I've got high hopes for this one. High hopes and absolutely no idea what it is that I'll be playing. I've never heard of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, further proof that I was far too focused on whatever I could play on the PlayStation 2, rather than anything else, including the almighty Game Boy Advance.
The brothers are back in another RPG, said to be one of the best, probably thanks to the pixel-art powers of the GBA. But what would I know? Almost literally nothing. Not for the first time, I'm heading into a game blind, but I am looking forward to it.
So what'll be this time? Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach?
Fun Times
No? No Bowser in sight. Well, this is a different start to our saga. The perils of being a princess in this kingdom... I wouldn't want to be a princess. I wouldn't want to be Mario, either, as he's always the one to answer the call for help. Is everyone else inept or something?
Getting to the castle, we confront Bowser, issuing attack commands with the press of the A button. With the right timing, we can do extra damage or dodge incoming attacks, like previous Mario RPG entries.
We are, however, attacking him in error.
That's different. As is Bowser's suggestion that we work together to restore her voice. He is adamant that the only reason he wants to do so is to make the princess safer to kidnap, though, so she doesn't blow his castle up by speaking. Still, he's providing the transport that we need to get ourselves on... once we've gotten some practise with the basic controls.
Superstar Saga has you move a slippery, spritely Mario around the map, mainly doing everything with the A button, which is handy for a portable console with only two main buttons. It'll allow you to jump, talk to people, investigate and read things...
The cowardly Luigi can't get out of this adventure, as he's literally picked up to come along for the ride. The journey allows us to have a look at our suitcase, which serves as our inventory for items and clothing, as well as taking us through a few more tutorials regarding how to fight together with Luigi.
As a turn-based RPG, you're given all the time in the world to plan out your attack, and following along with what's taking place is a doddle. If you see lots of A button indicators, you know Mario is in line for doing something. If you see the B button everywhere, it's Luigi's turn to take action. Each brother is tied to their button for attacks, item use, dodging and jumping around outside of combat.
Levelling up allows us to see the key stats Superstar Saga deems as important, including the obvious (health and power) and the not-so-obvious, namely 'Stache'. I wonder what that does...
I don't wonder enough to give my bonus to it though. As well as stat increases for all aspects of your character, a random bonus of 1-3 points can be applied to a stat of your choice, offering you some option of customising characters.
Do I know where best to put my bonuses yet? No. Not a clue. I just spread them about a bit and carry on.
We catch up to the perpetrators of this crime and find ourselves in a mini-boss fight. Each opponent in the game will attack you back, obviously, and those attacks can be dodged with well-timed inputs. Those attacks are all telegraphed in different ways and have their own timings, such that throughout the game you'll be learning when best to dodge or even counter an attack, based on its animation, or in this case, the bosses' tell: colour-coded speech.
I didn't get any screenshots but imagine him getting angry and screaming in red text, and then firing a laser blast or something aimed at Mario, the red player. It's so simple. I don't expect any other boss to be this obvious in their tells.
He gets the better of us in the end, destroying Bowser's ship and sending us into a crash landing. Getting back to our feet, we need to find Bowser. But first, we've got to jump the border.
Literally.
The border is symbolised by this rope, and we've got to react to its movements and jump with each character accordingly, Mario on the A button, Luigi on B. It sounds simple. On the sixth attempt, after learning more and more of the patterns, I hopped the border.
I guess this is the start of our adventure proper, somewhere in Stardust Fields. I'm not sure where I need to be, and this doesn't look like the most helpful of maps, but we'll figure it out somehow. Let's find Bowser.
Getting into fights is perhaps a tad repetitive until different opposition starts turning up, but they are effortless to follow. Watch for the prompts, pick a target, time your attacks and counterattacks until you're the only ones left. There's no magic system to worry about, no equipment that you need to spirit-link to your arms or something, it's just jumping on foes' heads with heavy boots - it's great.
Extortionate, but it looks like a quest I can manage: find coins, inside and outside of combat. That I can do, and with visuals like this and some pretty good accompanying music, I will gladly do it.
The environments have a few minor jumping puzzles to navigate, which can be a little strange to control, as you need to jump with both Mario and Luigi while moving both with the D-pad. Whoever is the lead character will be followed as best they can by the other brother like Pikachu follows you in Pokémon Yellow.
So long as you remember that Mario is on the A button and Luigi is on the B, you'll pick up with no troubles at all. By the way, I'm emulating this game, and I mapped the Xbox's B button to A, and it's A button to B, to better suit the GBA layout - A on the outside, B on the inside. In some sort of irony, though, the Xbox's A button is green, and it's B button is red, so if in doubt, I could just hit the button of the colour of the brother I want to do something with. Simple.
Making the simple a little more complicated are these two guys introducing us to a few team moves that will help us to jump up to high ledges and spin across large gaps. The way they work is that the brother at the back needs to press the L button to switch from their regular movement (jumping, basically) to their specific team move - high jump from Luigi, spin from Mario - then instigate it with a press of the B button, and another press to execute the move.
Oh, it's just occurred to me. When you switch the brothers around, so that Luigi leads Mario, for example, the lead character is always on the A button. Yeah. Work that out with an Xbox controller instead...
Team moves can also be made inside combat in a three-step process. One brother starts the movement, Mario timing his A button press to launch off Luigi, for example. Luigi then shuffles over to act as a trampoline or something, requiring you to press B, before both of them land with a thud, where a well-timed press of A, in this case, will increase the damage.
It's all done with slow-motion and huge, bright and colourful button hints, but there is an option to remove the slow down effect, or the button hints, to make the attack even more devastating.
Having missed as many inputs as I succeed at, I think I'll keep it on the accessible mode for now. With enough cash to free Bowser, we should head back to him and carry on in our quest.
We'll have to fight for it, it seems, but I need to eat a mushroom first. Consuming items is as easy as you might think, and one brother can feed the other like one wizard could cast a healing spell on some other party member. I don't need to explain all this, do I? It's a consumable system, we all know how they work.
After learning the details of this guys' attack - throwing spiked balls our way - we try to send him on his way. I don't know if I lack practice or timing or what, but it feels like the team moves aren't always worth the effort, especially when from time to time, a basic attack can result in a lucky hit, dealing so much more damage.
Still, I'm enjoying it, and this foe needs to go.
After just over an hour of playtime, this seemed like a perfect place to call time on Superstar Saga; otherwise, I could be here all day.
Final Word
While I wasn't amazed at the environment I found myself in, I'm sure that the more I explore of this world, the more equally exciting places I'll find myself in, full of enemies, jumping puzzles and item drops that will come in handy for the many foes I'll find myself facing.
What I wanted to do more than anything was to keep playing, to keep making progress and see what would come next. I was basically learning the game for most of that hour of playing it, being introduced to combat, dodging, controlling two players all step by step, and not being overwhelmed by any of it. Once I've been told what I need to do, I hope the game opens up for me to really explore, more like an RPG, I suppose.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga makes the most of the GBA button layout, and offers you so many options with what looks like so little. Getting A and B confused did happen from time to time, but doesn't tend to result in any kind of outright failure. At worst, I think I started fights vulnerable to attack, rather than with bonus damage, because I walked into an enemy on the overworld, rather than jump on their head.
I do read that the final boss is on the difficult side, but I'll have to see how far I get through the game in the first place before worrying about him. Mario RPGs of the past haven't really landed with me until they turned towards papercraft, I suppose, but Superstar Saga looks to be another hit. I want to see where it'll take these brothers.
Another Game Boy Advance title I've completely missed out on. What was I thinking? Give it a go yourselves.
Fun Facts
The Stache stat relates to Luck. I should have guessed. I should have more luck than last week if that's the case...
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, developed by AlphaDream, first released in 2003.
Version played: Game Boy Advance, 2003, via emulation.