal a minor amount of damage, while nailing it perfectly will deal more. Both brothers have standard Jump and Hammer attacks, and certain enemies will only be affected by one or the other. As you level up and progress through the story, you'll unlock differing special attacks for both. Again, all these moves rely on hitting on-screen prompts to trigger them. You can also counterattack enemies - study their attack patterns, and deal a solid amount of damage back to them.

A few hours into the game, the mechanic of Plugs gets introduced into the combat system. Crafted using bulbs that can be collected on each island, Plugs are equippable offensive and defensive modifiers. You start off with only being able to use two at a time, but you can unlock additional slots to plug in new powers as you go along. Some of the Plugs include having a spiked ball drop on enemies after a successful attack, or automatically using a mushroom when low on health. Some of them even work in tandem with another to offer even more powerful attacks. You can only use them a select number of times before they need to recharge, but that is automatically done while you are battling. It's a fun system to use, and one that adds an extra level of creativity to the combat.

Brothership's combat is perhaps the game's strongest aspect. It's a simple system to learn, but one that constantly forces you to pay attention. Not just when it comes to making sure you are nailing your attacks, but also in defense. Timing counters can be quite tricky especially once the game starts throwing in more varied enemy attack patterns. The difficulty level ramps up at an appropriate level in this regard. For a game that comes across as too childish at times, I found myself getting walloped quite a bit by late-game enemies. There's a stiff challenge here, and if you aren't properly leveled up or lack the necessary gear, you're going to be in for a tough time.

While the difficulty is finely tuned, Brothership does suffer from some bad pacing overall. It takes a few hours for this adventure to really get going, and it can be tough to get motivated at the outset. Between Shipshape Island moving at a glacial pace and an unrelenting barrage of dialogue, it's rough going. Eventually, you do unlock the option to have Shipshape move much faster, but the issue of constantly being interrupted by cutscenes and conversations continues throughout the game. You can skip the cutscenes, but the conversations all take place in-game, which means you're stuck with them. A lot of this feels like it could have been excised or trimmed in order to ramp up the pacing. This is also the longest entry in the series that I am aware of, with the campaign clearing the 40-hour mark. A better fast travel system and cutting back on some of the backtracking during the final stretch of the game could have shaved off a few hours and improved the overall experience.

The visuals of Mario & Luigi: Brothership are fine, but not too spectacular. Honestly, kind of what you would expect from the Nintendo Switch at this point. Character sprites are emotive and colorful, and the game does a decent job of mixing up enemy designs. All the islands have different vibes and personalities to them. It's the technical aspects of the visuals that are a bit of an issue. There's a decent amount of clipping, and I didn't totally love the animations. Some fun expressions from the main duo, but overall they felt limited. It looks dated when played on a large TV screen with the docked Switch. The soundtrack is a strong aspect of the title, with several town themes getting stuck in my head for some time after visiting them. The constant repeated shouts of Mario and Luigi could have been tamped down though.

As a late period Switch game, the performance of Brothership is surprisingly disappointing. There are frequent dips in framerate, and while the combat is thankfully spared, the exploration of the islands is heavily affected. It's an issue that pops up the further you get into the campaign. When it comes to rough performances on the Switch, this isn't close to the level that something like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet launched at. But it's arguably worse than other first-party offenders like Link's Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership may not reach the highs of the earlier entries in the series, but it's still a decent return for the franchise. The battle engine is dynamic, and the Plug system opens an additional level of creativity. It may not be super complicated, but I was always excited to get into the action. However, the languid pacing of the campaign makes the adventure tedious to start and complete. By speeding up or excising unskippable dialogue and cutting down on backtracking, it could have been tightened up to a more preferable experience. Still, while it may not be the strongest Mario RPG available, it's a fun enough time. Just be prepared to be out to sea for longer than expected.