The N64's Paper Mario was easily one of the best games of the last generation. In fact, I'd place it above Ocarina of Time, the Zelda game that most everyone else says is the best N64 game ever. In Paper Mario, the infallable and eager Mario led a team of Mushroom Kingdom heroes into the usual fray against Bowser on a search for seven missing stars. (Luigi was largely unseen, spending the entire time at the Bros. home.) Using a lightened RPG format, Paper Mario was completely accessible yet customizable and challenging. Superstar Saga picks up the substance of Paper Mario and evolves it for the GBA.
The Paper Mario pedigree boils down to this: turn-based battles, long the bane of many of the more stolid, boring RPGs, are transformed into a cartoonish sequence of timed button presses. At no point in a battle can you look away. You need to always be ready to smack a button, either to do extra damage on your attack, or to guard against an incoming hit. In fact, the enemies all have specialized attacks, most of which feature some kind of hidden "tell" so you can anticipate which brother will be attacked (if not both of them) and ready your defensive button pressing. The A button always controls Mario, and the B button always moves Luigi... which becomes especially important when some enemies attack both boys at once, requiring you to coordinate your defensive jumping or hammering.
This addition is both simple and profound. It gives you even more physical control over your characters, making you personally responsible - in a clean, arcade format - for their success or failure. Most RPGs rely on pure number-crunching to generate battle results, and while that certainly has its place, it would seem out of place in the gleefully risky world of Mario and Luigi, where death is always one mistimed button hop away.
Now add another layer, the frosting which lifts the basic design beyond the forebears: certain attacks require complex button patterns that cause both brothers to attack as one. These Bros. Attacks let Mario swing Luigi around like a projectile, or have Luigi home run hit Mario at the enemy. They're fun to watch, and highly damaging if you can pull them off. Each one has several levels of finesse... on the first level, the attack runs in slow-motion with obvious button notices so you can learn the proper sequence. Step it up to level two and the attack runs at normal speed, now with increased damage capability. Move to level three and the button hints disappear, and your damage goes up again.
This tiered system of Bros. Attacks lets you build your own comfort level as you push Mario and Luigi up into doing the maximum damage. Eventually you'll find a couple that you're really good at (for me it was Chopper Bros. and Knockback Bros.) and you can concentrate on those for the big boss fights. It's not like just selecting your high-level attack in Final Fantasy, or even just working up your ATK score in Kingdom Hearts. You need solid arcade reflexes to win. See what I mean about you forming a real, tactile connection with the battle system?
And don't overlook this... each Bros. Attack has a secret Advanced mode, where a slightly different button sequence will cause a different and more damaging final attack.
(Obviously, the next step for this unique style would be to have two players control each of the brothers. You could try this out now with the Game Boy Player and two controllers, but I would like to see Nintendo give the 2P concept some fresh thought and specialized design.)
So that's the battle mode, but the synchronized movements carry over into the rest of the game as well. When you're gadding about the map, the brothers walk in single-file, and you can switch their positions on the fly... putting Luigi in the lead at any time, for example. A diagram in the top right shows what action is currently assigned to your A (Mario) and B (Luigi) keys, and actions are changed with the shoulder buttons. Mario and Luigi each get a Jump, a Hammer attack, a Hand attack, and a special advanced Jump, as well as occasional context sensitive actions.
The trick here is that these actions are independant of each other. You can assign both lads to Jump, but you still have to press both A and B to get M & L to jump. Keeping them jumping separately means even a simple series of hills turns into a thumb-exercise worthy of the best classic 2D platformers!
The other actions all show inventive use of position. If Mario is in front, his Hammer simply hammers, so you can smack around enemies or trigger a latch. If he is behind Luigi, his hammer smashes poor Luigi into the ground, when you're allowed to control him like a mole so Luigi can sneak under locked gates or dig up hidden items.
Alternately, if Luigi is in back, his hammer action just squishes Mario into a half-size midget... similar to the difference between Super Mario and regular Mario from the NES days. Pint-size Mario can investigate mousehole-sized openings, giving each brother their own special solo challenges as Luigi goes underground and Mario gets small.
It's that kind of genius gameplay that keeps Superstar Saga from getting old. Each area of the map is packed with locked rooms and clever tricks, and you have to dope out which of the boys' maneuvers is best suited to the situation. The game really goes the extra mile to make sure that every ability has a purpose, and isn't just there for effect. Sure, Ratchet & Clank had twenty weapons, but how many of them did you actually use and trust?
My goodness, I haven't even mentioned the story yet. This is sort of an RPG, after all, so it's bound to have more plot than, say, Super Mario Sunshine.
The critical difference between Superstar Saga and every other Mario game to date is that it doesn't take place in the Mushroom Kingdom. Our heroes instead must travel to the nearby Beanbean Kingdom. Cackletta, the villain of Beanbean just as Bowser haunts Mushroom, has stolen Princess Peach's voice on her evil quest to awaken the powerful Beanstar.
If you're confused or annoyed by the whole voice thing, you can put those feelings aside. They deal with the absurdity of stealing a voice pretty early on, and things move over into the more familiar ground of Peach's entire person being kidnapped.
Things are different in the Beanbean Kingdom. The baddies you're used to have all been replaced by beanified versions. Instead of Spinies, there's Sharpeas, for example. Functionally, they're much the same, but it's interesting to shake up the visual continuity a little bit. Shifting the venue has created a fresh look at the usual Mario style, but you can't ignore the other big change: the game's sense of humor. Not that Paper Mario was serious, but it was relatively straight forward. Here, there's greater emphasis on telling a funny story... Bowser complaining that he can't kidnap Peach properly without her voice, Luigi becoming hypnotized into thinking he's brave like Mario, Cackletta's minion Fawful talking like a badly translated NES cart, the statistic that shows how nice your moustache is, and both brothers speaking in a hilarious mock-Italian audio sample that honestly never gets overused.
There's a small assortment of sidequests, some fun minigames, and the expected lists of items to buy. And not to worry, Beanbean has Warp Pipes so you don't always have to walk everywhere. I guess that technology was imported from the Mushroomites.
One fun feature of Superstar Saga is the constant subtle inclusion of elements from past Mario games. One room has you zig-zagging upward while jumping rolling barrels, exactly like the original Donkey Kong. Another area recycles the Dr. Mario Virus characters into baddies, and if you get their colors to match up, they all disappear. Professor E. Gadd, a relatively new addition to the Marioverse, shows up complete with the ghosts, Game Boy Horror, and music from Luigi's Mansion. Nobody knows how to revere (and re-use) their history like Nintendo. You'll find references and jokes like these throughout the 15-20 hours of gameplay.
If you have the Game Boy Player, this is a perfect title for your big TV. The graphics are truly worthy for public display. The characters are large and well-animated, the worlds full of color and detail, and the battles fun to watch. Many GBA games pale a little when they're blown up to three feet wide, but not Superstar Saga.
The only bad thing I can say is that it's one of those games that ends. Once you finish off the final boss fight, the credits roll and that's it. Any leftover sidequests are left unfinished, the minigames at the arcade forgotten. I would have really liked the option to Save the Day and then drop right back into Beanbean to continue playing.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is a fantastic GBA game, worthy of the mantle of Paper Mario. Quite frankly, I would rather see more of these games churned out for the GBA than variations on the NES/SNES platformers.
