Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions Announced For 3DS (October)

[MegasonicZX]

I don't know, I thought she was pretty good in BiS but everything else afterward just felt pretty forced and I definitely think she out-stayed her welcome.

[Forte-Metallix]

Yeah, Starlow has definitely gone past her prime.

In Bowser's Inside Story, she was funny. I especially liked her dynamic with Bowser! Sure, the tutorials were annoying, but she was still cool. In Dream Team, however, she went south- Constantly nagging poor Luigi, physically and verbally abusing him throughout, and the tutorials got even worse! I think Prince Dreambert would've done a fine enough job acting as the team's voice and guide on his own.

Then came Paper Jam.

All of her worst attributes were magnified tenfold, and she revealed she has a massive ego as she insisted she's the leader of the team and pulled a Deus Ex Machina super attack out of nowhere in the worst possible time instead of the dozens of occasions it would've actually helped! Of all the RPG exclusives to be the possible one exception to the "No non-generics allowed" rule, why her? Why not make Paper Luigi the voice/guide and give us someone we actually like in her place?!

Stuffwell may not have been very memorable, but at least he wasn't a stuck-up douche who constantly annoys the player!

At this point, I genuinely think Starlow has become the Mario equivalent of Marine the Raccoon: Annoying, never shuts up, a complete brat, bossy, doesn't contribute anything worthwhile, steals the spotlight from much more deserving characters, takes credit for the real heroes' deeds, and has ENORMOUS delusions of grandeur. At least Marine is repeatedly called out by other characters and gradually learns humility. But Starlow? No, we're supposed to see her as always being in the right.

If it wasn't for Kersti, I'd just about call her the worst mistake in the entire Mario franchise.

[Agie]

I have the GBA original, so I don't know if I'll be snagging this. Though it does mean we'll be able to play some form of all the Mario & Luigi games on the 3DS. So that's cool, I guess.

 

But this remake's gonna have to convince me that I'll need it, because as it is, the GBA version still holds up as a great game.

 

That said, to those who never played the GBA version, this may or may not be the ideal way to go, depending on how good the remake is. I'm just not sure if it's for me, personally.

[Tara]

-late response-

The remake's graphics are beautiful and the dynamic lighting and shading are absolutely stunning.  I really like how the backgrounds just look like an explosion of vibrant color.  Very dream-like and also very cartoony.  Just my sort of thing.

...

...

Which is why it's absolutely baffling that the style just isn't clicking with me.  I can't help but feel the more simplistic aesthetic of the original looked more elegant and conveyed basic concepts such as lighting and shadows without going overboard.  It was also cartoony, but it doesn't feel nearly as exaggerated in this regard.  It had more of a 90's anime look, rather than a children's storybook look.  I mean, I love extreme stylization.  But the new graphical style just feels highly unnecessary and actually less appealing than its predecessor.

But graphics aside, the game also fails to yield any interest out of me.  There's nothing to suggest it will be better than the original, at least as far as I can tell.  As long as I still have my original cartridge in working condition, I'll have no reason to pick this up.  Also, it's for the Switch, which isn't a console I own. I would have preferred a 3DS version, since it would have been nice to play the game again while taking advantage of the second screen.

(EDIT - Actually Tara is a dumb fuck and everyone should hate her because the game actually is for 3DS and I don't know where she got that information so please send her hate mail right now)

[Dejimon11]

5 minutes ago, Tara said:

But graphics aside, the game also fails to yield any interest out of me.  There's nothing to suggest it will be better than the original, at least as far as I can tell.  As long as I still have my original cartridge in working condition, I'll have no reason to pick this up.  Also, it's for the Switch, which isn't a console I own. I would have preferred a 3DS version, since it would have been nice to play the game again while taking advantage of the second screen.

....Tara it is for the 3DS not the Switch....

[Tara]

Just now, Dejimon11 said:

....Tara it is for the 3DS not the Switch....

I realized I was blind as fuck as soon as I hit post.

[Forte-Metallix]

Anyone wanna peek at the first ten minutes?

Looks pretty solid, though I am bothered that they changed the designs of the pilot-esque Koopas in Bowser's army to generic Koopa Troopas.

[StaticMania]

Those don't ever appear after that part of the game, so they probably found it unnecessary.

[D.K.]

Okay so they took the "Come On!" cover from Paper Jam and made the synth worse that's pretty disappoi--

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

[Teoskaven]

13 hours ago, Forte-Metallix said:

Anyone wanna peek at the first ten minutes?

Looks pretty solid, though I am bothered that they changed the designs of the pilot-esque Koopas in Bowser's army to generic Koopa Troopas.

>they haven't updated Fawful's laughter with the BiS one

What a shame.

[Tornado]

Just as I feared. Those models and the animations simply do not look as good as the original spritework. The running animations in particular are pretty off.

[Tara]

Something about it isn't exactly selling me, either.  It looks updated in terms of graphical fidelity while still not looking exactly better.  I really like the music, but something about the original still strikes me as better.  Not a horrible looking remake, just not thoroughly impressive.

[Salamander]

The issue with remaking Superstar Saga is simply that the original holds up so well.  I'll likely still buy it, though, to support the Superstar Saga direction for the series, but it's a shame that the 3DS art style can't quite keep up with the original; the challenges of 3D versus 2D, I suppose.

It's kind of an odd project for them to be working on, actually.  I wonder if it's a filler title while the real work is going into a Switch M&L?

[Sean]

Good god they even changed the Koopa designs to generic ones. Pretty much everything I watched in that video was awful, so fuck this remake, I'll just save my money.

[Osmium]

"This is what you wanted right? Superstar Saga with the soul ripped out?" 

[Heckboy]

yeah, not a fan. Everything looks so lifeless compared to the original. 

 

[Zippo]

Yeah, just as I thought, this going to be a very divisive remake. 

[SenEDDtor Missile]

19 minutes ago, Mister X said:

yeah, not a fan. Everything looks so lifeless compared to the original. 

Pinning down the issues with these screenshots:

1) The room feels too big/Cackletta feels too small. Her being somewhat bigger than everyone else made her feel more imposing, or at least made her stand out compared to the rest of the characters. Plus the room feeling so cavernous means that it's harder to tell what everyone looks like or what their emotions are from a distance.

2) Toads are very lacking in expressiveness. The original had them expressing through facial expressions, the remake only has them running around. Boring by comparison.

3) The remake's room feels dollhouse like and is way too bright. While the original might be less grand looking by comparison, it being primarily neutral colors and more natural looking means that the focus naturally shifts to the characters, who stick out due to being so colorful by comparison. The brighter colors and dollhouse like nature of the remake means that the my eyes are constantly being drawn in every direction before focusing on the characters. Speaking of dolls...

4) Princess Peach's dress is very lacking in movement. The billowing look in the original made Peach surprisingly expressive despite us not being able to see her face, while the static dress in the remake makes her seem very doll-like and lifeless.

 

And that's all I got.

[StaticMania]

2 hours ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

2) Toads are very lacking in expressiveness. The original had them expressing through facial expressions, the remake only has them running around. Boring by comparison.

The remake's Toad's eyes are pulsating, but it's not easy to notice when they're running back and forth....as well as being too small.

[Pompadour]

I'm conflicted with this one. I've been craving another 3DS M&L game (even if it's a remake)... but man, they did NOT try all that hard translating Superstar Saga into the current art style. Like... it works okay, but talk about lifeless. And I was all for this remake too, heck I was looking forward to how they would remake the world and sprites with the 3DS M&L aesthetic, because I adore the style and could see it working really well. But with the reused assets and sprites it's really looking like they didn't try all that hard...

I don't think it looks awful by any means, but it is disappointing, and makes me worried M&L's going down its own Paper Mario-esque decline. Dream Team burned me out, but IMO that game had charm and I can look fondly back to it. I can't say I felt that with Paper Jam.... and it doesn't look like this remake will be anything special either.

The only thing I'd like to see is them bringing back the unused cameo scenes with fox, olimar, samus, ect. That would be neat.

[Salamander]

3 hours ago, Pompadour said:

The only thing I'd like to see is them bringing back the unused cameo scenes with fox, olimar, samus, ect. That would be neat.

I agree, that's one of the few things where I think the game could really use "fixing," along with the permanently missable beans.  I honestly don't expect them to do it, though.

[Forte-Metallix]

16 hours ago, Pompadour said:

I'm conflicted with this one. I've been craving another 3DS M&L game (even if it's a remake)... but man, they did NOT try all that hard translating Superstar Saga into the current art style. Like... it works okay, but talk about lifeless. And I was all for this remake too, heck I was looking forward to how they would remake the world and sprites with the 3DS M&L aesthetic, because I adore the style and could see it working really well. But with the reused assets and sprites it's really looking like they didn't try all that hard...

I don't think it looks awful by any means, but it is disappointing, and makes me worried M&L's going down its own Paper Mario-esque decline. Dream Team burned me out, but IMO that game had charm and I can look fondly back to it. I can't say I felt that with Paper Jam.... and it doesn't look like this remake will be anything special either.

The only thing I'd like to see is them bringing back the unused cameo scenes with fox, olimar, samus, ect. That would be neat.

Wholeheartedly agree on both fronts.

I'm hoping that the fact that they're not removing the original characters for this remake means that future M&L titles will go back to introducing new faces instead of sticking to generic Toads and main-series bosses. As much as I loved Bowser's performance in Dream Team, I'm getting sick of him always being the final boss. And since the RPG's seem to have this unofficial rule about any non-Bowser final boss being permanently killed off by the end of their game, we don't have any veteran villains who could sustain themselves as a main antagonist. (The only possible candidate I could think of is Midbus, but it's not clear what happened to him) So please, give us a new Big Bad who doesn't piggyback off of Bowser, like in Color Splash.

As for the artstyle, I'm with you guys that it isn't nearly as fluid or expressive as the original. Superstar Saga's animations came from the fact that the GBA was a pretty limited system, to the artists had to utilize squash-and-stretch and other cartoon-esque tricks to make the sprites pop. I see no reason why the 3DS, a much more powerful handheld, shouldn't try to push itself to its limits as well. 

They've really been playing it safe with the RPG's for the last five years, but those games are beloved for going above and beyond in terms of presentation and writing. Take that away, and you're basically playing New Super Mario Bros: The Sorta-RPG.

[Salamander]

If I'm perfectly honest, the fears and claims that Nintendo might have plausibly removed original characters and storylines from a direct remake strike me as paranoid.  There's really no precedent for any such a thing, and it's hard to imagine why anyone would remake a game and then turn it into a completely different one.  If the theory is that Nintendo's trying to wipe the slate clean of non-Mario characters from Sticker Star onwards, then why did so many returning characters, including at least one from Superstar Saga, appear in Dream Team, which came out after Sticker Star?  The character-limited approach is presently, if at all, reserved to Paper Mario.  And even then, the reason Paper Jam focuses on standard Mushroom Kingdom characters is because it's a crossover between two interpretations of Mario, so it's perfectly natural that they would focus on characters which only exist in both series.

Superstar Saga 3DS's only crime so far is that it doesn't really play to the 3DS's strengths at all.  The original was a product of its hardware and it seems neither updates well nor really needs updating.  Another reason to stick to new games in the future - but I'm sure it's just a schedule-filler, anyhow.  Probably intended to test the waters for the popularity of the Superstar Saga approach to the series, too.  It may not be a great remake, but I suspect it would send the right messages were it to do well - as I'm hoping it does among newer fans of the series.

[Tara]

The screenshots Mister X posted do a better job explaining why i don't like it quite as much as the original.  The original had so much life and thought put into the expressions of the characters.  There was also a lot more thought put into the aesthetics of the locations.  The colors in the remake look random and sometimes obscure the characters on it.  For most people, this probably won't be a problem, but imagine having some sort of color deficiency or generally poor eye sight.  Having the carpet on the castle floors be the same color as the box Fawful is holding or the spots on the Toads' heads makes them just a little harder to see.  And it's fine viewing it in a YouTube video, but the 3DS is going to be a much smaller screen, making them all blend together as a result.

[Zippo]

No idea how, but the game's soundtrack just leaked.

As expected, the remastered soundtrack is stellar.