Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

In retrospect, it's hard to believe we've gone fifteen years without a single new take on the Mario RPG formula. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, developed by Super Mario RPG alumni at AlphaDream and the game we are reviewing today, was the last new concept introduced and that was way back in 2003's GameCube/Game Boy Advance era. Since then, Mario & Luigi has ballooned with five consecutive sequels (including Superstar Saga's 3DS remake just last fall), Paper Mario only had one more RPG (2004's The Thousand-Year Door) before bumbling into a hitherto unfinished run of tone-deaf platforming/action hybrids, and despite what dubious rumors may tell you, Nintendo, Square-Enix and AlphaDream's aforementioned alumni remain uninterested in a Super Mario RPG sequel.

In other words, for maybe the past decade we've been offered Mario RPGs/non-RPGs people are either sick of or don't want, and whereas Nintendo may strangely be complacent with this state, I can only imagine a reboot of some sort would ease our depressed fatigue. My current adoration of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions aside, Mario & Luigi's over-saturation is mostly imposed by the series' mixed quality: Superstar Saga and DS's Bowser's Inside Story are generally regarded as the best, with the rest either considered mediocre (Partners in Time), well-meaning but tutorial/content-bloated (Dream Team) or just wasted potential (Paper Jam). When the series works, its offerings are among the most delightful Mario spin-offs around; when it doesn't, it feels draining and monotonous.

Thankfully, as we just mentioned, the original Superstar Saga sits firmly in the former category. One of the finer RPGs on Game Boy Advance, the system's sole Mario RPG is true to its name, with only Mario and Luigi serving as a two-man party. This is not to its detriment: thanks to a unique control set-up and some helpful inspiration from its SNES/N64 predecessors, it constantly engages us all the while crafting a delightfully peppy world, a gut-busting script made even funnier by the Treehouse localization branch (in one of their more memorable efforts, coincidentally), and appealing to our inner fanboy with references upon references to Mario's history.

Said unique controls revolve around switching the titular duo: as the Mario Bros. explore the territories of Beanbean Kingdom, new techniques require the cartoonish malleability of each brother; for instance, smashing Mario with a hammer as Luigi shrinks him down to diminutive size, whereas Mario's lead is necessary for performing a joint helicopter spin-off. All designed to solve puzzles and vault over pits, Mario & Luigi hues the closest to the source material out of all the Mario RPGs by easily being the most athletic -- everything from underwater mazes to a derelict university constantly require the full use of the Bros.' physical repertoire for navigation, a process that naturally feeds into our curiosity for exploration. (Perhaps that's why Superstar Saga is celebrated as the most open game?)

And a natural athleticism that transitions into battle: like Paper Mario before it, Superstar Saga borrows the "timing" mechanic from Super Mario RPG for both attacking and defense, but it's the latter where things get interesting -- here, both Bros. counterattack when the enemy makes their move, be it bopping their approach with a hammer or jumping to avoid fire breath and laser fire. In other words, attacking isn't solely reserved for your turn, as your defensive stance provides opportunities to whittle away at their HP little by little. Like the original Mario games themselves, they are nonstop physical exercises, right down to memorizing the timing for the flashy Bros. moves.

 Not that this set-up doesn't come with its own problems, and alas, they are probably the game's two biggest flaws. Admittedly, the one for field movement is more of a nitpick and is hardly the series' worst example, but it's something I've always struggled with: namely, alternating between the Bros. Actions. While having Mario and Luigi operate respectively via A and B is a clever touch, toggling said Bros. Actions through the L and R shoulder buttons isn't the intuitive interface you'd expect, as the twitchy muscle memory of both fingers conflict in memorizing which action belongs to which brother, leaving us swiftly sifting past our desired commands quite by accident. While thankfully Superstar Saga's overworld doesn't rapidly demand these maneuvers, it is momentum-killing and a sign of complicated controls that would later plague the series (and growing a little too fascinated with its gimmicks, but those examples have yet to come).

The other problem, and the one I personally have a bigger issue with, is that Superstar Saga really likes elongating its boss fights. To say every encounter subscribes to this rule would be unfair -- to my memory, the possessed Queen Bean is the first instance -- but it's not uncommon for boss fights to take up ten minutes or even a half-hour to overcome, and I suspect this has to do with how many supply themselves with multiple appendages or targets that demand our attention. Needless to say, they are exhausting affairs, one made even more confounding by the fact the localized editions actually increased their HP from the original Japanese release -- unfortunately, both are also bad habits Mario & Luigi has never shook off, and I imagine they especially contribute to the series' tired identity.

At least Superstar Saga isn't a terribly long adventure -- the game is quite generous with its pacing, requiring little to no backtracking and always directing us to unfamiliar corners of the Beanbean Kingdom. This holds true even for a late-game fetch-quest, which doesn't even entirely focus on battling and adventuring but engaging in mini-games and odd jobs -- ever thought you'd have to dye clothes to save the world? As opposed to later entries lacing overdone gimmicks throughout their adventures, Superstar Saga prefers reserving them for when we've grown a little tired of running around and instead puts us at the beck-and-call of Yoshis and the undead, rendering these excursions not groan-inducing trivialities but memorable reprieves.

Not, of course, as memorable as the game's comedy. Unlike the storybook identities of Paper Mario and Super Mario RPG, Superstar Saga is nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek farce, as evident with our tale beginning not with poor Princess Peach being kidnapped, but instead having her voice stolen by an evil witch, replaced instead with a literally explosive vocabulary. That's not to mention the  locations named after various forms of laughter ("Hoohoo Mountain," "Teehee Valley," etc.), Mario and Luigi combating mutant cola brew festering for 1,000 years under a careful selection of joke-telling, and Bowser being an amnesiac punching bag for anyone crossing his path, not the least a criminal mastermind speaking in stereotypical mobster speak.

Obviously, this isn't to say Paper Mario and Mario RPG don't rely on tongue-in-cheek comedy themselves, but it's not a stretch to say Superstar Saga takes more delight in never taking itself too seriously. Whereas the other two games get caught up in their lore and whatnot, Superstar Saga is more concerned with labeling one's own save data by having Mario & Luigi making goofy faces for their passport photos (and taking extra care in it being a recurring mechanic). Put simply, it's just a lot of fun to watch and engage, with drama merely a convenient segue to go plumbing underneath a besieged castle, cross-dressing to confuse the enemy, and discovering Woohoo University studies the iconic Question Mark blocks from Mario games of years past.

And the localization! In a game innately designed to make us laugh, it's no surprise Treehouse takes liberties for its Western audience, giving rise to one of their most infamously brilliant inventions in Fawful. The devious minion of Cackletta, he speaks in elaborate broken English rife with non-sequiturs involving sandwiches being "the mustard of your doom" and equating the Bros.' lives as "the caricature of a cartoon drawn by a kid who is stupid". Superstar Saga has some stiff competition in terms of being Treehouse's funniest product -- as far as Mario RPGs go, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and maybe Super Paper Mario surpass it, but Fawful's "how on earth did they come up with this?" brand of psychosis may very well render him their greatest invention.

And really, what sort of Super Mario RPG reunion be complete without composer Yoko Shimomura? For the record, this isn't her finest work for the series -- that would be Bowser's Inside Story, and I may rank Dream Team above it -- but that doesn't mean it lacks a series highlight; to my mind, here she provides what is absolutely the funnest battle theme in any Mario RPG. It, without fail, infects us with such poppy, bouncy vigor, an energy reflected by Mario and Luigi dancing underneath their respective player commands. If there is any evidence of Shimomura's seven year absence from Mario not mattering in the slightest, let this theme be our assurance she still had it. 

What's interesting about Shimomura's score is it's the only "grounded" portion of the game; as in, it's the sole ingredient that keeps Superstar Saga's zaniness from overwhelming, maintaining the illusion of a grand epic when it is not actually so. This is not to say there aren't light-hearted or goofy themes within -- This Kingdom Called Beanbean is a wonderfully chill overworld theme, and the boss themes succeed in channeling said zaniness -- but I think of the darkness within themes like Hoohoo Mountain and Joke's End. The former an ever-towering prowess of intimidation and the latter an immeasurable depression exclusive to a lost corner of the world, songs like these are the anchor keeping our engagement from wearing thin.

It's a delicate balance upheld by Shimomura's gentler themes, mainly the nostalgic menu theme that eases us into the game every time we turn it on. In a game dedicated to referencing Mario's history, it's not surprising Shimomura's arrangements are some of the best feel-good tunes -- actually, Superstar Saga is in possession of two of my favorite versions of the famous Ground Theme (the World Map theme, which upon looking up just now, I only just realized it cleverly imbued itself with songs from Super Mario Bros. 3) and Underground Theme (listen to that choir! And that beat!).

In fact, that's the word to describe Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga: to claim it unambitious would be wrong in the face of its control scheme, but it's the best sort of an overtly-solid "feel-good" game: one whose first and foremost goal is ensuring the player has a good time, and what better way to do that in making us laugh? It is a level of contentment that's grown old with consecutive entries, but we always have this humble beginning to return to.

(Except for that stupid Mario Bros. remake they kept shoehorning into every Mario Advance game, which they put here because, you know, "Mario Bros." Ha ha! Get it? What, didn't you laugh the first five times?)