"The most boring Mario RPG ever. That's quite shocking."

Mario RPG's have become extremely rare these days. There have been only 4 up to date: Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario, Paper Mario 2 and Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. All 4 RPG's have one thing in common: A very unique battle system and hours of non-stop fun. Mario and Luigi though...it had a much different system. Mario and his...green bro had to work together through the game to complete areas and in battle as well. It was an awesome element to the game. Now, we finally get a sequel to one of the best Mario RPG's and it is nothing but a big flop.

Graphics - 5 - Graphics in the eyes of myself and pretty much every "real" gamer does not determine a game. The graphics in Partners in Time, quite frankly, are nearly identical to those in the original. I expected something to wow me and actually use the DS's capabilities but it all just looks the same. Mario and Luigi have the worst animation's in the game. When they walk, in battle, just about anywhere they look bad. At least the graphics are somewhat good, and not too pitiful.

Sound - 3 - The music is horrible. There are only 2 good tunes in the game. They are the Super Mario 64 Peach's Castle theme and an excellent remix of the classic Underground theme song. Everything else was awful, boring, and not exciting. Battle music is below average. It didn't make me excited like it should be doing. The boss music is just as bad. Its boring and loops itself over and over and over again. Even the final boss music is awful. It sounds too happy when it should be long and exciting. The music failed pitifully in Partners in Time.

Story - 6 - Basically, the story goes like this. Somewhere in space, a long time ago there was a huge planet that was home to the Shroob race. One day they decided to conquer a new land and just happened to spot the Mushroom Kingdom. They fly down, and take Peach's Castle for themselves and totally mess up the entire Kingdom, savoring all of its power. This is in the past, though. As we jump towards the future, Professor E. Gadd has just finished his Time Machine which is run by the power of the Cobalt Star (Yes. This is another Mario RPG involving something with a Star. Original ideas would be nice). Princess Peach is intrigued with the contraption and sets out with the aid of just 2 Toads to visit the Mushroom Kingdom's past. Needless to say she has a very short term memory loss because she lived through the Shroob invasion which was taking place in the past which was her destination. The Shroob's capture her and send back the Time Machine without the Cobalt Star. Now Mario and Luigi head back through time with the aid of Time Holes which appear around the castle and must travel to many areas of the past, meet up with their baby selves and save Peach. Again.
The story lacks interest and is seriously confusing. Peach has been the princess every since she was a baby. Heck, you even meet Baby Peach. Shouldn't Peach have suspected that the Shroob's would be there? Why isn't there any record they were there? The story is too confusing for most to follow.

Gameplay - 3 - Finally to the bread and butter of every game. And how disappointing it is. To get an overview of the gameplay, take everything that made the original unique and amazing, take it out and you have this sequel. First off, we have the linear gameplay. Its just so boring. You are doing the same thing over and over again and it gets so repetitive its hard to keep a good focus. You go through a couple rooms, hit a couple blocks, defeat a couple enemies, face a boss related to the Shroob's and then do it all over again.

The second problem to the game is the "central hub" idea. For those who don't know what this is, it is basically where there is one central area of the game linked to every other area on the map. The concept of going to the past and changing a lot of things that should affect the future does sound fun, but it was ruined. Pitifully. Peach's Castle is the only place you can visit in the future. Nothing else. You can't change something in the past, then head to the future which the something in the past opens a new path. That should have been done but wasn't. The world's are very small. You spend less than an hour in each area and you are done.

Another irk is the battle system. Teaming up with Baby Mario and Weegi is fun. That idea was good. The bad idea was that every enemy in the game is stuffed with a huge amount of HP and Defense. Basically, battles take a while. Also, your able to dodge every single attack in the game. That's fine. Problem is, you will take between 20-40 damage later in the game if you can't dodge some attack and you will quickly die over and over again. What's more annoying, the higher the levels of your party, the more HP bosses and enemies are given. What a stupid idea. The point of leveling up in an RPG is to eventually get strong enough to defeat something. If enemies HP keep increasing, your wasting your time.

The worst change to the battle system is Bros. Items. In the original, the Bros. had to work together in tandem to pull off cool attacks with their own special effects to them. That has been taken out and replaced by generic items you use as a team to hurt enemies. Badly. Mashing a button causes serious damage. That's it. Bros. Attack were a bad idea. There are many different kinds but they all share the same bad idea. Also, they have a stock. If you don't have any Bros. Items...bosses are kinda...impossible. Bros. Items are the only way to do a lot of damage. Without them, bosses and many enemies take forever to kill. Very, very annoying. Bros. Items truly ruined battling in the game, which is meat in an RPG.

Replay Value - Non existent - What replay value? There are no sidequests. No hidden items. No secret bosses. No special areas. No alternate passages. No optional enemies. No nothing. You beat the game once and there's no reason to come back to it.

Final Score - 4 - Best to avoid this Mario RPG. It does so many things wrong that many other RPG's get right. Unless you like boring, linear, unfair RPG's, I recommend you avoid this game.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/06