Well here it is, the long awaited sequel to the GBA smash hit "Mario & Luigi: superstar saga" Unlike the first game which was GBA based, this one is on the DS, meaning more buttons, more screens. So here's the story: Prof E.Gadd has created a time machine and Peach uses it to visit the Mushroom kingdom's past. Unfortunately she goes to a time where the mushroom kingdom is invaded by aliens called the shroobs. These are nasty little purple mushrooms who are trying to take over the world. Although at the start it is not clear what happened to peach when she met the aliens, only that she is gone now. But thanks to the time travel ripping holes in the time-space continuum, or something. There are random time holes throughout Peaches castle, which the bros use to travel back in time, where all they find is a baby peach, a middle-aged toads worth and; themselves as babies. The brothers and baby brothers? team up, and as in the first game where you controlled each brother with each button on the GBA, so is the same for this game on the DS. Once again this is the typical turn based RPG, only you can press buttons at the right time to increase damage. You engage in combat by making physical contact with an enemy in the field
A = Mario B = Luigi X = Baby Mario Y = Baby Luigi Primarily in the field, you only control the older brothers, with their infant counter-parts on their backs, but by pressing Y or X, the babies jump off, and you control them instead, you can revert to the grown-ups by simply walking into them. This forces you to use strategy when overcoming puzzles. When the babies are on the adults backs. The only thing the adults can do is jump, and the only thing the babies can do is jump off their elder-selves. But, if the older ones jump, and the babies then jump at maximum height, they can go up much further, reaching higher ledges or higher blocks.  When the babies dismount, it?s still the same, only as you play you can learn new skills that can only be preformed with one set of brothers, such as Adults can use the classic spin jump and roll into a ball when the babies are off their shoulders. When the babies are free the can use a "Spinning hammer technique, than turns them into a drill and forces them underground, or they can use the classic hammer move. When the babies leave the screen without their elder selves, what they are up to goes to the top screen, like so:  In battle it is similar; it always helps to have both baby and adult going at once. Usually the baby sits on the adult?s shoulders, but if either is knocked out, there will only be one of them up there, they can still do standard attacks but with both of them attacks are more powerful. With the separation thing it means sometimes only 2 of 4 heroes are in a battle at once, meaning characters wont level-up evenly, and it cab cause a slight handicap. Instead of the Bro's moves from the prequel, we have bros items, like before these require you to press buttons to a certain timing, and cause great damage. But unlike before where it consumed Bros points, you now have to purchases the item for each time you use it. Such items include: Fire flower where you hammer the button of the brother holding it to throw it at the target, Green shell, where the bros kick a shell back and forth between themselves and the target Cannon baller: all the bros get into a cannon and fire themselves at the enemy. There are plenty more besides these, some items require certain brothers, and if they're not present in the fight, you can?t use them.  The game is full of good humour, main joke involve Luigi getting hurt in a slapstick comical way, the babies curiosity landing them in awkward situations, and other characters being made out to look extremely stupid. The puzzles in this game are not often challenging, and sometimes slightly repetitive. But still it?s all good fun.  The use of the second screen is awesome; sometimes the map is shown there, other times enemies go on the upper screen to attack, sometimes cut scenes with show a different perspective on the other screen. In explanations where there is information on both top and bottom screen, characters will hop from screen to screen drawing your attention to certain details. The game concepts are highly original. For an example, look at this picture here:  After attacking, the shroob doctors either side of the caterpillar monster (its not wiggler) have a mushroom in their hand, this is either a super mushroom, or a poison mushroom. The monster has a dink in front of it, every time it drinks it refills two shroob spacecraft who them attack you, but if you strike one of the shroob scientists who is holding a mushroom, it will fall into the drink, it may be a bad or good thing, depending on which mushroom it is, you'll have to wait and see. Every boss battle has something cool like this to give it a little twist, gone are the days when a boss battle was a matter of waiting for them to expose their weakness. This game is filled with vast beautiful worlds, imaginative ideas, and excellent game play, its everything you expect from Nintendo, although the replay value is low, the main game is quite long, as most RPGs are, this one is a must buy for all DS owners Rating= 76% An awesome game, you?ll love it no matter how much you already like Mario or RPGs  |
