WOW. If you love mario and you love RPGs youll love this, as its...well....another mario RPG! And by gum it does it well
Mario has to recue her. With Luigi in tow.
Again.
But no! wait a minute! whats this? it turns out that shes gone back in time, and... baby mario and luigi have to help out! Everythings been turned on its head here!
The idea is you have to go back and forth through time trying to collect shards of a star (havnt i heard this somewhere before? paper mario anyone?) to rescue princess peach. ok. not the best storyline in the world but it plays it out SO well. with references to dozens of previous mario games (I love the way the super mario 64 hub world music is in the hub of M&L) and notably, the hammer bros from Super Mario Bros 3 are HILARIOUS they really are.
This game is how every RPG should be-the fights are NOT random. As is the mario tradition, the enemies walk about, and if u get hit, then the battle is initiated, but you can dodge the enemies (not wise but possible). Also, whilst executing the attacks and defence if you button press correctly more damage can be added or avoided.
Let us take an example. The humble shell you can purchase for about 10 coins. get Mario to select it (jumping and headbutting. ah back references, youve got to love them) and mario tosses it into the air, and it falls infront of him. baby Mario climbs aboard and mario kicks it toward the enemy. if you now press baby Mario's button (x) he spins, making the damage increase. the shell now bounces towards Luigi and he kicks it if you press his button (b) the shell heads back towards the enemy and if you press (x) again, baby Mario spins again, and the pattern repeats. For each hit the enemy takes, the cumulative hit point toatal gets knocked up, but gets faster, and if Mario or Luigi miss a hit, the shell goes straight past them, spinning them silly in the process. simple, but so so effective, and it makes the game SO much more fun.
There are other items you can purchase, using both the brothers of both time spans to thier full abilities, using jumps, hammers, shells (both green and red), yoshi eggs, chain chomps, those springs from Super Mario World, fireflowers of various types etc. This keeps the game fresh and exciting, as well as the brothers ability to learn new....well....abilities. (i wont explain how you learn these as it would spoil the fun ;-) )
The only niggle with the game is that it is a little bit short. i completed it in just over 20 hours after collecting everything. Also it makes very little use of the touch screen-im rather disappointed-dont get me wrong, i love the touchscreen but the game runs beautifully without it. It doesnt need the touchscreen. The one time it is used it feels.....tacky. If it doesnt have touchscreen, dont force it in somewhere. But other than those couple of niggles, lets get back onto good features.
From a used storyline to a great game (as, wel all know the mario game always takes the same storyline of peach getting kidnapped by someone or the other) once again a truly great Mario game is born, and Kudos to Nintendo for making such a great game.
Who says an old dog cant learn new tricks?