Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions
Developer: AlphaDream
Publisher: Nintendo
Original System: Game Boy Advance for Superstar Saga, 3DS for Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions
System Played On: 3DS
Rating: 1 star




On March 11, 2023, I finished Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions on the Nintendo 3DS, thus finishing my first Mario & Luigi game! For the record, I played both Superstar Saga and Bowser's Minions (because with the Kirby games I normally avoided the side/mini games). In regard to Superstar Saga, I beat Cackletta, leveled up both Mario & Luigi to level 36, and I also found 55% of the beans, 78% of the blocks and 88% of the music. Regarding Bowser's Minions, I beat Fawful, recruited 90% of the allies, saw 75% of the allies, learned 30% of the skills, and I did 63% of the challenges. It took me 46 hours to finish Superstar Saga, plus it took me another 1 1/2 hours to finish Bowser's Minions, equaling a grand total of 47 1/2 gameplay hours. And I did it all in a span of 2 1/3 months. Now I will review Superstar Saga and Bowser's Minions separately.

SUPERSTAR SAGA:

Nintendo has been on an ever so long quest to match or succeed the expectations set by Super Mario RPG: Legend of Seven Stars. This quest has produced both great hits and worst duds. Superstar Saga falls on the good half of the spectrum. Of course, this far exceeds Paper Mario games like Sticker Star and Color Splash, but even next to the original Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64 and The Thousand Year Door on the GameCube, Superstar Saga holds its ground. I expect nothing less AlphaDream, a video game development company made up of former Square employees. Since Super Mario RPG was a joint effort between Square and Nintendo, Superstar Saga feels more like a spiritual successor to Super Mario RPG than the original Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64 does. So many features of this game gave me nostalgic flashbacks of playing Super Mario RPG: the options of weak regular attacks or strong special attacks (they're called "Bros Attacks" in Superstar Saga), items including mushrooms to heal HP and syrups to regain Bros points, timed actions to give more damage or receive less damage, a well-balanced mix of turned-based RPG elements and platforming through a connected world (if anything, Superstar Saga feels more connected than Super Mario RPG), and minigame puzzles to solves, which were both connected to the main game and side games for bonuses. This is what I come to expect in an RPG game with Mario in it, thanks to Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, and I found it all in Superstar Saga.

What may be Superstar Saga's greatest hits may be also its worst duds. First, let's start with the difference between regular attacks and Bros. attacks, which is the special attacks. In Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, normal attacks all go in one menu and special attacks go in another. In Superstar Saga, while all the Bros. attacks go in 1 menu, jump attacks, hammer attacks and hand attacks (the common denominator category for Mario's fire attacks and Luigi's ice attacks), each have their own option on the battle screen. While I clearly remember the game pointing out hammer attacks upon getting the hammer, I don't recall a distinct point in which the game explained that fire/thunder can be used in battle. I didn't realize it until I saw my Bros. attacks now incorporated fire and thunder, so I figured the hand on the battle menu must be a simple fire or thunder attack. Speaking off difference between jump, hammer and hand attacks, the game really didn't do a good job of teaching these attacks had advantages and disadvantages. I knew from playing the Paper Mario series to not jump on spiny enemies or that hammers don't reach flying enemies, but the only way to learn this in Superstar Saga is to read through the in-game guides. I know the game encourages you to do so, but it does so in way that makes you feel like you're stupid for consulting the guide, and no game should do that. Make it evident in your gameplay. This gets worse with the hand attacks. Some enemies are weak to Mario's fire or Luigi's thunder. Some bosses can't even be defeated without using Mario's fire or Luigi's thunder! Does the game clearly tell you this? No. I guess I should have assumed that the boss that looks like a Christmas tree should be weak to fire, but I have played games that don't always play by those "common sense" rules (after all, in Mario's platforming games, you can shoot fireballs under water). To me, this is borderline sharing the same video game sin as Paper Mario entries Sticker Star and Color Splash committed. Unlike them, it's not as bad as requiring you to enter a battle with a specific item in mind to win. Like them, it's so bad that a game requires you to use certain attacks to defeat an enemy, especially a boss. I don't ever remember Super Mario RPG doing that to you. You just needed to widdle down the enemy's health, with either attacks or specials, and at worse, the enemy would disable one or the other. Superstar Saga takes away that freedom, and I don't like it at all.

Another shared feature between Super Mario RPG and Superstar Saga is the timed actions. Timed actions take the RPG formula up a step. No longer can gamers make a choice, set it and forget it. If the player taps the correct button when Mario's/Luigi's attack makes contact, the attack gives more damage. If the gamer taps the right button when Mario/Luigi is about to get hit, Mario/Luigi receives less damage. The only timed action not shared between Super Mario RPG and Superstar Saga is that Super Mario RPG had timed action for items. Timed actions have both advantages and disadvantages. As a disadvantage, if the gamer wants to indeed play an RPG that one can "set it and forget it" (like Pokémon), the gamer has to eliminate this game as an option. As an advantage, if the player gets just choosing commands and watching them play out, this kind of RPG keeps them busy. The problem with Superstar Saga's timed actions is that they seem to be a requirement. Forgive me if my childhood memories deceive me, but Super Mario RPG never required the gamer to use timed actions. Any enemy, including bosses, could be beaten without using timed actions. Timed actions merely gave an advantage by giving a bonus. Here in Superstar Saga, timed actions are a requirement. Some enemies, especially bosses, can one-hit KO you if you don't perform a timed action. If they don't one-hit KO you, they will two-hit KO you if you don't heal. This only gets worse as the game progresses. This is most evident playing defense, but it can also become apparently playing offense. Without timed attacks, if an opponent has a defense high enough, your attack will not damage the opponent. Even if it does land damage, quite possibly, your opponent will heal faster than you can damage. Anyone playing this game will quickly learn that the longer fights drag out, the less likely Mario & Luigi will win. Timed actions, whether attacking or defending, should not work this way. They should merely give the gamer something to do and merely give extra bonuses, not become a requirement for winning. I can't count the number of times I could only win by perfecting timed actions throughout the entire battle.

Both Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars and Superstar Saga have platforming outside the RPG battles. Superstar Saga takes the platforming up quite a few notches. On top of jumping, Mario & Luigi have to high jump, spin, crawl low to the ground, crawl underground, dash and strafe. As a positive, this movement creates interesting puzzles. As a negative, since this game originally existed on the Game Boy Advance, and since A is Mario's action button and B is Luigi's action button, the L and R buttons become a scroll bar for scrolling through these actions. Now the 3DS remake makes this more feasible by making these movements accessible on the touchscreen, but since the touchscreen also has the map, I found more feasible to keep the map on the touchscreen and scroll through the movements with the L and R buttons. Now remember that a single room or environment might require several of these movements, and on top of scrolling through them to find the right one, you may have enemies attempting to attack you. Oh, and I forgot to mention that if Mario & Luigi attack the enemy, Mario & Luigi have an advantage, but if the enemy attacks Mario & Luigi, Mario & Luigi have the disadvantage. Sometimes it makes the most sense to clear the room of enemies before trying to solve the platforming puzzle, which maybe the developers intended, but I doubt it because sometimes an opponent will just wait at the end of the platforming puzzle, and that's not the gamer's fault.

[SPOILER ALERT!] That last dungeon of Bowser's castle is just ridiculous. Some of most basic and most simple minions can one-hit or two-hit KO you. It requires the gamer to constantly go back to the last heart box to heal, which slows down any feelings of progression. Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Koopalings! Each Koopaling has his own gimmick, which I felt was never introduced previously in the game. So much for the final dungeon being a test of all skills learned throughout the game. It gets worse with the later Koopalings, in which, for some reason, need to be beaten in 8 turns. Why, game, why? Do you think I'm purposely drawing out my battles? To make matters even worse, the 3DS remake for someone reason makes Mario & Luigi defeat the last Koopaling in 5 turns! This is one of the shining examples of needing to do the timed actions perfectly in order to win, as I barely won that battle with 1 turn to spare. Then the final boss battle with Cackletta is more of an endurance run. In order to do that endurance run, however, make sure you're stocked up health restoring items (I would recommend at least 10 of each), and again, make sure you practiced your timed actions to perfection. Even then, some of Cackletta's attacks really don't give any hints on how to prepare for the attacks. [/END SPOILERS]

Just in case my length rants of the negatives portray me as not liking the game, let me throw in a few more positives to prove I enjoyed the game. I do like the fact that each Mario Bros. has his own button, with Mario's action button being A and Luigi's action button being B. It adds to the feeling that the gamer is truly controlling both Mario Bros. at the same time. I can appreciate that the first Mario & Luigi game, unlike the first Paper Mario game, did not resort to making Bowser the final boss and his traditional minions the typical enemies. It was nice to have a new setting, new NPCs and new enemies, especially including a new final boss (even if Bowletta did feel like Bowser battle in disguise). I also liked that the game did not resort to a McGuffin fetch quest. Honestly, I was expecting the premise and plot of the game to fetching a certain amount of McGuffins. After all, that's what Super Mario RPG and the first Paper Mario did (ironically, both were 7 stars). While there is technically a McGuffin search, it doesn't happen until near the end of the game, and one of the main NPCs actually aids in collecting the pieces. A very pleasant surprise. Lastly, I'm glad Nintendo decided to do a graphical remake, not just an enhanced port. The Game Boy Advance has the hardware power of a Super Nintendo, but the 3DS is somewhere between the Nintendo 64 and GameCube, so it had the power to look prettier, and Nintendo utilized that. I compared screenshots, and let me tell you, I preferred the 3DS look every time. I would highly advise playing the 3DS version, even if it's free with your Switch Online subscription, especially if you want to play Bowser's Minions. Speaking of which...

BOWSER'S MINIONS:

Bowser's Minions pretty much falls under the RTS genre. The gamer picks out minions to fight in a battle against other minions, based off their stats, and then the player proceeds to watch it play out, hoping to win. Just like with Superstar Saga, Bowser's Minions does provide timed actions to prevent the gamer from getting bored waiting for the outcome. As the captain, the player has such action as denying the enemy's timed action, giving a stat boost, doing a sneak attack, calling for extra help, challenging the opposing captain head on, etc. Of course, these have costs, which the player will have to weigh out during gameplay. Even when all the captain points have been spent, the gamer can assist the NPC teammates with random action commands, assuring the player will never get bored. Some levels will have 2 or 3 battles, while other levels with have 6 or 8 battles. While teammates heal between battles on every level, if your team struggles on the first battle, your team will less likely make it all the way until the end.

Believe it or not, the grinding is fairly low. Usually, when I lost a battle, it was less likely due to under-leveled fighters and more likely due to choosing the wrong team. All I had to do was simply edit the team, and I was good to go. It wasn't until the last world that I actually had to grind to level the fighters up to a level in which they could handle the upcoming level.

This side/mini game only took me 1 1/2 hours, although I will admit that sometimes it felt longer than that. That 1 1/2 hours is just about right for this kind of game. Any longer, and I would have gotten bored, but any shorter, I would have asked myself why I played in the first place (or why the developers took their time out developing the main game for this side/mini game). Now in all honesty, I played up to the false ending. I did not get the opportunity to play the true ending. I thought the true ending required me to first beat Superstar Saga. I found that the true ending required me to fully complete Bowser's Minions up to defeating Fawful, which I did not do. This brings me to my biggest and only complaint about this side/mini game.

Bowser's Minions has optional levels called captain's challenges. In these captain's challenges, the gamer must learn to master the captain's special skill to pass. In order to make sure the player has truly mastered the captain's special skill, the game puts in place extra barriers. First, the captain goes in alone, without any minions. Second, the opponent is way over leveled. With the early captain's challenges, this is a small barrier. Simply activate the captain's special skill ability, and winner winner chicken dinner. With the later captain's challenges, however, this is a big barrier. The captain has to be a certain level, the captain's special skill needs to be activated at exactly the right time, and still even then the challenge still feels like it was coming down to luck. In my opinion, it's not worth it, and if I were you, don't waste your time on fully completing Bowser's Minions to get the true ending. Just finish it with the false ending.