Mario & Luigi: Brothership review: Nintendo’s new RPG will leave fans divided

digitaltrends.com:

Mario & Luigi: Brothership MSRP $60.00 Score Details Pros

• Expressive animation
• Sailing is a creative treat
• Innovative Battle Plugs
• Socially relevant story

• Sluggish pacing
• Poor performance
• Writing is devoid of wit
• Overloaded with gimmicks

Earlier this year, I revisited Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for the first time in two decades. I remembered loving it as a kid, but it had been long enough that I couldn’t exactly tell you why it stuck with me at the time more than any Mario RPG since. It all came flooding back as soon as I played Nintendo’s excellent remake. I fell in love with its elegant battle system once again, laughed at all the same jokes that cracked me up in high school, and even found greater emotional depth in companions like Vivian that I hadn’t clocked at the time. Any hunch I had that maybe it was just something I liked as a kid was dispelled; it maintains the loyal fan base it still enjoys today for a reason.

Those highs make the lows of Mario & Luigi: Brothership feel that much lower. The first original entry in the RPG series in nine years — and the first without its creator, AlphaDream — looks a lot like the series (and spinoffs it was born from) on paper. It’s a colorful journey filled with button-timing combat, eccentric characters, and a grand narrative grounded in relevant social commentary. Then why didthe adventure hardly get a giggle out of me as I trudged through repetitive battles and endured endless minigames? Were games that I love like Bowser’s Inside Story always like this, or had I just grown out of them? Judging by my renewed love of The Thousand-Year Door, I don’t believe that’s the case.

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Only two Italians have changed here, and I’m not one of them.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership puts some creative new spins on an old