Mario and Luigi: Dream Team
Developer: AlphaDream
Price: $39.99
Platform: 3DS
a loaner copy for Mario and Luigi Dream Team was supplied to us
Mario and Luigi are back, full of charm and on a truly imaginative adventure in their 3DS début.
From the start, Dream Team keeps the Mario and Luigi pedigree strong by putting players in a fun to explore world with an interesting combat system and constant trickle of new mechanics throughout the game.
Players unfamiliar with the series will have no issues starting the franchise with Dream Team, it has only brief nods to previous games and every aspect of the game is clearly explained in a tutorial. So much so that it interrupts the pacing of the game and is one of my biggest complaints with Dream Team.
The tutorials are so frequent and persistent (because of the steady introduction of new abilities and mechanics throughout the game) that it becomes frustrating. Some of the tutorials ask if you want the information, and then when ‘no’ is selected, it asks “are you sure?”
I found myself doubting my abilities and opting in on the first several tutorials. The last Mario and Luigi RPG was released in 2009 and I felt maybe I had forgotten how to play the game since that time, but I was wrong. Avoid any tutorials you can if you are slightly familiar with how the game works or you will be forced to trudge through easily grasped mechanics. Even if all of these tutorials are skipped, the game is constantly reminding you how to play and what needs to be done.
What I do like about the tutorials is how the game does nott beat around the bush about being a game. Characters are speaking things like “press the ‘a’ button to make Mario jump” instead of a contextual out-of-game menu explaining things.
The dynamic combat is still engaging and exciting. Pressing the action button at the right time before an attack deals more damage. Press it at the right time when the enemy is attacking and not only can you avoid damage, but you can land a counter attack. This battle system has not been used enough and is a great way to get players like me continuously focused on what would sometimes be just a “spam the attack button and wait for my turn” approach. These additional attacks and counters become essential to defeating enemies and also forces players to learn attack patterns.
Nothing is very challenging for veteran players, but if the dynamic combat style becomes too difficult and causes gamers to get ‘game over’ Dream Team has a solution for that: ‘try again easy mode.’ Easy mode is just for the combat encounter that you failed. It temporarily increases the health and strength of Mario and Luigi. Even if players opt to retry a fight at the normal difficulty level, a suggestion block appears giving players the option to learn in depth details and enemy specific suggestions to make the right moves.
Dream Team is its most enjoyable when it has you navigating the dream worlds. Luigi goes to sleep in the real world, and his sleeping face takes the place of the map on the bottom screen. Mario jumps into a portal which opens up dreamy versions of the environments around the sleepy Pi’illo kingdom. Since Luigi is the one connecting his dreams to that of the dream world, he is granted some unique abilities that make platforming and puzzle solving more interesting to play and more complicated than just jumping and hitting blocks.
“Dreamy Luigi” joins Mario within the dream worlds and uses his lucid dreaming to benefit the two both in and out of combat. For the most part Luigi just replicates himself and uses his army to form different shapes and perform mass attacks, following Mario’s lead.
Dream Team uses a lot of creativity in the in-game character and level design which also bleeds over into the player’s world with the use of the 3DS hardware. The 3D in Dream Team is some of the best I have seen, and I actually played a good portion of the game in 3D, unlike nearly every other 3DS game. The game also uses the accelerometer/gyroscope for some of the tandem attacks. What I found most interesting is the use of the 3DS calendar and pedometer in game. The Birthday Hammer “increases damage by 300% on your birthday” and the Pedometer Boots increase damage based on the number of steps.
While the main goal is that of every Mario game, to rescue the Princess, Dream Team is packed full of replayable mini games and meaningful collectables. In total, the game took me over 35 hours to complete, and I didn’t come close to completing all of the side content.
Players looking to hone their battle techniques can enter a battle area to refight old bosses at a higher difficulty to earn coins and special items. While some games would put mini games like this outside of the main game, and gate it off until after the main story is completed; Dream Team makes it available pretty early on and is even able to contextualize its existence using the dream world as the stage for the fights.
I found the collectibles in Dream Team to be some of the most meaningful of any modern game. Beans can be dug out from the earth, which will permanently raise the stats of either Mario or Luigi. Non-critical, yet ultra-powerful attack moves can even be learned by collecting all 10 panel pieces.
The Final Word
Mario and Luigi: Dream Team is a must have for fans of the series and for newcomers looking for a light hearted story, also mixing in dynamic and rewarding mechanics over a 40 hour+ experience. Even while the forced hand holding slows the game down, the writing and characters more than make up for it. The dynamic turn based combat is rewarding to master and is just plain fun. If you enjoy fake Italian voice acting you are going to love this game.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
