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Decent game, despite the addition of Mario Babies
So yes, if you listen to the podcast, it should be quite obvious that I am no fan of the Mario Babies. They are really the worst addition to the new generation of Mario characters (Toadsworth being the best). I can deal with pretty much every other new character Nintendo has come out with, even Waluigi; he's not nearly as annoying as the babies. It's something that made it hard to enjoy Partners in Time. Don't get me wrong, its not all bad; the game is still fun, but I just didn't enjoy it as much as the first game, or as much as I think i'm going to like Bowser's Inside Story.
The gameplay is pretty much the same as the original game; at it's heart it is an RPG, but it requires more than just selecting commands from a menu. You have to hit certain buttons at the right time to either do extra damage or dodge. The A button controls Mario, and the B button controls Luigi, but since the DS has more two more buttons than the Gameboy Advance, and due to a strange time anomaly there are two more characters. Baby Mario, who is controlled with the X button, and Baby Luigi who is controlled by the Y button. For the most part, the older bros, carry the babies on their backs, but if you hit X or Y, they jump off and can act on their own. There are quite a few items in the game that use all four characters to team up to deliver a powerful attack.
The game retains a lot of the humor that have been come to be associated with the Mario RPG games. It's really one of the only things that kept me going. When Mario & Luigi speak to each other, they talk in some kind of gibberish Italian, and it's hilarious, as are their over exaggerated facial expressions. Their interactions with the babies, as much as I hate to admit it, are actually rather adorable. The scenes with Toadsworth and his younger self were also rather amusing, as are Bowser's encounters with his baby self.
The story was pretty silly, but thats fairly common for a Mario RPG game. If you want a deep, engrossing story, you're playing the wrong game. It combines time travel with alien invaders and, of course, the Mario Bros tradition of saving Princess Peach, with a touch of finding a mysterious powerful relic plot device thrown in for good measure. It sounds ridiculous, and it is, but again, this is pretty common for a Mario RPG. At least it is very well written, something else these games have in common.
The game does look rather good too. It's not a major improvement over the first game, but the character animation and overall graphic quality is noticable. Everything is bright and colorful, just like you'd expect a Mario game to be.
So I'm definitely going to say that this game is no where near as good as Superstar Saga. The first Mario & Luigi game was a treat to play through, and did pretty much everything right. Does that make this a bad game? No, not really. It is still a good game, it just didn't quite live up to the original. The Mario babies didn't help any either, but I suppose Partners in Time really wouldn't have worked without them. So yeah, I'm gonna give this one the thumbs up.
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System: |
Nintendo DS
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| Genre: |
RPG
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| Experience: |
Finished the Game
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