It's about time for me to give a probably much-hated opinion on late 2003's Mario role-playing game on the
Gameboy Advance. The title Mario & Luigi seemed like one to draw the Luigi's Mansion crowd. Luigi's back,
and playable! This game is based highly on humor, something I haven't seen too often in a video game. I
guess there were lots of humorous things in Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City, but none really put as many chips into the humor pot as Mario & Luigi did. The question is: was Nintendo holding pocket aces
(extremely funny) or a 7-2 unsuited (not funny)?

This game is an RPG, as I'm sure you all know. Nintendo sort of tried to promote this game as a partial
platformer, which was laughable. I guess you make some jumps, but they're not too hard, and they are a tiny
part of the game. It's sort of like these teen popgirls such as Ashlee Simpson and Avril Lavigne who claim to be "punk rockers", when they're really just typical girl pop with guitars, which doesn't make them "rockers" (though I have nothing against either singer). For those of you like me who don't understand my analogy here, what I mean to say is that Mario & Luigi is NOT a platformer by ANY means, so if you're looking for a new Mario GBA platformer, or even a half-plaformer featuring Mario, this is NOT it. This is an RPG, and nothing else. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but I'm just making this point clear now.

Mario & Luigi starts out with some witch turning Peach's voice into explosives. Sounds strange? Yeah, it is. That's an interesting start to the story, but imbecility follows, which I'll explain later (here's a hint: Bowser is involved). The real part of the story you all care about, of course, is the fact that the Koopalings appear right around the end of the game, for the first time in a brand-new game as characters you actually fight against since... well, a long time ago (I'd say Super Mario World, but I could be wrong). That makes the game awesome, right? Four stars! Stop the Review now! It's over! Of course, you know me too well, and have probably just shot to the end of the Review to see the "no stars" rating you think I gave the game. Actually, that's not the case, and now I'll actually get to the real Review. Let the hating of me begin!

This Review is rated on a scale of 0-4 stars, with 0 meaning *yawn* and 4 meaning... Zzz... Oh, come on, you
know this already!

Graphics: ***1/2

For the GBA, I'd say they're really nice graphics. The game looks really good. Sure, it may not be full-blown
3D, but it looks good nonetheless. It's hard to find many problems with the graphics. They seem to mix
illustration with action perfectly, as it looks brilliant. I guess I could nitpick if I felt like it, and they aren't ground-breaking, so no four stars here. Still, a very good performance.

Sound: *

The music is very forgettable. How many times have you heard this from me lately? "I got so bored with the
music, and I was listening to real music instead." Well, that's the truth, so I have to say it again. The music isn't that great. Believe me, I'll still listen to music in games to get a rating, and there is still good music in games, but it seems to be dieing out slowly. At least there's no mockery of the Mario theme song a la Super Mario Sunshine's secret levels.

Difficulty: ***

Mario & Luigi's biggest problem isn't exactly the difficulty, but it's related to the difficulty. Later I'll talk about it in relation to the gameplay, but I must mention it first here. The problem is, there are no places to heal. Sure, you may get a lot of Mushrooms, but what happens when those Mushrooms dry up? Well, you can always go around beating up on the dumbest enemies until you slowly get enough Mushrooms to go back where you want to go, but that takes too long and is too boring (making Pokemon's many random battles seem exciting by comparison). Now one way of making sure you don't need to use so many Mushrooms
(and 1-Up Mushrooms) is by avoiding attacks from your enemies, but the fact of the matter is, I found it so
hard to avoid attacks in this game, and next to impossible to avoid Popple stealing my items (a horrible battle there). The fact that it's so hard to avoid enemies' attacks makes fighting battles a chore,  and caused me to run away (in two ways, which I'll explain later).

Now don't get me wrong, this is no Super Mario Sunshine or the Lost Levels. This game is not impossible, or anywhere near it. It's just annoying to have nowhere to heal, and to be using Mushrooms left and right. It's also annoying for it to be so hard to avoid opponents' attacks. It's a hard game, though not an impossible or next-to-impossible game. It will take a lot out of you to keep going in it. I'll expound much in the gameplay section on these topics.

Characters: *

*double-take*

One star? There must be a typo! What's with that CPF's brain? The Koopalings are in the game! That's an
automatic four stars! He probably said so himself back in the pre-Cube days!

The fact of the matter is, seven characters cannot make a game, unless they are the only seven characters
in the game. I'll give the one star to this game for the Koopalings. Now for the problems with the characters: Luigi is just plain stupid. Mario is basically a mime. "The New and Inferior Bowser", as I call this pro-Mario Bowser, is a joke, and not a funny one either. Bowser should NOT be on Mario's side, even for a little while. He should be Mario's mortal rival. It's like me cheering for the Chicago Bears, the Packers' oldest rival. That's not right.

Then there's "I-lost-to-Petey-Piranha" Fawful. Fawful became one of the most popular Mario characters in
recent months, for reasons I don't understand. What's so great about a character with the mindset of an
elementary school kid who uses Star Trek vocabulary? He's about as annoying as I've seen in recent Mario
games (only Bowser Jr. and Peach annoy me more). Speaking of Peach, it was nice to have her voice
replaced by explosives, so I didn't have to hear her stupidity anymore. (If she was cute like Tales of
Symphonia's Colette, I could excuse her dumbness, but Peach isn't, so there's no excuse.)

Finally, there are Troopeas and Paratroopeas, insults to the Troopa tribe. Goombas and Troopas replaced by beans and peas? Please. What's next, the Koopalings being replaced by a bunch of Baby Bowser clones? The Packers losing at home to the Bears?

*throws up*

Story: *1/2

It's not the best of stories, but not totally horrible. It's a new story, at least. I don't mind the whole Peach-losing-her-voice thing. But Luigi pretty much accidentally coming along? Bowser on Mario's
side? The Koopalings fighting for some Bowser copy-off? These things I don't get. I don't mind the fact that it's in a different kingdom, but I would have appreciated the previously mentioned things making more sense.

Humor: no stars

This is by far the worst thing in this game, though I don't consider it as important as gameplay, so it doesn't kill this game. Mario & Luigi is not funny. That's a mild way of putting it. I mean, there's nothing funny about it. What else can I say? The jokes are stupid, cheesy, or just... I don't know how to even put it. They're supposed to be jokes, but you wouldn't know it. And if it's supposed to be "funny" that it looks like an opponent is about to attack you in one way but attacks in another, I don't call that "funny." I call that "trickery", not a bad thing, actually, but just not "funny".

Controls: ***

Sometimes the controls can be confusing when you're trying to switch places, jumps, and weapons, but
overall, I find them easy enough to use. It's not that difficult to figure them out and get used to them, so
they're good enough.

Gameplay: *

Something I've always liked about RPGs is that there's always somewhere to heal. Whether the game's Final
Fantasy X, Pokemon Gold, Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario, or Pokemon Yellow, there has always been somewhere to heal, free of charge, as many times as I wanted. There was no pressure. If I could find a healing place (not that hard), I could heal, and no matter how badly I did in that last battle, I could recover fully.

Not so in Mario & Luigi.

You may not dislike this, but I do. Greatly. In fact, this is the very thing that made Mario & Luigi an annoying experience for me. I'd get in some factory or big building or whatever, and I'd be using up maybe one or two Mushrooms PER BATTLE! Even worse, it's not like I could turn around and go and heal for free. Actually, I couldn't turn around and heal for an amount of coins. I would have to just keep using Mushrooms and hope that I wouldn't run out. This made me run from battles (something I hate doing and something I almost never do), and thus I would dread battling, which is something I love in most other RPGs (Paper Mario especially).

When I found out about this early on, I got fearful. I thought, however, that this would clear up later on. It only got worse as time went on, as I started losing Mushrooms more frequently. It eventually got to the point that I didn't want to play this game anymore (meaning that I not only ran away from battles, but also from this game).

However, before you think this game ranks below Super Mario Sunshine, understand that I did enjoy some
things about the gameplay. I'll go into detail about certain gameplay features now.

Puzzles: ****

About as enjoyable as anything in this game, the puzzles were as fun as it got in Mario & Luigi. I loved figuring out the puzzles, navigating through mazes, having to touch those switches, and all that. Compared to the frustrating puzzles in Final Fantasy X, these are excellent. In fact, they're a memory of fun in this game that causes me not to hate it, but instead have fond memories of Mario & Luigi. This is fortunate, as I wouldn't want to really hate this game.

Battles: 1/2

About the opposite of the puzzles, I hated battling in this game, unlike in Paper Mario and Final Fantasy X.
You have to try to avoid enemies' attacks, but it's so hard to do so. Attacking isn't so hard, but it isn't supposed to be (and if it were, this game may hit rock bottom). With Mushrooms drying up extremely quickly, I started avoiding battles, despite the fact that I love gaining experience in most RPGs. That hurt this game
big time.

Jumping/Exploring/Etc: ***

This is something that I enjoyed in this game, going around places and making it through the actual land. No, it isn't to the say that this is a platformer, but I actually enjoy just making it through the Beanbean Kingdom more than I enjoy battling. That's pretty sad, actually, as that should be the case in an adventure game such as Donkey Kong 64, not an RPG.

Items: **

You can upgrade your character's equipment and the like, which isn't a bad idea. It isn't something
groundbreaking, but it's adequate enough in the game. There aren't enough Mushrooms in this game,
unfortunately, and yes, there are a lot of them. Overall, the items aren't enough to improve this game,
nor are they bad enough to hurt this game.

Replayability: **

Well, this is tough to say. On one hand, with the game being very big and the fact that it may take you a
long time to make it through with the lack of items, you could play for a very long time. However, there's the other hand, with the fact that the game can be annoying, boring, and nerve-wracking at times, and you may not want to play it that much. It's too tough for me to give a clear rating one way or another, so I'll give this category two stars.

Fun Factor!: *

This game bored me and angered me. It made me not want to play it anymore, and it got on my nerves. It
frustrated me. Now I'm talking about battle-related stuff here, which I really didn't like. When it comes to puzzles and non-battling stuff, I actually liked those things, which were fun, but not enough to wipe out the bad battling. Thus the one-star rating goes to this section.

OVERALL: **

Mario & Luigi is a strange game. It's a game you'll love at times, and hate at others. At times you'll be enjoying it, and at other times you won't want to play it. Super Mario RPG bored me eventually, but SMRPG was a much better game, as I just got bored with SMRPG. With M&L, I not only got bored, but also frustrated. Both of the previous Mario RPGs are much better than M&L and much preferable. Should you pass on this game? It all depends on how much you're willing to spend. I'd say $20 or less is a good price. $30 isn't that steep, so if you want to take a chance and see the Koopalings, sure, go ahead and buy it at full price. But when you can't find a Toad House or inn, you'll feel my frustration, so don't say I didn't warn you.

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