Note: Minion Quest: The Search for Bowser examples go here.
- Accidental Innuendo: Dirty-minded players will crack a smile every time they find super, ultra, and max nuts.
- Annoying Video Game Helper: Two in the original, which were thankfully adjusted in the remake.
- The Hammerhead Bros.' But Thou Must! attitude towards their Hammer tutorial, complete with pretending to allow you to skip it and then coming back, can really make them come across as this.
- The Koopa Troopa that teaches Mario and Luigi how to fight as a pair pulls a similar tutorial skip fakeout. If you decline the tutorial, he pretty much says, "Okay, but if you get beaten due to your ignorance, it would be all your fault." Once you get to a mandatory fight against a Goomba, however, the Koopa suddenly reappears and gives you the tutorial anyway, claiming that Bowser would get upset with him if he doesn't.
- Awesome Video Game Level: Woohoo Hooniversity is often lauded as a memorable location, due to its incredibly unique and dark setting, myriad of references to past games (like the Donkey Kong inspired rooms and the viruses from Dr. Mario as enemies), the Climax Boss battle with Cackletta, and the funniest Popple fight in the game.
- Base-Breaking Character:
- Bowser has become this in hindsight, thanks to his more badass and competent appearances in Bowser's Inside Story, Dream Team and Paper Jam. Superstar Saga is arguably the Mario game that shows Bowser at his most patheticnote , as he spends most of the game either as an amnesiac sidekick to Popple or a passive vessel for Cackletta, all while being kicked around by the universe and not having a single boss fight as himself other than the tutorial fight. As such, fans of Bowser's later appearances tend to dislike how he was portrayed in this game, while other fans find his comic relief antics amusing and enjoy his Butt-Monkey role across the RPGs. Some in the latter camp argue that if Bowser wasn't benched in the story, then there wouldn't be as much focus on the other villains, and Superstar Saga was one of the very few Mario games at the time not to have Bowser as a main villain.
- Bowletta. While Cackletta herself is considered straight-up cool in her initial and final boss forms, her Bowletta form is more polarizing; she's either a unique and bizarre twist of a villain for the Mario series, or a waste of Cackletta's unique design by turning her into a literal expy of Bowser that turns him into even more of a useless joke.
- Broken Base:
- Superstar Saga is highly beloved, so the remake caused some breakage. Many fans were disappointed that much of the unique designs for characters were changed to conform more to mainline Mario design standards, feeling that the game's Early-Installment Weirdness in that regard was one of its major charm points and that it feels soulless without them. They also dislike the removal of some unique NPCs like Psycho Kamek and the Geno cameo (not helped by this game coming out after the Paper Mario series dropped almost every original character and species they had created, causing people to perceive the disliked changes of that series as creeping in on this one), and the continued use of the contested graphical style of Dream Team and Paper Jam. Other fans are just happy to see an RPG as unique as Superstar Saga getting attention at all, enjoying the updated graphics and seeing the redesigns and removals as a consequence of time passing or a way of tying it in with the rest of the series.
- The remake's soundtrack also has mixed opinions from the fanbase. Some see it as a way of Yoko Shimomura losing her touch, as some songs either downplay some of the instruments of the song (the final boss theme for example) or just simply fall apart. Others believe that the OST is better than the original due to not having to deal with the bitcrushed and compressed samples on the GBA and enjoy the various liberties the music takes with the original score (the lengthened standard battle theme being a notable example).
- Demonic Spiders:
- Sharkbones from Gwarhar Lagoon. They are hard to tell from the Blurps (with fins) and their main method of attacking is digging out from the sand and biting you. Not to mention that this bite will badly poison you, making it hard to deal with unless you finish these guys off quickly.
- Clumphs. They've got massive HP and generally come in pairs, making for a very long fight. And they're no slouches in the power department either, as they sport one of the biggest non-boss attack stats in the game. They can be instantly defeated by Mario's Firebrand, but it's random and you got no experience by doing it. That they're Joke's End enemies, meaning you must battle them alone along with the other monsters in the zone, doesn't help. And if you're controlling Luigi (who has the Thunderhand ability instead of Firebrand, meaning no instant defeat with him), prepare for a lot of pain.
- The Gunner Guys in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. They only have one attack, but it comes in two varieties and it's hard to determine how it will attack you. And if they hit you, you will not only take a lot of damage, but the risk of getting immobilized too. The same dungeon also features Hammer Bros. (which generally appear along Gunner Guys). Hard-to-dodge and very powerful attacks make them one of the most dangerous enemies in the game. Another tough enemy is the Sniper Bill. Their only attack always reveals the bro they're targetting, but they launch themselves right after shooting, meaning you have time your dodging exactly to avoid both hits.
- Bob-Ombs are notable for having a very crippling self-destruction attack (which has a high chance of causing dizziness to a brother, completely leaving them open for further strikes until their turn comes). Said attack is very unintuitive to counter, as the player must scare them off with a preemptive hammer swing as they get close instead of hitting them outright, otherwise risking a direct explosion to the face. The timing for this is also pretty narrow and tricky to pull off.
- Epileptic Trees: Because Bowletta uses Bowser's voice in the 3DS remake rather than Cackletta's, some people speculate that, in keeping with the game attempting to dilute his Butt-Monkey status, it implies that he retained some unconscious influence or control over the gestalt.
- Evil Is Cool: Cackletta really knows how to be intimidating, especially in her spirit form. It helps that she was the second female main antagonist in a Mario game (following Captain Syrup), predating the Shadow Queen by one year.
- Fan-Preferred Cut Content: The Starbeans Café was intended to house a number of cameos from other Nintendo characters that ended up being replaced for unknown reasons. Unused dialogue and sprites
exist depicting Samus, Link, Fox McCloud, Olimar, an Excitebike racer, and even Wario arriving to sample the drinks you made and give you exclusive gear in return. Ultimately, these were all removed in favor of just using Professor E. Gadd for each scene instead, which many consider a letdown compared to the crossovers and especially Wario, who fans have wanted to see in a Mario RPG for some time. The gear each character would've given is still handed out by E. Gadd, but most of it has been renamed to make the references to other franchises less obvious. - First Installment Wins: A lot of fans consider Superstar Saga to be the best of the Mario & Luigi series, only rivaled by Bowser's Inside Story.
- Game-Breaker:
- The Mush Badge, which increases the Brothers' power depending on how many mushrooms they have. If you try to buy 99 of each mushroom, no one will stop you. This also makes Great Force more usable. Great Force doubles the damage you deal while also doubling the damage you take; that second part doesn't matter so much because, with both Great Force and the Mush Badge, you can destroy almost every boss in one round.
- Get Great Force ASAP, which is after Chucklehuck Woods. Have one Brother equip that and have one equip the Bonus Ring, which you must have if you have Great Force. If you fight every enemy in the game after and take little damage, you can one hit kill almost any enemy in the game. Bosses can get taken down in two turns. With the Bonus Ring, which doubles Experience if you don't get hit, Great Force's side effect of the Bros. taking double damage becomes meaningless, especially with bosses, which have Save Albums right before them... needless to say, a Great Force-Bonus Ring combo destroys anything, enough to the point where it's plausible to take out late-game bosses without Bros. Attacks, including the final boss. Not as game breaking as the above example, but still makes the game pathetically easy.
- The matching pants that complete the ensemble—the ones that boost your Stache stat (chance to crit for extra damage) based on your Mushroom count.
- Utilize Chopper Bros. extensively at level 3, and focus your level up bonuses on BP, ATK and SP, and you have a boss-killer attack, even if you don't use the advanced version of the move.
- Get the Advanced Thunder Bros. If you get it right, then it reduces the enemy's attack so that they only do 1 damage with each hit, and even works on most bosses. It only hits one enemy, but since many of the bosses have only one section, that frequently doesn't matter.
- The easiest way to max out all of your stats is to drink nothing but Teeheespressos. This is because its ingredients, Woo Beans and Hee Beans, are by far the easiest to collect (Woo Beans can be earned just by fighting enemies in the area surrounding Beanbean Castle Town, while Hee Beans are awarded for the various minigames you can play), regardless of the fact that you can't specifically choose which stat you want to raise with Teeheespressos.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Fawful's hilariously-broken English, a significant reason why he's the Ensemble Dark Horse, was a Woolseyism done for the American release. As such, he has a massive fanbase among Americans.
- Goddamned Bats:
- Troopeas, Elite Troopeas, Paratroopeas and Scaratroopeas. Not only do they have very high defense, they can also heal or even resurrect other enemies in battle, including themselves, making them extremely annoying if you can't defeat them in one or two hits.
- Magikoopas, for the very same reason as Troopeas (healing enemies and hard to kill), but with the extra feature that they can also boost other enemies or themselves, and attack with very powerful fire spells.
- Malibuts. While they're not very strong, they retaliate as soon as you attack them, even if it's not their turn, and their attack have a fairly long animation, making countering them annoying and time-consuming.
- Lakipeas are not very strong or particularly noteworthy in battle, but in the overworld they will home in on you regardless of where they are relative to you and make you have to dodge around their thrown Sharpeas while you're trying to navigate. Adding to the frustration is that you need to initiate battle with the Lakipea specifically to get rid of it; you won't fight it if you engage the thrown Sharpeas instead.
- Good Bad Bugs: Strength and Defense Buffs (and Debuffs) become permanent once you die. And they still stack with temporary buffs/debuffs.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The final battle involves Bowletta inhaling Mario and Luigi. This would later become the central plot of Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.
- Remember the entry about the Mushroom vs. Beanbean exchange rate? Now consider that Mario & Luigi: Dream Team ends with the Zeekeeper showering 80 million coins on Pi'illo Island, which would be used as a tourist attraction. The big bird probably didn't really take inflation into account.
- Hermie III, a giant crab somewhat larger than the humans in this universe obsessed with a shiny artifact, can be reminiscent of Tamatoa.
- Bowser gets stuck in a Bullet Bill blaster and warns the Mario Bros. not to make any dieting jokes. Two games later, Starlow decides to ignore that warning once Bowser gets stuck again, this time actually due to him gaining weight.
- In the 3DS remake, the fan-favorite Geno's cameo was removed presumably due to unwillingness to request Square Enix's permission to use him again. Come the June 2023 Nintendo Direct, a remake of Super Mario RPG gets announced, finally letting Geno return in his full glory.
- One of the shared attacks is named Splash Bros. A few years later, NBA players Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson would adopt “Splash Bros” as their shared nickname.
- Ho Yay: Luigi being flattered by Prince Peasley has been interpreted as romantic attraction.
- It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Aside from the inclusion of Minion Quest and a few patched up mechanics, a majority of the remake's content is exactly the same as it is in the original. So if you've already played the original, not much will be new or very different.
- Jerkass Woobie: Bowser is continuously humiliated for most of the game, and he doesn't even do anything that villainous. He is shot out of a cannon following the intro, which causes him to lose his memory and become the unwitting servant of Popple. When he finally remembers his true identity, he is possessed by Cackletta and loses his free will. At the end of the game, the Mario bros. leave him behind as his castle explodes, and he is captured and trapped in a giant box by Prince Peasley immediately afterwards.
- Magnificent Bastard: Fawful counts; see main page for details.
- Memetic Mutation:
- I HAVE FURY! Explanation
- Mario humming his series' theme in the shower is quite popular in Super Mario 64 Bloopers.
- It has become traditional to set the main battle theme to scenes of people making funky gestures, such as this pair of baseball players.
- WHAT IS THE DEAL?! ExplanationThe full rant
- Time for some muffins! Explanation
- Move and let the rhythm be your guide, now you're prepped to c o m m i t h o m i c i d eExplanation
- Most Wonderful Sound: Luigi saying "THUNDER!", especially due to how he rolls the R sound when saying it.
- Once Original, Now Common: The fact that Luigi was equal fiddle to Mario isn't exactly surprising anymore.
- One-Scene Wonder:
- The very popular Geno makes a brief appearance as the host of a minigame in Little Fungitown. Some of his more dedicated fans have admitted to buying Superstar Saga once they heard of his brief appearance here. Unfortunately, his cameo is removed from the 3DS remake, likely due to Nintendo not wanting to pay royalties to Square Enix again.
- The Koopalings in the original release. This was their first appearance in a non-obscure title ever since Super Mario World, released 13 years prior. They would only return to the series full force by 2010 with New Super Mario Bros Wii, so this "stopgap" appearance that consisted of nothing more of short minigame + fight was the only thing their fans had in a 20-year gap of near absence.
- Popular with Furries: Bowletta, given that she uses Bowser's body (himself popular with furry Bara Genre fans) but is a full-on Fusion Dance Gender Flip with well-defined breasts. There was even some crossover with Super Crown memes and their fan characters, with fanart depicting Bowletta either meeting/being compared to Bowsette or donning the Super Crown herself to become a three-way fusion known as "Bowsetta".
- Salvaged Story: Bowser's role in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga was criticized by some for turning him into a complete joke of a Butt-Monkey and giving him barely any opportunity to shine. While the 3DS remake doesn't turn him into the complete badass that he was in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, it gives him more exposure, insight and depth via the Minion Quest mode where his minions work to save him, and shows he's just fine in the ending. The mode also fleshes out his story a bit more, giving him more moments where he fights back and turning his transformation into Rookie into a heartwarming moment rather than a cheap joke
- Sequel Difficulty Drop: The American version and subsequent remakes featured some new amenities:
- Heart blocks, which were previously exclusive to the Japanese version of the original, appear in all versions here, and with greater frequency.
- As in the Japanese version, an icon telling players to move shows up when Toad is controlled to make it more obvious he is being controlled. Similarly, the Mario Bros. have a conversation to alert players they need a hammer to leave Hoohoo Village.
- Bros. Attacks now have red and green rings to help the player with timing the attacks.
- Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: There are a great number of minigames throughout the Beanbean Kingdom that one can play to farm beans as well as attaining high scores. The surfing minigame run by a pair of Oho Jees is especially valuable for being the only source of Hoo Beans outside of rare and hard-to-find invisible blocks.
- Spoiled by the Format: The fight against Cackletta at Woohoo Hooniversity seems like the Final Boss...but you realize you still can't break the purple or black rocks, charge blue orbs, or push Boo statues.
- Suspiciously Similar Song: Teehee Valley's theme sounds almost like a slowed-down version of Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor by Brahms.
- That One Attack:
- The biggest reason the final fight with Cackletta is such an annoying boss comes from her spinning arms move, which she has a high chance of using at the very beginning (when Mario and Luigi are down to one HP, making it an insta-kill attack in essence), possibly before the player even gets to do anything (if you're not the type to Level Grind, then it's very likely that Cackletta will outspeed both brothers). Her other starting moves are a bit troublesome too, but dodging/countering those is far more intuitive to do at the very least. The spinning arms, however, are known to slow down or speed up with little warning, and in fact may even stunlock the brothers if the player doesn't react fast.
- In the final stretches of the final battle, Cackletta will start summoning colored energy orbs that teleport around the screen and then fly towards its respective colored brother. This move is an erratic mess that demands the player to pay attention to everywhere in the screen while simultaneously countering the energy orbs (while also keeping an eye for the ones that are just decoys). The individual orbs themselves aren't that strong, but they are fast and wear health down quickly due to being so numerous.
- That One Boss:
- Trunkle can be a real pain depending on how you choose to fight him. The worst part about the mutant Sudowoodo thing is that there's no indication that you have to (let alone the fact that it's even possible) attack the orange in his hair instead of the beast itself. And in the remake, he even covers his weak spot once you deal enough damage to him.
- Jojora's friend has a lot of HP and a kissing attack that she can use to recover.
- In the original game, Ludwig von Koopa is fought very similarly to Iggy Koopa, but his fight is significantly changed in the remake. He charges up a giant orb and fires out smaller orbs, all which can be relatively tough to dodge. The smaller orbs deal a crapton of damage and the giant orb is instant death. To win the battle, the giant orb must be hammered back to him. Miss the timing and the fight starts over.
- Wendy O. Koopa in the remake. She's bearable at first, but upon taking enough damage she starts splitting into six and spinning at such a ridiculous speed that it's nigh impossible to follow the real Wendy. Couple that with the fact she's also a Time-Limit Boss, and the fight turns into a Luck-Based Mission. The fact her ring attack is awkward to dodge and can inflict Heavy G status makes it all worse.
- That One Component: Hoo Beans are among the four different types of beans you can collect to craft new coffees and obtain unique, powerful equipment from E. Gadd. However, their nature as individual rewards from non-renewable invisible blocks makes them annoyingly hard to find early on and there's no reliable way to farm those until you get access to a surfing minigame close to the endgame, and even then you must Do Well, But Not Perfect multiple times to earn a good amount of said beans (since you only get one per successful try).
- That One Level:
- Walking along the Seabed can be a pain due to the slow movement speed and awkward swimming controls. Special mention must go to the sections where you have to swim over a bunch of spikes. Thankfully averted in the remake, where you can swim really high. Still kinda awkward when swimming above objects that you'd technically be able to swim over normally, but can't.
- Teehee Valley saddles you with a Escort Mission where you need to protect Princess Peach from being kidnapped by the local mooks, which is unnecessarily annoying thanks to Peach's Artificial Stupidity. You then have a Boss Battle against Trunkle, which can be fairly difficult if you don't know what you're doing.
- Joke's End is a large and labyrinthine dungeon that contains extended sequences where each Bro has to explore alone through enemy-filled territory. The final dungeon is actually easier to navigate because it's far more straightforward.
- That One Sidequest:
- At the beginning of the solo sequence in Joke's End, you can see an out of reach switch on Luigi's side of the fence that you need a barrel to reach. After the solo sequence ends, you won't find another barrel until right before the boss. You have to get Luigi into that barrel and slowly backtrack through almost the entire level so Mario can get on the barrel and hit the switch. As a result of the barrel mechanics, getting into any battle will result in the barrel breaking and having to go back to where the barrel was. The reward is only Hoo Beans, of which the game practically gives you 15 of after finishing Joke's End and can be farmed in the surfing minigame; thus, barely anyone does this once they find out. This is only the case in the original, however; the remake, where it is required to get all of the blocks and music, makes it much easier to pull off. Funny enough, the original barrel still appears in the boss room, despite now being obsolete.
- Getting Hoo Beans in general, in order to complete E. Gadd's coffee shop venture. The aforementioned surfing minigame is the only way to obtain them reliably, and yields two of every bean sans the Hee Bean upon getting the best possible time the second time onward (the first time yields a unique piece of gear). It's unlikely that you'll find enough Hoo Bean invisible blocks to brew all of E. Gadd's coffee drinks before that point, forcing you to wait until near the endgame to be able to complete that sidequest and get all of his rewards.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- Fans weren't happy that some of the original GBA version's more cartoony animation and effects were downplayed in the 3DS remake (for example, the Toads no longer get Blank White Eyes when Cackletta and Fawful steal Princess Peach's voice at the beginning of the game, and when the Mario Bros. and Bowser meet her afterwards, her tears are no longer Ocular Gushers, but instead exist as mere particles that don't even hit the ground).
- Some fans are also annoyed the remake changed some of the more unique character designs, such as the Koopa Troop members on the Koopa Cruiser getting the standard Koopa design instead of the GBA version's helmeted design, and the Toads all having the standard Toad design with different colors rather than varying in height and clothing. The redone graphics have also gotten complaints in some circles, particularly the mountainous areas.
- The music has also been the subject of derisive comments. A particular example would be the rendition of the final boss music, in which the organ music seems to overpower the electric guitar.
- Many fans weren't happy that Bink got his unique skeleton-gorilla design replaced with the same skeleton crew sprites of the S. S. Chuckola, removing the Donkey Kong reference to the minigame.
- The removal of Geno's cameo from the Star 'Stache Smash arcade, probably because Nintendo either couldn't or didn't bother to get the rights again from Square Enix.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The Beanstar ultimately plays no role in the story besides needing to be recovered and then reassembled, which is really a shame because this is a highly sought-after wish-granting trinket we're talking about here. Heck, you never even see it awake outside of its backstory and for a few seconds during the credits, which has led many to wonder what its personality was like (if it had one; it does seem sentient). This is especially glaring during the endgame: since Peach had been rescued by then, she could've woken it up so the Bros. could wish for a way to access Bowser's Castle in the sky, but they get there with Blablanadon instead.
- Unintentional Period Piece:
- Bowletta uses a Game Boy Advance (replaced with a Nintendo 3DS in the remake) as a communicator and one book mentions the rumble feature of the Nintendo GameCube.
- Now that the main Super Mario Bros. platformers make a point of having Luigi playable and prominent, the jokes about his second-fiddle status and him staying behind to "protect the homefront" can lose some of the impact they originally had in 2003.
- Visual Effects of Awesome: Regardless of the reactions about the Sprite/Polygon Mix used for the 3DS remake, but one thing's for sure is that the updated backgrounds, animations, and lighting make the game much more visually compelling.
- Win Back the Crowd: The 3DS remake won over disgruntled Mario RPG fans who were hoping for the return of wacky, brand-new and more original characters and settings after the divisive reception of Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, and Paper Mario: Color Splash, which were criticized for being watered down.
