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Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions |OT| Wanna dodge this nut's attacks?

Bladenic

Member
I'm enjoying this game far more than Paper Jam so far. Paper Jam should've been a dream to play, yet it was a creative black hole that woefully underused Paper Mario. I will say that so far SS is way easier than either DT and PJ were at the same point (Inside Story is too far back for me to remember, maybe I ought to replay it if I can find my copy).

Having never played the original, I'm loving the creativity of the world. Thank god for no mushroom kingdom for once.

Also, the music is cute but not memorable so far. I will say, the boss theme is awful. Well, I won't say awful, just completely forgettable and just "there." After Dream Team and Paper Jam had incredible boss themes, this is really disappointing.
 

Zonic

Gives all the fucks
The music is weird in that some sound like great "remasters" while others sound better than their GBA version & closer to how you "remember" them sounding before realizing the GBA sound quality wasn't that great, but still feel...underwhelming. Popple's fight theme sounds good, but considering the music in DT & PJ, it doesn't sound as great as it could be.

I guess the best way to put it is they don't sound like they had the same amount of time & effort put into remixing/updating the tunes compared to how great some of the music was for the other 3DS M&L titles.
 
I spent close to 4 hours last night just playing BM (got to the Desert). I had to force myself to go back to playing SS this morning when I woke up lmao. Some surprising allies can be recruited too, if you look at the silhouettes in the Allies menu.
 
Admittedly I haven’t read through this thread but anyone else feel like Nintendo sent this one out to die? I didn’t even know it was out yet and there aren’t even that many reviews out for it. Did it even get lip service at Nintendo’s event yesterday?
 
Man, this and Lady Layton dropped at the same time. I really hope Target or someone has a 3DS special soon. Buy 1 get another 30% off or something like that.
 

Astral Dog

Member
I'm enjoying this game far more than Paper Jam so far. Paper Jam should've been a dream to play, yet it was a creative black hole that woefully underused Paper Mario. I will say that so far SS is way easier than either DT and PJ were at the same point (Inside Story is too far back for me to remember, maybe I ought to replay it if I can find my copy).

Having never played the original, I'm loving the creativity of the world. Thank god for no mushroom kingdom for once.

Also, the music is cute but not memorable so far. I will say, the boss theme is awful. Well, I won't say awful, just completely forgettable and just "there." After Dream Team and Paper Jam had incredible boss themes, this is really disappointing.
The music is weird in that some sound like great "remasters" while others sound better than their GBA version & closer to how you "remember" them sounding before realizing the GBA sound quality wasn't that great, but still feel...underwhelming. Popple's fight theme sounds good, but considering the music in DT & PJ, it doesn't sound as great as it could be.

I guess the best way to put it is they don't sound like they had the same amount of time & effort put into remixing/updating the tunes compared to how great some of the music was for the other 3DS M&L titles.

This is why i don't get the soundtrack complains, the original wasn't that great either, easy the worst of the Mario and Luigis, not really their fault on A GBA game and a new series but Shimomura improved later.(when it started to sound like Kingdom Hearts Lite :p
 

Currygan

at last, for christ's sake
Admittedly I haven’t read through this thread but anyone else feel like Nintendo sent this one out to die? I didn’t even know it was out yet and there aren’t even that many reviews out for it. Did it even get lip service at Nintendo’s event yesterday?

Seems a bit like that, yeah, albeit an excellent one. Just a stopgap between Metroid and Pokemon
 

Draconian

Member
Played a couple of hours so far and having a lot of fun. It does seem a bit generous with health items so far, but then again, I haven't really needed to use them anyway.
 

cHinzo

Member
Wait, this is actually a thing? I loved these games back in the days. Might need to pick em up if they're not too expensive.
 

Berordn

Member
Admittedly I haven’t read through this thread but anyone else feel like Nintendo sent this one out to die? I didn’t even know it was out yet and there aren’t even that many reviews out for it. Did it even get lip service at Nintendo’s event yesterday?

Lower effort for sure, seems like it really only exists to have a new Mario title on 3DS for the holidays.

Which isn't a bad idea to make use of the engine and assets from Dream Team one last time before having to totally scrap it.
 

R0ckman

Member
Looks like there is a bit of imbalance towards the end of Bowser's minions where the only thing you can do is level up. Absolutely hate grind walls, and its very easy to see why it results in this. Basically you are asked to fight several waves of enemies each with their own CP pool, while you can only work from one with a small recovery in between. On top of that it seems my units are slow as hell, and even when factoring in species weaknesses, my units still get their asses kicked.

My wall of boomerang bros just melts to goomba stacks even though they should be strong against them, only being about 3-4 levels lower. I have to take these guys to another zone and grind them up 3-4 levels so they dont melt to a unit they are suppose to have an advantage over? Thats insane to me.

Another reason this game is wonderful so far: no freaking Starlowe. Fuck that little slut.

I got some bad news...

She appears in Bowser's Minions
 

Yukinari

Member
The QoL stuff like the improved map screen and easier to cycle bros formations are appreciated but everything else feels really unnecessary or lazy.

Not remaking all the old sprites and choosing to remove/reuse assets from dream team. (Why did you remove Mecha Chomp)

Some songs being improvements but others not. (Thank god Jokes End is less horrible sounding now)

Making bros attacks easier to execute and some boss attacks easier to avoid which is baffling because the whole point of the bros system is to learn at your own pace with the various difficulties.

It wont matter to people who never played the original but those who have will notice the changes.
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
Absolutely loving this remake. It's 90% improved in every way IMO. The only downside is that some (some, not very many at all) unique sprites were lost, but they're so few and far between it doesn't matter. Everything is gorgeous. The lighting is especially amazing, and seeing this sort of spritework warms my heart. The original always looked a bit off to me, and was too bright and had some off-looking characters. EVERYTHING looks good here.
 

Red Devil

Member
Music I've heard so far is alright, but I didn't have all that much fond memories of the original game's soundtrack outside from a few ones but overall it's a little better now.

I'm enjoying this game far more than Paper Jam so far. Paper Jam should've been a dream to play, yet it was a creative black hole that woefully underused Paper Mario. I will say that so far SS is way easier than either DT and PJ were at the same point (Inside Story is too far back for me to remember, maybe I ought to replay it if I can find my copy).

Having never played the original, I'm loving the creativity of the world. Thank god for no mushroom kingdom for once.

Also, the music is cute but not memorable so far. I will say, the boss theme is awful. Well, I won't say awful, just completely forgettable and just "there." After Dream Team and Paper Jam had incredible boss themes, this is really disappointing.

DT didn't take place in Mushroom Kingdom either.
 

R0ckman

Member
Absolutely loving this remake. It's 90% improved in every way IMO. The only downside is that some (some, not very many at all) unique sprites were lost, but they're so few and far between it doesn't matter. Everything is gorgeous. The lighting is especially amazing, and seeing this sort of spritework warms my heart. The original always looked a bit off to me, and was too bright and had some off-looking characters. EVERYTHING looks good here.

I honestly expected it, though there seem to be two dry bones in this with no explanation. The original one from the first game and the standard Mario one.
 
The game isn't designed with 3D polygonal backgrounds so 3D would look terrible. You'd have flat 2D drawn or pixel art backgrounds with a few 3D objects on top. Recreating Superstar Saga's world in polygonal 3D wouldn't work unless it was "fake 3D" like with A Link Between Worlds, but its world has always been denser and more detailed than the 3D Mario and Luigi games (Paper Jam, Dream Team).

A Link Between Worlds has some of the best 3D on the entire system.
 
A Link Between Worlds has some of the best 3D on the entire system.

Correct. But that isn't relevant here because A Link Between Worlds is 100% polygonal 3D, but Superstar Saga was flat 2D. The remake retains the same perspective used in that game so they can't use 3D to any useful effect unless Alphadream were to remake all its environments - and sprites - in "fake perspective" polygonal 3D like with ALBW.

But as I mentioned earlier, SS's environments are a lot more detailed and dense than the 3D environments in Zelda, Dream Team Bros. and Paper Jam Bros. Alphadream made the right call in:

1) Prioritising 60fps, the same framerate as the original game
2) Preserving the original perspective of the game while making the backgrounds far more detailed than what a 3DS could handle with polygons.

Don't get me wrong, I love the 3D effect on 3DS, and have it switched on all the time. But for this game I think going 2D was the right move when you look at the detail of the environments, and how well implemented the lighting and shadows are on the spritework.
 
That was the fastest package I've ever gotten from Amazon.

Ordered on Friday night, got to me on Sunday morning. Must be some kind of record.

Guess I should start in on this tonight. I figure the first 75% should go pretty fast, considering this'll be the third time through this game. I've never gotten past the ice dungeon with the ghost girl, so after that is new ground for me.
 

R0ckman

Member
Playing Bowser's Minions I get the impression that most of the mushroom kingdom doesn't have welfare or any kind of support, thus they choose to live in Bowser's castle under the condition of serving him in his ambitions no questions asked, while some of them hope he can usurp the Peach monarcy to bring about better living conditions for all mushroom kingdom residence. I'll make this my head canon for this one at least since Paper Mario addresses that not all species work for Bowser in that world and have their own communities.
 

Zutrax

Member
I think the remaster is great overall. With the small things they did worse (like changing unique sprites) they did a lot of things better like the UI improvements.

The game itself is what we remember just with a modern coat of paint and some small tweaks.

However, in regards to Bowsers Minions mode, I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's enjoyable but it feels kinda like a pointless time waster more than something I would genuinely want to sink time into. The writing is kind of amusing but I'm not sure it warrants how much time I need to put into it. Does this mode unlock anything in the main game, is there anything I'd be missing if I skipped this?
 
I really liked Minion Quest at first even though it's kinda a (bad) phone game. But it reaches a point where the only thing that matters is if you've grinded enough levels to be more powerful than the enemy, and that sucks. It's a lot longer than I expected at least, I'm near the end and been playing it about 8 hours so far.
 

Bladenic

Member
This game is just so beautiful. I can't imagine with the next game and next Paper Mario will look like on Switch since both of them were quite stunning on their last iterations.

Of course I don't give a damn about Paper Mario in its current state so bring on the next M&L.

Actually, I know this game was a remake, but I think this is the fastest they've released a new game in the series from the last one. But again, doesn't really count since it's a remake not an entirely new title.
 

Ridley327

Member
How does Dream Team compare? I've played this game on GBA

It is by far the longest game in the entire series, but often to its detriment as it feels like its padding a lot of the length as well as making a lot of in-battle commands take waaaaaaaay too damn long to follow through, especially on defense. IMO, the Mario RPGs work much better as ~20 hour at max experiences, since the humor starts to wear thin and there's really only so much that you're going to able to do with the mechanics before they become irritating, which is what happened there. It's not bad, but I think it sits with Partners in Time as the worst of the series.
 

Berordn

Member
How does Dream Team compare? I've played this game on GBA

I still think it's a good game, worth playing at least once, but the pacing's pretty terrible and areas last much longer than they should (which ends up feeling twice as bad when you enter the "dreamy" 2D versions of the same areas which reuse most of the appearances and don't end up feeling much different), and add in some annoying unskippable tutorials and you might not have the best time with it.

But it's still a Mario & Luigi game, so even with that in mind the battle system is still good fun and the Dream Luigi powers are a neat diversion, the writing's top notch and it still looks pretty fantastic too.
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
The only thing I love about later Mario and Luigi games is just how accessible the game are and how they give the players an option make the game easy if they struggling in certain elements of the games like for example;

-Having a hard time reading enemies tell? No problem just turn on assist mode.

-Having a hard time dodging attacks? No problem just use the guard command and you will take less damage.

-Struggling with the final boss? No problem just turn on easy mode and you will be done in no time.

-Struggling with Bros attack, No problem we have easy mode were it's slower but at the cost of more BP, we also let you easily practice before pulling off the moves.

Heck even pulling hammer attack is easier in this game as it flashes letting the player know when to release the button.

The developers just want the everyone playing the game to have fun but without treating their players like idiots and doesn't force it on everyone and this should be the level of accessibility other developers, like Game Freak, should be striving towards.

Currently I am loving my play through of the game and I really hope that the next game in the series, Partners in Time gets the remake treatment.

How!?!?!? This game is pretty easy.

The final boss was a pretty hard to defeat.

That was the fastest package I've ever gotten from Amazon.

Ordered on Friday night, got to me on Sunday morning. Must be some kind of record.

I had that happen to me once, ordered Pokémon HeartGold on Sunday and it arrived the very next day.

Was not expecting that at all.
 

R0ckman

Member
I think the remaster is great overall. With the small things they did worse (like changing unique sprites) they did a lot of things better like the UI improvements.

The game itself is what we remember just with a modern coat of paint and some small tweaks.

However, in regards to Bowsers Minions mode, I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's enjoyable but it feels kinda like a pointless time waster more than something I would genuinely want to sink time into. The writing is kind of amusing but I'm not sure it warrants how much time I need to put into it. Does this mode unlock anything in the main game, is there anything I'd be missing if I skipped this?

Fun extra mode to deal with the first game having slight plot holes. The extra game wasnt needed, the explanation of
why the minions and koopalings obeyed Bowletta was, badly.
 
its finished dream team 2 weeks ago really like it except some parts, got 5 hours on superstar saga so far i like the game its fluid and beautiful , its better than dream team hope they remake inside bowser and partner in time
 
its finished dream team 2 weeks ago really like it except some parts, got 5 hours on superstar saga so far i like the game its fluid and beautiful , its better than dream team hope they remake inside bowser and partner in time

Never got around to playing BIS, would love a remake of that, especially with how great the graphics are with this
 

R0ckman

Member
I feel like in the original game they made the visit to the beanbean kingdom an exotic new land to explore, with the edition of Bowser's minions I get more of a - "This is a poorman's bizaro version of the mushroom kingdom."
 
I feel like in the original game they made the visit to the beanbean kingdom an exotic new land to explore, with the edition of Bowser's minions I get more of a - "This is a poorman's bizaro version of the mushroom kingdom."
Having not touched the Bower' s Minions mode at all, and having never played the original, I still get that feeling of the Beanbean kingdom being very different from the Mushroom kingdom.
 
This is a really fun remake, although I can't help feeling some personality is missing from the sprites. They're not as bright and colorful as the original, and lack the thick black outlines that made them stand out. Some of their emotions are also a lot less exaggerated.

The game is also completely unplayable, since Luigi only occasionally says "Okie Dokie!" when entering battle, instead of all the time.
 

Kouriozan

Member
Never got around to playing BIS, would love a remake of that, especially with how great the graphics are with this
I'm almpst at the final boss now, and having finished all other M&L I can safely say that Bowser's Inside Story is still my favorite.
Bowser is just amazing and really deserve another game as MC.
 

1upsuper

Member
Now that people are really getting into this, are there many changes or additions to the main game compared to the original? I adore Superstar Saga but I don't really care for the new look this remake has and I'd like for there to be some changes aside from minion mode.
 
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