LogFAQs > #950616351

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
I actually played the majority of this in November/December 2020, but got stuck on the final boss so I put it aside for a while. I decided that this would be the week I went back to finish it. At first I was thinking Wednesday, but decided to keep playing Horizon: Zero Dawn instead. Then Thursday, same thing. Friday I was determined but fell asleep super early, so it was going to be tonight, and I wasn't going to put it down until I finally beat it. I got this game for Christmas back in 2003, but while I made it far a few times, this is the first time I ever beat it (I'm going for all new beats this year, though I might make an exception or two). I have lots of good and bad to say about it so let's go.

Let's start with the good. Love the humor. Like A Hat in Time, this is a game that knows it's not taking itself seriously. Everything about it is a joke, to the point where the theme of jokes is actually a running plot element. The characters are absurd, the scenarios are stupid, the dialogue is ridiculously hammy, and I loved every second of it. Mario and Luigi's interactions with each other are especially great. So much expression and humor without ever uttering a complete sentence of dialogue. I also really liked the battle system. It's not perfect by any means, but it's very unique and adds different ways for the game to be either easy or challenging. A good enough player could beat this game without ever taking damage (except in like maybe 2 or 3 parts where taking damage is unavoidable for plot reasons). I also like how active it is. There's never a dull moment, and never a point where you go on autopilot like I tend to do at certain points in a lot of RPGs.

Now some bad stuff. Some of the areas were way too long, or at the very least required too much backtracking and had way too much involved. Joke's End was particularly bad, especially for a not-the-last level, but there were others. Some of the enemy patterns were just too difficult for me to read, and thus their attacks too difficult to avoid. Like I said, I'm sure a better player than me could figure them out fine, but considering this is meant to be a game for like, 10-13 year olds, I think some of the stuff was just way too obscure. That final boss... damn, her patterns weren't difficult to figure out, but one mistake could really fuck you up, and the battle was just SO long, you could get really close to the end and then fuck up on her strongest attack and get screwed very easily, which is in large part to my next point... I think the timing aspect was too unforgiving, on both avoiding enemy attacks and performing Bros. Attacks. Once again, this could just be me being a bad gamer, but there were tons of times where I would either get it, or fail an attack, and be like "I don't know how I could have possibly been more than a millisecond better with my timing there." There were a surprising amount of 3D platformer-esque "make one wrong move and you fall from a great height and have to climb back up" moments, which was kinda frustrating because the control mechanics were not the best. If one brother wasn't directly behind the other and was like, half an inch off, the one in the back wouldn't perform the action they were supposed to, and if you weren't paying 100% attention to the icons at the top, you'd mess up and miss. My final gripe is that the game never explained how to perform Advanced Bros. Attacks, so I went through most of the game not doing them, and I'm sure that made battles much more frustrating for me than they had to be. I had to look up online exactly what they were and how to do them, and didn't start using them until just before the final boss, so I didn't have much practice.

Overall I guess I'd say this game was north of the enjoyment line for me. It was funny and definitely had some fun stuff, but just had way too much holding it back for me to put it anywhere near my all-time favorites. I'm sure it was fine back in the day and just hasn't aged well, but I gotta rate it for the experience I had when I beat it.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 14; Most recent - Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga