Quietly announced during the Nintendo Digital event at E3, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Bros. is a combination of two highly received games melded into what, in theory at least, should be the makings of a great partnership.
Fans of the original games were quite eager to see what Paper Mario crossed with Mario & Luigi would actually work like, so we are happy to say that it has worked surprisingly well. Even though the graphical style is clearly more towards the Mario & Luigi camp, the overall presentation is great and the two different styles are intertwined pretty effortlessly. The story for Paper Jam Bros. is pretty straightforward and centres on Luigi being his typical clumsy self (as seems the normal portrayal of him these days). While moving around in the basement of Peach’s Castle, he somehow manages to knock a mysterious book of the shelf, causing the two worlds to merge.
What ensues is a ton of paper-thin Koopas, Goombas and the like inhabiting the lands to cause some chaos. Obviously, this creates quite a funny parallel, as we now have both paper and 3D variants of each character inhabiting the same universe. As such, seeing some of the conversations between both parties is quite entertaining and should give most Nintendo fanboys a good laugh. Gameplay is pretty much as you would expect. Yet another combination of both formulas. We would probably say that in this respect it is more Paper Mario than Mario & Luigi. The turn-based battle system has been carried over in its entirety and you now have the addition of Paper Mario as a fresh character.
Aside from the funny interactions between the game’s key characters, there is not an awful lot going on in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Each one is mapped to one of three buttons; A, B and Y respectively. There is also a new card battling system, which rewards players who are doing well with some random abilities ranging from healing to additional damage capabilities. For newbies this could be a little overwhelming, so it nice to see that game developer AlphaDream has included a fully skippable set of tutorials for those who need educating on the basics. It is a real shame, then, that the RPG elements feel so stripped back. Aside from the funny interactions between the game’s key characters, there is not an awful lot going on in the Mushroom Kingdom. Non-playable characters with zero personality inhabit the lands with little to say, while the surprisingly linear main questline does not help either.
We couldn’t quite shake the feeling that there seems to be a real abundance of seemingly identical Toad villages that feel like storyline padding. At 30 hours, we can see some people getting a little bored towards the end. With the combat feeling so stellar and natural, AlphaDream has very nearly succeeded in developing a very good crossover title. Unfortunately, the lack of a deeper and more interesting main questline cannot be fully shrouded behind the presence of a promising initial story concept. You could argue that the more simplistic approach has its benefits but for some players, they will undoubtedly be left wanting a little more from the Paper Jam Bros. than it can actually deliver.
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