A look back at: Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time

For some really weird reason on a Christmas holiday, I was so addicted to this particular game I beat it in two days. That's when I was young and had the experience of playing through Superstar Saga fairly well.

So everything here is doubled in a sense, double the bros, double the ho...excuse me. Anyways no weird kingdom of nonsense this time around, this is basically Chrono Trigger or some other past/present movearound RPG done Mario & Luigi style, bringing in heroes past and present. E. Gadd certainly has quite the role, but then again, it's those Shroobs that stole the show.

You know, back when kids were sitting around playing a game like this on their Nintendo DS, they get rather attached to some of their favorite characters that they see all the time like Mario and Luigi and all that. Seeing an alien invasion that somehow proves not comical or terrifying but comically terrifying was quite a nightmare the first time I saw this game. Not helping is the fact that the very first (and for some super strange reason, the only) fight with three regular Shroobs is an unwinnable fight and you know things aren't as holly or jolly as the village that the fight happens in. And then you take a look at what happens to other locales in the past.

Well, Bowser's Castle, the desert, the volcano, and the star road/shrine don't seem to have any major problems. But look at everything else. Peach's own castle has become Shroob castle thanks to the more alien princess taking it over. Yoshi's Island has its own denizens being devoured by a huge ass shroobified thing that you even go into the belly of so they can be freed. I already talked about Hollijolli Village, but Toad Town is just as bad, an actual ghost town. And Toadwood Village? One of the earliest locales? Good lord. Just take a look and see for yourself. My 13-year-old self still has nightmares seeing this stuff. Sure, the bros solve the hardiest of puzzles and defeat the worst of foes, Shroobified or not. And heck, even the Elder Princess Shroob, as plausibly hard as it is, was surprisingly not as terrifying as what I had seen well before these final moments. Yeah, I remember this well. Even Mario RPGs are quite the heart-wrenchers.