The sequel to the Gameboy Advance's greatest role-playing game does not disappoint.
The story begins with Princess Peach excitedly taking a royal trip through time in Professor E. Gadd's latest invention, the time machine. The time machine would return to the Mushroom Kingdom, dented and beat up. When the door of the time machine opens, Princess Peach does not step out, but instead an ugly green alien walks out. Mario & Luigi defeat the monster, but now its their duty to travel back through time in search of the Princess. The brothers encounter their baby counterparts in the Mushroom Kingdom of the past. Since the aliens have invaded the past, the brothers decide to team up with their baby counterparts in a combined effort to save the Princess and the Mushroom Kingdom of the past and present. The story is solid, though not as charming or crazy as the first game, where Princess Peach's language and voice mysteriously becomes explosive, literally.
You may be curious as to how you would control four characters at once. When all four of the brothers are together, they control as two characters essentially. Mario and Luigi give their baby counterparts rides via piggy-back. In battle, each brother and his baby counterpart will account for one attack. When it is Luigi's turn to attack for example: if the player chooses jump attack, they will first press the B button before jumping on the enemy, then press the Y button to initiate Baby Luigi's attack for more damage. Aside from the jump and hammer attacks that the brothers will learn to use, battle items are another option in battle. The battle items are items that involve both parties of brothers working together in a series of button combination attacks. The battle items come in very handy in tough battles where the standard attacks don't make much of a dent. The battle items really come in handy during boss battles, which for the most part aren't very challenging. Most boss battles are inventive and fun to play, while few are annoying, tedious, or too easy. "Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time" is an action RPG. Battles are turn based but rely on button mashing combinations to initiate the attacks. This style of combat assures a good, satisfying pace. The brothers earn experience points from battle which will raise their level and stats.
Outside of battle, the brothers scale obstacles by using their own unique abilities. In some scenarios the babies will depart from the older brothers in order to reach a certain area, or achieve a certain item and vice versa. There aren't many challenging puzzles and obstacles in the game, but they are fun to complete. The brothers will learn a few new abilities to reach new areas as you progress through the game. Some abilities, such as being able to go underground is exclusive to the baby brothers as a duo. Other abilities, such as the ability to roll into a ball (kind of like Samus) is exclusive to the older brothers. In some cases you will have to combine abilities of both parties of brothers to access designated areas. One faucet of the game that disappoints me is that "Partners In Time" is much more linear than the first game. "Superstar Saga" was more open-ended, allowing you to travel throughout the entire map. "Partners In Time" is a similar to the style of the "Paper Mario" series, where the game puts you where you need to be, or shows you the clear direction. This makes the game less difficult and tedious to figure out, but it also takes away the component of exploration.
The game's visual style and animation are great. "Partners In Time" is a five year old DS game, so the system has seen better graphics since then, but the game's charming style still holds up very well. You may think that the game boasts a lot of nostalgic visualization, but not so much. If anything, "Partners In Time" is a bit of a visual oddball for a Mario game. A lot of areas and worlds are murky, dark, fiery, and even the more bright and colorful worlds are a little different for Mario standards. That's not a bad thing however. The game's style is still very welcoming. The sound effects in "Partners In Time" are great, as well as the music. The game's battle theme music is quite forgettable however. "Superstar Saga's" battle theme music was so catchy and brilliant, that I still get it stuck in my head, even while playing "Partners In Time".
"Partners In Time" is a great role-playing game for the Nintendo DS. The "Mario & Luigi" series has established itself as one of the greatest, possibly the greatest Mario spin-off series ever concocted. It doesn't quite reach the caliber of quality that "Superstar Saga" hoisted on the Gameboy Advance, but all in all it is a stellar sequel that will not disappoint.