Before we start the review:
So Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga remake got leaked like a week or 2 ahead of its release, and I decided to play it. Since the original version on GBA is one of my favorite games ever, I was pretty skeptical and worried that they would fuck it up in one way or another. Long story short, they actually didn't. The original Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga was released in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance and it's a game that's very near and dear to me, I grew up with the game, I even got it when it first released, so in regards to the remake, I think I can talk about it pretty thoroughly since I'm a big fan. Seeing as the game was a part of my childhood, I have replayed it a few times recently, so I'm making sure this isn't gonna be full of nostalgia. (Also, I didn't care enough about the Bowser's Minions mode in the game, so I'm not covering it here) Okay, now for the actual thing.
I was really worried about this remake when it was first rumored, and then saw the official E3 reveal, but thankfully it went well. The game is a very faithful remake of the original Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga and graphically it looks amazing. At first, I was a bit worried since it looked similar to the recent Dream Team and Paper Jam games, and Dream Team was so slow and boring, I barely progressed through it. Thankfully AlphaDream remembered what made the Mario & Luigi games good; good pacing, comedy, relatively combat and NO GIMMICKY BULLSHIT that gets in the way. The game looks amazing as I said before, but I need to elaborate, It looks like the artwork the series is known for, while still keeping the same style and charm that the GBA version had. For the most part, characters are made to look nicer while keeping the same character designs (sadly the Koopas don't wear armor anymore, they're just normal Koopas.) Every area in the game looks exactly how it should, a remade version of the original environments, with only some places having some aesthetic differences like Princess Peach's Castle and some minor areas, but overall, the environments keep the same art direction and make use of the new color palettes that the 3DS is capable of. Even the menus look nice, they kept the suitcase as the menu for stats, items etc. but Mario and Luigi aren't pressing against each others shoulders when looking at their stats. The map is even folded like the original, but instead it's taped on to the suitcase, and you can even see the little bends in the paper.
The new remixes of classic songs from the game have been given an overhaul and take advantage of having real sounding instruments. It doesn't use the original GBA soundfont anymore, but about 80%-90% of the new remixes are amazing new versions (Teehee Valley, the Final Boss theme, and some sound inferior to the originals.) As a fan of the original music, I was just humming along to my favorite songs and was surprised by how good some of the new songs were, in addition to how they remade the environments. The game even includes the original songs from the GBA version that you unlock from finding cassette tapes in the overworld. There's even some of the original sound effects sprinkled in the game, such as the menu sounds when confirming and cancelling, the jump sounds and even the voices are the same, but in a less compressed form. So based on a lot of these factors, the graphics and sound get a huge thumbs up.
The story for game is exactly the same as well, even the localization from what I've noticed is pretty 1:1 with the original game. Fawful still speaks in weird sentences and Bowser still said "Mario, do something super!" in the beginning of the game. The story starts in Princess Peach's Castle with a meeting with Lady Lima who is sort of an ambassador for the Beanbean Kingdom, she arrives for a peaceful exchange, but then it all goes to shit when it's actually revealed to be the evil witch Cackletta in disguised and along with Fawful, steal Peach's voice and reek havoc. The Mario Bros arrive to help Peach, and they go with Bowser to the Beanbean Kingdom to get her voice back, stop Cackletta and fix everything. So I'm happy they left it the same, the story didn't need any real changes, so seeing it presented with the updated graphics and sound is a treat for someone who loves the original.
As for things that have been changed in any major way well the gameplay did. Thankfully it's still the same as the original. The remake for the most part is pretty 1:1 with the original, like I've stated before, at least from my experience. That said, there are a lot of small things that have changed that kinda messed with me the first I started playing, and it took time to get used to it all. Mario and Luigi can't manually switch now, so you can't have Luigi in front because you feel like it. It kinda sucks for me because I thought it was fun, but they did allow make it so they automatically switch places when using certain moves in the overworld. When Mario needs to do spin jump or needs to smash Luigi into the ground with the hammer, he automatically goes behind Luigi, so in some ways, it kinda gives the game a smoother feel, but having to skim through all the different abilities with the L and R buttons felt like it took a bit longer than it needed to. If it does take too long to select something, you can just use the touchscreen and it'll be quicker. Due to manual switching being removed, some minor things like seeing Luigi spit out water doesn't work now because it switches straight to Mario instead, so some of the little details are gone here. Badges and gear still work the same just like the original, even Professor E. Gadd's unique items like the Great Force function the same. I still prefer the original badge system where it was just thing you equipped instead of this thing you had to power up, it was The healing blocks from the Japanese GBA version also return here and fully restore your HP and BP, which for players who aren't as good, can use these before a boss fight, I only used it at the very last battle because I didn't want to waste my items, and because I needed to try it out since I never used it. The game also has a recap feature in case you get lost or forget what to do, and includes a mini-map that makes it easier to get through the levels. In general it's just quality of life features that can potentially make the smoother for some people.
As for the combat, it's still the same as the original, although to me, it feels slower. But thankfully it doesn't take forever to win random battles like later games in the series *cough* DREAM TEAM *cough* I was worried originally because they added the double jumping from the later games and I thought it would make the combat way too slow since in the original, you just did one jump on an enemy an that was that. I don't know if the jumps do more damage or not, probably not, but I still feel that certain things like the basic hammer attacks, slow it down. Thankfully it's not super slow like the 4th game in the series that I keep bringing up. The game also doesn't introduce any unnecessary gimmicks like the later games, yeah it uses the touchscreen, but that's pretty much it. And the combat only uses the d-pad for selecting things and the A/B buttons for attacks, that't it. And that's how it should be. No silly 3DS tilting that turn Bro attacks into silly minigames that ruin the point of Bro attacks, they stayed faithful to the original. Mario and Luigi even do the attacks themselves and it's still the only game in the series that does this, where they don't use the usual Mario items for team attacks, Mario uses his firebrand for fire moves, not a fire flower, etc. Due to them removing the hard difficulty for the Bro attacks, they now take longer than they should to actually do, although I believe these are the default speeds. It just sucks because the hard versions of the moves were quicker to do and did more damaged, so it rewarded players who put the time into mastering the Bro attacks. You can even go into battle and tap the practice feature and practice moves like in Bowser's Inside Story and later games in case it's hard to pull off attacks, I never used it, but it's there. Oh and the advanced versions of Bro moves you learn from using the original versions a bunch of times are still in the game, it's called "Super" versions now. Like "Super Chopper Bros" for example. Now they added an easy version which costs more BP but I think does it for you, which is no fun. another thing that doesn't seem fun to me is the addition of Easy Mode, which doubles the damage you do, and halves the damage you take, I'm okay with it being there, even though the game isn't super hard. I just wish there was a hard mode you could use to make it more challenging for veterans. Some bosses are a bit harder than before, (at least I felt some of them were because the timing for their attacks were different) and they even added a feature where if the boss has less than 50% HP, they start glowing in red or yellow letting you know that they're almost dead, so that's a nice feature in case you feel like it's taking forever to win.
Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions is a great remake of the original GBA game. It enhanced the graphics and sound to what you expect, it looks great, Yoko Shimomura did a great job remixing her songs from the original game, minus a few exceptions. The gameplay has a few changes I don't like and they still bug me a bit, but I feel that they don't take away from how good this remake is. Even if you don't look at as a remake, like if you only play this version, I think the game is amazing, so I highly recommend buying the game when it comes out
Plus:
- Great graphical overhaul
- Amazing new remixes, minus a few exceptions
- New features can make certain parts of the game less annoying
- Mini-map helps if you get lost or you need to find things
- Overall presentation and personality the game provides
- In-game music player
Minus:
- Some of the bosses were annoying, I was just being dumb when fighting them
- Some of the music tracks are a let down (mainly the final boss theme sounding like ass)
- Not being able to listen to the songs from the music player while playing the actual game
- The dead guy from the barrel minigame is not a DK skeleton
- RIP Geno cameo in the tilting arcade game
- No manual switching
- Combat speed and slow Bro attacks
- Easy Mode being in the game, but it's optional
- Kinda wish they included the scrapped Nintendo cameos
- RIP Mario Bros arcade remake
Overall score: 9/10 Highly highly recommended, go buy the game Fink-rats!
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