"Mario & Luigi: SuperStar Saga" review for the GBA
Written by: DawnClover
Who played "Mario RPG" for the SNES? Well... it was not very, very
famous (at least here in Portugal), but it was a good game overall.
Well, i was reading a magazine and i read: "An RPG based on Nintendo's
Mario is being made for the GBA", and the first thing i thought was
"WOW! COOL! Another Mario RPG!". Yes, i love Mario RPG for the SNES,
and yes, I TOTTALY LOVE Mario & Luigi: SuperStar Saga! Prepare for
probably one of the best RPGs for any handheld avaliable at the moment,
'couse M&L are here! This is a really good game, wich mixes the
Platform and RPG genre. How does that happen? Well, at an RPG
perspective (up), you control Mario and Luigi. One follows the other,
for example: you press 'start' and Luigi guides Mario, you press
'start' again an Mario guides Luigi, and so on. What the use? Well, to
perform their special abilities, you need to select the pose to do it.
For example: Luigi has the special ability to make an Super Jump! To do
it, you need to place Luigi in front of Mario, then press R to select
the 'Super Jump' icon, and then use the 'B' button to make Mario jump
into Luigi's head, and then B again to make Luigi get up and make Mario
do a Super Jump. This is very helpfull 'couse it helps you go to places
you couldn't go before. About the 'in map gameplay', the enemies are
visible, wich is really good, couse if you're low on HP you can just
avoid them. Another good feature about the enemies is that, while in
the map, you can stomp on them, and when you enter the battle, they
take damage! But be careful! If you jump into them, and they touch the
guy on the back, that guy looses one turn in the battle. The battles
are the Basic RPG-battle-system, it's made in turns, one of you attacks
or defends first, then it's other one's turn, blah, blah. Still in the
map, you use the B button to control the back character (to Jump), and
the A to control the front character (to Jump). The map is really
colourfull and the graphics are really good (well, it's Mario, what
were you waiting for?). The characters you control are: the brothers
Mario and Luigi (often called 'the Green guy' in the game), and they
can perform various abilities during battle! One of the greatest
features is the 'Bros Combo', where you must perform a combination of
buttons to inflict damage to your opponent with a combo using both
Mario and Luigi (that's the 'why' of the 'Bros'). The storyline is
quite good! It starts in the Mushroom Kingdom, where everything is at
peace. In the Princess Peach's palace, the princess receives a gift
from the BeanBean Kingdom's Queen. But it ain't no normal present!
After opening the present, Princess Peach's voice is stolen, and in
it's place is left an explosive vocabulary! (REALLY explosive) Oh well,
and here comes Mario to the rescue! Toad runs to the bros. house and
finds Mario, and tells him what happened, Mario rushes to the palace
and finds King Koopa trying to kidnap Peach. But he doesn't do it,
because of Peach's explosive vocabulary, so he agrees to help Mario to
recover Peach's voice, so he can kidnap her again! And so on... A
really good feature added to the game too, was the comedy. This is a
really funny game, where you watch Luigi (or 'Green Mario Brother",
"Green guy", and so on...) being called everything but 'Luigi'. This
game has a really cool EXP system, where when you level up, you get to
choose wich areas you will improve! You can even improve their
mustaches!! (i heard you get an extra if you improve their 'staches to
the max...). So, overall, this is one of my favorite games, and i'll be
playing it for a long time! If you have a GBA, don't lose this game! It
is a definitly MUST!
(p.s. - sorry if i made any errors.. i'm Portuguese :P)
