I’ve been knocking some games down quickly, so I need to catch up on blogging! M&L RPG 3 was a game I bought back when my 3DS was new and I wanted some games for it. I’d heard good things about the series, so I picked up the latest one when I saw it pretty cheap at one of those shops that doesn’t know how to price good games sometimes. Also I’d played Super Mario RPG for the SNES… somehow… and that was pretty fun.

I ended up starting this game at the same time as Paper Mario 2, so there were lots of comparisons invited. At the time, I wavered for a while before deciding I preferred Paper Mario, and dropped this for a while. The main reason for the hiatus was the game’s difficulty. I got to a bit that I was underleveled for and was getting killed too much (I never had similar problems later, for what it’s worth), and I also had endeavoured to beat the special move challenge minigame things. The minigames are just gruelling if you’re trying to get a high score.

Eventually I decided to return, give up on the minigame and power through the part I was at in the story. I don’t like letting a game languish, unfinished. It really picked up after the bit I was up to, as well. Now the comparisons with the Paper series has shifted, especially after Super and Sticker Star which were on the whole pretty disappointing. I ended up preferring the M&L battle system in particular.

There are a lot of unique and very interesting things about M&L. You control the Bros, and Bowser in this game, with different buttons. So A is always Mario’s action button to jump, etc, B is Luigi’s, and Bowser uses X and Y. It’s cool, but can be limiting when you have three different action modes to swap between for different actions. It’s not oo complicated either since swapping between Bowser and Bros changes the focus. Unfortunately this means you only sometimes get a simultaneous map on the opposing screen. I wanted that map all the time!

The battles are really cool. Every enemy attack is telegraphed in a unique way and you have to react differently to avoid them. It’s a very dynamic system, and makes you feel involved to a much greater degree than the Papers, which are overly simplistic in comparison and only use timed hits (which M&L also has).

Of course, the “good” two of the four Paper Mario games have a range of characterful partners. M&L takes the Tippi/Kersti route of the one guide-type character who tags along. Contrary to popular opinion of such characters, I liked Starlow/Chippy. She didn’t take any of Bowser’s crap and for that I really admired her. That is to say, I think she was characterised well and didn’t get in the way too much.

The other characters are pretty good too. There’s a very memorable villain, and some good secondary antagonists, the supporting characters are fun and all have their distinctive looks and catchphrases. It’s basically the opposite of your standard main series Mario game. But, this one has callbacks and references to Mario games too. That’s what I like, more than actually playing them because they’re a bit boring. I love the universe though, especially when it’s actually used and explored a bit.

To compare a little further still, the advancement system here, in terms of levelling up and also plot, feels good. You sometimes need to go back to old areas, but with new abilities to explore further. It feels cohesive too. And levelling up is kind of a big deal. I feel it edges out ahead of the Papers in these respects, but I guess there isn’t quite the variety of wacky locations those games have.

Even now it’s very hard to decide which sub-series of Mario RPGs I prefer. But I’m glad that their differences in gameplay and presentation let them both exist, and even for the same system now! I guess you could say M&L is a little more “serious”, at least in terms of mechanics. But the writing is just as strong, full of humour, and the character animations are expressive, silly, and just fun. The teamwork-based gameplay of the Bros is very compelling, too, and highlights their relationship and their strength as characters, in a way pretty much unique among the Mario series. I give Bowser’s Inside Story much chortles.