History Videogame / MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga

* QueerFlowers: Luigi and Prince Peasley. Peasley gives Luigi a rose for easy access to the castle, saying "It suits your green," with Luigi twirling with delight at the gift. Luigi later blushes when Peasley strikes him with a sword upon acceptance of a bet, and overall, Prince Peasley interacts with Luigi more than Mario.

** The lobby in the Yoshi Theater features movie posters referring to other Nintendo franchises including ''{{Franchise/Kirby}}'', ''VideoGame/TheLegendaryStarfy'' [[SpellMyNameWithAnS (titled 'Legend of Stafy')]], ''VideoGame/WarioWare'' and a poster titled M & L, implying it's a movie of the game itself. The remake replaces the posters with those based on later ''Mario & Luigi'' games.

** The now-obsolete [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Power Grip]] is gone entirely. The new fifth cameo item, the Secret Specs, is a UsefulNotes/VirtualBoy.

* ConsoleCameo: The remake replaces the [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Power Grip]] with a UsefulNotes/VirtualBoy. The arcade games at the Little Fungitown Game Center and [[spoiler:Bowletta]]'s messages in the remake use a UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS.

* DropTheHammer: Mario and Luigi get hammers after the second dungeon, and they are upgraded twice over the course of the game.

* ButtMonkey: Poor Bowser. He gets [[CurbStompBattle curbstomped]] by Fawful, his cruiser is blown up, gets stuck in a cannon, gets fired out of it, hits his head so hard he loses his memory, works as [[GoldfishPoopGang Popple]]'s lackey for some time as "Rookie", finally regains his memory but falls who-knows-how-far from the Beanstar, [[spoiler:gets possessed by Cackletta, gets beaten up by the Mario Brothers, then finally gets blown up ''with'' the castle and [[CameraAbuse hits the screen]], and is then dragged home by the plane and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking it's implied that he got a cold]]. He's not gonna try to kidnap Peach for ''a while''.]]

* ButtMonkey: Poor Bowser. He gets [[CurbStompBattle curbstomped]] by Fawful, gets stuck in a cannon, gets fired out of it, hits his head so hard he loses his memory, works as [[GoldfishPoopGang Popple]]'s lackey for some time as "Rookie", finally regains his memory but falls who-knows-how-far from the Beanstar, [[spoiler:gets possessed by Cackletta, gets his castle blown up, gets beaten up by the Mario Brothers, then finally gets blown up ''with'' the castle and [[CameraAbuse hits the screen]], and is then dragged home by the plane and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking it's implied that he got a cold]]. He's not gonna try to kidnap Peach for ''a while''.]]

* BigBad: Cackletta, who wants to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom with the power of the Beanstar.

** One of the Bros. will scream the other's name if he dies during a battle.

** Hammering Mario or Luigi or setting fire to/electrocuting Luigi or Mario before they have learnt the appropriate moves will cause the unlucky bro to yell at his tormentor.

* DefeatEqualsExplosion: The bosses all explode into stars when defeated, even if they are alive in the cutscene that follows.

* PteroSoarer: Blablanadon, the pterosaur who can fly the brothers up and down Hoohoo Mountain and later to [[spoiler:Bowser's Castle.]]

* ContinuityNod: In Mario's slightly redesigned house is [[VideoGame/MarioKart8 a trophy]], [[VideoGame/MarioKartWii a Wii Wheel]], [[VideoGame/MarioTennis a tennis racket]], [[VideoGame/MarioGolf a golf club]] and [[VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker a hardhat with a toolbelt]].

* FirstStrike: Like in the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' games, jumping or hammering an enemy in the overworld lets you get the first attack in. The remake also allows the hand powers to pre-emptively attack enemies and apply StatusEffects.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The game has a number of mechanics that don't appear in future installments, namely the ability to switch leaders (in other words, make it so that Mario's following Luigi and not the other way around, for the purpose of using certain techniques), the Firebrand and Thunderhand powers (later installments would have the Bros. use elemental Flowers for combat only), the fact that the hammers the Mario Brothers obtains get upgraded twice over the course of the story (to break blocks they couldn't before), the fact that you can change the difficulty of the Bro Moves to make it harder or easier in exchange for altering the amount of BP it uses and its power, and the fact that it's possible for Mario and Luigi to figure out how to [[EvolvingAttack do variations of their existing Bro Attacks]].
** These are the only Mario and Luigi games where the Bros. Attacks are based around the techniques Mario and Luigi learn to navigate around the overworld. As a consequence, they're the only games in the series where they're acquired automatically [[spoiler:(except for the two secret Bros. Attacks)]] instead of collecting items in order to perform them (''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime''), collecting enough Attack Pieces (''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory'' and ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'') or retrieving them back (''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPaperJam''). Consequently, this is the only Mario and Luigi game not to have a variation of the Green Shell/Red Shell Bro attack.

* GlobalCurrencyException: Those 100 coins you got at the beginning of the game turn out to be Mushroom Coins, and are worth 10 Beanbean Coins. (This doesn't matter, as you have to surrender them immediately.) And later, when you get 99,999,999,999,999 Mushroom coins, [[RidiculousExchangeRates they're worth...99 Beanbean Coins]]. But how could the exchange rate fluctuate so fast? The only logical, foolproof explanation is the RuleOfFunny.

* DeadAllAlong: The grizzled old bean in a rocking chair who oversees the minecart minigame seems harmless and rocks in his chair with his trusty bright green dog at his side, he makes mention of how he's come to the end of his road. After you play the minigame and come to the end of the minecart tracks, he spontaneously ''fades into view'' right before you enter the room to greet you. Old dude's a ''ghost.''

** When performing its inhaling attack, Trunkle can potentially consume mushrooms to restore HP if they are not intercepted by the bros.
** After taking a certain amount of damage, Hermie III will retreat inside his shell to restore HP, but using Firebrand-based attacks on him will force him back out.

** Inverted with the Koopa Troop, who now look closer to the way Koopas and Goombas do in most other ''Mario'' games.
* YouHaveResearchedBreathing: One of the Thunder Tickle's applications is to allow the Bros to walk sideways or backwards.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: At Woohoo Hooniversary, Cackletta installs Peach's voice into robots called Peach-Bots to awaken the Beanstar. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for her, the Beanstar reacted to the voice with a furious rampage, hinting that she didn't ''actually'' steal Peach's voice, but stole Birdo's instead.]]

''Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga'' is the first game in the ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi Mario & Luigi]]'' spinoff series of the beloved ''[[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]]'' franchise. Developed by Creator/AlphaDream, it released in 2003 for the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance, and for the UsefulNotes/WiiU [=eShop=] in April 2014. In February 2023, this game was re-released as one of the games in Nintendo Switch Online’s library of GBA games.