Luigi is Mario's perpetual understudy. While this is ostensibly the "year of Luigi" and he's gotten his own 3DS game in Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon$30.85 at Amazon and his own version of New Super Mario Bros. U$49.99 at GameFly with the New Super Luigi U$29.99 at Amazon DLC, he still plays second fiddle to his brother. That doesn't change in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team$39.99 at Dell, where Luigi's lack of popularity remains a running gag, but he at least takes a much more proactive stance in this $39.99 (direct) Nintendo 3DS game. Granted, he spends most of his time being useful by sleeping while Mario runs around, but it's justified in this game.
The story is silly, like every other Mario game's story tends to be. Mario and Luigi are invited to Pi'illo Island for vacation. An ancient evil that petrified the extinct Pi'illo civilization awakens and joins Mario's regular archnemesis Bowser to take over the island. Luigi finds he can open portals to dream worlds by slipping on the petrified pillow-shaped bodies of the Pi'illo people, cleansing them of darkness and awakening them to help fight Bowser and the nightmarish Antasma. The story is one to be enjoyed and isn't nearly as dark as it sounds.
Combat is also focused on the brothers, with the A button controlling Mario's menu options and the B button controlling Luigi's options. Each brother can attack with a stomp, a hammer, or team up for Bros. Attacks that combine their powers and hit enemies extra hard. The battles are turn-based, but extremely active; you directly control Mario and Luigi as they attack and get attacked. Just selecting Jump and attacking an enemy will do little damage. If you hit A just before Mario hits the enemy, though, he'll stomp on it extra-hard and then jump on it again. Likewise, when you get attacked you can reduce damage, avoid it completely, or even counter-attack and hurt enemies on their own turn. This mechanic has been around since the original Super Mario RPG, and it's one of the most engaging aspects of the series besides the characters themselves, because it makes combat a matter of skill and rhythm, not just stats.
Luigi's ability to become a horde of green brothers in the dream world also give Mario his special attacks while there; instead of standard Bros. attacks, Mario can work with the crowd of Luigis to form them into a ball to squish enemies, a hammer to smash enemies, or an air hockey puck to smash enemies. Certain boss fights even require the Luigis to merge to become a giant, Godzilla-sized Luigi in his dreams, beating back other giant enemies Mario and the regular dreaming Luigi can't handle on their own. These giant Luigi boss fights are stylus-based, but the same general strategy and structure remain.
If the bright, colorful, cartoon-like graphic design and silly story don't remind you, the first hour or two of the game will reiterate that this is a game intended for, among others, children. It holds your hand with tutorials and interruptions to introduce you to game mechanics for far too long, and if you're older than 12 or have ever played a Mario & Luigi game before you'll probably find this frustrating. Fortunately, after the first few dungeon areas, the game relaxes its grip on your hand and lets you play without a smiling yellow ball or floating pillow fairy interrupting you to tell you how to dodge attacks.
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