Mario & Luigi: Brothership Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Sailing back out of the wilderness of an abandoned console and form factor, Mario & Luigi: Brothership is a return for another Mario RPG series. Where Paper Mario always lived on Nintendo’s premier console, Mario & Luigi was the handheld counterpart, first on Game Boy Advance and then on Nintendo DS and 3DS. It’s been nine years since the last original game in the series, but if anything the brotherly bond that the series was built on is stronger than ever.

They’ll need it too, as they’re sucked into what appears to be the Bifröst from the MCU, only to crash out of it and land in the world of Concordia. This world was once completely connected and united, a cluster of islands floating across the oceans, all linked together by lighthouses and energy streams via the Uni-Tree. When that tree was destroyed by a machiavellian plot, all the islands floated away into isolation.

The brothers arrive at just the right time, meeting Connie, an apprentice Wattanist who’s planted a new Uni-Tree on Shipshape Island – which is part ship, part island – in an effort to reunite the world. To that end, you’ll be fired out of a cannon at all manner of themed islands, adventuring through their independent story arcs, and eventually reach their lighthouses to connect that back to Shipshape. There’s a good variety here, from jungles and deserts to high-rise city islands, and as you get deeper into the game, there’s often a new twist, whether it’s a high stakes rescue mission, detective investigation, or leaning on a newly learned ability. By and large, you won’t need to return once you’re done, though new paths will open up once the Connectar is flowing, and there’s smaller side missions that you can quickly complete.

All the Concordians you meet have the appearance of a US power socket, thanks to their long tall eyes and flattened faces, and the script and story is charged with a lot of electrical puns. The arch antagonist is revealed to be Zokket and his minions the Extension Corps, as one