Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
It’s undoubted that Mario has become one of the successful game franchise ever released. Starting as platformer genre at the arcade, Nintendo has developed this franchise into many genres over many Nintendo platforms (console systems) for the past two decades. RPG is one of genres that Nintendo ever put efforts into. Although not as many as its adventure counterpart, Mario RPG managed to get on Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Nintendo GameBoy Advance (GBA), Nintendo GameCube, and lastly Nintendo Dual Screen (NDS). It’s unknown if this genre will reach Nintendo Wii. This post will review the one released on NDS under the title of Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. This game was released on 2006. It’s just get in my now-playing list 
The Crisis
It seems that crisis never leave Mushroom Kingdom at peace. This time the threat is originated from distant planet, Shroob planet. The Shroobs are equiped with advanced technology encased in saucers capable of traveling through time and turning mushroom into blue mushroom. The problem is the Shroobs attack the kingdom of past time, which is soon discovered when Princess Peach lost during test drive new time teleportation device. Instead of the princess, the device delivers a fierce Shroob species. Thus the mustached bros travel back to past. As we expect the bros meet the little version of themselves, then the unique adventure starts.
The Adventure
As of many Mario Bros adventures, this one is also comprised of many worlds. They are fabulously designed. Since this is not an action-adventure, the world has less fast paced interactive obstacles. Instead, each world has its own unique puzzles that need to be solved to advance through the story. If you stumbled upon an obstacle in a world, try to improvise using two pairs of bros. Both pairs will be equiped with tools/combined acts as you progress. Even if your world exploration is not completed as you first try on it, don’t worry you will be able to revisit it later. All you have to do is find a portal to get back to present time. Along the adventure you will encounter save points. These doesn’t recover your health, but there’re some blocks for the purpose. This health-recovery block is the one with hearth symbol on its face. To encourage your world exploration, there are beans to be discovered throughout the worlds. These beans can be exchanged with rare items you won’t find in regular shops. To your excitements, there are seven worlds to explore, so it will take sometime to finish the story.
The Touch of RPG
It’s not an RPG game without states-equiped character, so this game has it. However, the states are reduced to health, power, defense, speed, and stache states. These parameters will grow as your character’s level increases. Also, on level-up events you will be granted of bonus points that you freely spend. However you must carefully choose which state to receive the bonus as the points are given in roullete system. The trick is to pick the state that you haven’t developed for a while. This usually giving maximum bonus point at each face, i.e. 6 points. The cloth of each character also influence the states, both can be better or worse. The other equipment is badge. Unlike the cloth, badge influence battle process. Some may cure you over turns, other may boost your attack performance. Just mix and match to give the best result.
Battle System
There’s no random encounter and enemy respawning in this game. Enemies, except for bosses, can be seen moving around the area. The good is you can avoid them whenever you want. The bad is if your a level and coin hunter, your source is quite limited. If you want to fulfill this needs, you have to walk out a portal and back.
If you decide to fight an enemy, you can inflict extra pre battle damage. All you have to do is jump on or hammer on enemy timely. However, some enemy may counter inflict the damage, especially the ones with horns. If an enemy touches the bros first, you may get stunned and loses a turn.
There are basic attacks and bros items to use in battling enemy. Each may be combined between brothers, a pair or two, to achieve maximum damage. For basic attacks, pay attention on early game tutorial on how to execute it properly. As for bros items, each usage is described on upper screen as you highlight it. Some bros items also cause status effect on enemies. Beware though enemy attacks may also do same to brothers. Although NDS doesn’t have pressure sensitive feature, but there’s different result between simple tapping, tapping, and holding a button. As you must apply all of them on bros attacks timely, so practice them often.
Other thing you must put in concern is you are able to avoid or even counter enemy attacks. Each enemy gives certain hints before executing attacks. Just pay careful attention on attack patterns. Some are hard to see for they’re executed in high speed. Sometimes you may involve in endless battle if you miss the patterns. Also when enemies attack from above, it’s hard to notice which of the bros are being targeted. So you may rely on luck sometimes. That’s pretty much the down side of this game.
The Conclusion
Saving damsel in distress may be an old fashion kind of story, but in this game, things get some nice twists. By the way, I didn’t mention about Bowser, did I? Well, it’s not necessarily mean that he miss the affair, but you ought to see it for yourself. I won’t spoil it.
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Tags: amazon:asin=B000B8J7K0, amazon:asin=B000VXJEW6, mario, nds, nintendo
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