I’m not sure what’s harder to believe: The fact that there hasn’t been a new Mario & Luigi game in nearly a decade or that the series has never had a full console game. Regardless of which fact you find more shocking, Mario & Luigi: Brothership is kind of a big deal. It’s not just a grand return for a beloved RPG series that was on the verge of losing its way, but also a chance for Nintendo to prove that it’s not just a handheld experience. I wouldn’t call it a make-or-break moment, but it’s still the kind of game that’s important to get right.
Thankfully, Nintendo seems to be taking that task very seriously. During a preview event, I played over an hour of Brothership. That snippet would reintroduce me to familiar timing-based combat and some fresh animations that are giving the series a modern cartoon overhaul. But Brothership isn’t just an old Mushroom Kingdom adventure with a new look; it comes with an ingenious new combat system that could redefine the series on its maiden console voyage.
Set sail
Mario & Luigi: Brothership has the Italian paisanos sailing on a ship and setting out to various islands on adventures. The basic flow of the game has players locating an island from the bow of their ship, shooting over to it via cannon, and finding a plug on it to tether it to the ship. That doesn’t just allow the brothers to fast travel back at any time, but it also creates routes between other islands connected to the ship. If you head back to an island after connecting another, you may find some new visitors there with sidequests to share.
The adventure isn’t fully linear as a result. The first 30-minute chunk of my demo threw me onto Twistee Island, which is either the second or third island players can explore based on their choices. There are also smaller isles to visit that can contain minigames or other small challenges. It’s a bit like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, though players aren’t directly steering the ship. Instead, they can set a course somewhere on the ocean and explore the ship hub as it moves there in real time (those who don’t want to wait can speed it up by chatting with a Toad).
While that’s entirely new, things are a bit more familiar when I jump onto Twistee Island for my first quest. Here, I’m introduced to a classically silly Mario & Luigi story. It’s an island full of dancers, but the head honcho doesn’t feel up to it because his beautiful coif has fallen flat. Unfortunately, his dancing powers are needed to grow a tree in the center of the island, the leaves of which create a path to the plug I need to connect the island to my ship. I head out on a simple quest to find some hair wax and fight some enemies along the way.
The RPG combat is immediately familiar, though with a bit more life. I need to press buttons at the right time to attack and dodge. The A button controls Mario’s jump, while X controls his sword. Luigi is controlled using B and Y. When I attack with one, I don’t just have to hit a button once at the right moment. Instead, I have to do a short sequence with alternating commands as Mario and Luigi both work together. If I jump as Mario, for instance, I hit A to pounce on an enemy, B to ricochet off of Luigi’s feet, and then A again to finish the attack. It’s all just a bit more active than previous entries.
What really sells that change is Brothership’s new art style. Like Super Mario Bros. Wonder, this RPG features significantly more expressive animations that make Mario feel more like a cartoon hero. That isn’t just apparent in cutscenes, like where the brothers crash-land on an island in a slapstick manner; the details are everywhere. At one point, I use the right stick to activate a power that briefly turns Mario and Luigi into a UFO to travel faster for a moment. When they’re in that form, they trot around in a sort of tango formation, even jumping together with synchronized panache. When I press a button to warp them into a human UFO, I’m treated to a colorful sight as the two whirl around each other.
While it looks great in motion, there are a few moments where I can perhaps feel the Switch’s age showing. Character models can look rough when standing still and colors aren’t always quite as vibrant as it feels like they could be. I imagine that this is more a foundation of a new art style that the series can adopt moving forward rather than the final sketch. If that’s the case, it’s a great start for a series that needed a bit of visual panache to make it feel more distinct in a sea of Mushroom Kingdom spinoffs.
Plugging in
The second leg of my demo would shoot me forward a few hours to the circus-themed Merrygo Island. Here, I was tasked with finding Princess Peach. I’d need to get through a rotating maze puzzle to do that, all while fighting some angry birds and spikey critters, which would require me to think carefully about when to use my hammers or boots. More crucially, this chunk of game also revealed more of Brothership’s new battle layers. That started with some early Bros. Moves, which had me alternating A and B to kick shells at enemies.
What’s completely new, though, is the addition of Battle Plugs. During the game, players can collect currency that can be used to unlock passive perks that can be activated in battle. They’re represented onscreen as plugs that slot into outlets (I had two to work with in my demo, but more will be available through the adventure). I could switch which plugs I had in as a free action anytime in battle (or outside of fights). The only catch is that plugs burn out after a set amount of turns and need to recharge for me to use them again.
Plugs can have all sorts of effects. One made the timing on my counters and dodges a little easier. Another made it so I’d automatically use a Mushroom whenever a character’s health got too low. The most fun ones, though, have battle effects that synergize with other plugs. When I got into a battle with a bird, I swapped my plugs for one that would always do critical damage against flying enemies and another that would drop a metal spike ball on them after hitting a move with perfect timing. When I jumped onto a bird, I dished out big damage thanks to both a critical hit and a stray ball hit.
That idea adds an entirely new layer of strategy to a button-timing system that can get repetitive in RPGs like this. Each turn had me thinking strategically before I unloaded an attack so I could figure out how I could maximize my turn. Say I was facing off against three enemies, with a spikey one in the middle. I could equip a plug that increased hammer damage to spiked enemies, but also one that caused collateral damage to each side of the enemy I’m attacking. With that, I could maximize my damage against the middle enemy while causing damage to the ones around it. When I swapped to Luigi, perhaps I could anticipate that some hard to dodge attacks were coming my way. I could plug in a power that made counters easier, along with another that increased the damage of successful counters. There are even some more deliberate combos to find; pairing a plug that inflicts burn with one that dizzies the enemy creates a fire tornado when the brothers attack.
It’s not just the most inventive system I’ve seen in a Mario RPG in well over a decade, but an innovative RPG battle system even outside of the series. And while some players may bemoan the charge system that limits players from relying on one busted build, that invites players to experiment and discover new synergies. More plugs unlock based on how many players craft, so there will be new combos to discover throughout the adventure. I’m especially curious to see what’s possible when I unlock extra plug slots.
The last piece of the RPG puzzle comes when the brothers level up. Each level, they gain stat upgrades for everything you’d expect from the series (including the critical-boosting Stache stat), but there’s one extra customization twist. Every few levels, players can choose one perk from a list. When I hit level 15, I could boost EXP gains, give a brother more health, unlock an extra accessory slot, and more. Though players can’t min-max Mario or Luigi’s stats, these allow them to slightly tweak each to their liking.
All of these ideas breathe new life into a series that’s really needed an upgrade. Nintendo’s best franchises are rarely the ones that stay stagnant. Just look at The Legend of Zelda, which has reinvented itself in Tears of the Kingdom and then again just one year later with Echoes of Wisdom. Had Mario & Luigi made its home console debut with another expected adventure featuring the exact same look and feel as 2013’s Dream Team, I imagine fans would have felt a bit let down. Everything here, from sailing to plugs, feels like fresh new territory and I’m excited to see where the adventure goes from there.
Mario & Luigi: Brothership launches on November 7 for Nintendo Switch.
