I used to play Mario & Luigi RPGs on the Nintendo DS a long time ago. I always got a kick out of how they cleverly blended controls for both Mario and Luigi with button-mapping, making it feel like you were taking both on an adventure.

Brothership adds more RPG depth to the series, but its flat writing and overabundance of gimmicks drag it down.

This structure allows for two fundamental truths that keep the combat in Brothership engaging for most of its runtime. Watching Mario and Luigi do stuff together is really charming, and putting quick-time events in turn-based battles makes the proceedings feel just a bit more exciting. Stats don’t dictate whether an attack lands, you do.