Just wrapped up a playthrough of the longest Mario game I think has ever been made, Mario and Luigi Brothership. While it has it's moments that are poorly paced, especially the beginning and the end, overall its a charming enough package that it was still a joy to finish.

Story

The story is, for the most part, a paint-by-numbers jrpg plot. There's a guy that's bad (but he isn't the Real Guy that's Bad) our plucky heroes are the only ones that can save the day, and wouldn't you know it, it's the power of friendship that's going to save it. Everyone but the Real Bad Guy isn't actually bad, just misunderstood. Etc. Etc. Etc.

The cast of characters stand out, though. Mario and Luigi are funny and perfectly animated, and the supporting cast is well written and light hearted. I don't think I've seen a game have such a high pun-per-name score before, with everything in the world being some kind of play on words.

While very little is surprising for the genre, it does end up getting pretty "dark" for a Mario and Luigi games. The plot heavily centers on isolation and loneliness, which stands out among the bright and cheerful world.

The stories biggest sin, however, is its pacing. It takes a few hours to get rolling, has a really solid 30 or so hours of consistent pacing, and then nose dives at the end. The final dungeon, and the lead up to it, is drawn out for about 2 hours longer than it should have been. Which again, isn't uncommon in jrpgs, but you really feel it in a Mario and Luigi game.

Overall though, the story is inoffensive and really just serves as a reason to engage in more gameplay, which is the standout.

Gameplay

If you know the Mario and Luigi games, you know what to expect. Turn based combat, with timed button presses playing a major role in dealing and dodging damage. That dance of jumping and hammering and using Bro moves makes the combat sing for the whole run time, even if the enemy variety is a bit limited.

Although there aren't many of them, the boss fights stand out as true tests of skill and pattern recognition. They mix things up and really push the simple premise to the limit, I only wish there were more of them.

one thing they added to try and spice things up are the battle plugs, equipment that adds modifiers the combat, ranging from simple "do 15% more damage" to "automatically use a health item when you're injured." While they do add an interesting layer, they also only last a few turns before they have to recharge, and by the halfway point of the game, I was largely ignoring them because they were just too tedious. If you want, though, you can really make some fun combos.

Exploration is another strong point although a major change to the way Luigi works makes it slightly less fun than in previous M&L games. You just have less control over him, which kind of limits the creativity of the puzzles.

TL;DR

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Brothership, even if I think it should be about 25% shorter. Solid combat and exploration save the day from a pretty forgettable story. It doesn't quite hit the highs of Super Star Saga, but I do think its a very strong step in the right direction for the series.