Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team
Developer: AlphaDream
Publisher: Nintendo
Original System: 3DS
System Played On: 3DS
Rating: 2 stars 

On August 21, 2023, I beat Antasma and defeated Dreamy Bowser, thus finishing Mario & Luigi: Dream Team for the Nintendo 3DS! In my playthrough, I leveled up Mario & Luigi both to level 37, I recovered 100% of the Pi'ilo, and I recovered 86% of the blocks. And I did it all in 43 1/3 gameplay hours spanning over about 1 3/4 months (average 1 1/2 hours per gameplay session).

What sets Mario & Luigi: Dream Team apart from the rest of the series, as the subtitle hints, is that Mario can enter Luigi's dreams. Therefore, the player plays in 2 different worlds: Pi'ilo Island and Dream World. This isn't just a change in setting, though. It's also a change in gameplay. Pi'ilo Island has Mario & Luigi exploring on a 3D plane, while Dream World has Mario & Luigi (Dreamy Luigi in the Dream World) explore on a 2D plane. This transition is so seamless that they gamer may not even tell unless they are actively paying attention to it. The change in worlds also denotes a change in battle. While exploring Pi'ilo Island, Mario & Luigi fight side-by-side, with their own attacks and stats, as with the tradition in other games in the series. When in Dream World, however, Mario and Luigi merge into one, giving Mario a stat boost, but reducing Luigi to a supporting role. Naturally you would expect this to mean 2 types of boss battles, but actually, it results in 3 types of boss encounters. Boss battles in Pi'ilo Island are just like traditional Mario & Luigi boss battles. Boss fights in Dream World can take on the same format, but they can also become giant battles, similar to the Bowser battles of Bowser's Inside Story.

Listen, I wasn't a fan of the giant battles in Bowser's Inside Story. To me, they were glorified quick time events with a little strategy thrown into them. Still, it did make a little sense to contrast big and brawly Bowser to Mario & Luigi. In Dream Team, giant boss battles make even less sense. Yes, I get they take place in Luigi's Dreams, so Luigi can make himself whatever he wants, but that leaves the question on why he doesn't make himself a giant whenever he approaches any enemy of any kind, especially ALL the boss battles (not just some). I think even the game knows this because after enough failures, the game asks if you rather just skip them. No, I did not skip them. After enough attempts of learning patterns, they make sense and can easily be learned.

Remember how, regarding Bowser's Inside Story, I complained about how it relied too much on DS features, as opposed to Partners in Time, which minimalized utilizing the DS hardware? Well, it's about to get worse with Dream Team. As the first Mario & Luigi meant for the 3DS, it wants to use all the 3DS features, including touch screen, gyroscope, and holding the 3DS vertically. This doesn't just infiltrate certain areas of the game; this molds the entire game as a whole. You'll find touchscreen controls, gyroscope and holding the 3DS vertically in exploration, puzzle solving, battles, quick time events, minigames, and the list goes on and on. It's sometimes a little jarring when the gamer constantly has to move the 3DS from vertical to horizontal, when the player has to keep taking the stylus out and putting it back in, and when the gamer has mentally switch over from controlling Mario & Luigi with the circle pad to controlling them with the gyroscope. I know developers receive more support from publisher Nintendo with the more hardware features they incorporate. Still, with this constant switching, it almost feels like AlphaDream did not know what direct they wanted to take Dream Team.

As the first Mario & Luigi game designed with the 3DS in mind, however, one positive does come from it. This is the first Mario & Luigi game that can actually be played in 3D. AlphaDream designed some pretty cool features with it, too. Previously, countering or dodging an attack from a foe came down to jumping over the attack or swinging your hammer in tandem. In Dream Team, dodging can also include moving up and down to move out of the way of the trajectory of the shot. Sometimes, countering a move requires moving up or down to line up with the shot. Furthermore, sometimes enemies will surround Mario & Luigi, and the gamer has to tell Mario & Luigi which way to look in order to counter or dodge. Sometimes, the game will add an extra enemy in the background, which the player can choose to engage with a taunt, which gives the potential of greater reward at the cost a more challenging opponent. To top things off, the 3D in this game is never too straining on the eyes. I may have only played and finish 16 3DS games, but this game is one of the better uses of 3D.

[SPOILER ALERT!] So since there is 3 types of boss battles in this game, the end game has to be all 3 boss battles in a row. The first one is a giant boss battle, the second one is traditional boss encounter but in Dream World, the third one is a traditional boss fight in a traditional Mario & Luigi fashion. Fortunately, and smart on their part, they did put save points in between the boss battles, so you can put it down if too frustrated and pick it back up later. Probably my least favorite was the giant boss battle with Bowser. It's already bad enough that I didn't get enough boss battle experiences because it's part of the tertiary gameplay loop, Bowser has got some attacks and counter never experienced in a giant boss battle before. This was the closest I was tempted to go into easy mode for any kind of boss battle. There is very little difference between the boss encounter with Antasma in Dream World and Dreamy Bowser on Pi'ilo Island. Both are allowed to bring minions in battle, both are allowed way too many attacks before Mario & Luigi can get off 1 attack, and both can way too easily heal themselves (yes, I know it's technically unfair that I brought in 40 1-Up Deluxe Mushrooms and 30 Max Mushrooms for healing, but the computer doesn't have feelings!). I will say, though, that this is the first final boss battle in a Mario & Luigi game that didn't feel like a huge difficulty spike. Yes, they still took an hour each to vanquish, but it never felt like it was because I was too weak. Heck, I think I could have done it with Mario & Luigi at level 35 or even level 30! Again, it came down to simply learning the patterns of their attack, and then either countering or dodging appropriately. [/END SPOILERS]

Just a few other things I will quickly note. I was a bit annoyed that they removed a control for both Mario & Luigi to jump at the same time. Typically, that was assigned to the Y button, but not anymore. Now the X button acts as a second A button, and the Y button acts as a second B button. I don't see why the gamer needs a second A button or B button, but I can see why the player needs a simultaneous jump button. More often, the gamer wants Mario & Luigi to jump at the same time, and less often, the player wants Mario & Luigi to jump differently. Heck, I can even see a better reason to have a simultaneous hammer button than a second A and B button. Speaking of controls, instead of the L and R buttons functioning as a sort of move wheel, with the R button rotating clockwise and L button rotating counterclockwise, the R button does indeed rotate clockwise, but the L button merely resets it back to the beginning. The former is intuitive; the latter is not intuitive. I can definitely attest to this, as halfway through my gameplay, my R button decided not to work too well. One last final minor gripe: why did they bring Starlow back? Starlow had a purpose in Bowser's Inside Story. He was the information dump, the tutorial coach and the hint guide. In Dream Team, Prince Dreambert acts as the information dump, the tutorial coach and the hint guide. So why is Starlow there then?! I can imagine some people say he's there to interact with real Luigi to change the environment in Dream World, but why couldn't Luigi just move in his sleep? One companion is enough. There is no need for 2 companions, and Starlow is the weaker companion here, so he should have went.

While I definitely like Dream Team better than Superstar Saga, I think it falls in comparison to the rest of the games in the series. It seems to fall back to the vanilla version of the series, except it utilizes the 3DS hardware to the fullest extent, perhaps even too much.