Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time

[toblix]

Anyone else play this? I just finished it. It may be my favorite DS game ever. The graphics are wonderfully animated 2d pixel art, the gameplay is easy to learn and gets increasingly more interesting and complex over time. The combat system and enemy design is so fucking amazing I'm starting to wonder why everybody isn't raving about this game. Could someone please point out some flaws with this game? Anyone?

[SiN]

Could someone please point out some flaws with this game? Anyone?

I got incredibly bored around 8 hours into it ... too damn repetitive!

Although, the fact that an RPG kept me occupied for that long is quite the achievement. See, I'm of the opnion that most/all RPGs are just fundamentally flawed. I'm an all genre guy, and I have a game I love in just about every genre, but I've yet to find one I even vaguely enjoy in the RPG genre.

SiN

[toblix]

I got incredibly bored around 8 hours into it ... too damn repetitive!

Really? Too repetitive? But there are constantly new types of enemies, each one with unique animations and attacks and strategies! How far did you get?

[Moosferatu]

Yeah, I thought it was exceedingly boring as well. Also, the plot was largely uninteresting and unfunny (wouldn't have been an issue if it hadn't supposed to be). But, I'm glad you, and most everyone else, really enjoy it. I guess it's just not my cup of tea.

[SiN]

Really? Too repetitive? But there are constantly new types of enemies, each one with unique animations and attacks and strategies! How far did you get?

Uhhh, I can't remember ... I got passed that desert place ... and then went under the mansion ... and then got teleported somewhere ... and then got bored shitless.

The "new enemies" didn't do it for me ... I just did the same attacks over and over. As I recall, I didn't actually feel the need to change my tactics too often. The puzzles were far too simple and didn't have enough variety. The dialog was pretty funny, but it wasn't enough to save the dire gameplay.

SiN

[Aussie Ben]

Could someone please point out some flaws with this game? Anyone?

How about the flaw that it's impossible to finish because Princess Shroob is an UTTER BITCH and I hate her. Just like Cackletta was an UTTER BITCH and I hated her. There was no way I could finish the original without a goddamned Action Replay, and Partners In Time is JUST THE SAME. Difficulty level of:

easy...easy...easy...tolerable...tolerable...OH HEY IT'S FUCKING PETEY PIRAHNA AGAIN...tolerable...tolerable...PRINCESS SHROOB IMPOSSIBLE DIFFICULTY.

So there.

I really, really love the game (although not as much as Superstar Saga - it feels like this one is trying too hard for jokes), but honest to god - there's no way I'll be able to finish it without some sort of cheat device. Which sucks, because I'd like to see the ending.

[Noyb]

I liked it enough to play through it, but not as much as the original. I thought the puzzles got boring after a while. Also, I liked the added depth of the appeal system in Paper Mario:1000-Year Door, which was missing here. The dialogue was my main reason to play through it:

I especially enjoyed the l337 h4mm3r br0s. and the star door that starts chiding Mario on his cholesterol after talking about having a pure heart.

I don't remember having too much trouble with the endgame in PiT, but I do remember an evil, evil part in the first Mario & Luigi which automatically took away most of your health after an epic boss fight and then expected you to near-perfectly dodge completely new patterns before you were able to heal yourself.

Oh, and was it just me, or did most bosses seem to have a ridiculous amount of HP? They seemed to take such a long time to beat, but weren't actually too difficult when you learned their patterns.

[toblix]

Wow.

Well, I guess this is why I never became a game reviewer. That, and I can't write.

And also there's no fucking money in game reviewing!

[BigJKO]

I loved every bit of it. Never thought it became too repetitive, and thought the length of it was perfect. The endboss took a lot of time, but I never died on him. Can't even remember dying once, and I suck at RPGs. The dialogue was funny, although maybe sometimes trying too hard. The story was just an excuse to throw all these different characters at you in all these different settings, so I didn't feel cheated by the so-so, but fun, story.

So, yeah. Overall, I loved it.

[Roderick]

I thought it was extremely repetitive. Not necessarily boring, but halfway through it just got very samey. The thing is, it never could step out of the shadow of its superb predecessor on the GBA. That game had a lot more charm and, more importantly, a more cohesive gaming world and plot. Partners in Time was one big stage comedy with characters running randomly in and out of timeportals. It didn't have any sort of reasoning behind it and for me it killed the game.

I think what also played along was that it was precisely the same as Superstar Saga, and that got boring. I had had enough of that sort of humou and gameplay out of that game, and Partners in Time didn't manage to offer anything better.

(also, the specials system was broken, I just always used the chain chomp ability on every boss. I managed to finish the endboss in the first go, but it was horrifyingly overdone with three different mutations. This was basically just a war of atrittion.)

In conclusion, the production values were great, but the game itself was not very interesting and mediocre, especially because of the comparison to the first one.

[toblix]

So the first one is even better? Do you recommend I buy it and ram it up my DS, or will I be disappointed after playing Partners first?

[Roderick]

Difficult to say, because they do look so alike. I can only reiterate that I enjoyed the first one better, not because it's the same but because it had a better story and a more cohesive world. Of course, the surprise of genuine smart comedy in a Mario game will be attached to Partners in Time for you, so there's no telling.

[miffy495]

I loved every bit of it. Never thought it became too repetitive, and thought the length of it was perfect. The endboss took a lot of time, but I never died on him. Can't even remember dying once, and I suck at RPGs. The dialogue was funny, although maybe sometimes trying too hard. The story was just an excuse to throw all these different characters at you in all these different settings, so I didn't feel cheated by the so-so, but fun, story.

So, yeah. Overall, I loved it.

I'm with you man. This game floored me. As for Princess Shroob, she wasn't nearly as hard as Cackletta was in Superstar Saga. Cackletta took me a good week of just retrying before I could beat her. Shroob was challenging, but beaten quite quickly. I also have to chime in on my sister's behalf here, as she's not really a fan of video games, but got her own GBA after playing some of my copy of Superstar Saga, and laid claim to my DS after I got a lite so that she could play PiT. This series has managed to get my mostly non-gamer sister playing for 30+ hours on the gameboy, which is quite an achievement.

Oh yeah, toblix: Get SS. If you want more PiT to play, but with (as mentioned) a more cohesive world/story, it's perfect. And the Bros attacks take slightly more skill to pull off well than the items that they were replaced with for PiT. If you enjoyed PiT as much as it seems, you will also love SS.

[toblix]

So, anyone know if there'll be a sequel, or if PiT sold well enough to warrant one? Are there other DS/GBA "RPGs" in the same vein as PiT already out there? And by that I mean beautiful, varied, non-frustrating and not overly complex?

[lobotomy42]

I kinda hated Partners in Time. Mostly because Superstar Saga was SO GOOD and Partners in Time completely dropped all the humor and fun out.

If you like this style of RPG, though, you might like Paper Mario for N64 and its follow-up on the GameCube. (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door) It's a bit different, but also involves timed attacks and such. And Super Mario RPG for the SNES.