One of the big surprises of the June Nintendo Direct was the reveal of Mario & Luigi Brothership. The reason this was a surprise to many was because Nintendo itself had stated the RPG franchise to be pretty much dead. Years back, they noted that they thought “fans were confused” about how many Mario-themed RPGs were out there, so there “wasn’t a point” to keep them all going. Fans knew that was a bunch of malarkey, so they protested, and eventually, the Nintendo Switch got all three main RPG franchises with Mario and friends on it within a year. How’s that for irony?
Going back to Mario & Luigi Brothership, this is not only the first new entry in the series in years, but it’s the first one to come to consoles! As such, the game is bigger and features more mechanics than ever before. The ESRB rating for the title has arrived, and not only does it confirm its “E” rating, but it highlights some of the things you’ll be able to expect from the title gameplay-wise:
As one would expect, it’s a pretty standard affair for an RPG of this nature, but the island-hopping aesthetic will be something cool to check out, especially regarding how long the game is. Plus, the brothers will be on a flying ship as they travel from spot to spot, so that’ll be fun to watch unfold. That’s not even including the fact that, in the game, Mario & Luigi are sucked into another dimension, which means there are all-new enemies and characters to meet and battle! So, if nothing else, Nintendo is going full force with the franchise’s return, and that’s to be appreciated.
The hope that many fans have for this upcoming entry is that it’s so good that Nintendo has no choice but to continue. That might sound like an obvious thing to say, but as we noted before, Nintendo hasn’t made the best decisions when it comes to its Mario RPGs recently. After all, the paper RPG that many fans love has had two entries on Switch, but one was yet another divergence from the original two titles, and the other was a remaster/remake of the legendary Gamecube entry. We haven’t heard sales data from that title, but hopes are that it does well to allow for a truly new entry that follows the mold of the OG games.
We’ll just have to wait and see how everything goes on the RPG side of things!