Is Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga as Great as We Remember? 

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Rest In Peace, AlphaDream. I’m glad these games continue to get praise and recognition even years after they’ve been shut down. I never played Superstar Saga, but I watched so many playthroughs of a kid because I wanted to play it so bad that I practically know the game by heart. I grew up only playing Partners in Time and Bowser’s Inside Story, but this game was equally as meaningful for me despite only experiencing it on RU-vid. I loved this series as a kid! I’m surprised you didn’t even acknowledge the remake, though. Especially since it didn’t even release that long ago. I know you probably only talked about the original because you played and replayed the original for this video, and that’s fine, but not even a reference saying that it exists? Especially since it fixes a few things like making performing Bros. Moves in the overworld less clumsy, making tutorials more optional than they were, and giving more appropriate tutorials for Bros. Attacks (even Advanced ones) in battle (which like you said, the original doesn’t do at all.) Either way, though, great video! This video was such a nostalgia trip for me.

I swear, these Mario and Luigi sprites were EVERYWHERE when I was a kid. SMBZ, SMB: Heroes of the Stars, Project: Game Over, EVERYONE was using them. They are iconic and I'm SO glad I grew up with them!

Superstar Saga isn't "as good as we remember" it's *better* . It's *timeless* and *excellent* and *a classic* I still replay it at least once a year! It's so damn good and the soundtrack slaps way too hard for a GBA game!

The first time I played this and saw them dancing while selecting attacks, I literally burst out in laughter. I knew I was gonna love this one when I took the passport photos. This game is just full of slapstick and energy. Even screwing up the Bros attacks is hilarious. I agree on the escort part with Peach, kinda sucks, luckily it doesn't last too long. And Cackletta soul suckerpunching you is pretty bad for a first time player, otherwise I found each the bosses great on their own. It's overall right behind Thousand Year Door as my favorite Mario RPG. In many ways these games are similar for your defense options. And it's just as broken if you got the good badge and pants setup.

Listen, hear me out, Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time is unironically my favorite, it's criminally underrated

Short answer: yes Long answer: yeeesssss Imo honestly

Me and The boys at 3am lookin for BEANS

an interesting thing about the bonus stat roll you get on level ups is that the more you pump up a stat, the worse the roulette of options gets. If you rotate between most of the stats, you'll get 3s and 4s and 5s, but focus on one and all you'll have are 1s and 2s, and maybe a single 3.

I don't think i deseve so many Lowart videos so close together. But i'm so glad for it!

I loved how this games had multiples storylines within one game. It was like you had about 3 adventures in one game. First aim: Save Peachs' voice. Then assist Peach's vacation and cure mrio from an illness. Afterwards, peach gotes kidnapped and you have to collect four McGuffins and finally fight "bowser".

"These brothers are only fluent in one language: Gibberish." Every Italian who can actually understand what they're saying: "HOW DARE YOU!"

you realize now people expect you to talk about ALL of the M&L games? including the best one: bowser's inside story.

I REALLY want to see some of these characters and the Bean Bean Kingdom be brought back--- I'd kill to see Prince Peasley in a new game :,,)

Super Mario Bros Z existed and those Superstar Saga sprites were so awesome to look at.

That physical chemistry joke felt like a personal attack

Dang bro you’re on a roll with these uploads. Appreciate your hard work man. Just don’t burn yourself out

The timing of this video is such a coincidence. Last month I replayed the original Superstar Saga on Wii U VC. I'd actually never completed the original but I beat the remake. And man I had such a fun time. The game really still holds up. I still prefer the polish and quality of life improvements of the remake, but the original is what started it all and it's still a fantastic time. I also hate the unskippable tutorials. As someone who has played through most of the original once, and the entire remake twice, it was really annoying. I don't mind the Beanstar piece fetching, as it's a nice hour or two where you get to unwind, explore, and relax as you prepare for the final dungeon. But I get why others like it. Once you know what you are doing in Teehee valley, it's not really an issue at all. If Peach gets kidnapped, take the time to just defeat all the enemies before rescuing her again. The enemies will not respawn, so you just have to make sure she doesn't get too far off-screen. Also, when you rescue her, you can walk right past the enemies guarding her, so you don't have to have any unnecessary battles. I will admit that I was goofing around during this playthrough though, and Peach got captured like 3 times on the first screen. But the other screens went by super fast and I was surprised about how short the section really is. But overall, yeah, it's a great game. The Beanbean Kingdom is such a cool place, and I wish we would get to go back there sometime, whether through a spin-off, mainline game, or even just a Mario Kart course. The game is super creative and I love everything about it.

i remember playing this game when i was 8 with my brother he was playing with as luigi (yes he had one botton to puch) in an emulator site. thx lowart for the nistolgia you brought with this awesome vid.

I like how youve shown more and more enthusiasm in videos of late. I never minded the somewhat mellow tone taken in older videos, but I definitely enjoy listening to you be more emotionally expressive.

Man, you've been pumping out the videos and there's been no drop in quality! Thank you sir!

Easily the best RPG of all time.

Fun fact, the remake reworked Jokes End's music from repetitive and dull to horroresque nightmare music

I think one thing that really helps SS compared to the rest of the series is that since the game is so short, you really don't have time to get fatigued on anything since the games almost always giving you something new to do and the overworld design isn't too complicated to get through. One thing that really bites DT and PJ specifically for me is that the former goes on for longer than it should, along with having more of those forced tutorial moments while the latter is just really repetitive. It's the reason why I often find myself coming back to this game the most (even though I do really like BiS) because I like the exploration, I like how the story progresses, the bros moves weren't terribly long yet and because M&L had more weight to them here, it made dodging attacks a little tougher.

Wow. Kinda insane how well timed this video is. Was hit with a lot a nostalgia one week ago, replayed PiT and just beat it again tonight. Glad to see I'm not the only one still thinking about these games ^^

Just gonna point this out because Lowart mentioned it, but after you get an Advance Bros, if you dial the level back to one or two, there will be an exclamation bubble over the appropriate brother's head at the point where a button prompt would trigger the Advance Bros attack. From there, the rest of the button prompts are laid out as normal, and once you trigger the Advance Bros the first time, the trigger shows up on level 3 as a colored prompt like all the others. It's expected that you know to do this if you can't figure it out, because using the lower levels to learn the prompts before cranking it up was one of the first things explained about bros attacks in battle. Since it's a completely optional thing that only opens itself to players who master the Bros attacks to a certain extent, there's a certain innate expectation of the player at that point so there's no hand-holding in that respect.

¡Great video! This game had a big place in my heart and it was fun to remember it vicariously through you. I had forgotten the final boss, and it's a totally valid point. I remember how crazy difficult it was.

mario & luigi is huge part of my love its my favorite series of all time

Advance bros moves are my favorite thing about this game in particular how you have to realize there's an explanation mark over a bros head in the middle of a bros attack hinting to press the different button than normal, every point after that being a colored circle around them. Both only did these adv bros moves offer different moves to vigilant players but they also had secrets about them. Splash bros Mario's first jump based bros move has an advance feature that allows you to land on spiked enemies. Then on top of that adv splash bros also had a hidden damage multiplier against spiked enemies dealing roughly 2.5x more damage.. bounce bros advance (luigi's jump based bros attack) allowing you to hit 2 people with the attack instead of one. Both hammer based bros attacks have advance features of being infinite damage based on player skill.. Regardless if they have an obvious tutorial or not Adv moves have a tell if you pay attention and you could also do slow motion if you pleased by raising the bros cost briefly to get an easier visual on the new move. The remaster ruined bros attacks imo by making them have a separate cost and tutorial

This is nice. Glad the game is pure bite-sized fun cuz I kinda needed a new Lowart vid today for some reason.

Probably still to this day one of my faves ever -- helps that it was the first game my child self ever managed to completely beat, even without understanding english at the time, which probably says a lot about the visual presentation. I'll also never forget that fact that I beat it through the most simplified yet difficult way possible -- I only invested it power and HP, since I didn't have patience to learn Bro's moves, I only Jumped/Hammered/Elementaled my way through the game. All that lead to an unforgettable 100% and a Boss Fight that do this day hasn't recaptured the same emotions. I never got that into the other M&L, so I always wondered how they'd compare to this one I considered a masterpiece.

For me that game holds a special place in my heart and I’ve had a bunch of fond memories playing Superstar Saga especially since it was my first ever RPG game so I’m a bit biased that it was and still is one of the best RPG games out there; the story was so good.

13:13 Anyone else recognize that track from classic SMG4 episodes? God, that takes me back.

I did start playing Mario & Luigi until 2020. So much nostalgia...lost

4:18 Woohoo HOOniversity.

Really nice video!

amazing vid. I love this game and play through it often

Yes

What I really like that is strange about this game as an GBA RPG is that it had special Gameboy player compatibility. If you put this game in a gamecube gameboy player you could plug in two controllers and the game would read the input from both, meaning you could play this game with two people (one using A for Mario and the other using B for Luigi). This was mostly cool for the battles, as the brothers still couldn't split up, but I really enjoyed this feature!

I wish more people talked about this series. Man I love these games.

Superstar Saga is one of my favourites. I do think it aged very well. Probably not to some, but to me. Feels good to play - never felt the controls screwed me over. Charming story and characters. Minus the Queen and Lima maybe.

Yes, and Bowser’s Inside Story is great too.

Even though the tutorials are mostly unskippable, they did go through the effort to make unique characters and situations for most tutorials to add to the world building. Many of the tutorials happen naturally so they aren't as jarring. This is something I sorely miss in every other entry in this series where they just default to the boring done to death tutorial fairy (Literally is BiS and DT).

This is a unexpected but pleasant surprise. Thank you for the great content.

If you want a tutorial for advanced move, well the game kind of give it to you if you are willing to sacrifice more point thus making it go slower, it doesn’t give you outright what to do the first time but it will show you at what time the command differ to initialize the advanced move, once it’s done even if you are to fail the rest it gives you all the prompt you need after, so when you mastered the timing you can lower the cost back to 3 when you ready.. yeah I was a kid back then when I first played and it was pretty useful to me

This man CRANKING out the quality uploads lately! 👌🏼

As a kid I played this on an emulator. I went ALMOST through the whole game about 3 times, but I always had a glitch that prevented me from finishing it. Loved it so much, never could finish though

I played this game when it came out during my high school years and without a gamer guide or access to Internet at the time or extremely limited I should say to school only but this game was such a great way to pass the time great maps great puzzles great bosses so much to customize and play different variants

Love the review. Will buy this physically too.

Aww man I loved all the Beanstar scavenger hunt stuff. Felt like such a nice non-linear switchup that thankfully doesn't last too long. I can agree that the whole desert area sucks dong though

8:27 - if you select the same stat for your bonus wheel on level up, it decreases the numbers on the bonus wheel. It's actually better - even if POW is your goal stat to boost, to rotate between it and 1 or 2 more (I don't remember how many you need to juggle to keep the boosts full sized). Basically, the stat wheel will spin 3's, 4's and 5's, and you can afford to rotate while still getting a higher total boost to POW.

No one: “Is Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga still great?” Me: “Yes!”

My childhood. What a great fucking game. RIP Alphadream

I was expecting the pros and the cons of the original version and the remastered one

i remember replaying the game 3 or so years ago and was shocked at how short it was. it felt way longer when i was 13.

When I was a kid I poured an additional 30 hours into the game because I didn't want it to end. Beat cackletta second try

Best game I ever tried as a child I literally remember everything even after my ds/game boy broke now playing it on my switch 😊

I just completed this game on NSO, didn't expect that good, it's fantastic

4:30 Replace this with inorganic chem and you've just described an actual moment in my life

My brother and I played this as a kid, we never finished it but we loved it. It also came with Ice Climbers

I have such a fond spot for partners in time. Never played this one lol.

4:30 3D Schrodinger equation for H atom go brrrrrr

Wow that timing,I'm personally replaying Mario and Luigi SS at the moment I-

The final boss here reminds me of the Partners in Time Final Boss(kinda the one before bowser), it took forever.

My favorite Mario & Luigi games is Superstar Saga it’s my very first one, Partners in Time it’s such a dark and depressing game, Bowser’s Inside Story cmon it’s all about Fawful getting his revenge for Cackletta’s death, and Dream Team I love that game every minute of it and I also loved how Bowser betrayed Antasma because he knew that Antasma was going to betray Bowser!!! As for Paper Jam yeah that’s my least favorite Mario & Luigi rpg game sorry.

2:43- This is one thing I admittedly like more about the original than the remake. I find the characters so much more expressive since this has a much more cartoony approach to its sprites. I think the best example of this is the Yoshis in the theater. They're so much more expressive when you give them the bean fruit, whereas in the remake, their response feels generic and underwhelming in comparison. But yeah, there's no guarantee this series is over even with the death of Alpha Dream since Nintendo officially owns it now, but even then, I kinda wanna see them dabble in a new RPG franchise since even with the end of Alpha Dream, they still seem intent on not bringing back everything that made Paper Mario a full RPG back in the day. There's this rumor Square Enix may be trying to do that with Legend of the Seven Stars, but I need to see confirmation to believe that.

Yes!

God damn, 3 videos in a row

Maybe it’s called Teehee Valley because its escort mission fills you with insanity to the point that you start maniacally laughing.

9:50 Cackletta 😭😭 I'm pretty sure I never finished this game because of the final boss

this series have the best villains in any mario game the developers went wild when they made them also for some reason the final boss in every game is mutant bowser

Every episode from Lowart scares me a little. Like I enjoy the man but he keeps chipping away at my childhood.

Nintendo should’ve saved AlphaDream like come on I know their last games were rough, but they’d do so well on Switch with a bigger budget.

17:30 You used the Ceave music! I have no idea where that music is from originally, but that's totally the Ceave music.

I never had any problem with the tutorials, or the Peach escort quest.

Less then 2 minutes into the video and the amount of disrespect or lack of respect for this game has done justice for your channel

You’re spoiling us my dude

The battle theme is my phone ringtone. One of my better ideas.

God, I wanna play an M&L game now but my 3ds snapped in half. It just happened when I closed it; caught me off guard

German Fawful even stutters

yes

Kinda weird you didn't talk about the 3DS remake, but still a good video

I’ve played quite a few rpgs, but i never usually end up finishing them because they get so boring. The mario and luigi series though, never bores me. Maybe after playing for a while I’ll get bored and want to go play something else, but i never end up just dropping the game and always come back to it in a few hours or a day or two.

Advanced bros move can actually be seen through the color flashes, for a more concrete "tutorial" use the move at mode 1 after unlocking the advance

Will you be covering the sequels? My favorite is Bowser's Inside Story! I think it's the game that made him my favorite character.

I finally know why do people like these games so much apart from Vinesauce Vinny's corruptions lol

I hope this video inspires people who haven't played this game yet, to play it

3:54: Cackuletta Minions?

Welp, now I want a video about BiS

it's funny cause I love and still play super mario rpg but never tried this one I have always wondered if I should and now I know I will

Bruh best part of this game is the passport stuff, always reset my game to have fun with the portraits

comment before watching: Yes.

HELL YEAH IT IS

My personal favorites in the series are Dream Team and BIS

Ah yes, Mario & Luigi visit Mexico

I definitely understand why Joke's End's theme is grating for people, the loop is very short thus making it more repetitive than most others but I've always enjoyed it musically myself. It's atmospheric and appropriate within the area. To each their own though. Loved the video and these games, Paper Jam aside. Even that one isn't terrible, just underwhelming.

I definitely prefer turn based combat to action in RPGs. I get so bored to just hacking and slashing but turn based keeps you on your toes, having to think ahead

Yes!👍🏾

Well, there’s a remake to help us remember it.

mush badge is op