Hands On: Mario & Luigi: Brothership Shows The Bros. Are Back In Classic RPG Form

You would be forgiven for assuming the Mario & Luigi series was no more. It has been nine years since Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam was released as the last new entry. Since then, Superstar Saga and Bowser’s Inside Story received 3DS remakes, but then developer AlphaDream shut up shop in 2019 after filing for bankruptcy. In short, we weren’t all that hopeful that the Bros. would be back in town any time soon.

Then the June 2024 Nintendo Direct happened, opening, no less, with the announcement that the plumbing pair would be leaping back into action. The Mario & Luigi: Brothership reveal showcased a new art style, plenty of slapstick humour, OTT turn-based shenanigans and bro-specific button inputs — yes, it looked like a Mario & Luigi RPG of old. The question was, would it feel like one? Would it live up to the high bar set by its predecessors, or is that whimsical magic a product of a different handheld generation?

Having gone hands-on with the upcoming Switch RPG for a little over an hour, we’re pleased to say that the Bros. are well and truly back. Mario & Luigi: Brothership makes some meaningful tweaks to the series’ tried-and-tested formula, but everything that made those games click on GBA, DS and 3DS is back in full force. Hoist the mainsail and weigh anchor, this vessel is looking ship-shape.

Those familiar with the series might have to temper their weird radar as far as Brothership’s set-up is concerned. From what we saw, there’s no time travelling, UFOs, dream dimensions or miniaturised tours around internal organs to be found here. The mystical world of Concordia has been split into different islands and it’s up to Mario and Luigi to stitch them back together. It all seems rather tame when we put it like that, but fear not, the series’ central silliness is all present and correct.

In our hands-on time, we visited two different islands that the Bros. set out to reunite: Twistee Island (which we were told crops up in the first few hours of the game) and Merrygo Island (which appears around five hours in). The former was home to a dishevelled dance icon in need of some hair wax, while the latter housed a giant maze and a bomb-throwing scientist. Okay, yeah, the weird is definitely back.

The two locales felt distinct enough in both their visuals and mission structure. but they shared enough of a common comical thread to make them feel uniquely part of a Mario Bros. RPG. And don’t worry, the puzzle-platforming is still here, we’ll get onto that in just a minute.

The likes of Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door have recently reminded us how funny Mario once was, and Brothership felt like a fitting return to that land of wacky insincerity which has been absent from the plumber’s escapades for a good while. We were particularly enamoured by Snoutlet, a new companion that lives in Luigi’s hat and is very keen to outright deny any claims that it’s a pig. Folks, it’s totally a pig.

It all felt like a natural continuation of the series’ glory days. This was particularly true in the gameplay department, where the Bros’ individual button controls make a return and remind us just how wonderful a system it is. Admittedly, it took us a minute to readjust to controlling Mario and Luigi with different inputs, and our first few battles saw the latter take an unhealthy amount of damage as we figured things out (sorry, Luigi!). But this control scheme is, as expected, put to great use here, with puzzles and combos that frequently had us switching between the brothers on the fly as we kicked shells, climbed inclines or played hot potato with a bug-phobic shopkeeper.

Everything oozes personality, from the quick-witted people of Concordia to the bouncing soundtrack that accompanies each combat encounter. We weren’t sold on the new visual style after the reveal trailer, but seeing it in practice is a different beast. The Bros. are at their most emotive in Brothership, with OTT reactions and goofy running styles that made it difficult to play without a massive grin plastered across our faces.

The turn-based combat plays out much the same as you might expect, even if the brothers don’t dance quite as hard as they did in Superstar Saga, but on top of the familiar button-based commands, Brothership introduces a new ‘Battle Plugs’ system. This lets you add bonus attack, defence, effect or dodge modifiers to the team’s skillset, allowing you to do more damage or make button timings a bit easier. We tried out a couple of different Plugs in our preview — including one particularly satisfying one that drops an Iron Ball on an enemy after each ‘Excellent’ attack — and welcomed the added layer of strategy that each brought. These only last a select number of turns, of course, but from the long list of potential Plugs to be crafted from in-game ‘Spark Balls’ (which we found scattered everywhere), this might be the deepest combat we’ve seen in the series to date.

Speaking of meaningful changes, the titular pair feels like a much more equal partnership than we remember from the previous entries. Rather than being the Bro. bringing up the rear, Luigi feels like a more active part of the adventure, benefitted by a new ‘Inspiration’ mechanic that sees the green plumber provide hints or assistance at the press of a button (the ‘L’ button, fittingly). We used this all the time, sending Luigi off to smash crates, interact with puzzle elements or collect items while Mario was busy elsewhere. It’s no Pikmin-style divide-and-conquer management, but it’s nice to see Luigi with a role slightly beefier than the ‘look scared and follow Big Bro.’ one he usually has.

The wait for a new Mario and Luigi RPG has felt like a long time coming, but, from what we’ve seen so far, Brothership is going to be well worth the wait. We still don’t know the development team behind this one — though Nintendo has confirmed that “some of the original developers” are involved — but this entry already feels like it has taken all of the best bits from the AlphaDream playbook.

Brothership will be a familiar return for long-time fans of the series, but a peppering of welcome additions makes this feel like a good launch point for those yet to set sail in Nintendo’s silliest series.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership arrives on Nintendo Switch on 7th November for £49.99 / $59.99 and there’s even a swanky Steelbook edition for those who want to add a bit of bling to their boxed collection.

Are you excited to set sail with the Bros. next month? Let us know in the comments.