3.5/5 ★ – jkrgamer's review of Mario & Luigi: Brothership.

Very charming, but a far cry from the best Mario RPGs out there. The GOOD: +Incredibly polished animations of Mario and Luigi. My friend watched me to a battle and said "wow...that looks next-gen!" specifically in reference to the animations. They're so fluid and expressive! The Mario Bros. have never looked this good outside of Next Level Games. Just look up all the "Luigi Logic" and "Luigi's Landings" in this game and you'll see what I mean. +Super fun combat! I never want to play another RPG unless it has action commands. There's some light strategy, flashy animations, and (best of all) the... +Battle Plug System!! It basically boils down to changing your build in the middle of battle, adapting your circumstances to the enemies while simultaneously re-charging precious abilities. Such a simple yet fun addition, I was really impressed by it! +The Overall Premise. I think exploring various islands, and then harpooning them and towing them by your ship, is such a fun idea. It's like you're COLLECTING the areas you go to, some of which change when you go back for sidequests. +A skip button. Thank you for letting me fast-forward through most of the game's dialogue. The BAD: -The Writing. Something felt off about the translation or the original script, and I'm not exactly sure what it is. But apart from a funny line or two that made me chuckle, the conversations between characters just felt weird and sterile to me in this game. It's a super wordy game (which I accept, it's par for the course for this series) so I just wish it was a little more clever in how it tells the story. The side characters were also just a little too weak in my opinion. But I suppose "Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door" does set the bar quite high. -Not-great sidequests. There were a few in there that seemed thrown in just to pad out the overall time. I don't mind fetch quests, but the rewards for backtracking over and over again never feel worth it. -Long load times. This one is really unfortunate. Going in and out of battle is just a teensy bit too long, but what's even worse is that there are TONS of cutscenes in this game with loading bars in the middle of them. I'm not joking. -An end-game that never ends. About 10-15 hours before the final boss, I thought I was about to meet the final boss. So that last chunk of gameplay really draaagggged for me, I'm sad to say. FINAL THOUGHTS: I enjoyed this game. I immensely enjoyed the combat and seeing Mario and Luigi interact with one another -- it's one of the main staples of the series and the animations are SO good in this one. But there were enough annoyances that ranks this game quite a bit lower than some of the Mario RPG all-time bests. Maybe if I had taken my time more with this one instead of rushing it, I would have enjoyed it more. But hey, if you're interested in getting it, you will definitely get your moneys worth, as it lasts about 45 to 50 hours.