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Story: An evil witch named Cackletta has replaced Peach's voice with explosives! A frantic Toad goes over to the Mario Bros. house to tell them the bad news. Mario rushes to the castle and Luigi is dragged along with Mario by accident. When they arrive, they find Bowser and Mario defeats him (Luigi being a bit on the scared side.). Bowser says, "I can't kidnap Peach! If I do, her explosive voice will wreck my castle!!!". So the Mario Bros. and Bowser go off on an adventure together. (Sadly, you can't play as Bowser, because he leaves the Mario Bros. fairly early.) Well, this story is above average for the Mario series as it's not just rescuing Peach from Bowser, so it's pretty good.
Gameplay: The gameplay is excellent in this game! The action command returns from past Mario RPG games and you get BOTH the Mario Bros. This is an event Luigi fans shoudn't miss! As for people who don't know what the action command is, you press A or B as soon as certain movements occur (e.g. "Press A as soon as Mario jumps on the enemy!" or "Press B as soon as Luigi jumps on the enemy!".). When you preform the action command, you'll get extra damage. There is also a defensive action command. You press A/B as soon as the enemy does a certain movement (e.g. Press A/B to make Mario/Luigi jump just before Bowser spits out his flamebreath). Sometimes, on the defensive action command, you can even counterattack!!! There are lots of puzzles and jumping challenges, up to the point where it barely seems like an RPG. As Nintendo Power says, "It seems more like a platformer where you gain experience than an RPG". There are a lot of moves outside of battle, and the brothers will even occassionally separate! Separating can lead to big time puzzle solving. Joke's End is one of the biggest baddest puzzles on GBA thanks to the Mario Bros. separating. Even the RPG battles are adventurish because the action command comes into effect. Unlike in past games, you can actually DODGE attacks (look above for more details)! In fact, the enemies' attacks are so strong that it will be impossible to win this game without dodging. Also, the Brothers' attacks are very weak unless you time the action command properly, so you must get some good timing before you can progress further into this game. This game is also very humorous, and I'm glad the translators translated the game correctly from Japanese to English for all the good humor.
Replay Value: This game is probably the shortest of the Mario RPG games, (Sorry, I never played Super Mario RPG but it was most likely longer than this.) but this is the most fun of the three games while it lasts. There aren't many sidequests in this game, the only ones that would catch your intrest would be Starbeans Cafe and the return to Harhall's Studio. Starbeans Cafe will take an average amount of time to complete, (once you go through the game, it'll take around 3 more hours) while the return to Harhall's studio will be rather short (30 minutes). There are several fun mini games throughout the adventure that you can go back and play, and the addition of the classic game called "Mario Bros." is a plus. However, this game is fun to play again and again! I've beaten this game around 6 times (Thank goodness they gave you three save files.) and will probably beat it around 6 more. The game has lots of replay value for an RPG; it has just about the same amount as Paper Mario.
Graphics: WOW! WOW! WOW! The graphics in this game blew me away! These are the BEST graphics for a 32 bit system, and the fact that it's portable just adds more value to the graphics. Everything fits the graphic style very well, and there's just nothing better than seeing Luigi's Mansion in these graphics (Don't know what I mean? Make some more blends at Starbeans Cafe). Just look at a single screenshot of this game (preferably out of battle) to see how good these graphics are.
Sound: The sound effects are pretty good but Mario and Luigi's vocies are great! It's great when Luigi says "Oh, yeah!", "Thunderhand" or "Wow". The music is incredible, even for the Mario standards. It captures the theme of each area PERFECTLY. Tropical music for Gwarhar Lagoon, repetitive music for the maze in Cheatu de Chucklehuck and scary music for Woohoo Hooniversity. The music isn't repetitive (with the exception of Cheatu de Chucklehuck) and you can sometimes hear it going through you're head. The music is just awesome, end of story.
Summary:
Story: 8/10 The story is above average for the Mario series and gains in depth as you go further into the game. The story is one of the best in the history of Mario.
Gameplay: 9.6/10 The platforming of this game is so fun it's just absolutly incredible. The action command has become 5X more important and it only adds to the fun. The puzzles and the appearance of (SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!)
the Koopa Kids (Koopa Kids?!? I had to pinch myself when I saw these guys!) add MEGA fun.
Replay Value: 9.5/10 It'll take around 100 hours to beat this game the first time around. It's a rather easy short game but it's so fun while it lasts. Unlike other RPGs, you can play through this entire game over and over and still have a lot of fun.
Graphics: 9.9/10 WOW! WOW! WOW! These graphics are the king of all games on a 32 bit system. You'll fall in love with the graphics of this game and you'll wish that other games like Paper Mario were more like it.
Sound: 9.6/10 This is some of the best voice acting and some of the best music I've heard on a portable system! The music is simply incredbile and lives up to the Mario name.
Overall: 9.8/10 An excellent game. All of the categories were at least a 9, except story which was still an 8, rather high for a Mario game. The graphics and gameplay were the two things that blew me away in this amazing title. Overall, it's tied with Paper Mario and Pokemon as my favorite RPG. Don't rent this game, BUY IT NOW! Buy it off of ebay, from a friend, from the store, or even make a deal to help a friend with their homework for a year to get it!
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