There’s a certain beauty to Mario games when you really think about it. Virtually every gamer from every walk of life has at least some connection to the jolly little red plumber and his world of mushrooms. A huge part of that is that Mario is such a simple character that he has virtually no limit to what he can do. He’s more like a classic cartoon character than the main character of any one franchise. Mario could do opera in one game (Mario 3) and then shift to messing around with his supporting cast by creating their hazards and obstacles (Mario Maker) and then finish it all off by battling an evil witch equipped with little more than his wit and a few things he has in his pockets (Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door). Those are all actual plots to Looney Tunes shorts, by the way, namely ‘What’s Opera, Doc?’, ‘Duck Amok’ and ‘Bewitched Bunny’. I digress. My point is that Mario isn’t limited by preexisting notions of who Mario is. And the varied nature of Mario brings us to today’s subject, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions.
The Mario & Luigi series is probably the largest facet of the Mario series that I’ve completely missed. I wasn’t yet into a vast majority of games when I had my Gameboy Advance and by the time I discovered Mario with Super Mario Sunshine, Superstar Saga had been buried under the Advance series, which was my first introduction to both Super Mario World and my hidden talent of being surprisingly good at the original Mario Bros. arcade game. I did play through the majority of Partners in Time back in the day, but I never beat it and I really don’t remember any of it. And the rest of the series I just missed out on because between Galaxy and Odyssey, I was just kind of done with Mario. I mention all of this because I want you to know I had no idea what to expect from playing the Superstar Saga remake. Being a Paper Mario fan, at least before Sticker Star ruined it, I expected something akin to Thousand Year Door, except your only party member was Luigi. What I got was something that made me rethink which series in the Mario franchise was my favorite off of just a single game. But, first, the story.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga opens with representatives of the Mushroom Kingdom’s neighbors, the Beanbean Kingdom, visiting Princess Peach at her castle/art gallery. Quick tangent, it always amuses me how worldbuilding in the Mario universe is just a constant stream of ‘well this exists now’. If there’s a comprehensive map of the world of Mario, I’d absolutely love to see it, it has to be utter nonsense. Anyways, as is the case with any time that someone other than Mario visits Princess Peach in her castle, something absolutely horrible happens to her. But this time, instead of simply a kidnapping, these representatives of the Beanbean Kingdom instead opt to steal Peach’s voice. And then immediately shed their disguises, meaning that the point of posing as official representatives of Beanbean was pointless in the long term, but whatever. I guess their plan was never to perpetuate a war between the two kingdoms anyways. I’m thinking way too hard about a Mario game, aren’t I? Anyways, Mario, Luigi and even Bowser get involved shortly after this point and decide that their goal is clear, they must team up to rescue Peach’s voice. And something about a mystical Beanstar. That part isn’t readily important.
I’m going to level with you, from the framing alone I was already out of this story. I’m personally not a fan of introducing new villains just to have them do the same thing as the old villain but just a little different, and the Mario universe is full of this specific setup. But what ends up setting Superstar Saga apart is how the payoff to the framing works out. The narrative is tight without being overbearing. At no point does this story ever drag and, while the game never exactly kept me guessing, I was so invested that I didn’t especially care. Not to mention how wonderful the writing to this game is, making this simple and kind of tired Mario story really come alive.
I poke fun at the off worldbuilding in the Mario world, but I honestly feel like the decision not to set this game in the Mushroom Kingdom was overall a wise one. The Gamecube/GBA era of Mario games in general were the starting point of a push to move Mario away from the Mushroom Kingdom and, while Sunshine does do the new, vastly different environment well, it doesn’t do it half as well as Superstar Saga. The Beanbean Kingdom almost feels like a different world, while still being uncannily familiar to what you know. It starts you off thinking that this world, unlike the Mushroom Kingdom, is dreary, full of purples and greys instead of the vibrant reds and greens of your home. But immediately this changes and gives way to a lush environment that is brimming with charm and personality. It’s a wonderful blend of new and familiar that makes it stand out even amongst the plethora of wonderful places in the Mario world, and I would love another game set in the Beanbean Kingdom.
Superstar Saga is not what one would call a traditional Mario game. Instead of running through levels, clearing obstacles and jumping on enemies, Superstar Saga plays more akin to an early Final Fantasy game. Mario, Luigi and their enemies take turns in battle, determined by their individual speed stats. Mario and Luigi can perform a variety of options in combat as well, starting with a basic ‘jump on enemy to deal damage’ and evolving to several different normal and special attacks that the brothers can perform, with more unique and powerful attacks using a system known as Bro. Points, this game’s version of the Magic Points system from Final Fantasy. As well, you can power up your attacks even more by the Action Command system, where timed button presses allow you to increase your damage significantly, up to double what it normally would be. These action commands aren’t just for offense, either, there are defensive action commands that allow players to null, dodge or even counter the enemies’ attacks with correct timing. It’s a surprising amount of complexity and I could see this turning off a lot of newer players, but if you feel overwhelmed, don’t worry. Mario & Luigi have an easy combat mode, making the button timing way easier and the guarding near automatic. It all creates an incredibly fun and rewarding battle system that, while pretty typical for a Mario RPG, is arguably at its best in Superstar Saga.
It’s pretty apt that I compared Mario games to classic Looney Tunes cartoons, as recent Mario games have made a push to include more genuinely good comedy in their games. And, as you may expect, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is no exception. So much of this game is full of genuinely funny jokes, super clever wordplay and very good physical comedy that just make every conversation so much fun to sit through. This comedy is even a theme in the game, with an early area being almost completely devoted to good slapstick, writing and even the fun that can be had with very obviously bad jokes. It creates a very different feel from its contemporaries in terms of Mario games and could be seen as the originator of so much of the excellent writing in Mario games, especially the RPGs, to this day. The only issue with this is the lack of voice acting and the presence of a player-controlled text box progression sometimes makes the timing miss. But that’s a minor problem in a game full of great jokes.
The character work in this game is purposefully weak, but in a good way. Obviously, unlike many RPGs, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga isn’t opting for an especially deep story with complex themes and interesting themes. It’s a comedy first and foremost, and the characters reflect this by being largely one note. But if it isn’t a great note to be on. There are so many big personalities in this game and seeing their interactions just makes it all the sweeter. A few standouts are the Beanbean Kingdom’s queen, who is just brimming with enthusiasm and optimism, Prince Peasley, a handsome, charming, chivalrous, competitive and all around fabulous warrior, and Popple, the commanding bean bandit who frequently bosses around people several times his size without showing an ounce of fear. Even the Mario Bros. who spend most of this game silent and when they aren’t, opt to speak probably fake Italian still manage to be two of the most fun, charming and funny characters in the game.
And that’s not even mentioning how great our villains are. The main villain, Cackletta, is almost like the Mario universe’s very own Maleficent. She’s the most conniving and diabolical Mario villain I think we’ve ever had, being just as funny as everyone else but not any less intimidating than she needs to be. I mentioned how her plan is very similar to Bowser’s, but it’s made clear she isn’t going to make the same mistakes as the Koopa King. She opts to take only what she needs rather than deal with any unnecessary baggage, and is way better at forcing people to do her bidding than Bowser ever was. And then there’s Fawful. If I were to adequately explain how amazing Fawful is, the rest of this one would devolve into a series of quotes. I highly encourage you to play the game solely for Fawful, he’s a fan favorite character for excellent reasons.
So, with all this praise I’ve been heaping on Superstar Saga, you might be thinking ‘is there anything he doesn’t like about Superstar Saga’. And the answer is, speaking only for the core game, not really. I have my problems with the minigames, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want this to devolve into me just having to list how a minigame is played and then saying ‘I just don’t find this especially fun’. Superstar Saga is a great game overall and I highly recommend you find a way to play it if you haven’t played it already. Unfortunately, Superstar Saga isn’t the only game on this cart and... oh boy… Bowser’s Minions.
I’m going to knock a few good things out of the way in regards to Bowser’s Minions to start off. Conceptually, this game is exactly what I’ve been wanting from a Mario spin-off for years now. Taking control of Bowser’s army and using the various talents of the individual troops to ram through your opponents has always been a kind of dream game of mine. Admittedly, I wanted it in the form of a Tower Defense game, but going on the offense works too. I love the characters of this game as well. Captain Goomba is the exact kind of lovable, enthusiastic idiot that you would expect from a Goomba leader and seeing him grow over the course of the game is actually really touching and endearing. Captains Shy Guy, Boo and Koopa Troopa play off Captain Goomba really well, one opting to go along with his idiocy, one opting to constantly call out his idiocy and the last being potentially a bigger idiot than Goomba could ever be. I really dig how they captured the personalities of the Koopalings as well, each being essentially the character I always expected them to be from their first appearance in Mario 3. And, of course, Fawful is the main antagonist of this particular story so that’s just a roaring endorsement of this mode right there.
And now the bad. Bowser’s Minions is unplayable. Not because it’s, like, broken or not fun, though it is definitely both of those. No, it’s unplayable because it literally cannot be played. Bowser’s Minions is a game where you choose your squad of a mere eight members and then the game auto-plays the fight and basically just decides whether you win or lose at random. And it is definitely at random. I’ve done the same fight over and over again and gotten radically different results each and every time. Now, there are some very minor things you can do to help the turn of battle. You get something called ‘Captain Commands’ which are things you can do to stop enemy special attacks, get minor stat buffs and do specific special attacks dependant on the squad leader. But, really, it’s almost not worth doing any of them, as it costs part of your extremely limited pool of CP and, in my experience, it oftentimes doesn’t affect the way battle ends up in any significant way. It feels more like something I should be playing on my phone, but in a really bad way. It’s more built for the free-to-play, microtransaction field than anything, and if I discovered this was a test for a new mobile game Nintendo’s thinking about releasing, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions is one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played, easily. While I may hate the Bowser’s Minions mode, it never was so much to kill my enjoyment of the overall product. It’s engrossing, funny, charming and just all around a great time, and I highly recommend everyone play through it. I imagine that, should I do a top ten at the end of this, Mario & Luigi is going to rank pretty high on it. I more than recommend it if you haven’t played it, and even if you have played it before and are just wondering if you should replay it. I hope you enjoyed this look at Superstar Saga, and we’ll be back next time for another really funny game, Shantae: Risky’s Revenge.
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