Published , by Donovan Erskine
Published , by Donovan Erskine
Mario & Luigi: Brothership is the first original entry in the series in nearly ten years. It’s also the first Mario & Luigi game designed for a home console. With launch just around the corner, I went hands-on with Brothership, getting the hang of new gameplay mechanics and learning more about the narrative.
Mario & Luigi: Brothership begins after the destruction of the Uni-Tree, a massive world tree that connected all the islands in Concordia. The brothers set out to reconnect the world, which means paying a visit to individual islands and solving the problems of their respective people. Players can plot a course for their ship, named Shipshape Island, using the map. Once an island comes into view, Mario and Luigi can launch themselves over via canon.
Shipshape Island grows and evolves as players finish quests and reconnect islands. The game’s semilinear structure means that players will explore islands in different orders, adding more characters and activities to Shipshape Island along the way.
One of the islands I got to explore during my preview was Twistee Island. This is one of the earlier islands in Brothership and is home to a village of dancers. I was tasked with finding a character’s hair wax so that they would dance and allow us to reconnect to Twistee Island.
Mario & Luigi: Brothership sees the return of the series hybrid combat system. Characters act on a turn-based structure, with timing needed to land certain attacks, increase damage, or dodge incoming attacks. During the early portion of the game, my arsenal was mostly limited to hammer and jumping attacks. My arsenal of moves expanded during the second part of my preview, which was further into the game.
Mario and Luigi have special team-up moves called Bros. Attacks that can deal heavy damage to enemies. These are trickier to pull off, as they require a quick succession of timed button inputs. There are also Plugs, which provide bonuses for both brothers in battle. For example, the Anti-Spike Specialist Plug made all of my hammer attacks against spiky enemies auto-crit. The Auto-Mushroom Plug caused me to automatically use a Mushroom to heal Mario or Luigi when their health dropped below a certain threshold.
Enemies have their own unique stats and resistances, too. Spiky enemies are impervious to jump attacks, and flying enemies will dodge incoming hammers. Players will need to strategize when taking on unique enemy types.
There are also challenges outside of combat, like puzzles and minigames. One tasked me with carrying a character through the woods. She was deathly afraid of bugs, so I had to carefully avoid them as I tried to get her out. Mario and Luigi tossed her back and forth as they navigated the bugs, and getting too close to one meant I had to start over.
The second island I got to visit was Merrygo Island. This one is a bit further in the game and sports a festival theme. I had to navigate a large maze to reach a character that the brothers were searching for. I climbed towers to get a full view of the maze and then pressed a button to rotate the walls and open up new paths.
This highlighted a new feature called Luigi Logic. The green-wearing Mario brother can be directed at the tap of a button to interact with the environment when prompted. This includes smashing boxes, collecting loot, and interacting with objectives. In this particular instance, Luigi pressed the button to manipulate the maze while Mario directed him from the tower. It’s a feature designed to make exploration and discovery a bit more convenient.
That’s everything I learned from my time with Mario & Luigi: Brothership. It was described to me as a “very, very big game,” and that seemed consistent with the amount of explorable islands. We’ll share our full thoughts in a review when Mario & Luigi: Brothership arrives on November 7, 2024.