YMMV / Mario & Luigi

YMMV pages to specific games

• Superstar Saga
• Partners in Time
• Bowser's Inside Story
• Dream Team
• Paper Jam

YMMV to the series

• Awesome Art: Akira Noguchi's concept and promotional art uses a strange, very unique, very colorful style that looks wonderful. The sprites are also some of the most popular in the Mario franchise, to the point that it's popular to customize them.
• Awesome Music: All the games have been scored by Yoko Shimomura, so it's not surprising at all. Some examples include The Grand Finale from Bowser's Inside Story or Never Let Up! from Dream Team.
• Base-Breaking Character: Starlow gets quite a lot of hate for being an annoying Exposition Fairy, and for constantly picking on Luigi. The fact that she serves the same role in later games, while other characters from the series vanish or get Demoted to Extra, also upsets some players (especially in Paper Jam, where she is the only original character who makes a return). Even Bowser gets increasingly annoyed with her in Bowser's Inside Story as the game goes on. However, she isn't completely disliked, as some players like her for her design, tsundere personality, Odd Friendship with Princess Peach, and think that her quips at Luigi are funny and the game makes it clear that she doesn't hate him after all. Plus, there are some that think her later appearances redeemed her character somewhat.
• Broken Base: While Bowser's depiction as one of the protagonists in Bowser's Inside Story is universally loved, fans are divided on how he's depicted in the rest of the series. Bowser goes from an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain and Butt-Monkey in Superstar Saga and Partners in Time to a Knight of Cerebus Big Bad in Dream Team and Paper Jam. Both portrayals have their fans, who frequently argue about which characterization works better for the Koopa King.
• Common Knowledge: How exactly the Bowser's Inside Story remake caused AlphaDream's demise. While the remake was undoubtedly the final nail in the coffin, it wasn't the only reason why the company went bankrupt. Sales of the entire Mario & Luigi series had been on a downward trend; Dream Team only sold 100,000 copies on its opening weekend compared to Bowser's Inside Story selling twice that much (not a total failure, but well below Nintendo's expectations), and Paper Jam was even worse, only selling 50,000 on its opening weekend and barely managing to crack a million total copies by the end of its life. Not helping matters was that AlphaDream had seemingly abandoned releasing any games outside of the Mario & Luigi series, having not made a single game outside of it since 2009. With its flagship series' new installments failing, they tried to make up for their losses by releasing remakes of their most successful games. However, insiders at the company reported a reluctance by studio heads to move into full HD development^note According to producer Akito Otani, they wanted to stick with the 3DS because it meant they could develop the remakes cheaper than if they moved to Switch, since then they could reuse assets and code from Dream Team instead of having to entirely rebuild everything for HD, leading to them releasing Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions on the 3DS in the same year that the Nintendo Switch released and interest in the 3DS was at an all-time low. As a result, it sold less than a million copies. Refusing to learn from past failures and releasing Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey in 2019 (when the 3DS was all but dead, only receiving extremely small-scale ports that received very little interest; not helped by how the 3DS was backwards-compatible with the DS and thus could already play the original) was undeniably the wrong move, but it wasn't the sole reason AlphaDream went under; it was the culmination of several years of slowly digging themselves into a financial hole they could never have recovered from.
• Complete Monster: Partners in Time: The younger Princess Shroob is the acting ruler of the Shroobs, and debuts leading an invasion force to lay waste to the Mushroom Kingdom and depose Princess Peach. Under her heel, the Mushroom Kingdom is reduced to a charnel wasteland, while Toad towns and villages are depopulated so the Shroobs can suck out their life force to fuel their spacecraft, an agonizing and wasting process for the captured Toads. She also unleashes the Yoshi-eating Yoob on the Mushroom Kingdom, transforming whatever it eats into more Yoobs. Princess Shroob also makes a vile public spectacle of Princess Peach's attempted execution, trying to feed her to Petey Piranha in front of a bloodthirsty audience of thousands. Princess Shroob is the crowning example of cruelty even among her Always Chaotic Evil species, and is one of the most sadistic villains ever to appear in a Mario game.
• Contested Sequel: Every game after Superstar Saga with the exception of its own 3DS remake and Bowser's Inside Story, which is seen either as an Even Better Sequel or in the same league, has been met with this.
  • Partners in Time got it mainly because of its extreme linearity, overly long boss battles, replacing Bros. Attacks and Points with Bros. Items, total lack of post-game content, and more. In spite of this, many like the idea of having four characters in battle as opposed of two like in most other games, enjoy the darker tone of it compared to the rest of the series, like the bosses being durable and longer, and the linearity can make the game faster-paced compared to others.
  • Dream Team was this to Bowser's Inside Story, mainly due to its slow pacing and excessive Forced Tutorials, although the latter has always been a problem in the Mario & Luigi series (that said, Dream Team is the worst offender in this regard). Other reasons include the fact that Bowser is the true main villain after being the main protagonist in the previous game, with the supposed main villain Antasma being a Generic Doomsday Villain, or the sometimes broken gyro controls,^note Generally, Motion controls in normal battles would work fine, but were frequently irresponsive in Giant Battles. something that the next game removed entirely. However, some would argue that Dream Team has the best gameplay in the series significantly expanding on the offensive and defensive actions during battle, with many of its boss fights being some of the best, like the motion controls when they work, that it has some clever use of the dream world mechanics, great level design, one of —if not the— best soundtrack of the series, and the fact that it still had unique characters and locations as opposed to the approach followed by many recent Mario RPG games.
  • Paper Jam deserves a mention for being a Contested Sequel to two games that were already Contested Sequels. While Paper Jam had an interesting spin on the formula (having three separate characters in battle as opposed to two) and got rid of the slow pacing, bad gyro controls and Forced Tutorials that plagued Dream Team, the game suffered from a total lack of original characters and locations, much like in Paper Mario: Sticker Star (however, it makes up for that by having excellent characterization, as opposed to Sticker Star's Flat Characters), and the tutorial syndrome being essentially replaced with overly frequent (and most often annoying) Paper Toad Hunts, contributing to the Toad species' divisive (or Scrappy, if you ask a Paper Mario fan) status due to being overly prominent. Added to the fact that Bowser is the main villain yet again along with his paper self (only that he's clearly the Big Bad from the beginning, unlike in Dream Team), there's no Hard Mode like in Dream Team (which isn't helped by the lowered difficulty overall), and the giant battles from the previous two games being replaced with Papercraft battles, often considered a Replacement Scrappy to the former, some fans would rather play Dream Team instead, especially since both games play very similar and Paper Jam suffers from several things that the later Paper Mario games also did, of which the former didn't.
  • The Video Game Remakes of Superstar Saga and Bowser's Inside Story are fairly contested, the former for its many changes to Early Installment Character-Design Difference, the latter for being perceived as unnecessary and being the final nail the coffin, ending the franchise with its bad sales, and both for their graphical/musical choices and focus on Real-Time Strategy side modes.
• Designated Monkey: A lot of fans believe that Luigi's Butt-Monkey status in the series is taken unreasonably far, as most dialogue surrounding him from NPCs consist of either not knowing who he is, or placing Mario on a pedestal compared to him. It also doesn't help that Stuffwell and Starlow's primary Running Gag is the two constantly ragging on Luigi, and his status as a Cosmic Plaything reaches its lowest in Partners in Time when the Star Gate gaslights Luigi into thinking he's self-centered and not a team player, despite it being a Secret Test of Character for Mario.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Popple's popularity led to him making a return for Dream Team, albeit still as a minor character.
  • Dream Team players have found the Massif Bros as two more characters with hilarious speech patterns, between their Russian accents and their constant mention of BEEF!
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Fawful is one of the most beloved and quoted characters among the Mario fanbase for his hilarious personality and speech patterns.
  • Bowser. The first two games (especially Superstar Saga) give him the short end of the stick, but his playable role and ridiculous feats in Bowser's Inside Story are well-loved, and subsequent games let him keep the levels of badass he took and turn him into even more of a Knight of Cerebus than he is in the main platformers while keeping him as hilariously hammy as always.
• Fandom Rivalry: For a long time, fans of both Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario were Friendly Fandoms, in no small part thanks to both series having several similarities while being different at the same time. That was until Nintendo ^note  or more specifically, the producers of Paper Mario at the time revealed that they were planning to make Mario & Luigi the de facto Mario RPG series, and Paper Mario would continue in Sticker Star's direction, saying that Paper Mario wouldn't need RPG elements since the former "already covered those" (which is pretty ironic given that the Mario & Luigi series incorporates platforming elements into its gameplay a lot moreso than Paper Mario). Now Paper Mario fans often argue that Mario & Luigi can't replace the former, among other things. Due to a significant overlap in both fandoms, not only do Paper Mario fans not actually dislike Mario & Luigi fans, but fans of Mario & Luigi also disagree with the idea of "already covering" the RPG audience. Each series are noticeably different in formula, plus the idea of Mario genre dibs were never mentioned once until the Paper Mario games were facing backlash, making the statement about not having two Mario RPG series even more controversial and suspect. Additionally, both series would end up in the same position of unsure futures after having major sales flops around the time Nintendo's Nintendo Switch sparked a transitional period for the company.
• First Installment Wins: Despite the sequels developing on and streamlining the gameplay further, many people still cite Superstar Saga as the best one in the series. On the other hand, many fans consider Bowser's Inside Story as the best one, or at least second to Superstar Saga, in no small part thanks to the improved gameplay, Fawful as the main antagonist and of course, Bowser as the main character.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • The series never really had many interesting Toad NPCs, there may have been Toadbert, Toadiko and Doctor Toadley, but that was it. Most were just the standard multicolored Toads, and by Dream Team the standard multicolored Toads were the only Toads to speak of, outside a token appearance by Toadsworth. This was mitigated by the fact that there were other interesting and unique NPCs that were unique to the series. Paper Jam does away with the unique NPCs and has most of the NPCs be generic Toads or Paper Toads.
  • The series' lack of innovation between games wasn't a big issue early on when budgets were smaller and each game could be carried by its unique theme, writing/characters, and gimmicks. This ended up causing issues starting with Paper Jam, which despite still being a fun game had a more generic feeling to it compared to the first four due to the restrictions it was held to, so it didn't get much attention. With the following two games being remakes instead of wholly new titles (and being on the 3DS, which was quickly losing relevancy), it was easy for players who had already jumped ship to pass them by, and the increased cost of making 3DS entries didn't do AlphaDream any favors.
  • Though Partners in Time gets some flack from some fans for its lack of post-game content, Superstar Saga also had a complete lack of post-game content. It wasn't until Bowser's Inside Story and following entries (including the remake of Superstar Saga) that the series added something to do after clearing the game such as a Bonus Gauntlet with super bosses, Minigames, and Expert Challenges or some sort of Achievement System.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The games are much more popular in North America than they are in Japan, Europe or South Korea. The English translation Woolseyisms probably help.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The final battle of Superstar Saga was set inside Bowser's body. Guess what's one of the main settings of the third game?
  • Likewise, in the Warmup Boss battle against Bowser in the third game, Luigi is seen sleeping. In the next game, Luigi sleeping and exploring the dream world are some of its main features.
  • Also, Bowser complains about fat jokes when he gets stuck in a Bullet Bill Blaster in the first game. A major plot point in the third game has him gaining weight from overeating.
  • The final boss themes from Bowser's Inside Story onwards are often cited as being In the Style of the Kingdom Hearts series, same composer and all. Come Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Sora can actually fight with or against the Mario cast, not to mention that "The Grand Finale" is already a track in the game.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Luigi and Starlow have been shipped with nearly everyone under the sun. Luigi has been shipped with Bowser and Prince Peasley, often depicting him as an Uke, while Starlow has been shipped with Stuffwell and Dreambert, often making her Tsundere side more prevalent. And of course, Luigi x Starlow has an equally strong following.
• Magnificent Bastard: Fawful is introduced as a kooky, crafty subordinate to Cackletta before graduating to Big Bad of the third game in the series. Covertly selling a mushroom causing the Blorbs disease to the Toads of the Mushroom Kingdom, Fawful takes advantage of the chaos to provide Bowser with the Vacuum Shroom to allow him to stir up more trouble as he inhales everything in sight. Taking over Bowser's castle, Fawful brainwashes the former's minions into helping him fatten their boss up to allow him to extract Princess Peach from his body and awaken the Dark Star to rule the Mushroom Kingdom. Even when faced down by Bowser and the Mario brothers, Fawful takes in all the power he can to fight to his last.
• Memetic Badass: Thanks to the series' main mechanic of being able to dodge or counter any attack, along with the games' tendency to include overpowered Bros. Attacks, this series' versions of Mario and Luigi are believed to be capable of defeating literally anyone — even someone as strong as Sephiroth.
• Pandering to the Base: After the ho-hum reception of Paper Jam, the next two games in the series to be announced were remakes of Superstar Saga and Bowser's Inside Story, its two most beloved games — a pretty clear attempt to win back their old fans while introducing them to new ones. While well-reviewed and well-liked by the fans who did play them, it otherwise didn't work out well.
• Self-Fanservice: Starlow is barely anything more than a floating orb with feet in terms of anatomy. Despite this, she has oodles of Rule 34 made of her on the internet, a lot of which tends to anthropomorphize her. It doesn't help that she unwittingly confesses to basically being naked 24/7 in Dream Team.
  Starlow: HEY NOW! Who's nude?! Open your eyes! I have SHOES!
• Sequel Difficulty Spike:
  • The stats of bosses and such in Partners in Time are ridiculously hard compared to the first one since you have four brothers. That gives you more attack power and more longevity. If the enemies had stats in line with those from the first game, they'd be wiped out.
  • The fourth game eventually becomes downright brutal. Enemies become powerful enough to take entire chunks out of your hit points, with attack tells being much harder to spot. Several bosses have attacks that are both fast and powerful, and the complexity of their bigger moves only adds to the difficulty.^note One of the last bosses (Final Antasma) even has an attack that goes on for eternity if you don't stop it yourself. Don't be surprised if the last bosses can kill you in a few hits. There's also the added Expert Challenges, which dare you to fight in certain ways in order to obtain points to unlock rewards.
• Tough Act to Follow: While nowhere near as bad as in its sister series, some fans believe that every game after Superstar Saga has failed to reach the same level of quality. Likewise, some feel that Bowser's Inside Story was the series' high point, and that both Dream Team and Paper Jam were disappointing successors to the third game. It's not the same case at all, however, because the games were still well-received in spite of those fans' opinions, unlike the widely considered Audience-Alienating Era of the Paper Mario games from the 2010s.
• The Woobie: Luigi, who is treated in all games like a massive Butt-Monkey, most jokes are made at the expense of him, Bowser doesn't remember his name most of the time, and prominent character Starlow constantly picks on him. This makes players feel bad for him, because true to his character Luigi is nothing but a Nice Guy in all games. Some examples are this scene and this scene from Superstar Saga and Partners in Time respectively, which show Luigi's woobieness when he breaks down crying in both of them.
• Woolseyism:
  • The games are known for diverting drastically from the Japanese scripts whenever Rule of Funny comes into play. The Hammer Bros. in the second game in particular definitely did not speak in 1337 in the original. ^note In fact, they only spoke in katakana in the original Japanese, which is commonly used like Robo Speak would be, so perhaps that was a fresh take on the concept.
  • Fawful is interesting here because he talks in a different funny way in every single translation. He adds "ru" to the end of every sentence (repeatedly) in Japanese, has mangled Engrish in English, a strong accent in French, stutters in German, uses made-up words in Italian, speaks very literal English to Spanish in the Latin American Spanish version, speaks in refined Spanish with set phrases in the European Spanish version, and adds "rong" at the end of every sentence in the Korean version. He also speaks in metaphors in multiple versions.

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