Topic: Mario & Luigi: Brothership

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From this footage, the battle system looks to be in good shape, still the standard M&L fare with a couple of new additions to make everything feel fresh and fun.

I like how even with standard attacks, the Bros. join in, making them feel more like a dynamic duo. Bros Attacks look pretty keen(and from the looks of things some might have three-button inputs like in Paper Jam) and the biggest thing to stick out to me were the voices for Mario & Luigi. Kevin Afghani's delivery here was damn-near perfect. He really seems to have come into his own as the Bros. without losing what Martinet brought to the table. Proud of the progress he's made since Wonder and I can only hope he gets better and better.

I still have my reservations, of course - I think the UI could use a little more visual flair and I'm not the biggest fan of the choice of fonts on display - but if that's all I'm complaining about, then the new team is doing something right here.

@N00BiSH the UI really gives off some kind of unfinished vibe to it. The lighting in the battle also felt off to me. Mostly on the hammers themselves. Gives off a slight look that ILCA games tend to be known for.

The combat still looks as if it'll be as good to play as any other Mario and Luigi game though- so that's good at least.

@N00BiSH NO WAYYY THERE’S ALREADY NEW FOOTAGE? I NEED TO WATCH THIS LIKE MAN AM I ALREADY EXCITED FOR LIKE A 2 MIN OR SMTH VIDEO!

@N00BiSH just watched that footage trailer already getting recommended more- I’m glad to see that the Bros are more vibrant with their movement here! Ofc there was this little thunder bros move which I found really cool ofc but I’d say it wasn’t a very sick one at least for me I can’t wait for what other bros moves are in store

More new footage.

Not the biggest fan of how far apart the Bros. are when it comes to general movement. Kind of distracting.

@N00BiSH I don't know what it is, but this trailer looks far better than the screenshots we got. Far more vibrant and less wonky lighting-wise. Also the bros don't seem to really distract me in terms of how far they move.

Trailer looking good. Very excited for this one. So much joy!

@VoidofLight it's more about how far away they are that irks me. Previous games had them close by each other, and here there's a lot more distance between them. It just bothers me.

@N00BiSH I mean to be fair as well, the original games were sprite based and this game is fully 3D. Probably did it because it was unnatural or weird looking if the bros were as close together as they were in the originals.

I hope whoever's doing the music does a good job. Shimomura left some big shoes to fill.

@N00BiSH How do we know that Shimomura isn't coming back? There's been no announcement on who's doing the OST for the game. She came back for Sparks of Hope, so there's still a chance that she's on-board for this game as well.

@VoidofLight There's a possibility she could be involved in some form, but the music so far doesn't really sound like her style.

@N00BiSH I mean we've only heard two tracks so far, and both are only small snippets of the actual songs. Plus her style with Mario and Luigi tends to be vastly different from her works on games like Xenoblade, Kingdom Hearts, or Final Fantasy.

I sort of hope she's going to be composing for this game, since if not- the game is pretty much going to fail in my eyes. Like in my own personal tastes. You can't have Mario and Luigi without Yoko Shimomura. She's basically one of the main reasons why I love the series so much. Without her, it might as well just be another generic Mario RPG.

@VoidofLight Yeah, I pretty much share the same sentiment. I'm sure whoever is on the sound team will do the best they can, but for now the music is probably my second biggest concern. All we can do is wait.

@N00BiSH Music is probably my second one as well- with the story being the first. Less the over-all narrative, but moreso the character writing. Mario and Luigi has some of the best versions of the characters from mainline. Bowser has a ton of depth and has been extremely well written in every single entry in this series. The dynamic between Mario and Luigi was so good in previous games that it basically made me think of them as canon, even though they probably aren't.

The treatment of Bowser in this series is much better than the way that the mainline team writes him- or even Intelligent Systems with Paper Mario. It's one of the things that'll genuinely make or break this game for me honestly.

Gameplay is something I'm not really worried about other than the size of the overworld areas. They've shown enough gameplay for me to feel confident that it's at least going to be on par with the other titles in the series. Especially the Bros attacks, which look genuinely great in the clips shown. I also really like how both of the bros attack together this time around- further compounding the dual nature of their combat techniques.

Hard agree on this to an extent. AlphaDream's take on Bowser - especially in Inside Story - does a great job in reaffirming why he's Mario's top villain.

Regarding concerns, I'd say another thing I have a concern with is the art direction. It's not bad from what we've seen so far; environments and character designs look great, but there's definitely room for improvement. The cel-shaded look is a good start but the color blending (especially on the Bros) could do with some refinement to get it looking closer to Sato's style. And while I enjoyed the animation on display, it's still a bit hit-or-miss for me. I mostly worry they might overdo it on the squash and stretch in some areas.

@N00BiSH My main gripe with the style is just the lighting itself. In some scenes we've seen it looks fine, but in others it looks incredibly rough. Some of the in-door battles look genuinely awful with the hammers. Then there's the UI. The Ui is simple- which works in some places, but also looks unfinished or bland in others. That battle end screen looks incredibly rough to me. The flagpoles look like a half-baked free asset with M and L slapped on it.

@VoidofLight Fonts especially could do with some reworking. They're mostly the same Fontworks typefaces you see in a lot of other JP-developed games. They're not bad fonts but their inclusion here makes the game look a little more generic.