Fridge / Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

Beware Unmarked Spoilers

Fridge Brilliance

• Why did Bowser suddenly grow more competent this game when he's been the Butt-Monkey of all the previous ones? Because in the last one, he learned how to win! From the Mario Bros, no less!
• In Bowser's Dream, when he jumps into the abyss in a rage, a Paratroopa specifically states that a fall from that height would be fatal. Surely, he's just concerned for his boss, right? Wrong. In the previous game, something happened at times when Bowser's life was in peril. The game is warning you. Newcomers to the series are scratching their heads at the suddeness of it all. Veterans are having an Oh, Crap! moment and fumbling for their styluses.
• In Dozing Sands, Mario and Luigi relearn the Mini and Mole Mario moves. The character who teaches them this mentions that he saw it in a movie. Well, at the end of Superstar Saga, it is revealed that Mario and Luigi's adventure has been turned into a film at the Yoshi Theatre. Were the moves learned from that movie?!
• While you're rescuing Bedsmith, Dreambert appears in the dream world with you in his full body form, instead of the pillow-head form he usually takes when you're in the dream world. I thought this was just a mistake, but then, when you fight the giant boss, you see there's even a 3D model for full-bodied Dreambert. I couldn't figure out what was different, then it hit me in the last world. Most of the time you use Dreambert in his pillow mode to enter dreampoints. This time, however, you're using the petrified Bedsmith. Dreambert went through the portal with you, and that's why he's in his real-world form!
• You notice how that despite Bowser and Antasma each having their own unique Leitmotifs, whenever the two show up, only Bowser's Leitmotif plays? It seems innocuous at first glance, but when The Reveal happens, that's when it becomes clear the game was warning you. It's subtle Foreshadowing that Bowser is the true Big Bad.
• For a while, you might wonder why Peach is at Neo Bowser Castle and when the villains managed to capture her. Then you realise that the game never actually shows :Bowser's wish on the Dream Stone, and realise that said wish must logically have been to have Princess Peach with him.
• One must wonder why Broque Monsieur is in Bowser's dreams, despite not being involved in Neo Bowser Castle (i.e. how Britta is involved in Dozing Sands, so there's a Dreamy version of her managing the shop). Well it's simple ... Broque Monsieur was one of Bowser's closest allies in the last game (he was more loyal to Bowser than the Elite Trio), so this is really Bowser's inner thoughts, despite the fact his dreams are terrifying.
• Why did Antasma go down so easily in the prologue battle, despite being in his true form? It's Luigi's dream. Of course his big bro would be able to take down any threat to them with minimal difficulty.
• Whenever Luigi gets attacked by a Virus, he takes a lot more damage than Mario does. Mario's had a lot more experience with the Viruses than Luigi does, so Mario must've had an immunity built up.
• Why does this game break tradition of having Bowser as the first battle by replacing him with Antasma? Because Bowser was the lesser antagonist and never the final boss in any previous game, now that he is the final boss Antasma has replaced his role.
• Why is it that Dreambert, who knows the island like the back of his hand, seemed unfamiliar with Mushrise Park? It's because he knew that place as Mushrise Fields! It was only recently developed into a park by Brickle. Notice when finding the Utilibed manual, he recognizes that name as well as Wake Isle for Wakeport.
• While some have complained that Bowser is the main antagonist of the game, it makes sense in the context of the series. Every previous game had Bowser as a pawn to the new villain- here, he's sick of it and proving his status by ousting the new bad guy who's supposed to be the main antagonist. It's also worth pointing out that Mario & Luigi powered him up several times in the previous game.
• Due to the order of some scenes being played out, there is little to no room for Bowser to kidnap Peach after powering up the Dream Stone and swap her out with Kamek without any of the characters knowing, since Peach was never alone throughout most of the scenario. Then again, we have to remind ourselves that Bowser has the Dream Stone. Presumably, he used its power to pull off the switch.
  • Building on this, just before Mario and Luigi set out to find Peach at Driftwood Shores, the game fades out on Antasma telling Bowser to make his wish on the Dream Stone after Antasma used his own wish to create their new castle; Bowser says he knows exactly what he's going to wish for, making it pretty obvious that he pulled the switch off right then and there.

Fridge Horror

• Because of Antasma's actions in breaking the Dark Stone, all of the Pi'illos had been petrified rendering them as immobile pillows. So one has to ask: if it wasn't for Luigi's ability to open up dream portals, would they have stayed like this forever? One of the rescued Pi'illos seems to imply this at any rate, "If you hadn't come..."
• At the end of the game, the Zeekeeper destroys the Dream Stone... which was a living thing. Remember talking to it in the dream world?. Antasma does the same thing to the Dark Stone before the events of the game unfold. It's likely that it was also a living being with a soul of its own.
  • He only destroyed the stone not the spirit inside, if anything the spirit is now inside one of those coins.
• At one point before the Earthwake battle, the Pi'illo collector guy talks about how a 'terrible guardian attacks anyone who tries to claim the Nightmare Chunk', and then talks of the countless others who've tried and failed to get it. And that it's wrath was severe and horrible. Now keep in mind that this boss you fight is... pretty much a Humongous Mecha that the bros can only defeat thanks to a giant Luigi. What the hell happened to the last people who tried it, the ones who couldn't become a few hundred feet tall? It makes you wonder how badly mauled anyone ended up after trying to take on That One Boss with a few hundred times size different between them...
  • Even its giant-sized opponents likely didn't fare well, and given that it is prepared with things like armour implies that there were giants that tried to take on Earthwake in the past.
• Similarly, the game outright states that Pi'illodium has been guarding the Pi'illo Temple since the original kingdom collapsed and all but implies it's killed a heck of a lot of intruders since then. I mean, it even says something like 'cue mercy plea' at one point in the battle. And considers missiles, lasers and explosives as a 'reasonable' way to take out intruders. You just have to wonder how many previous adventurers/parties got blown up trying to go anywhere near the centre of Somnom Woods.
  • Very few if any, if what the one Zeekeeper mascot in Wakeport said is true. He mentions that most of the island has been developed for tourism but that Somnom woods is nearly virgin old growth forest that hasn't seen a lick of human contact since the Pi'illo times and that would make the unexplored forest mystical and spooky. Of course, it hardly seems like frontier wilderness once you actually play the level, but still it's interesting that it has that kind of reputation.
• After summoning Neo Bowser Castle, Antasma and Bowser test it out by firing on nearby islands. If the islands were inhabited, how many people were killed?! And that's not even going into what the environmental impact of the incident was. Even the minions think it's scary.
• Even though it was Played for Laughs, Private Goomp talks about how he wants to "boss around Kamek" and eventually Bowser. Well it isn't the first time they haven't bossed around Bowser before. Their thoughts of eventually betraying Bowser are still there.
• Dreamy Bowser. If he can take over a good portion of the universe without the Dream Stone, how far would he have gone if Mario and Luigi didn't stop him?
• The battle with Antasma (not the tutorial one) has one of his abilities be putting Mario to sleep and chasing him through a nightmare, where it's very possible for him to lose a lot of health or even get knocked out. Surely that implies that Mario died in his dreams?! Since when did this become A Nightmare on Elm Street?!
• The Pi'illos are finally free from their stony fate but their kingdom is long gone and their land has become a tourist attraction. Nothing will be truly the same for them.
  • Fortunately, the horror of this entry is mitigated somewhat, thanks to a few factors:
    • Most of the Pi'illos just seem happy to be alive again once they're freed, rather than concerned with the state of the island. There are even a few of them who show interest in partaking in nearby tourist attractions or are glad to see so many people visit Pi'illo Island.
    • Most of the island's tourist amenities either improve upon what they started out from or accommodate the original Pi'illo ruins and relicts into their design. Mushrise Park was said to have just been a muddy field before Brickle got it into shape, whatever they're doing with Dozing Sands is still under construction, and both Wakeport and Pi'illo Castle still feature all the original architecture of the Pi'illo, with some modern structures or conveniences installed to compliment it rather than overtaking it.
    • Going along with the above, the island's proprietor, Dr. Snoozemore, seems like the kind of guy who would take the Pi'illos' considerations into account concerning how the island is run in the future. It's not likely that they'll just be booted out of their ancestral home, especially since they'll presumably have the aid of the Mario Bros. and the Mushroom Kingdom, as well. The game even ends with Peach announcing in front of everyone that the Pi'illo Kingdom can now be brought back, and no one questions or objects to it.
    • To add to the pile, a plaque in the Pi'illo Castle treasure room reads that the island's renovations are consistently put on hold each time an artifact of the lost kingdom is uncovered, so that it can be properly documented and preserved. So, you can imagine how the reemergence of the entire population of said lost kingdom is going to affect things, according to that policy.