Mario & Luigi: Brothership Review — A Bigger, Looser Return

Mario & Luigi: Brothership brings the brothers back after a long gap, and it does it on a ship that is also an island. Nintendo announced the game in a June 2024 Nintendo Direct, and it landed on the Switch as the sixth entry in the Mario & Luigi series. The studio behind it is not the one that built the series.

AlphaDream, the developer of every previous Mario & Luigi game, closed in 2019 after bankruptcy. Nintendo handed Brothership to Acquire. That change shows in the finished product. Acquire built a fully 3D game designed for a home console, with more room for exploration and quests than the handheld entries ever had. The result is a bigger, looser, more uneven Mario & Luigi — and still one of the better RPGs on the Switch.

Trailer, via Nintendo of America.

Concordia, the Uni-Tree and the Plug Outlets

The setup is the series’ strangest yet, and it works. A portal opens in the Mushroom Kingdom and sweeps Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Starlow, Bowser and Bowser Jr. into Concordia. That world was once a single continent, held together by a giant Uni-Tree and an energy called Connectar that flowed from enormous lighthouses. A dark force shattered the tree, and the land broke into islands adrift on a vast sea.

Mario and Luigi wash up on Shipshape Island, part ship and part island, and meet Connie, a Wattanist who is building a new Uni-Tree aboard it. She explains what Concordia lost. The brothers agree to help her reconnect the scattered lands, with Snoutlet — a pig-like creature with wings who is definitely not a pig — along for the trip.

The loop that follows is clean and readable. Sail Concordia’s seas, find an island, seek out its lighthouse, and bind the land to Shipshape with a magical plug outlet. Each reconnected island opens new NPCs and new routes. Early on, the sea gates you in; the map widens as you work.

Shipshape Island Is the Best Idea Here

Shipshape Island is the strongest thing Brothership adds to the series. It is a hub, a vehicle and a story device at once, and it gives the game a sense of place the earlier entries never had. Concordia’s islands each carry their own biome and theme, from an artisan town to a land of ice and fire split between two tribes.

Exploration is the focus, and it mostly holds up. You talk to non-player characters, solve puzzles and complete quests, and you control both brothers at once, each with a button of his own. Bros. Moves handle traversal and navigation, and they include the ability to throw fireballs. Small islets sit off the main path with extra rewards, and sidequests fill in the gaps.

The pacing is where the goodwill drains. The sea sections run long, and the game is in no hurry to hand you the next island. That complaint is not a small one, because the sailing is the connective tissue between everything good.

Luigi Logic and the Battle Plugs

Combat keeps the Mario & Luigi formula. Jump or hammer, heal with items, or flee. Timed button presses let you boost an attack, dodge an enemy, or land a counter-attack. The brothers assist each other on basic attacks for extra damage, and Bros. Attacks open up as you progress, mixing new moves with returning ones.

The new layer is Battle Plugs, special upgrades crafted from Lumenade, the substance produced by fairy-like creatures called Sprite Bulbs that feed on Connectar. Plugs confer bonuses in battle, and they give the turn-based fights a resource to manage beyond your item bag.

Then there is Luigi Logic, the mechanic that lets Luigi act on his own. He collects items, helps solve puzzles, and invents moves that can help take down bosses. It drew mixed reactions from critics, and the split is fair. When Luigi Logic solves a puzzle you were already working through, it is a shortcut. When it produces a boss answer you would not have found, it is a small piece of comedy that only this series could stage.

Here is how the two headline systems compare:

One of these earns its place in the next game. The other needs a stricter leash.

What Works, in Order

Ranking the parts of Brothership that carry it:

1. The art style. Acquire’s fully 3D Concordia is the best the series has looked, and the islands hold their themes without blurring together.
2. The combat. Turn-based fights with timed presses and Bros. Attacks remain the series’ most reliable pleasure.
3. The story. Connie’s mission to rebuild the Uni-Tree gives the reunion plot real stakes, and the reveal of the force spreading isolation across Concordia lands.
4. Shipshape Island. A hub that is also a ship that is also an island is a gimmick that pays off.
5. Luigi Logic. Funny in bursts, unhelpful when it steps on your work.

The performance is the weakest link. Brothership stutters where a first-party Switch game should not, and the frame drops show up in the middle of combat, which is the worst place for them. The pacing problem is a design choice; the performance problem is not.

Where Brothership Lands

Mario & Luigi: Brothership is a good game carrying a few real flaws. Acquire understood what makes this series work — two brothers, one bond, and a battle system that rewards attention — and built a world large enough to test it. Concordia is a genuine creation, Shipshape Island is the best hub the series has had, and the combat holds up across a long campaign.

The drag comes from the sailing and the stutter, and neither is fatal. The Luigi Logic split is the tell: this is a game with one excellent new idea and one that needed another pass. Nintendo’s decision to move the series to a new studio after AlphaDream’s closure was the right call, and Brothership proves the formula survives the handoff.

It is not the best Mario & Luigi game. It is a solid return for a series that had been gone, and it leaves the door open for a sharper follow-up now that Acquire has its footing.

ACQUIRE · Battle Plugs · Brothership review · Luigi Logic · Mario & Luigi Brothership · Nintendo Switch RPG