Mario & Luigi: Brothership review: "Humor and positivity by the boatload"

Travel influencers watch out, Mario and Luigi have already been globetrotting so hard for decades that they've even been traveling between whole other worlds. From running between the Mushroom Kingdom's tall fungi to the skyscrapers of New Donk City and far, far beyond, they're no strangers to discovering new lands. That's why the pair are able to enter the world of Concordia with a spring in their step, the story of a land divided (ironically, "Concord" can mean "unity") ample opportunity to team up for another brother-led cartoon-styled RPG in the long-running Mario & Luigi subseries.

After all, if there's one thing the brothers love more than one another, it's helping out those in need. Previously whole, Concordia has been split into multiple floating islands. This has weakened relationships and the land itself. This idea of strength through unity goes far beyond the setting and its name. It's integral to the story and, to a large extent, gameplay itself.

The brothers soon meet Connie, a 'Wattanist', who sets up the premise. Each island must be connected to your base – a small, pilotable floating island by the name of Shipshape – in order to make the land whole once more. Although there's now a new developer at the helm, and environments are now properly fully 3D, you're quickly reassured that this is very much a Mario & Luigi game. The script is heavy on humor, often in the form of puns. Not all the jokes land but, more than once, I found myself laughing out loud. As a father myself, I appreciate a good dad joke, and naming the giant plant on the dance-themed Twistee Island the Twisten Sprout earns a salute from me. 

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Combat, too, will be familiar to fans of the series. Enemies are visible as you explore, with battles initiated when you hit them or they hit you in classic turn-based RPG fashion. You and the enemy then politely take turns to hit one another, with the occasional guard or counter. At 35-45 hours or so depending on how much time you spend on side quests, there's a lot of game here, but things are (mostly) paced well.

Hammer sandwich

The evolution of combat is a great example of this pacing in action. Mario and Luigi start off, as you'd expect, with a simple jump attack. Then after a while hammers are introduced as an option, and new enemies with unique attacks and counters are drip fed to you throughout the adventure. A dozen or so hours in you finally have what is more or less the complete orchestra of attacks and tactics to play as you see fit, with the occasional new powerful Bros Attack dropped in.

Bros Attacks, requiring both siblings to be present and not in any way incapacitated, are powerful strikes that lean heavily into the QTE aspect of combat (the power of normal attacks can be boosted by timing another press as it makes impact). By the time you hit the halfway point, you'll be using these often. The brothers are much stronger when acting together than when acting individually. Strength in unity, you see.

Then there are the Battle Plugs, limited use items with long cooldowns which temporarily tweak battle conditions in your favor. One will automatically use a mushroom when a brother's health is low, for example, while another might strengthen attacks against a certain type of enemy, or reduce incoming damage. Yet their true value reveals itself by experimentation.

The right combination of Battle Plugs will produce something even more powerful. Combine a dizzying attack with a fire attack for a fiery tornado, or two 'surprise iron balls' for a lovely bit of bonus damage. Mario & Luigi: Brothership is peppered with subtle but meaningful examples of 'stronger together' messaging like this.

Unfortunately, all subtlety is hurled out of the window with great force in the final hours, and the game slams you over the head with 'friends good, solitude bad' dialogue and questing. But that's par enough for the course, and didn't end up bothering me as much as a later quest that had me scratching my initial-embroidered cap trying to figure out where, across the whole world map, I was supposed to go next.

The reason this needled me so much was that this was the first time I'd come across the problem. So much effort has gone into making this a frictionless yet enjoyable adventure. It's an admirable goal with mixed results – the timing required for some enemy attack counters is brutally unforgiving, and I do wonder how younger players will fare with some of the more frustrating fights – but ordinarily, it's a fair and fun game.

Ship posting

Puzzles make you think, but are never obtuse, and there's usually a way to get a hint if you get really stuck. My gripe above aside, the map and adventure log come together to always make it clear where you should head next. Fail a battle twice in a row, and you'll get an option to replay it in Easy mode. Keep failing that and you're offered Cakewalk and, er, yes; I'm speaking from experience. It was only once though, okay?

There's a missed opportunity in the move to a fully 3D overworld, though. Each island has plenty of characters to chat to, and there are minigames, sidequests, and little secrets to be found. It's nice enough, but therein lies the problem. It's nice enough, never going above and beyond what's necessary to provide a break from the fighting.

It is perhaps unfair to hold a game to a higher standard simply because Mario and Luigi are in it, but that spectacular sense of wonder that people still refer to as Nintendo Magic isn't quite here. It most definitely isn't in the insta-fail stealth sections, an incredibly poorly-judged but thankfully rare addition to the experience. While there are a few welcome surprises throughout your journey, none of them reach the heights of the thrill each new kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey brings – you'll know what to expect from each new leg of the journey after a few hours in.

Kudos to the team for the leveling system though, which offers a sense of progression without at any point bringing the story to a grinding halt as it so easily could have. Leveling up and equipping better gear has a noticeable effect, and I managed to hit a sufficiently high level before the end with a long list of optional quests yet to be completed. One stat, essentially representing a brother's chance of scoring a critical hit, is named Stache. Luigi has a significantly more powerful Stache than Mario. That's canon now.

Luigi, in fact, is presented as a stronger and more powerful character here than usual. There's no sign of the constantly quivering hero of Luigi's Mansion. He also plays a vital part in the form of Luigi Logic. During exploration,  these are scripted moments where he figures out a new ability or other way forward; in boss fights, it's a limited opportunity requiring both Bros. that can deal major damage. It puts the brothers on a more even footing in terms of their relationship and how they support each other, and yes, it's yet another carefully crafted example of harmony producing the best possible results.

If you forget the heavy-handed messaging of the final stretch (I'm certainly trying to), it's easy to appreciate the way in which (most of) the script handles the idea of strength in social and familial bonds with surprising, admirable grace and intelligence. The humor and positivity gently push you along to the next island or quest, encouraging you to continue even when you stumble into one of the rare low points.

Looking to jump up, superstar? We've got a list of the best Mario games to help you pick what to play next. Want to go the other sailing route and stick with role-playing? Then our best RPG games list is here to help!