Mario & Luigi: Dream Team is a decent RPG infested with text boxes. What's great about it is that it's bright, light-hearted, and fairly creative... none of which alleviate the text box plague. The animations are fluid and lively—unlike the text boxes—and the game is surprisingly challenging, which helps to keep the combat exciting—though I can't say the same about the text boxes. Beyond that however, there's not much left to praise; honestly there's quite a lot to bemoan, like... what was it? Oh yeah, text boxes! And if you want to shout "look, I get it!" well... let's just say we're just getting started.
Because it's hard to refrain from shouting "look, I get it!" the entire game. Dream Team is downright mired in superfluous dialogue every other screen. You're saddled with not one but two chatty caretakers, neither possessing characteristics beyond being short tempered. People thought Navi was unbearable, but her prompts were mostly optional; Dream Team's aides are far more similar to Fi from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, taking every opportunity possible to point out the most obvious stuff in the world. I know to press the R button to access my abilities, I know a red button should be hit with a hammer, I know the one path I can go down is literally where I need to go! And it's not just endless tutorialization—your guides tell you what to do every step of the way so that you're practically on rails for the entire of the game.
Plus the game is long too. Mario & Luigi titles occupy this sweet spot of being action RPGs not only in style but length, rarely lasting beyond 24 hours. But when I had eclipsed a full day of play time in Dream Team, I still had two large zones to explore with god knows how many text boxes lying in wait. And still—still!—the game had the nerve to explain what a shortcut was at the 30 hour mark! I found myself hoping the experience would end soon, not just so I could play something else, but because it was impossible to have fun. There's just no feasible way to make a Mario & Luigi game endearing for this length of time: the simplistic story line doesn't support the play time, locales & obstacles become repetitive, and the combat system loses its luster the longer you engage with it.
Everything else in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team is decent for the most part, though each of the game's positives come with their own negatives. The delightful animations are probably the best part about the game, although it's not like the charming art style was absent in previous entries. Combat is as engaging as it's always been, but the endgame boils down to "spam your best Bros. Attack on annoying enemies/bosses, jump on everything else." The colorful foes and their tricky counterattacks are fun, but there's roughly two enemy types per area, which gets stale incredibly quickly. The lore behind Pi'illo Island is mildly interesting, but the main villain is dull, forgettable, and takes a backseat to Bowser (snore). And the dream sections provide a brilliant idea blueprint, continuing the gameplay dichotomy introduced in Bowser's Inside Story but giving it a clever twist. However, Dream Team barely does anything with this concept, which is a damn shame.
Diving into Luigi's dreams to explore his version of reality is promising ground for some humorous hijinks, but the game treats it as a simple 2-D mirror of the zone you were just in. Dream-version of allies manifest to aid you, but they're exactly like their real world counterpart, and even "Dreamy Luigi" still uses the same old Luigi sprite. In certain rooms Luigi can control the background to give Mario more traversal options, or multiply himself to provide Mario... more traversal options, but that's the extent of the "dreaminess" the game delves into. Combat is nearly identical—which is a huge disappointment considering in the last game you could control Bowser—and the giant dream boss battles look nice but are WAY too goddamn long! Like, there's no RPG elements involved in them, so why would Alpha Dream make them last over twenty minutes?!
I also have some major gripes about the final boss (it was the worst endgame struggle I've had since Final Fantasy III on DS), but my agitation for this entry has reached its limit. All I'll say is that giving a boss the ability to 1) become invulnerable, 2) heal nearly 20% of their health, and 3) spawn enemies that provide the boss immunity until they're dispatched, is a bunch of bull—especially since there's no limitation on how often this ability can be spammed! Halfway through my first attempt on this colossal pain in the ass, they re-used this ability until they healed back to full health—and there was nothing I could do! A day later and I'm still flabbergasted at this absurdly obnoxious design choice.
I've complained a lot about Mario & Luigi: Dream Team in large part because I've always been a fan of the series. I adore the first game on GBA and think highly of Bowser's Inside Story (the second game is ok). But all Mario & Luigi: Dream Team did for me was affirm that I'm not interested in picking up Paper Jam any time soon. There's still a lot to like about the game, and a few moments that will elicit a good chuckle, but the slow pace coupled with a crushing length is a poisonous combination. Throw in a drought of enemy variety, a poorly explored dream premise, and an asteroid belt worth of text boxes, and suddenly Dream Team takes Mario & Luigi from a great alternative to Paper Mario to "maybe only play it if you're a fan... a fan with plenty of time on their hands."
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Images obtained from: youtube.com, ebgames.com, gaminginvented.com, theicecave.org,
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