Mario & Luigi is a Shakespearean tragedy of a game series, where the sequels to a fantastic take on the RPG formula slowly get worse (except for Bowser's Inside Story, which miraculously dodges the curse) until the tail end of the franchise feels worn out and tired. I both miss AlphaDream but also acknowledge the diminishing returns. Dream Team believes itself to be a solid game because it's getting up in your face and shouting "Here's Bowser's Inside Story again, but we changed Bowser's guts into Luigi's brain! Look, we even brought back the Giant Battles because that was also a feature in that game! We brought back those block guys from Bowser's Inside Story! Don't you just love Bowser's Inside Story?!" like a desperate ex-lover but instead it's just. Boring.
I wanted to like this game! I really did! For a while, Antasma and the stuff with Dreambert and the Pi'illo Kingdom fooled me into thinking I was in for an engrossing tale of rebuilding a lost civilization. It's when I realized - either by helping yet another uninteresting block person or that section of the game where I had to keep expanding a dream world by talking to some seahorse only to find out that haha, it was all a time-wasting ploy by the bad guy heehoo - that the game was just here to waste my time rather than tell a story that the colorful candy coating started to rub off. Dream Team thinks it's funnier than it is, and feels like a series of disconnected quirky scenes designed to be screencapped and shared on Miiverse as a "haha funny quote" moment rather than actually being funny and moving any sort of plot forward. Dream Team wants to be the source of a meme so bad. You can just feel it in its DNA.
This game's biggest crime (besides it just being uninteresting and for being a 40 hour RPG with no plot) is that it feels all over the place in terms of difficulty. The tutorials are relentlessly everywhere and the game refuses to let go of your hand but, inexplicably, the battles in this game are some of the hardest in the entire franchise. Why am I receiving a tutorial that tells me that circle pad moves Mario 30 hours into a playthrough in the same game that also gives me a final boss gauntlet where multiple bosses have the ability to heal 200 HP a turn. Is this meant to be baby's first video game or am I expected to be a veteran to Mario & Luigi because, despite what the game believes, I can't be both!
I will give the game some credit where it's due - this game is probably one of the more impressive uses of the 3DS's 3D on the entire system. The combination of character sprites juxtaposed on 3D environments works way better than you'd think and makes for an impressive art style and a very fleshed out battle system. Yoko Shimomura is also putting her heart and soul into this soundtrack and making the speakers burst into flame during every boss battle. I just...wish these graphics were in a better game. One that respected my time better.
P.S. Fuck the gyro controls. I get it, Nintendo. You just love your waggle. But also I shouldn't have to be left to the cruel, unfeeling whims of the motion control gods in a game where the battle system will punish me for poor timing.
I wanted to like this game! I really did! For a while, Antasma and the stuff with Dreambert and the Pi'illo Kingdom fooled me into thinking I was in for an engrossing tale of rebuilding a lost civilization. It's when I realized - either by helping yet another uninteresting block person or that section of the game where I had to keep expanding a dream world by talking to some seahorse only to find out that haha, it was all a time-wasting ploy by the bad guy heehoo - that the game was just here to waste my time rather than tell a story that the colorful candy coating started to rub off. Dream Team thinks it's funnier than it is, and feels like a series of disconnected quirky scenes designed to be screencapped and shared on Miiverse as a "haha funny quote" moment rather than actually being funny and moving any sort of plot forward. Dream Team wants to be the source of a meme so bad. You can just feel it in its DNA.
This game's biggest crime (besides it just being uninteresting and for being a 40 hour RPG with no plot) is that it feels all over the place in terms of difficulty. The tutorials are relentlessly everywhere and the game refuses to let go of your hand but, inexplicably, the battles in this game are some of the hardest in the entire franchise. Why am I receiving a tutorial that tells me that circle pad moves Mario 30 hours into a playthrough in the same game that also gives me a final boss gauntlet where multiple bosses have the ability to heal 200 HP a turn. Is this meant to be baby's first video game or am I expected to be a veteran to Mario & Luigi because, despite what the game believes, I can't be both!
I will give the game some credit where it's due - this game is probably one of the more impressive uses of the 3DS's 3D on the entire system. The combination of character sprites juxtaposed on 3D environments works way better than you'd think and makes for an impressive art style and a very fleshed out battle system. Yoko Shimomura is also putting her heart and soul into this soundtrack and making the speakers burst into flame during every boss battle. I just...wish these graphics were in a better game. One that respected my time better.
P.S. Fuck the gyro controls. I get it, Nintendo. You just love your waggle. But also I shouldn't have to be left to the cruel, unfeeling whims of the motion control gods in a game where the battle system will punish me for poor timing.