Jeremy Gallen's Game Reviews

Phobodelphia

When I first played the original Super Mario RPG over two decades ago, it synced well with me given the effective fusion of gameplay from Nintendo’s mainline Mario games and roleplaying game elements with the cooperation of Squaresoft. While the Big N would cooperate with other companies to produce more RPGs featuring their mascot plumber, none would truly convey the true spirit of his initial RPG adventure, even if good in their own respects. With help from AlphaDream, Nintendo would produce a sequel to Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga entitled Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, which would attempt to build upon its predecessor’s roleplaying game formula in the subseries’ debut on the Nintendo DS.

The first Mario & Luigi sequel opens in the Mushroom Kingdom of the past when Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach are babies, with an alien species known as the Shroobs taking over the castle, the Mario and Luigi of the present teaming up with their infant selves to defeat them. The narrative is rife with issues such as the fact that the aliens seizing Peach’s castle in the past has no effect whatsoever on the present, along with the off-putting baby element. There is occasional humor, such as leet-speaking Hammer Bros. that serve as bosses at one point in the game, aided by a translation that is generally free of error yet full of occasional oddities, but otherwise, the plot is nothing to write home about.

Partners in Time’s game mechanics have much in common with those of Superstar Saga, including the encounter system where the adult Mario brothers and their infant equivalents, separately or together, can touch enemies wandering fields and dungeons to initiate combat. Whilst holding the Baby Mario and Luigi, the adult brothers can only jump on enemies to receive the initiative, and only the babies can hammer foes to gain the upper hand, doing so in both instances difficult at times, given the pitiful range of their hammers and the erratic movement of wandering monsters.

If the adult Mario brothers are holding the babies when initiating combat, each acts as a single unit (meaning only two turns on part of the player to attack the enemy, the same going for whenever the adults or infants are separate in field exploration), with turn order based on speed and the consequential question of who will go when, although thankfully, each executes their command immediately after the player’s input. Should the enemy off one of the adult Mario brothers, their infant equivalent will take their place on the battlefield, players luckily able to resurrect the deceased adult brother with revival mushrooms, of which players can mercifully keep plenty.

Get ready to mute the volume several times during story scenes.

Together with their baby forms, each Mario brother has several commands from which to choose, including jumping on foes to damage them, whacking them with hammers to do the same, using a recovery or stat-increasing item, using one of many Bros. Items specializing in different forms of attack (which substitutes for a traditional RPG magic system), whether focusing on individual or all enemies, or attempting to escape, which luckily always works even if it costs players a few coins. Separately, the Mario babies can either jump on or hammer foes, while their adult forms can only use the jump command to damage foes, with many Bros. Items requiring all be present on the battlefield.

As in prior Mario RPGs within and without the Mario & Luigi subseries, successful execution of attack commands necessitates careful button presses, which can be significantly trickier in Partners in Time given the use of all face buttons to control the respective adult and baby brothers. Bros. Bros. Items, especially those involving the use of all grown-up and infant Mario siblings, can feel downright tortuous in this regard, with even the slightest error in timing can completely throw one off, and the dual-screen action doesn’t help matters. While players can solely rely upon jumps and hammering to off adversaries, doing so, especially against tough bosses (and the translation team made the North American version harder), can consume sizable time from the player.

Timed avoidance and counterattacks can be incredibly tricky as well, especially when the game utilizes both screens and enemy attacks involve precipitating matter, and while many enemies do have a sort of tell as to which Mario brother they’ll target, their actions can be horribly unpredictable and have catastrophic consequences for the player. Many bosses, especially towards the end, can be downright brutal, with one of the last taking me well over an hour, given the degree of healing and incorrect button pressing, and throughout my entire playthrough, I never fully got used to the battle control.

Defeating enemies nets the party experience, money, and maybe items, level-ups naturally increasing one of the adult and child sibling’s stats, players further able to obtain a bonus increase to one stat with a slot-reel system that can be irksome, given the potential to stumble upon the lowest possible perk. All in all, the battle system has many great ideas and is fun at times, and there is some margin for error given the high threshold of healing items, but the overreliance on Bros. Items necessary to make combat go by quicker really bogs things down, and certain mechanics are unclear such as whether accessories affect one or all characters, along with the use of Beans collected from digging spots all across the game’s areas, whose use I had to use the internet to determine.

Separately, battle control for the Mario brothers is okay, but together, not so much.

Control doesn’t fare any better. While there are some genuine good puzzles, the menus are easy to get a handle of, and there is general clear direction on how to advance the central storyline, controlling the adult and toddler Mario brothers when they’re separate can be somewhat nightmarish when it comes to advancing through the game, with the mentioned awkwardness of the battle system applying every bit as much outside combat. There’s also a dearth of quality-of-life features such as a suspend save and auto-saving, with the placement of save points being incredibly iffy at times, and towards the end there is a particularly irksome minigame necessary to proceed in the main narrative. Ultimately, Partners in Time isn’t the epitome of user-friendliness.

Sound, however, is one area where the game doesn’t fall on its face, composer Yoko Shimomura’s music being all-around solid, although the sound of Babies Mario, Luigi, and especially Peach, are nothing short of demonic, and led me to mute the volume numerous times.

The visuals largely mimic those of the Game Boy Advance version of Superstar Saga, for the most part not a bad thing, given the bright colors, pretty environments, good sprite character sprite designs, and such, although many reskinned enemies exist, there exists the oddity of certain individuals walking in place to indicate they’re talking, and the need to pay meticulous attention to the action transpiring on the top screen in addition to the bottom can sour the graphical experience.

Finally, the first sequel is around a twenty-hour game, with nothing in the way of lasting appeal given the unengaging experience, what with the Bean-collecting sidequest necessitating use of a guide and lack of in-game data on how many are in each of the game’s stages, along with a dearth of other features such as plot variation and a New Game+.

When all is said and done, Partners in Time proves to be a disappointing follow-up to Superstar Saga, what especially with the additional gameplay dimensions to consider regarding things like four characters to control and that action on two screens, accounting for unwieldly control and heavily artificial difficulty. The narrative isn’t particularly engaging, either, given the badly implemented baby and time-travel plot devices, and while the audiovisual presentation does have its positive areas, they can’t compensate for a lackluster experience. The first Mario & Luigi sequel would since go out of print and sell for extravagant prices online, certainly not worth paying, and is probably best left in the ashcan of gaming history.