lowkey underrated and underappreciated

Due to having replayed this game many times, it's kind of hard to write an actual review of it, so instead I've compiled some notes of things I had noticed while playing.

Bros. Items aren't ideal, wrong kind of resource management and half of them aren't that satisfying to use despite this. It creates a false sense of scarcity, when realistically you aren't going to ever run out of any particular item you need, especially since the player will likely prioritize buying bros items. over mushrooms. It would've just been better if the game had the BP system. Additionally there is zero fanfare for unlocking a new item. In Superstar Saga the bros would learn these moves after learning a new overworld ability (or by obtaining the secret scrolls) and in future entries, the moves would be unlocked by collecting all the puzzle blocks in an area. PiT has no visible progression to collecting new bros. items like this, as often you will enter a new area, hit a block and just randomly receive a new bros. item to which I often responded with "oh I guess I have this now.". I dislike this lack of progression.

Copy flowers and Mix flowers are some of the few that are really fun to use, but also destroy the game's balancing. Feels like they were specifically designed for the final bosses.

Allowing to "spice up" bros moves with additional inputs to deal more damage depending on if you have the babies or not is cool, shame that the flower effects aren't interesting at all

Red shells unlocking at the end of the game is nonsensical, they are something that would've been useful and fair way earlier in the game, due to their ability to attacks enemies successively. By the time you unlock them they are practically useless, because you might as well use the copy flowers, which deal considerably more damage.

Regular inputs when you have all four of the bros are quite fun to use.

Pacing issues, areas drag on for too long sometimes, example is Thwomp caverns, where Thwomp mountain was enjoyable but having caverns right after is a drag. Which is a shame because it easily would've been a fun area, it really just needed something to break up the monotony between the two, perhaps even just making the area have no enemies and be exclusively about the minigames would've helped. Even the final area suffers from this.

Overall, area theming is some of the best in the series, taking typically generic area themes and spicing them up in interesting ways, such as Gritzy desert leading into the Koopaseum, even if you don't spend much time in there. Or Toadwood forest leading into the Vim factory. These drastic theme shifts really help the game's "alien" aesthetic.

Shroob castle has way too many enemies and the part where you backtrack with the babies on the rafters is unnecessary.

Love the dark tone of this one, it's basically the Majora's Mask of the Mario series. I wish more games would portray a mushroom kingdom in complete ruin, Hollijolli village and Toad town are some of my favorites. If I recall correctly it's story is probably my favorite of the whole series. Who knew a Mario game could have some of the coolest plot twists ever. (I.E "destroy" and the elder shroob princess)

The Tutorialization sucks and really makes the first hour or two of the game a slog to get through.

Stuffwell is the most nothing character ever, you can see the seeds for the concept of a travel partner, but with this game effectively having double the amount of main characters, there was really no space for this kind of character, which is likely why he contributes basically nothing and has zero personality.

Shrowser is fucking lame, just a pointless fight that really draws attention away from the really good "real" final boss.

Minor nitpick, but the baby crying sound effects (ESPECIALLY BABY PEACH) are incredibly annoying.

I don't have any particular feelings about but it's interesting how uninvolved adult Bowser is, only showing up at the midpoint and then disappearing until the end.

I really like some of the character dynamics between young and old versions of characters, Toadsworth being a highlight and Luigi and Baby Luigi having lots of sweet moments. I wish that the two bowsers had more time to interact, as I really liked the few times they did.

Separation is much better handled in this game due to the inherent mechanics of babies and adults. In regular Mario and Luigi games, there are often moments where Mario and Luigi get separated, and these tend to be some of my least favorite sections, as all your cool bros moves and combat abilities are stripped to their bare minimum. This game only ever separates the babies from the adults, and this means that you still have access to some of your bros moves but not all. This makes separation feel a lot better in this game.

I feel like this game is a lot more consistent than Superstar saga, as segments that feel like "filler" are only within segments of areas, whereas superstar saga had entire areas that felt like filler, such as Joke's end or Bowser's Castle.

I know I wrote a lot more negatives than positives, but overall I still really really enjoy this game despite being more flawed than most of the other entries (except for paper jam of course). It's a shame that Alphadream never got to remake this one, since it's arguably the only one of the first three that actually needed a remake.

Not quite as good as the first game

STUPENDO

Childhood game right here, absolutely amazing, hope we get a remake!

Great game, really flawed however, certain areas drag on and some of the mechanics are either under utilized or not polished, bros attacks as items are lame, shame this didn't get a remake

TAPOMALPIT

loved this game growing up