This game is fine. I first played this as a kid, after playing its successor and the other Mario RPG games that came before, except Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga. Before then, I’d rarely hear about this game online. Whenever that would happen, my interest would always be piqued as if it was some underrated hidden gem.

This game is not quite that, but it’s also not the worst thing ever like some may make it out to be. It’s a very middle-of-the-road Mario RPG. If you’ve played through most and want just another one with the traditional solid mechanics to run through, this one has you covered.

This one’s big gimmick is that you can play as the babies, and while that sounds fun, unfortunately a lot of their abilities are simply ones that the main bros had in the other games without much to call their own. So really, their main move set feels a bit uninspired and the same as ever. Plus, the Bros moves aren’t very well balanced, with this being the only entry to have them as consumables and for the later moves to become over-centralizing fast.

That said, there’s still a lot to like about this game! The core concept of the time travel is kinda neat, there are many fun locales like the Vim Factory/Forest area, a very unique and eerie one, and Yoshi’s Island, a fun set of throwbacks. Plus, the main antagonistic body of Shroobs, while pretty one-note and straightforward, are visually distinct, entertaining, and threatening.

I wouldn’t say this is THE must-play Mario RPG but it’s still fun to play if you’ve played some of them and want another one!

Gonna be honest, I'm kinda just finishing up a playthrough I started when I was 11 years old but got about 50-60% of the way through before dropping all these years, so admittedly this review may not be totally accurate or in-depth but I remember most of the main plot points and my backlog is long enough as it is so I'm just going to base this from what I remember back then and my opinions beating the rest of it now lol

This game was a bit hard for me to rate (even with that aside) as I actually enjoyed going back to it more than I thought I would but at the same time I kind of understand, one, why I didn't beat this game back then despite beating Bowser's Inside Story and Dream Team (the latter a bit later on ofc) and two, why some people consider this to be one of the weaker M&L titles.

On the more positive side, the core Mario & Luigi gameplay is there - the combat is still pretty fun with how you can counterattack the enemy by timing your jumps and hammer attacks just right, and there's a really good use of atmosphere in this game that's kind of unlike any of the other Mario & Luigi games or even Mario RPGs in general. There's this whole "mysterious" aura throughout the game that really sets a unique mood to it, and the plot definitely threw me for a loop at times - even just playing halfway to the end. And really, I think the core Mario & Luigi gameplay being there is what helped me a lot in just having fun with the game as well as exploring the game's different areas in it's map.

I really think the issues with the game come down to two big things - one slightly bigger than the other, so to start with the slightly smaller gripe I have, the game's main bosses kind of drag on in this game. Some of the later bosses in this game especially have pretty damn high HP, which on it's own isn't a surprise (obviously a 'boss' is going to have higher HP than a regular enemy), but I kind of feel like it's a bit... too much at times. The final boss in particular (not counting the Bowser fight which is basically just a series of attacks to counter) has three phases, two of which have 3000 HP, and the second having 3500. Maybe you can just chalk this up to a skill issue, but part of my issue is that some of these bosses don't really have much of a 'challenge' to them outside of just being ridiculously high HP. Obviously there are the attacks but a lot of them have fairly easy to understand attack patterns that are a bit challenging the first few times but after that become pretty predictable and easy to avoid if you're paying attention (and even then you can easily stock up on items - the last section is especially pretty generous with mushrooms, Bros items, and 1-ups). The result is that the bosses, especially later in the game, kind of just go on in a way that at times just made me feel "alright, is this going to be over soon?" Which to be honest I think is kind of an issue with the game in general, being pretty weirdly-paced at times, but I feel like the strong bosses only really add to that. And apparently it must have been an notable issue enough for the game's subsequent Japanese and European releases to give the enemies altered stats including lowered HP lmao.

The second major issue I had was that the whole system of having the 'baby' characters in addition to the 'adult' characters is something that is pretty neat on paper but at the same time a bit mixed in execution. There are certainly times where I think the game does interesting stuff with the idea (i.e. in the 'past' Peach's Castle towards the end, having each pair of brothers go to one room complimentary to another to connect a laser beam) but a lot of the time it feels sort of... tact on, like something they just did to utilize the DS' two extra face buttons over the GBA. A lot of the overworld puzzles either feel like simple puzzles that are pretty easy to solve but add up to, again, bog down the game's pacing at points, and others are just a complete slog in of themselves (basically, any of the areas where you're using the babies to control the adults standing on a moving platform over a pit of spikes). And in combat it's even more of a mixed bag since, while I like what they do with some of the Bros attacks (giving an extra challenge of pressing the right button with the Trampoline, for example), the babies each carry their own control scheme so to speak (being mapped to the X and Y buttons whereas adult Mario and Luigi are mapped to the A and B buttons) and I gotta say it really screws with your muscle memory at points. The hammer ability being tied to baby Mario and Luigi (and as such, the X and Y buttons) just felt kind of forced, especially in counterattacking where the game still only uses either the jump or hammer individually as different phases to counter enemy attacks. Plus I feel like it's especially kind of awkward if you have one adult brother down but the other still alive, since you're basically jumping your thumb between two buttons on the opposite side when either counterattacking or using a Bros item. It's something that really doesn't seem like it would be a huge issue but once you get into a certain rhythm of the enemy battles, it definitely sticks out when these slight changes in button mapping occur.

…oh yeah and there’s a moment where two hammer bros under mind control communicate in leetspeak which alone dates this game pretty significantly

While I have been kind of focusing on the negatives for most of this review, however, I still really enjoyed this game in general. Like I said, the core Mario & Luigi gameplay is still there, and it's still definitely fun - counterattacking enemies is challenging at times, the Bros items are still fun to use and add some good variety to the game's combat (though I kinda find it weird how the 'Bros' items/attacks are treated as individual items and don't use SP but whatever, I ended up just using the Ulti-Free badge in the late game anyway), and I really just enjoyed exploring the game's world and uncovering the story as it went on. And when the game does have good uses for it's buddy system, it does add some interesting ideas to the world design. Also Kylie Koopa might be my favorite ('original') character in this series of games ngl.