Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
Twice the Bros, Twice the Insanity!
Protagonist(s): Mario Luigi Baby Mario Baby Luigi Genre(s): Role-playing Platform(s): Nintendo DS Release Date: NA: November 28, 2005 JP: December 2, 2005 EU:January 27, 2006 UK: February 10, 2006 AU: February 23, 2006 KOR: July 8, 2010 Developer(s): AlphaDream Publisher(s): Nintendo Country: Japan Series: Mario Predecessor: Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga Successor: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time is a role-playing game developed by AlphaDream and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. It was released in 2005/2006 and is the second game in the Mario & Luigi subseries.

Why It's Timeless

1. The story and plot are just as deep and fleshed-out as its predecessor while going for a more serious tone this time around. The concept of time travel is always a good one, and this game pulls it off well compared to Mario's Time Machine, with many of the settings taking place in the past.
2. In addition to playing as Mario and Luigi, you also get to play as Baby Mario and Baby Luigi. Each of the Bros. has a separate button (A and X for the Marios and B and Y for the Luigis) and can use double-team attacks with Jumps and Hammers.
   • The puzzles utilize all four Bros. to their fullest, such as the Baby Bros. traveling through spike-floored corridors that the Adult Bros. need to give them a Shine to see where they are walking.
3. Excellent graphics for Nintendo DS standards, with the same charm that Superstar Saga had.
4. While the tone is darker than the previous game, there is still plenty of humor that you would expect from the Mario franchise.
   • There are a lot of cute interactions with the younger characters, including the actions the Baby Bros. do and the Toadsworths keeping Baby Peach entertained.
5. Amazing soundtrack composed by Yoko Shimamura that fits in well with the serious tone of the game. Some good tracks include Serious Trouble, Gritzy Desert, Shroob Castle, the Boss Battle theme, and Vim Factory.
6. The levels are all fun to visit, with good locations including Baby Bowser's Castle, Toadwood Forest, Gritzy Desert, Hollijolli Village, and of course, Shroob Castle, which has a creative yet creepy design.
   • Star Hill also makes a return from Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario, as does Yoshi's Island from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.
7. Introduced in this game for the first and only time are Bros. Items; among them are Green and Red Shells, the new Ice Flowers (which also appear in Super Mario Galaxy and some New Super Mario Bros. games, and will later return in Brothership), Pocket Chomps, Cannonballers, Smash Eggs, Copy Flowers, and Mix Flowers. These items allow Bros. Attacks to be used among all four Bros.
8. Tons of likable characters, including:
   • Stuffwell the suitcase acts as a guide/storage for the Bros., despite being similar to Navi (from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) and Tatl (from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask), and even Starlow from future Mario & Luigi games.
   • Kylie Koopa, a Koopa reporter, helps Mario and Luigi with the strange goings-on in the past while trying to create a scoop for her newspaper.
   • The elder and younger Toadsworths are worthy successors to the Starshade Bros. from the previous game, as they teach the Bros. different Bros. Abilities throughout the game while trying to make Baby Peach happy.
     • Young Toadsworth also makes clever references to other Mario games, such as the iconic "Another Castle" line from the original Super Mario Bros..
   • Professor E. Gadd and his younger self play a larger role in this game, as he is the one who made the time machine and later creates the Hydrogush 4000 to cure the Shroobs' atrocities.
   • The L33T HAMM3R BROZ. are some of the most entertaining bosses in the series, in part due to their intentionally cringy dialogue. They also give the Baby Bros. their Hammers once they are defeated.
   • Fawful, the secondary antagonist of the previous game and soon-to-be main antagonist of the next game, returns in this game to sell Bean Badges to the Baby Bros. Granted, it may be disappointing to see him reduced to a minor character rather than a villain, but he still has a lot of funny dialogue and reminisces about the Adult Bros. defeating him.
   • The Shroobs are a well-written antagonistic faction that manages to be creepy to fit in with the game's dark tone. Their leaders, the Elder and Younger Princess Shroobs, are also great bosses to fight and the latter even disguises herself as Princess Peach to fool everyone except the audience and Baby Peach.
9. The bosses are all fun to fight, among them being Bowser & Baby Bowser, Kamek, Sunnycide, Shrooboid Brat, and of course, the two Princess Shroobs.
10. Shocking plot twist that the Elder Princess Shroob was trapped inside the Cobalt Star and Peach was the one who did it to prevent her from invading any more worlds.

Bad Qualities

1. The game is much more linear than the other games in the series, with the levels being accessed via a hub world (Peach's Castle) rather than an interconnected overworld.
   • On top of that, just like its predecessor, there is no post-game content.
2. Luigi (specifically Adult Luigi) frequently gets the short end of the stick throughout the game, particularly at the Star Temple level when the Star Gate cruelly bullies him.
3. The babies' crying is very loud and annoying, just like in the Yoshi's Island games. The biggest example of this is Baby Peach, especially when she cries simply because Baby Bowser refuses to send the pilots to rescue adult Mario and Luigi.
4. While fun to fight, some bosses take a long time to defeat even with Bros. Items.
   • On a related note, the fight against Elder Princess Shroob (both phases) can be frustrating at times, just like Cackletta's Soul before her.
5. The final fight with Shrowser is pointless from both a gameplay and story standpoint, as it comes completely out of nowhere and is nothing more than a dodging game to redirect Bowser's projectiles to Elder Princess Shroob's ghost.
6. The DS Touch Screen and Microphone are barely used in this game, with the former being used in only one section in which you must rub the dirt off of Toadbert's note to reveal that there is another Princess Shroob.

Reception

Partners in Time received critical acclaim, scoring 86/100 on Metacritic; reviewers lauded the game's use of characters and plot. IGN's Craig Harris commended the game's comic style, stating that "much of the charm from Mario & Luigi comes from the focus on the humor that's bizarre and out there."

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