I went in expecting Mario & Luigi, and that's what I got. If you were expecting any more or less, well, I'm not sure what you were expecting Xp. I have played the previous 3 games, but not the most recent one, so my review will mostly mention this game in relation to the others in the series. If you just wanna know if it's a good game, I'll save you a read and just tell you "yes, it is."

First off, this game is probably one of the lightest and least surprising in terms of story. The other three had some sort of play on who the bad guy would be, or how dark the theme might get at times, but this one is much more straightforward in terms of story. What this game's story is, though, is entertaining. Even playing it in Japanese and not totally understand the exact semantics going on all the time, there were many times where I legitimately laughed out loud because what was going on was so silly
(when Yumeppu and Starly are having a covert discussion about Bowser's butt had me absolutely in stitches).


Another thing I appreciated from the story, is how much actual characters from the other 3 games were in this one. The other three games were VERY separated, to the point where you could probably play them in any order, and aside from the first one being on GBA, you'd probably have some trouble deciding in which order they were made. This game is far from reliant on the plot of past games, but there were just so many reoccuring characters, comparatively. Starly is back from Bowser's Inside Story, there are members of the Bean Bean Kingdom and Woo Hoo Mountains vacationing all over the island from Superstar Saga, and there's even the koopa reporter from Partners in Time. I hope this trend continues in Paper Jam (when I eventually get around to it). I absolutely loved the Massive Twins X3 (I'm sorry, but I have no idea what their names are in English. That's just what I call them. They're the two strongmen who teach you lots of special moves).

The gameplay is fairly standard, but there are a few things that can make things really interesting. One thing, is that Bro Items are completely gone. I'll admit that I can't honestly remember if Bowser's Inside Story had Bro Moves or Bro Items, but this game is back to Bro Moves. More importantly, both Mario and Luigi don't share their respective Bro Moves, somewhat similarly to how their moves worked in Superstar Saga. So in addition to how their stat biases differ, their special move sets are also very different.

Where Bowser's Inside Story had the Bowser sections and Bro sections, this game has the real world and the dream world. The real world is just like normal Mario & Luigi fare, with both bros walking around, but the dream world is inside Luigi's dreams, and is a side-scrolling section. As a result, there are a completely separate set of special moves for the dream and real worlds, with many in the dream world involving some manipulation of the 3DS's inner gyroscope feature. The gyroscope stuff works well enough, but it was probably one of the mechanics that gave me the most trouble, just because sometimes it would be fairly difficult to aim something very precisely (granted you don't gotta do that too often).

Giant battles are also back in this game, and I wanna say there are a good handful more of them. I only remember Bowser's Inside Story having like 3 giant battles, where this game has 6. They're fun set-pieces, and its a cool change of pace. The only somewhat troublesome thing is that because they're so separated from the normal battle engine, your equipment and items don't really mean anything in the giant battles. It's either you master the timings of the hits and dodges, or you die. There's really no before-hand preparation you can do for them.

Another thing, this game is probably the Mario & Luigi game I'd say is the hardest in the group (of the first four). Especially because of the dream world, Luigi acts as more of a support role, and just Mario gets turns, similarly to how Bowser was all by himself in Inside Story. Bosses hit REALLY hard though, and if they stun you with one hit, you can be on a very quick path to death. Dream Team is definitely up there with Superstar Saga as being one of the harder Mario & Luigi games, in my opinion. Especially considering there's a hard mode once you beat the game once, and I'm not sure I wanna find out how hard that is right now Xp

Verdict: Highly recommended if you want a fun, quirky JRPG to play on your 3DS. It's another great entry in the series. I enjoyed it more than Bowser's Inside Story I would say, but they're all good games, and they're all worth trying :)

I just replayed this game for what must have been the first time in almost a decade. I remember it being pretty good when I played it as a kid, so I was shocked to discover in this playthrough that this game actually kinda sucks donkey balls.

For starters, the demographic for this game was clearly a MUCH younger audience than any of the previous games. I just replayed the 3 previous games in the Mario and Luigi series, and while they are certainly very accessible and sometimes a little overbearing with how much they hold your hand, Dream Team takes things to a new level of insufferableness. The first ~1 hour of the game is a very long """invisible""" tutorial, teaching you how to control a character in a video game from a third person perspective. I cannot overstate how annoying it is that you are forced to spend an hour going through a tutorial that genuinely seems to have been intended for people who have never played a videogame before, with no option to skip it.

The next hour or two after the opening are still not great. In stark contrast to Bowser's Inside Story, the action commands for your standard attacks are very easy to time in this game, which is a real shame. The tight timing for the action commands in BIS were great because it kept me engaged and focused on the combat's moment to moment gameplay. Another thing that became very apparent early on in the game was the excessive amount of dialogue, the opening especially is overflowing with NPCs that want to talk to you and waste your time with meaningless text. Dialogue continues to be a problem through the whole game; after completing an objective, learning a new overworld ability, rescuing a Pi'illo, and so on, you will be assaulted with words upon words that the game would have been much better off without.

Rescuing Pi'illo folk is one of the weakest areas in this game. There are 52 petrified Pi'illos to rescue, each one housing a mini dungeon, so they make up a significant portion of the game's content. To rescue a Pi'illo you must find it in the overworld, enter the dream world, traverse the dream world to find and destroy x number of nightmare chunks, and then exit the dream world. There is nothing wrong with that formula on its own, it would honestly be nice to have Pi'illos act as miniature challenges to complete within the larger objectives, but, the problem with the Pi'illos is their execution. Firstly, the animation for entering and exiting the dream world is way longer than is necessary, which gets old really fast since you will be seeing it each time you rescue a Pi'illo (as well as any other time you enter the dream world). After you've rescued a Pi'illo it will also always speak to you and they never have anything interesting to say. Many Pi'illo in the same area will even say the same thing to you just slightly rephrased, adding to the amount of time that the game wastes. And as for the actual content in each Pi'illo's dream dungeon, I was always underwhelmed by the challenges you must overcome to rescue the optional Pi'illos as well as the challenges for many of the mandatory ones. Most of the time, the challenge will be something exceedingly simple and very short: advance past a few enemy encounters, find ~3 nightmare chunks in an empty room, complete a very small platforming challenge. A few times it even felt like the animation and dialogue surrounding the Pi'illo rescue missions were longer than the missions themselves. Because rescuing Pi'illos was so unrewarding (you don't get anything meaningful unless you rescue all of them) and felt like a waste of time, I decided to ignore any optional Pi'illos about halfway through the game, which made the experience a bit more bearable. Rescuing Pi'illo folk would have been much more compelling if there were less of them and the challenges in the dream world felt more meaningful.

Speaking of the dream world, even outside of the Pi'illo rescue missions, exploring the dreamworld felt more annoying than fun. The gimmick of touching Luigi's face on the bottom screen to interact with the dream world is undercooked, accomplishing nothing that the buttons on the 3DS couldn't handle while also interrupting the flow of gameplay. Even the parts of the dream world that don't require touch controls to navigate are often unnecessarily cumbersome. You will very often need to summon a hoard of Luigis to progress in the dream world. The hoard changes the already underwhelming control scheme that Mario and Luigi have to be slower and more clumsy. The tornado shape that the hoard can take was especially frustrating due to how slowly it moved vertically. The theming of the dream world also felt pretty lackluster, especially when comparing it to the theming of Bowser's insides from BIS, where everything from the blocks, to the enemies, to the walls and floor were designed to match that theme. While most of the enemies in the dream world are unique, nothing about them is "dreamy", and the only thing surreal about the dream world layouts is that there are things floating in the background and foreground. It would have been much cooler to discover things that only existed in Luigi's imagination in the dream world. All that being said, there are a couple things I did like about the dream world. Battles feel very different there compared to the waking world thanks to the exclusivity that special attacks have in the dream/waking world, the quantity of monsters within each encounter being significantly higher in the dream world, and only having one party member while fighting in the dream world. I also really like the Golden Beanie enemy, which is a rare miniboss that can randomly spawn in the dream world and will flee if you fail to counterattack any of its moves, making its combats very exciting.

I can't end this review without mentioning a specific part of the story that was aggravating due to how badly it was written. I've already mentioned that there is too much dialogue in this game, but most of it also feels poorly written. The scene at the top of Pajamja Mountain was especially poorly thought out, and let me explain why. At this point of the game. Mario and Luigi have just caught up to the big bads, Bowser and Antasma, on the peak of Pajamja mountain. Antasma then starts playing music from nearby speakers which your companion, Dreambert, explains to be the Dreambeats, which is a song that will make all who hear it fall asleep. To escape the Dreambeats and avoid leaving their vulnerable unconscious bodies in front of the baddies, Mario and Luigi plan to escape to the dream world. The problem with this solution is that to get into the dream world, Luigi must fall asleep (which is what they are trying to avoid!). This is not addressed and you simply walk a screen to the left and leave Luigi's unconscious body in the overworld as Mario escapes to the dream world. Immediately upon entering the dream world the dream portal closes behind you and your new objective is to escape the dream world. Nothing you do in the dream world is related to Bowser or Antasma at all, leaving this section feeling completely inconsequential, poorly written, and a waste of time. The cherry on top is when you see Bowser (who is covering his ears with his hands to avoid hearing the Dreambeats) talking to Antasma and responding to what he is saying, meaning Bowser can hear what is going on despite not falling asleep. The fact that there is so much dialogue slowing Dream Team down, feels even worse when you realize that the story the game is telling wasn't even given too much thought.

Aside from the easier gameplay, Pi'illo folk, dream world, and extra heaps of dialogue, the rest of the game is pretty much in line with the other Mario and Luigi RPGs. A few extra details about this game that stood out to me are as follows.
- Giant battles return from BIS and overstayed their welcome a bit but were an alright inclusion overall.
- I was pleasantly surprised to find that the 3D effects in this game look amazing, especially in battles!
- Many of the special attacks the bros can preform utilize the gyro sensor on the 3DS, which unlike the touch controls in the dream world, were actually a fun addition that adds novelty to this game and allows its battle system to stand out a bit compared to the other entries of the series.
- The gags in this game are much wordier than the games preceding it and, for me, ended up falling flat much more frequently.
- The locations in this game felt very generic. Plains, desert, mountain, beach, jungle, and lava castle are all very overused settings in Mario games, which the previous Mario and Luigi games had avoided falling back on.
- Badges and gear are much more unique in this game than the games before, boasting many unique effects that are more exciting than simple stat upgrades. Gaining the ability to equip 2 extra pieces of gear through character customization perks is also very cool.
- There is a hard mode that is unlocked after beating the game once. I wish that hard mode were an option from the start because that very likely would have made the game more enjoyable to me, but I am not willing to spend an additional 30 hours playing this game again to see for myself when that won't fix the problems present outside of the games combat.

Overall, Mario and Luigi Dream Team is a disappointing follow up to Bowser's Inside Story and the worst entry in the series up to that point. It constantly feels like the game is wasting your time and talking down to you with lots of dialogue, tutorials, and filler content. It is sad to see, because other aspects of the game, like the art direction, battle systems, and combat are up to par or even improvements on the previous games. Dream Team has its moments, but they are far outnumbered by the rest of the game's mediocre or even straight up bad gameplay. My disappointment with this game leaves me especially trepidatious about the quality of the last installment in this series, Mario and Luigi Paper Jam, which I remember already not really liking when I was a kid. So if I remember Dream Team being good as a kid I can only imagine how bad Paper Jam really is if I already didn't like it when I was younger.

Yeah, I liked this one. A lot of people say this one is just boring but I thought it was ok.

I liked the dream world idea and all of the different Luigi transformation gimmicks. The gameplay is just as solid as all the previous games too.

In terms of cons, I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the way these characters look now, since personally I preferred the way BiS looked. That and this game does drag on for maybe a bit too long in my opinion.

Other than that, it's still a Mario & Luigi game, you are probably gonna have a fun time with this one. It's just not as good as Bowser's Inside Story or maybe even Partners in Time.

i’m a very new m&l fan so i have no nostalgic bias towards these games. a couple years ago i decided to finally play through them all. LOVED the original trilogy to bits but something about dream team felt… off? it felt too slow, messed with my muscle memory i’d gained over the last 3 games and it didnt feel right. I shelfed it for a year or so and grew a bitter resentment towards it, saying it ruined the series and never got what made people love it…

until people got on my ass about it i decided to give it a second chance, see it through to the end to see if it was truly worth the hype. my answer? its GOOD. but i wouldnt consider it on par with the original trilogy. its a game with stellar world building with the pillos, zeekeeper and antasma. its amazingly fleshed out and i got really interested to its story. but the pillo kingdom itself feels very… bland? it uses the grass, desert, beach, jungle etc locations mario fans are used to but shakes it up in a way that doesnt really change it all THAT much. the gameplay however is where the game faulters hardest. it’s the same m&l you know but with weird motion and confusingly inconsistent input commands?? why would i use bye bye cannon when jet board is right there and does more damage? (granted this could be a nonissue because its been a while since i played the other games but idk)

the dream world itself is interesting in concept but doesnt really do much for me in terms of gameplay, its just very uninteresting puzzle solving mixed with fun luiginary effects, i like pulling on his mustache and making him sneeze, plus luigi’s character arc towards him being more confident… while done before was super nice to see :)

the main area where this game shines for me is the giant battles!!! oh my god these are soooo good, the spectacle of it all is magnificent! the bowser fight ESPECIALLY was great for someone like me who loves BiS to bits. plus the zeekeeper fight and the giant town robot were probably luigi at his coolest. while basic in gameplay the pure spectacle of it alone easily made going through the game worth it, just to see how cool it could get.

me personally, i wouldnt blame you if you skip it but if you decide to see it all the way through, you’re in for a pretty fun time with cool characters and a cool setting.

El mejor Mario y Luigi.

Agarra la variedad de especies y personajes de SuperStar Saga y el cambio de mundo de Viaje al Centro de Bowser.

Igual la caga un poco al poner a Bowser como villano porque el conde podría haber sido fácilmente la amenaza principal.

El manejo del mundo onírico está mejor planeado que el interior de Bowser, pues aquí solo necesitas interactuar con Luigi, en vez de tener a Bowser en un punto concreto del mapa para que interactúe con una cosa en específico.

Las peleas contra los gigantes si que pueden ser un poco molestas, sobretodo si tienes problemas con el giroscopio de la consola, si es así ya te puedes ir dando por atascado.

La dificultad es buena, tiene partes bastante retadoras, con jefes que solo puedes vencer de una manera en concreto.

La música es MUY buena, con puro temazo sonando a cada rato.

I don't even have a real review for this game.

from what i remember the gameplay was standard with a lot of different bros attacks both the real world and dream world.
The motion controls kinda blew ass but it didn't take away from the game for me all that much. I just wasn't the biggest fan of the story or a lot of the dream world level designs.
Music was also okay? Definitely a lot more obscure tracks that go unnoticed or not remembered.