One of, if not one of the few DS games I had as a kid I'd always come back to. Such a unique Mario RPG, even to this day. Incorporating time travel and alien invasion into one package, Mario and Luigi also teaming up with themselves as babies, it's all a neat idea overall.
Professor E. Gadd develops a time machine, and Princess Peach decides to use it to travel to the past of Mushroom Kingdom. Of course, it all goes awry when Peach stumbles in the middle of an alien invasion from the Shroobs, attempting to escape their own desolate world. Unable to return to the present day Mushroom Kingdom, it's up to Mario and Luigi once again to now travel back in time and find her. What an amazing setup for a JRPG, wouldn't be surprised if they were inspired by Chrono Trigger for this one. While I won't go into the rest of the story past the setup, this particular entry of Mario & Luigi is... dark. I'd never imagine a lot of these ideas would ever make it into a Mario game. A lot of situations as well, often frightened me as a kid. I adore all of it, and the Shroobs as a species are so mysterious and exude an aura of fear and just being unpredictable. Story takes a lot of dark turns, and even has some great foreshadowing and plot twists later, coming back to this game, I was honestly impressed with the story. I'd argue it might even be the best plot we've gotten in a Mario game, besides maybe Thousand-Year-Door, and Super Paper Mario.
Now Partners in Time as a game, is also very fun. It's more of a continuation from where Superstar Saga left off, with the new concept of controlling two different groups to solve puzzles and traverse areas, being the Mario Bros., and the Babies. Unfortunately, Partners in Time suffers a lot from this gimmick, I will commend them however for their great use of both DS screens. Most of the gimmicks and puzzle ideas from this game also do not appear again in future entries, making Partners in Time pretty unique. Bros. abilities are back as well, and they're much more complicated than before, nothing too crazy here, though some of them can take time to setup and hurt the pacing overall. Combat is excellent however, and most of the new innovations here were actually used in future titles, which says a lot. Timed hits and dodges return, a substantial evolution from Super Mario RPG. Maximum damage from your attacks require you pay attention to timings, and countering your enemies attacks for added damage is very rewarding and has a ton of variety as far as what enemies are capable of. Some even make use of the top screen to attack, which again, the game is giving you reasons to pay attention and to stay engaged, which I thoroughly was the entire time in battles.
Even combat has a fair share of issues though, the big one for me is simply the Bros. Items. Instead of learning Bros. Attacks like Superstar saga, Bros. Moves are now consumable items that become available overtime. I don't hate this idea, as I was diligent to never run out of these items, but it can seriously be a huge detriment if you're low on these for bosses, because this game has some of the tankiest bosses I've ever seen in a Mario game. The other glaring issue is simply the duration of some of these Bros. Items, essentially, as long as you never mistime an input, the attack can go on forever. You can use one Bros. Item, and completely kill a boss with it, not only is this not very engaging, but it just makes everything too easy. If you decide to not use these powerful items, some bosses can take forever to kill, so you're sort of stuck with one or the other, and that's really the only thing in this game that peeved me. Enemy variety and boss fights are very engaging, having great designs and super fun gimmicks to figure out and abuse as well, so their actual design is amazing, HP pool can be pretty high, though you might actually really enjoy the longer battles, since some RPG's can have the opposite issue of everything dying too quickly.
Level design is also very well done, a great range of different areas and environments to explore, from gross, to colorful, to downright depressing, it's genuinely impressive how diverse this game can make you feel, and how well it does it. Even coloration of the areas is distinct, no single area shares the same color formats, which makes each area stand out from each other. I was very immersed with the expanded and remixed world Partners in Time offered, taking a darker spin on your traditional world 1-8, but there's plenty of happier areas for sure, but the majority is weird alien-technology combined with typical Mario settings, and it works very well.
Graphics for a DS game work well, there's nothing here that's hard to make out or looks bad. As I've said, the game has great color variety, the sprite work is incredible, and varies from your average Goomba, to some awesome mutated shroob variants of older and newer enemies. And for the time when this game came out, it was really exciting to see what the DS was capable of, and how much more potential it really had. Overall, a really nice game to look at.
Music is incredible. Everyone knows Gritzy Desert for a reason, and that's just one example. Phenomenal soundtrack, enhancing the atmosphere in every area very well. Not exactly diverse in instrumentation, but works great for a DS game. Battle music is perfect, frantic and full of energy, the kind of music that gets you excited and raring to go for a fun fight. Big fan of this soundtrack, I listen to it all the time, definitely has a specific vibe to it, one that I personally recommend a listen to outside the game.
Partners in Time is kind of a black sheep for the original Mario & Luigi trilogy, but I loved the new direction it took, as well as the risks involved in creating gameplay that would make use of both screens well. It isn't perfect, and there are definitely problems here a lot of people might not be able to overlook, which I completely understand, there were times I was very frustrated with certain gimmicks or puzzles. But I still stand by this game for the amazing advancements in the combat, and the compelling concept and story, as well as the great variety of areas and immense atmosphere. You can get Partners in Time on the DS, and works on every variation of it, such as DS, 3DS, 2DS etc. You can also purchase this game for a good price on the Wii U eshop. Just be sure to purchase it on Wii U before March 2023.
Professor E. Gadd develops a time machine, and Princess Peach decides to use it to travel to the past of Mushroom Kingdom. Of course, it all goes awry when Peach stumbles in the middle of an alien invasion from the Shroobs, attempting to escape their own desolate world. Unable to return to the present day Mushroom Kingdom, it's up to Mario and Luigi once again to now travel back in time and find her. What an amazing setup for a JRPG, wouldn't be surprised if they were inspired by Chrono Trigger for this one. While I won't go into the rest of the story past the setup, this particular entry of Mario & Luigi is... dark. I'd never imagine a lot of these ideas would ever make it into a Mario game. A lot of situations as well, often frightened me as a kid. I adore all of it, and the Shroobs as a species are so mysterious and exude an aura of fear and just being unpredictable. Story takes a lot of dark turns, and even has some great foreshadowing and plot twists later, coming back to this game, I was honestly impressed with the story. I'd argue it might even be the best plot we've gotten in a Mario game, besides maybe Thousand-Year-Door, and Super Paper Mario.
Now Partners in Time as a game, is also very fun. It's more of a continuation from where Superstar Saga left off, with the new concept of controlling two different groups to solve puzzles and traverse areas, being the Mario Bros., and the Babies. Unfortunately, Partners in Time suffers a lot from this gimmick, I will commend them however for their great use of both DS screens. Most of the gimmicks and puzzle ideas from this game also do not appear again in future entries, making Partners in Time pretty unique. Bros. abilities are back as well, and they're much more complicated than before, nothing too crazy here, though some of them can take time to setup and hurt the pacing overall. Combat is excellent however, and most of the new innovations here were actually used in future titles, which says a lot. Timed hits and dodges return, a substantial evolution from Super Mario RPG. Maximum damage from your attacks require you pay attention to timings, and countering your enemies attacks for added damage is very rewarding and has a ton of variety as far as what enemies are capable of. Some even make use of the top screen to attack, which again, the game is giving you reasons to pay attention and to stay engaged, which I thoroughly was the entire time in battles.
Even combat has a fair share of issues though, the big one for me is simply the Bros. Items. Instead of learning Bros. Attacks like Superstar saga, Bros. Moves are now consumable items that become available overtime. I don't hate this idea, as I was diligent to never run out of these items, but it can seriously be a huge detriment if you're low on these for bosses, because this game has some of the tankiest bosses I've ever seen in a Mario game. The other glaring issue is simply the duration of some of these Bros. Items, essentially, as long as you never mistime an input, the attack can go on forever. You can use one Bros. Item, and completely kill a boss with it, not only is this not very engaging, but it just makes everything too easy. If you decide to not use these powerful items, some bosses can take forever to kill, so you're sort of stuck with one or the other, and that's really the only thing in this game that peeved me. Enemy variety and boss fights are very engaging, having great designs and super fun gimmicks to figure out and abuse as well, so their actual design is amazing, HP pool can be pretty high, though you might actually really enjoy the longer battles, since some RPG's can have the opposite issue of everything dying too quickly.
Level design is also very well done, a great range of different areas and environments to explore, from gross, to colorful, to downright depressing, it's genuinely impressive how diverse this game can make you feel, and how well it does it. Even coloration of the areas is distinct, no single area shares the same color formats, which makes each area stand out from each other. I was very immersed with the expanded and remixed world Partners in Time offered, taking a darker spin on your traditional world 1-8, but there's plenty of happier areas for sure, but the majority is weird alien-technology combined with typical Mario settings, and it works very well.
Graphics for a DS game work well, there's nothing here that's hard to make out or looks bad. As I've said, the game has great color variety, the sprite work is incredible, and varies from your average Goomba, to some awesome mutated shroob variants of older and newer enemies. And for the time when this game came out, it was really exciting to see what the DS was capable of, and how much more potential it really had. Overall, a really nice game to look at.
Music is incredible. Everyone knows Gritzy Desert for a reason, and that's just one example. Phenomenal soundtrack, enhancing the atmosphere in every area very well. Not exactly diverse in instrumentation, but works great for a DS game. Battle music is perfect, frantic and full of energy, the kind of music that gets you excited and raring to go for a fun fight. Big fan of this soundtrack, I listen to it all the time, definitely has a specific vibe to it, one that I personally recommend a listen to outside the game.
Partners in Time is kind of a black sheep for the original Mario & Luigi trilogy, but I loved the new direction it took, as well as the risks involved in creating gameplay that would make use of both screens well. It isn't perfect, and there are definitely problems here a lot of people might not be able to overlook, which I completely understand, there were times I was very frustrated with certain gimmicks or puzzles. But I still stand by this game for the amazing advancements in the combat, and the compelling concept and story, as well as the great variety of areas and immense atmosphere. You can get Partners in Time on the DS, and works on every variation of it, such as DS, 3DS, 2DS etc. You can also purchase this game for a good price on the Wii U eshop. Just be sure to purchase it on Wii U before March 2023.