A great game that is dragged down by repetitiveness and a slow story.
THE GOOD
The game puts you in control of four main heros: Mario, Baby Mario, Luigi and Baby Luigi. Throughout the game you battle enemies, gain experience points and become higher levels. So, the game has the normal aspect of a good roleplaying game. What is different about Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time is that you can control how much damage you inflict on an opponent and, you can dodge enemy attacks while counterattacking them at the same time. I found this to be very enjoyable. The battles are very fun, since you can come in and have full health and leave just losing five to six hit points. This is significant because in other roleplaying games when the enemy attacks you usually cannot do anything to dodge their attacks. But this game allows you to play flawlessly if you have good reflexes. So during a boss battle I could have five hit points remaining and say, “Well I could heal myself now, or I could try to land another hit on it and then cure myself.” While in regular role playing game I would be pressing the command button to heal my characters like there was no tomorrow. THE BAD
I don’t want to same the game was dragged down by many problems, but there really is not any other way for me to put it. The story was very dull and did not get me sucked into the game, like a good role playing game should. I would keep in mind however that Mario and Luigi games are not known for their amazing stories. Personally I would have loved to see a few more enemies. I loved when I got to fight a new enemy and figure out all its new attacks, but after fighting the same enemy for over an hour, I can’t say that it stays fresh. The difficulty of the game ranges from easy to very easy. Seriously, the game rarely offers a new challenge in difficulty. The only boss that I had trouble on was the last boss, who I beat on my second try. Surprisingly, I did not find myself missing random battles; however, there seemed to be a lack of enemies to battle. Hopefully this review didn’t tarnish your thoughts on buying this game. It offers solid game play and if your looking for a game to pass time this is for you. Be warned, I felt the game became very repetitive half way through the story. If you can wait till November when Final Fantasy III and Children of Mana come, you could find yourself very pleased.