Review by Doomion33

"Superstar Saga, the only RPG proven to cause gas."

The title was completely relevant. Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga is perhaps one of the greatest RPGs in the Mario Series. Let's go into detail, shall we?

Story: Cackletta and her minion Fawful staged a fake meeting with Princess Peach, and stole her voice in the process. Mario goes to the castle to see what happened, dragging Luigi along. Bowser is there, and Mario battles him. Afterwards, we learn Bowser isn't the culprit, so Mario and Bowser go to the Beanbean Kingdom, again dragging Luigi with them. A tad childish, but it shall do. There is plenty of stuff from old Mario games, like the Hammer Bros, and even Geno from Super Mario RPG makes a cameo. Along with old Mario music and other old Mario stuff, it's the melting pot of Mario goodness. Now my main gripe is the overuse of the word "Bean" in this game. The Beanbean kingdom, Bean fruits, Queen Bean, Bean-like enemies, if this game was edible, it would cause gas.

Gameplay: You have your overworld and your battle sequences. To explore, you must obtain certain items and abilities such as the Hammer and the Firebrand. Mario is controlled in A, and Luigi with B. You can switch which Brother is first with the start button. This proved extremely useful. In battle, you control the two in the same way. Pressing A or B at certain times when using a Bro will increase damage. You can use any of three forms of attacks, Jumping, Hammer, or Fire/Lightning. Upon leveling, you can choose any of their stats to increase further, the number is chose by a roulette of sorts. The more often you level the same stat, the less chance you'll have of increasing it by a larger number later. You have two different forms of armor, Clothes and badges. The more powerful they are, the more they cost, and will increase your defense and hp/attack/BP more. Bro points, abbreviated as BP, allow you to use Bros Attacks. They have three levels, Level one slows the action down and shows when to press A or B, level two doesn't show the buttons to press, and level three ignores both. They higher the level, the more damage done and less BP used. I had no problems at all with the gameplay, so it deserves a high score.

Graphics: Surprisingly good. They are cartoonish, but as far as I could see, no graphical glitches are there, and enemies don't look like a mass of pixels.

Sound: Not bad. The two bros actually have speaking parts in the game, even though it only composes or a few words. You might not be able to understand Luigi every now and then, but it's no big deal. The hammer sounds realistic, lightning sounds like static, and the trademark jumping sound Mario is known for is still present. The battle and boss music can get a tad repetitive, but are nice at first. Overall, this game fails to disappoint when it comes to music.

Any Mario fan would be happy to own this game, with its great controls, plenty of cameos, and enough of its own story to enjoy this game to the gamer's heart's content.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10 | Originally Posted: 07/01/09


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