Mario & Luigi: Brothership Review – Sailing a Sparkling, Sometimes-Listless Sea

The Mario & Luigi franchise has always felt like the younger sibling amongst the various Mario RPG spinoffs. The series doesn’t have the historical significance of a Super Mario RPG and, unlike Paper Mario, always remained restricted to Nintendo’s handheld systems. Most figured that little sibling status would remain forever when longtime Mario & Luigi developer AlphaDream went bankrupt, presumably taking the series with them. Needless to say, it was a bit of a surprise when Nintendo announced Mario & Luigi: Brothership, an all-new, rather-polished-looking console revival of the series.

Does Mario & Luigi: Brothership continue the plumber's recent RPG hot streak following well-received remakes of Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door? Or does this new nautical adventure hit an iceberg? Batten down the hatches; it's time to find out.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership kicks off rather abruptly, with our mustachioed duo being sucked into a vortex and deposited in Concordia, a fractured land whose residents all look like living electrical outlets (this is what comes from concept designers taking inspiration from whatever happens to be around the office). Concordia used to be bound together by the power of the Uni-Tree, but it's withered, causing the land to break into a number of remote islands.

Mario and Luigi soon reunite and cross paths with Connie, a "Wattanist" who tends to the Uni-Tree, and Snoutlet, a very piglike creature (who insists he's not a pig) that acts as your guide. These two recruit our heroes into reconnecting all the scattered islands to Shipshape Island, which is where the Uni-Tree now resides. Ah, but it won't be easy. A mysterious villain known as Zokket aims to stop you as they spread mood-altering "Gholm" throughout Concordia, and, of course, Bowser gets mixed up in everything as well.

While the setup of Mario & Luigi: Brothership is at least somewhat novel, the game’s plot isn’t exactly captivating, as its villain is as stock as they come and its few twists and turns are telegraphed a nautical mile away. Granted, most of the islands you visit have their own cast of characters, and each of the game’s four acts kind of tell their own self-contained story. For instance, one act revolves around finding out why NPCs from multiple islands are being kidnapped, while another sees our heroes bring together two star-crossed lovers from rival clans. There’s no denying a lot of things happen over the course of Brothership's campaign, they just don’t necessarily add up to a super-compelling whole.

Perhaps most disappointing, the meta, tongue-in-cheek humor of earlier Mario & Luigi titles, which the series helped innovate before the Paper Mario series really ran with it, is largely missing here. With the game taking place in a new world with a largely fresh cast, Brothership just isn't able to poke fun at Mario and Nintendo tropes in quite the same way as its predecessors. Even when recognizable faces like Princess Peach and Bowser show up later in the game, they're presented in a rather bland, by-the-books way. There are still some funny lines here and some cute moments, but don't go in expecting the sharper, lightly satiric tone of the best entries in the Mario & Luigi series.

Thankfully, while Brothership’s writing may lack some personality, its presentation doesn't. The game’s visuals are bright and colorful, with animation delivering a similar level of personality as the handcrafted 2D sprites of earlier entries in the series. There are some small polish issues, with framerate stutters sometimes cropping up as you explore (thankfully, they’re never an issue during combat), but overall, this feels like a top-tier Nintendo product. Probably their biggest and most ambitious of 2024, which isn’t necessarily something I would have expected of a new Mario & Luigi game.

For those new to Mario & Luigi, the core concept hasn’t changed much since the first entry in the series two decades ago. Players control both brothers at once, although unlike some of the series’ past entries, you don’t have to directly control both brothers’ jumps during platforming sequences – you command Mario and Luigi automatically follows along behind you. New this time around is “Luigi Logic,” which sees the green guy occasionally come up with unique solutions to obstacles he and his brother face. Usually, these take the form of a simple quick time event, although sometimes they set in motion a more elaborate gameplay sequence, such as Luigi sneaking around in a barrel to distract guards so Mario can slip by. Luigi Logic is also a factor during some battles, which we’ll get into in a bit, but, for the most part, the mechanic is just a way to give the long-suffering younger Mario Bro a bit of a chance to shine.

More central to the exploration side of Brothership are the returning Bros. Moves, which see Mario and Luigi team up to morph into various handy forms, including a UFO, Metroid-like ball, and more. These work quite well from a gameplay perspective, allowing for a variety of different puzzles and scenarios, even if the mechanic isn’t exactly groundbreaking (although the way Mario and Luigi strut around like they're doing the tango together while in UFO mode is certainly charming).

Like previous entries in the series, Mario & Luigi: Brothership combines turn-based combat with quick time sequences that are typically more elaborate and crucial to success than in other Mario RPGs. While the timed button presses are more of a bonus in something like Paper Mario, in Mario & Luigi, doing them correctly is essential to doling out damage and avoiding and countering incoming attacks. This is particularly true when looking to pull off the more elaborate Bros. Attacks.

To this standard core action, Brothership adds Battle Plugs, which are essentially a twist on the Badge system from Paper Mario. A limited number of Battle Plugs can be loaded up at any one time, offering a variety of effects, such as making counters easier, giving you fire or ice elemental attacks, or preventing certain status effects. Each Plug has a limited number of uses, at which point, it has to recharge before being used again. This forces you to frequently swap them out and think strategically, as you may want to preserve certain plugs for specific maps or key boss battles. Speaking of boss battles, Luigi Logic also comes into play during them (the only time Luigi Logic can be used during battle). After whittling down a boss’ life bar enough, Luigi will get one of his brainwaves, allowing him to launch a unique-to-that-boss quick time event or minigame that can leave them stunned and open critical attacks.

Overall, combat is engaging and timing your attacks just right is satisfying. That said, an issue this series has always had continues here – doing the various quick time events attached to each move eventually gets repetitive and the need to play out all these elaborate animations means combat can become quite drawn out. This is particularly an issue later in Brothership, as the game starts to throw enemies at you in large groups or give them rechargeable shields, turning even regular battles into a bit of a grind. Later boss battles are also real battles of attrition, dragging on for 20 to 30 minutes in some cases. While I quite enjoyed Brothership’s combat for about 80 percent of the game’s campaign, I can’t deny feeling pretty over it by the time I rolled credits.

Most Mario & Luigi games have some sort of central gimmick, and as the title implies, Brothership goes the Wind Waker route with a bit of a nautical theme. Shipshape Island is, in fact, a literal ship, which you navigate toward the various islands you have to explore by selecting interconnected currents on a map that looks more like a collection of subway routes than any sort of traditional nautical chart. Once you get close to a new destination, you have to identify it with a spyglass and launch yourself there with a cannon before you sail out of range.

Shipshape Island actually moves in real-time, with players being able to wander around it and other islands they’ve been to while it's en route to its destination. And you'll have to do that early on, as Shipshape initially moves... very... slowly. This can be a bit of a drag, particularly if you take a wrong turn or you've come to one of the parts of the game where you have a choice of islands to go to and want to survey both first. Again, you can warp to already-visited islands to pass the time, but you have to get back to Shipshape and your cannon once you reach your destination, which I found rather anxiety-inducing as somebody who dislikes both multi-tasking and being late.

Thankfully, the game does eventually give you the ability to greatly increase the speed at which Shipshape moves, making the sailing mechanic much less of a trial. Still, while the sailing mechanic doesn’t really detract from the overall experience, I’m not sure how much it really adds. As far as signature gimmicks go, it's much less compelling than, say, Bowser's Inside Story, which saw Mario & Luigi literally exploring the guts of their nemesis.

While the sailing mechanic isn't that groundbreaking in and of itself, it does allow the makers of Mario & Luigi: Brothership to really get creative with the game’s various floating maps. The game serves up 15 or more islands, most of which are relatively tight and rigidly themed, almost feeling like levels from a 3D Mario platformer. While some of the islands feature fairly standard themes, platforming challenges, and puzzles – there are the expected lava, ice, and jungle maps here – others are much more unique in terms of motif and design. Lottacoins Island is a capitalist’s dream, tasking players with exploring a large office complex while solving some puzzles reminiscent of old-school adventure games, while Bulbfish Island offers a dark noir-ish tone with players having to unravel a mystery, to give just a couple examples. Brothership’s steady flow of creative new level ideas is its strongest feature.

Unfortunately, while Mario & Luigi: Brothership could have relied on its diverse array of islands to deliver a tight campaign with almost no duplication, the game mixes in just enough backtracking and padding to be somewhat annoying. This is particularly true in Brothership’s final act, where the successful rhythm of the game to that point is interrupted, and a bunch of unnecessary fluff is added just as it feels like you should be in the home stretch. Brothership took me around 35 hours to wrap up, and frankly, I probably would have enjoyed the game more if it had returned to port at the 25 to 30-hour mark instead.

This review was based on a copy of Mario & Luigi: Brothership provided by publisher Nintendo.

7.5

WCCFTECH RATING

Mario & Luigi: Brothership

Mario & Luigi: Brothership brings back one of the plumbers’ more underappreciated series, offering plenty of visual pizazz, an impressive array of inventive maps, and a solid amount of RPG depth. It’s not a perfect relaunch, as Brothership’s writing lacks the snap of the best entries in the series and some unfortunate padding results in a game that arguably overstays its welcome, but overall, those still on board the aging Good Ship Switch ought to find this a charming-enough twilight cruise.

Pros

• Personality-packed visuals
• Plenty of varied, creative islands to visit
• Lively combat is fun for most of the game
• Battle Plugs add some depth and strategy
• Boppin' soundtrack

Cons

• Writing isn't as sharp as it could be
• Combat gets tiresome later the game
• Some unnecessary padding
• Performance hiccups

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