"Mario & Luigi in 5 seconds... plus the usual fluff"

You know what? I'm not going to bother with my usual ramble today - Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time doesn't deserve it. If you're reading this review, chances are you already know that a prequel exists for the GBA, Superstar Saga, and that it is superior to this dual screen take with respect to everything that makes a great game, great.

The first thing you'll notice is that Mario and Luigi are now joined by their baby counterparts. Yes, time travelling is involved. Yes, it is poorly implemented. The first Mario & Luigi had the glaring fault of being too linear for an RPG; this sequel practically shoves you along (at a brisk pace no less) from one miniature world to another. You will warp between the castle hub (the present) and now-historic locations as dictated by the flow of the game, and once you're done in one place there's absolutely no reason to go back again.

The best thing about the original Mario & Luigi, though, was the battle system. It was still your usual turn-based crap, but it featured timed-commands that could enhance your offence and defence if successfully pulled off - the penalty for a miss would be a direct hit to your noggin. If you were skilful enough, you could make it through the entire game without getting hit, irrespective of how much levelling you had done. The same principle applies to Partners in Time, but this time you can use the babies for even more timed damage; along with the Bros. Items (a poor substitute for Superstar Saga's Bros. Attacks), battles are now a cinch; albeit very, very long if you don't level up the appropriate attributes (hint: attack!)

Battles comprise only half the RPG equation, though; plot and dialogue make up the rest. The time travelling thing rarely succeeds in any storyline since no-one really understands the paradox; suffice to say, Partners in Time doesn't fail to join the bandwagon. Not that the story is very complex, far from it. Here's my 5 second take:

***

The Shroobs (mushroom aliens) kidnap Princess Peach.
Toad: We've gotta do something! It's the PRINCESS.
Hammer Bros. 2: WE R TEH SHROOB ALLIES. WE ROXOR U AND THEN ROFL, THEN U AM CRY.
Mario & Luigi shoot down the Shroob mothership.
Peach: Oh, Mario, Luigi, thank you so! (But I'm just going to be kidnapped again.)

***

At least the dialogue can be funny when it wants to be - yes, the Hammer Bros. do talk in leet-speak for a while. But compared to Superstar Saga most of the (in-)jokes fall flat. Partners in Time is like Swiss cheese: deliciously cheesy, but too full of holes.

But despite all the cheesiness, I came out of Partners in Time with a sour taste. Perhaps it was the lack of scope, and that I was hand-held all the way through a rather stale progression of events. The babies were cool (as they always are), but they didn't do much aside from adding a few extraneous layers to puzzle solving in the overworld and boosting attacks in battles. The only real improvement over Superstar Saga that I can see are the dual screen effects, particularly evident when fighting the huge (and tall) bosses, and even then, I can only see flashes of creativity that don't really take it any further than being novel. It's a case of been there, done that - only the last trip was oh-so-much more memorable.

VERDICT – 6.5/10 Still fun to play, but incredibly disappointing given its prequel's triple A status

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/29/07

Game Release: Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (US, 11/28/05)