Obviously, Mario is Nintendo’s mascot, and with a mascot comes a slew of titles and other products that have absolutely nothing to do with the character’s original game’s type of gameplay. What started with titles like Mario Kart and Mario Party, has become an unstoppable train of Mario-related products, each with many sequels. Some of course, have fared better than others over the course of time; Mario Party sequels are met largely with apathy now.
Back in November 2003, Nintendo released an RPG for the GBA called Mario & Luigi : Super Star Saga,. Drawing it’s roots from Nintendo’s successful Paper Mario for the N64 (which in turn drew it’s roots from Super Mario RPG on the SNES), Nintendo created an awesome role-playing adventure with clever puzzles, intense combat, and a hilarious script; we’re talking side busting humor here. The hope is with the upcoming sequel on the DS tentatively titled Mario & Luigi 2, all the elements of the original remain intact, while expanding the experience at the same time.
It seems that Nintendo and the folks at Alpha Dream aren’t content with resting on the laurels of the original, and they’re going to try and up the amount of everything in the sequel, including the amount of plumbers you control. In the original, the player was given control over Mario and Luigi, but at the same time, with each brother assigned to either the A or the B button. So if Mario was in front, the A button would make him perform an action, and the B button would affect Luigi. This allowed for some truly creative puzzles, especially when combined with the many abilities you gain throughout the adventure.
Given the option to use two more face buttons on the DS, you’ll now be able to control not just Mario and Luigi, but Baby Mario and Baby Luigi. With four characters mapped to the four buttons, I can’t really even imagine the puzzles that await us, and the combat is going to be that much more intense as well. The button assignment system carries over into battle as well, so if an enemy is attacking Mario, you’d have to press A to have him dodge it. This system will now apply to all four plumbers.
In order to avoid confusion, the plumbers will at times be split up using both screens at once, probably with the older plumbers on the bottom, and the infants on top. This way, if the characters get separated (which happened a lot in the original), you’ll be able to keep an eye on both sets, but again it also opens up the door for many different types of puzzles. I wouldn’t be surprised if the order is mixed up as the game progresses, but as of now it seems the babies are on top, and the adults are on the bottom.
As for the script, nothing has been revealed. It’s assumed that it will have something to do with Mario and Luigi somehow coming face to face with their infant selves, but again no details have been released other than it’s set in the Mushroom Kingdom during an undisclosed time period. Fans who hope for the return of the hilarious engrish speaking Fawful will be left in the dark until later as well, as no mention of his return has been made just yet.
Either way, Mario & Luigi 2 is coming out this November for the DS, and it would be a shame if anyone missed out on this title given the pedigree of the original. The sequel so far seems to have more of everything that made the original better, and with such a strong foundation, it would be hard to imagine this game not holding up under pressure.
