It has been four years since the release of the last Mario and Luigi game, Bowser’s Inside Story for the DS. Now that the 3DS is popular, Nintendo and Alpha Dream thought it was a good time to make a sequel. While the game improves some of the gameplay and fixes lingering issues, it still manages to neglect others. Read on to find out if they are worth considering.

Mario and Luigi: Dream Team takes place on the island called Pi’Illo, where they are invited by a professor that is researching the science of sleep. Before they get there they are attack by an unknown assailant. Soon after arriving on the Island it is discovered Luigi has the power to open portals to the Dream World. Mario hops in to see it’s like, and discovers that the being that attacked them has an ambition to of course rule the world with the power of dreams, and of course it’s up to Mario and Luigi to save the world once again, and rescue Princess Peach. Of course she gets kidnapped, it’s a Mario game.

While the plot is nothing new, the Dream World parts of the game are 2d platforming affairs with a minor puzzle element to them, similar to the Bowser’s body segments in the previous game. Most of the puzzles are just finding the right use of the mostly touch screen based gimmicks in the Luginary Works. Dream Luigi has the ability to morph into a variety of forms and use them to traverse through the area’s puzzles. Likewise on the over world, Mario and Luigi also use abilities to progress in a similar manner. The game is linear and you can only go where the plot dictates, but there are some parts to areas that you are free to explore for all the item blocks or beans which are hidden, and often require all of your available powers to find them all. There is also a handy collection progress report that tells you how many things you found and the amount remaining in an area. The save system has also been upgraded and now you can save your game at any time outside of battle, as well as the traditional method of hitting the Save Block. There are also many optional things to do, like jigsaw puzzles, boss rematches, and a jukebox.

The sound in the game is also very well done. It’s loud and crisp, and it has series composer Yoko Shimomura’s stamp of quality. Although the game’s soundtrack is great, it lacks a couple of tracks that have been created to diversify the game’s many battles. There are only a handful of different battle themes, which is a shame since you will be fighting a lot in the game. There is also no voice acting, as per usual, so 3rd grade reading level is the minimum required for players.

Combat is also relatively unchanged, but there have been some refinements made to it as well. While it is a turn-based affair, the game like its predecessors also has you evading and counter attacking the enemies’ attacks and learning their patterns. So the game does have a decent challenge level, even though it’s still largely on the easy side. The game also will let you play on an easier mode, or give you combat tips related to the enemies you are fighting. And no longer do you need an item to retry battles. The game also has an in-game achievement system, but with in-game tangible rewards which unlock some of the best equipment in the game. There are also Giant Luigi battles where you will enter a special fight where you have to rotates the 3DS to a vertical orientation, and use the touch screen to fight bosses in amazing looking set pieces. This is part of where the game falls a bit short though.

While the game is enjoyable, there are some issues that may make or break player’s decision to purchase this game. While the Giant battles are amazing to watch, they aren’t entirely as fun to play. Despite the refinements made to make them more bearable, such as recovering health being limited to only cool downs and not three chances, the controls for some parts of a fight are sketchy tilt controls, with no way to invert them. Thankfully the 3D mode is turned off for these parts. Also the battles feel entirely too long and you are severely punished for not evading damage most of the time. This means you need to memorize the patterns even more than the regular boss fights and encounters. Another issue is despite the save system letting you save anywhere, you only have two save slots to use. Two slots that you don’t have the freedom to save on freely. Once you pick one slot, you are stuck with it the whole game, save from copying the data at the title screen. Thankfully you can’t save yourself into a corner and left with no recourse but to restart a game, but this is still a big lack of oversight. Nintendo really needs to let players use SD cards for saving progress in games. One more issue comes from the fact that while the game is a beefy 50 hour adventure with many optional things to do, many of those hours come from rather pointless padding. The game makes you search for five maguffins before being able to go to the final level, which artificially extends the length of the game by 20 hours it didn’t need. The game also is pretty formulaic in its design. Travel over world, go to dream world, fight bosses, rinse and repeat.

Despite all these issues, if one has the will to not let the issues bother them so much, or to overlook them, then Mario and Luigi will be a fun game for both Mario and JRPG fans to look into.

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