This is the fourth and final Mario & Luigi game. It might be my favorite in the entire series; the creators clearly listened to criticisms of the previous games and went all-out in their ambitions.
Mario & co. are invited to a relaxing vacation on a resort island; obviously, things do not go as planned. The theme of this game is the power of dreams: Luigi has the ability to open a portal to the dream world when he sleeps, which allows Mario to revive the original inhabitants of the islands, who are… pillow people. Yes, they lean into the aesthetic pretty hard. This dual-world gameplay works similarly to Bowser’s Inside Story, where the real world is in 3D while the dream world is 2D with a greater emphasis on platforming challenges.
One of the most notable things about the game is that it’s really, really hard. After the previous three games were all cakewalks, I was quite surprised at the tricks this game would pull. Even regular enemies have far more complex attack behaviors, with a lot of random variation in their attacks. It’s all technically fair, with every trick having a tell, as usual, but there’s a lot more information to process and often a very narrow window to react. As nail-biting as this could be, I really appreciated it! It fixed the problem I mentioned in my previous reviews of enemies being easily solved — because enemies vary their attacks so often, you can’t ever get complacent, and many of the variations are specifically designed to mess up your timing if you’re on autopilot. Regular encounters remained challenging throughout their entire area this time instead of becoming trivial. Bosses also pull a lot of really devious tricks that surprised me.
The dodging minigames also gain added complexity in the dream world specifically; for the first time, you can move in addition to performing an action, requiring you to counter enemies from multiple directions or to avoid attacks entirely. This, too, was a welcome addition that made the dodge phases more engaging.
The dream world generally mixes up the mechanics in ways I found really cool. It puts all your eggs in one basket, as instead of controlling both Mario and Luigi, Luigi fuses with Mario; this makes him stronger, but also halves your action economy, so there’s less room for error. To make up for this, Luigi empowers Mario’s regular attacks to hit all enemies with the help of an army of Luigi clones, which allows for really impressive battles where you take down entire hordes of enemies. It’s similar to the feeling of the Bowser sequences in Inside Story, but I’d go so far as to say it actually does a better job of it. I truly felt powerful in the dream world in a way I didn’t feel even when playing as Bowser in Inside Story. (I suspect the reason is that Bowser only had bigger numbers, which psychologically makes less of an impression than visual differences like more enemies or flashier attacks.) The platforming sections were also fun; you can’t use any of the special techniques you learn in the real world like the spin jump, but instead you get to summon an army of Luigi clones that can form into various shapes each with their own special abilities. It was very funny to see so many Luigis bopping around, and, similar to the battle mechanics, made me feel powerful thanks to what I could do with them.
They even improved the giant battles! I was ambivalent on them in Inside Story, where I felt they were overproduced and kinda repetitive; but here, each battle has a lot of effort put into giving it unique mechanics that makes each one feel like a fun puzzle. I particularly loved the one with Giant Bowser, which was full of cheeky callbacks to the previous game and tons of cool setpieces.
The world and story were really fun too. They brought back characters and species from all across the series, resulting in a vibrant and diverse landscape reminiscent of Paper Mario. Starlow is back in addition to a second exposition fairy, and I found both of them delightful and with a lot of character beyond their practical role. The amount of personality put into the character designs and animations is delightful, with lots of fun and sweet moments told entirely through the characters’ body language. (The Elite Trio was particularly great — I found them kinda annoying in Inside Story, but their boss battle in this game was hilarious with the slapstick of them being so uncoordinated and surprised by each others’ attacks.)
Also, Bowser is the actual villain for once! He finally learns from getting betrayed and possessed all series and backstabs the new villain first this time. Which actually makes me feel kinda bad for Antasma, because it looked like he was genuinely cooperating with Bowser! Apparently some fans were annoyed by this because they preferred the pattern of other villains taking the helm in the RPGs, but come on, guys, Bowser is awesome! It’s not like this is a Legend of Zelda situation where the established villain always hijacks the newer one — it’s actually the reverse, with every previous game turning Bowser into a chump, making this actually a surprising twist. We get to have Bowser in all his villainous glory and a cool new villain working with him, what’s not to like? They even have a team-up battle that mirrors the new dream mechanics, just like the Bowser battle in Partners in Time. It’s awesome. Bowser forever!
Oh, and the music was also fantastic. I honestly didn’t find the music of the previous games that memorable, but even the regular battle theme is a banger — and there’s a separate one for dream battles that’s even cooler! I found it particularly cool how the boss music starts off as typical lightheared Mario fare, but transitions into a really intense and dramatic sequence.
If I have any criticisms, they’re minor. I’ll admit I was disappointed to find that Luigi didn’t actually have any effect on dream battles — the boost is based entirely on Mario’s stats, rather than pooling Mario and Luigi’s as I assumed. This also means that Luigi’s equipment is meaningless in dream battles, which is disappointing when equipment loadout is your prime means of customization. I would have liked to see that tweaked a bit so that Luigi actually mattered in a game that’s supposedly about him.
So yeah. This was a fantastic and beautiful game clearly made with a ton of love. I’m sad the studio went defunct before it could make any more, but what a note to end on!