Truly one of the most disappointing games ever for me personally. Everything good about either of the Mario RPG series is STRIPPED away here, no unique characters story or locations. Just the boring NSMB tripe we had A LOT of back in those days. Although, Paper Mario had already been struggling for a few good years at this point. This could have been a great love letter to both series, but it succumbed to the sterilization of the Mario brand.
Though at least this game is MUCH better than those sub par and foul modern Paper Mario entries. You can still just veg out and play a Mario RPG and actually level up. Bowser is always great as usual, though I don't know why Starlow is still here?? She's so mean to Luigi get her out of here!! And the soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura is wonderful as always.
But All in all, your better off playing the Super Mario RPG remake, or hell even the M&L remakes. At least their foundations are from GOOD games.
Though at least this game is MUCH better than those sub par and foul modern Paper Mario entries. You can still just veg out and play a Mario RPG and actually level up. Bowser is always great as usual, though I don't know why Starlow is still here?? She's so mean to Luigi get her out of here!! And the soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura is wonderful as always.
But All in all, your better off playing the Super Mario RPG remake, or hell even the M&L remakes. At least their foundations are from GOOD games.
W series
This game has very high ups when talking about the gameplay, but very (and I mean VERY) low lows. It doesn't help that it comes from one of the greatest RPG sagas that Nintendo has ever created.
It's story is bland and uninspired, the unique character designs are mostly gone (with the exception of a familiar yellow star spirit) and the mix between franchises isn't very special (it mostly plays like a regular M&L game).
Surprisingly, the gameplay is the best in the franchise so far (really cool and quite difficult to master bros. attacks and trio attacks mixed with a little of RNG from the new deck building mechanic that helps you in combat), and the music is on par with the other titles in the series.
Overall, a missed opportunity to make something truly great and unique with two peak RPG franchises as Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario are. Really hoping for a sequel that could fix all these problems.
It's story is bland and uninspired, the unique character designs are mostly gone (with the exception of a familiar yellow star spirit) and the mix between franchises isn't very special (it mostly plays like a regular M&L game).
Surprisingly, the gameplay is the best in the franchise so far (really cool and quite difficult to master bros. attacks and trio attacks mixed with a little of RNG from the new deck building mechanic that helps you in combat), and the music is on par with the other titles in the series.
Overall, a missed opportunity to make something truly great and unique with two peak RPG franchises as Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario are. Really hoping for a sequel that could fix all these problems.
This is easily the most forgettable entry in the Mario & Luigi series. The story is flat (no pun intended), the "big paper" battles are just alright and the music is just alright. Additionally, having Paper Mario on your team and 3 moves per turn makes you feel overpowered too easily. Finally, the final boss is the most predictable and uninspired finale to a M&L game for me.
Having said all that, it's still a M&L, which is a very fun playthrough at the very least.
Having said all that, it's still a M&L, which is a very fun playthrough at the very least.
Super overhated, worst M&L game yeah but its fine
it's cool mario & luigi would pair up with paper mario but it feels like a missed opportunity since they don't really do a lot of interesting things with it, they could have brought a lot of interesting story aspects and characters from the paper mario series but the only thing they really do is mention how paper mario is paper compared to mario & luigi and the dumb paper mache battles. it feels like an even worse kick in the dick that all the areas in the game are all generic mario locations seen time and time again and the main villain is just bowser again compared to other mario & luigi AND paper mario games. they don't do anything interesting and it just feels like a missed opportunity. the combat is still the same so it's still fun but this game feels like a massive downgrade and it sucks this was the last non-remake in the mario & luigi franchise before alpha dreams unfortunate demise.
This was my first Mario & Luigi game, and, although there are much better entries in the series, this one i still remember pretty fondly.
booooring
(Original review from 2017) I beat the game, I enjoyed some of the good Mario and Luigi classic elements, but those Paper Toad missions were the absolute worst and the fact that you were required to do some of them to beat the game was a travesty. The bro moves are so slow now too that it's exhausting to use any of them. The papercraft battles were ok. A decent game overall, but Mario and Luigi is at its worst here.