"'Thank you very much!'"

Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time

Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time is a DS sequel to the fun, quirky GBA RPG, Mario and Luigi: Superstar, released back in 2003. This game was released late last year (2005) in the U.S and Japan and hit Europe and Australia in February 2006. Mario first starred in an RPG on the SNES, back in 1996, in the loved classic, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. His next two outings were Paper Mario for the N64 and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for GameCube, two great, innovative games that will hopefully continue with the Revolution (at this point in time, still a codename). Like its predecessor, this game is designed by Alphadream Corporation and published by Nintendo, and certainly builds great on the charm that the previous held.

Let's get cracking then. Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time has a distinctly different story than the original, wackier and funnier than ever before. Basically there is an evil race of... ...wait for it... ...its coming!... ...DUN DUN DUN!.... EVIL ALIEN MUSHROOM CALLED SHROOBS! Real original, huh? Anyway, these Shroobs are attacking the Mushroom Kingdom of the past, where Princess Peach and the trusty Mario Brothers are still babies. Back in the future, the smart Professor E.Gadd has created a time machine for Princess Peach to travel back in time! But wait! There's more. On her trip to the Mushroom Kingdom of yesteryear the Princess gets kidnapped by the Shroobs. Who would have ever guessed? Anyway, I won't much more about the story, but basically it's up to Mario and Luigi to save Princess Peach and the Mushroom Kingdom of the past, with the help of.... THEMSELVES AS BABIES! While the story doesn't always makes sense and is in some places contradictory, I feel that it really suits the game. When it comes down to it, the story doesn't really have to make much sense in a Mario RPG, the only important thing is that it's jam-packed with wacky occurrences, and this game is no exception! Mario and Luigi teaming up with their baby selves is enough to prove that. I was pleasantly surprised at the twist at the end of the game, not expecting something that big from a Mario RPG.

Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time's world design has seen a definite change from the previous. Instead of the world being on a large world map (think most Zelda or 2D Pokemon games), the designers have decided to go with a different design. You can no longer travel from place to place. Let me start from the start. As you know there is the past and the future. Most of the gameplay is done in the past, where all the areas and dungeons are. In the future there is only one area; Princess Peach's Castle. This castle ties together the whole game, sort of like Rougeport in Paper Mario: TTYD. Times warps to the past begin to appear in the castle, so to get to each area you simply jump in a time warp and get teleported to where you want to go. That means that there is very little to do in the present, with the meat and potatoes of the game being in the past.

All four characters travel around together, the older brothers usually giving the youngsters a piggy-back ride on the bottom screen, the top screen usually being a map of the area. However the babies can split from the elders at times, to fit in small holes and what not. If the babies are in the same screen as their older selves then both are controlled on the touch screen, however if they split up and are in different rooms then the babies are played through the top screen and the elders through the bottom. You may be wondering how you're going to control both at the same time. That's where action buttons come in. If you've played the previous then you'll be perfectly aware of what I'm talking about. Each character is assigned a button, Mario has, Luigi has B and Baby Mario and Luigi have X and Y respectively. When piggy-backing, pressing A or B will make either Mario or Luigi jump and pressing X or Y with separate the babies from Mario and Luigi. Pressing X or Y when split up will make one of the babies jump. When separated you can switch back and forth through the teams by pressing A and B for the elders or X and Y for the babies. To travel together just get both pairs together and the elders will pick up Baby Mario and Baby Luigi.

Like the previous games, you will learn special Action Commands such as the hammer for the babies. To interchange between jumping and the special commands use the L or R buttons. You will need to make good use of these actions to solve puzzles or move on in general, for example hitting buttons with the babies hammer. There are many blocks scattered through the world, however not in the same abundance as the previous game. A few of the blocks you will encounter are blocks that give items or coins, blocks that only Mario or Luigi can hit (doesn't matter which age) and special event blocks that cause changes, such as opening a door. Again, you'll have to work together to get the blocks, such as some which require you to double jump to hit. Sometimes you will spot X's on the ground. You can use the babies (I won't say how) to collect a Bean from here. Beans can be used to buy certain something's later on in the game but I won't say what. I'd advice you to try and collect as many as you can though.

The battle system has remained the same in some aspects and changed drastically in others. When the brothers are together all four will fight in piggy-back, although you only control the older Mario and Luigi. If either one dies then their younger self jumps down and takes the reign. Characters are controlled in a similar way inside of battle, with each character having a button assigned to them. So no, it isn't like a convention J-RPG, you'll have to do a lot more than pressing buttons to win this game. Let's take jumping for instance, which is the basic attack of the game. If you're using Mario you press A, Luigi B and if you're separated, X and Y for the babies. Those of you who haven't played the series may be thinking "Big whoop! I press different buttons to attack," (or then again, maybe not). But still, I thought it was a way to explain Action commands, or I think that's what they're called anyway. See, when attacking an enemy you can just press the characters button to pick the Jump icon and attack but that won't get you very far into the game. The developers have included a feature in battle to always keep you on you're toes. When jumping on enemies (it applies for other attacks as well) you can press the character's button as you're hitting the enemy to give you a bonus. This is pretty much standard and you should be pulling it off 99% of the time. It wasn't made to be hard to master, just to punish people who weren't paying attention closely enough. Expect to pull this of almost every time you attack. When together you don't have separate attack turns but you can take advantage of the babies. For example when attacking with Mario, if you press X instead of A, Baby Mario will jump on the enemy, followed by Mario (now press A), in essence, giving you two attacks for the price of one.

Now time for dodging, another thing not included in most conventional J-RPGs. When enemies attack you can dodge by pressing the character's action button. Dodging either involves jumping or the use of the hammer. So, for instance, if an enemy comes running at Mario, you can press A for Mario to jump. If you timed it correctly, not only will Mario not get hit, but if he hit the enemy on the way down, then he'll deal some damage. Not every attack can result in damaging the enemy though, some will require you to dodge without touching the enemy. Dodging plays a very big part in the game, unless you seriously over-leveled you'll lose damage real quick if you don't dodge, literally having to use healing items every few battles or so in the latter stages of the game.

Which gets me onto items. I'll be quick, like many other RPGs you have items such as Mushrooms, which can be used for different effects, such as healing. Some items can be used only in a battle like Peppers and some can used be used both inside and outside of battle.

That's not all folks. Patriots of Superstar Saga will remember the Bros. Attacks which required you to work together to deal those big numbers in battle. Well they're gone, and replaced with what I belief is a much more fun system. Bros. Items! There are a few different types of these in the game that can be found in battles, boxes or bought from shops. They're like mini-games that require you to do the right things to deal a lot of damage. An example is the Green Shell, which is the first type you'll get in the game so don't worry. What happens is that Mario (or Luigi) kicks the shell onto the enemy which then reflects to the other brother, who then kicks it back on the enemy and so on. This gets faster and faster until you've dealt the maximum amount of damage, missed the shell or killed the enemy. If all 4 characters are in battle one of the babies will ride on the shell, allowing you the opportunity to press button as you're hitting the enemy for extra damage. Some Bros. Items require only 2 characters while others require all four to work.

After each battle you gain experience and money. The money can be spent at shops in the present Castle and at other places in the world. You can buy items, Bros. Items, Clothing and Badges. Clothing are overalls the brothers can wear that boost stats in certain areas, while badges will have special effects on the character, such as one that gives you boosted attack in battle until an enemy hits you.

Experience is needed so you level, when you get a certain amount of experience you level. When you level up you stats improve and you get a random bonus in a selectable field, HP, Power, Defense, Speed and Stache (I think that's all of them). The bonus is 1 - 6. The less you power a field the higher bonus you'll there. So if you keep giving bonuses to Power you'll only get a 1 or 2 point bonus each, but if you never give bonuses to defense then you'll likely get a 6. Spend your bonuses wisely.

Difficulty wise this game is pretty easy outside of battle. The battles are easy for the most part however the difficult getting pushed up near the end of the game when enemies start to damage you more as well as being harder to avoid. The bosses aren't very hard. You may die once or twice (probably some timer has something to do with it) but if you're packing healing items and Bros. Items like I always was, then you shouldn't have too much of a problem. The game should last you around 20 hours give or take a couple of hours. There aren't really any sidequests but there are a few mini-games you might want to have a shot at, not really worth it though. The last part of the game is pretty long though, I started it late at night thinking it will take a half hour or so but ended up playing until 2:40AM.

Many people argue that the graphics in this game are not very good, offering only a small improvement from the previous. Although that is the case, this being a RPG, graphics really don't matter all that much. Either way, I find the graphical styling of this game to be very well drawn and appealing, suiting the adventure perfectly. The characters are drawn humorously and their animations are well done, especially Luigi. The area graphics are all distinctly different, offering a wide variety of graphics throughout the game. I don't feel that a more detailed approach will suit the game very much, finding that the colorful graphics of the game really add to the experience. The enemies and battle animations are done well, very smooth and for the most, building on the colorful theme of the game.

The sound is also great, as we've come to expect from Mario games, be it the few remixed tunes or the new themes, they all do a great job in setting the theme for the game. The developers do a great job in setting them atmosphere, fast and loud for the more intense areas and battles to relaxing and slow for the calmer areas of the game. Mario and Luigi's voice are very simple, usually containing humorous gibberish or short phrases such as 'Babies!' Luigi saying 'Baby Weegi!' towards the end of the game got me laughing. The children's voices are done just as well, hearing Baby Mario say 'Thank you very much!' in his accented voice is always worth a chuckle, as it Baby Luigi screaming or saying 'Mario!' when his young brother gets KO'ed in battle, although it can be pretty nerve wrecking if you're close to a game over. Overall however, the voices in this will almost always make you laugh and seem to be added to bring a little (or maybe a lot) of extra humor in the game. The sound effects, whether inside battle or outside, are well done, with many events having distinct sounds, from jumping to falling to Luigi getting hit on the head with a hammer.

This game is well worth a buy, a rental period probably won't be enough to get the full enjoyment out of the game unless you rush it, but I feel that a nice period to play the game at your own pace will make the game all that sweeter. It took me a bit under two weeks to win but it all really depends on how long much you take to play the game. You should expect around 20 hours, how much days/weeks/months/years/decades that will take depends on your play habits (if you didn't notice I was joking about the years and decades part, this isn't Counter-Strike to keep people playing for that long). I feel there is more replay value in this game then the other, but that still isn't saying much. I'm not the kind of guy that likes to replay RPGs or many games with relatively long stories (fighting, puzzle, racing game and similar not included in statement), Resident Evil 4 being the only exception, so you might not want to take my opinion to heavily here. This game however is definitely worth playing so get down to your nearest gaming outlet and pick it up *this involves paying as well, unless you want an empty display box*.

I don't think I've mentioned it yet but this game doesn't use the DS's special features other than the top screen (duh). To be fair it does use the touch screen once, and only once, for like 2 minutes during the entire adventure. However, even though it doesn't make full use of the DS's features, i.e. touchscreen, microphone, wireless, the developers still put in that extra effort and really used the top screen well, not using it for a map/menu combination for the whole time, like many others have done(bottom screen can be used in that context as well). It really gives the developers more room to work, doing things in battle that couldn't have been with one portable screen.

This game is really a very fun game with tons and tons of humor. More and funnier that first. It really is what makes the game extra special, seeing Luigi's and the babies actions is priceless. This is one of those games that can keep you chuckling from start to finish, whether it be a scene, character animations or simply hearing the voices of the characters during battle ('Thank you very much!').

Final Recommendation:

Summary:

Gameplay: 10
Graphics:
Sound: 10
Value: 10
Tilt: 10
Overall (Rounded): 10
Overall (AVG): 9.6

Overall this is truly a great RPG for the Nintendo DS, which at the moment is lacking in that department (in Australia anyway) although with many good RPGs coming I don't think I'll be able to say that for much longer. Anyway, this is a great game and any passionate DS gamer, like Mario or not, like RPGs or not should give it a chance. I have a friend who hates RPGs, yet gave the Mario RPGs a chance, stating that these are only RPGs he enjoys. You never know until you try, by all means, this is not a classic RPG so who knows? You just might love it. And if you are a RPG purist/Mario fan than you owe it to yourself to pick this, what I belief to be the greatest Mario RPG to date.

Reviewed by Nadim Rafehi

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/27/06