Thoughts on Superstar Saga DX

Yeah, Alpha put out another Mario & Luigi on 3DS. Yay.

For some reason they decided to remake Superstar, I guess they didn't feel like making a brand new game or that it would take too much time. I don't think Superstar has aged that bad over the years but there's no denying that the feel of the series itself has changed with each installment. I'd say it has kept its old identity over here though, but received polish in some corners.

Most notable is that the QoL changes from Paper Jam have been implemented here. The tutorials go through really quick and are put into the guides menu and are often skippable. There's also the fast forward button and the guard button on X during battles. You can also toggle easy mode from the menu. All in all not too bad.

Besides the PJ changes, there's other stuff too. Some item moles give different items now, usually brand new (not to mention much better ones). Mush Badges for example were moved to two different moles, rather than being sold in Fungitown. If that wasn't enough, they were also nerfed considerably. Speaking of nerfs, Knockback Advance can't do infinite attacks and Chopper Bros seems to deal less damage overall. That isn't to say everything has been nerfed. Fire Bros was changed from Mario shooting balls one by one to firing them in the air and Luigi launching it to the enemies. This is much much faster than the original and the Advanced form also damages nearby enemies.

For collectionist peeps, all the blocks and beans in areas are kept track of and music tapes have been put to certain blocks which lets you listen to different tracks from the game. The most important thing for many though is that Piranha Suit has been given to one of the Koopalings and Piranha Bean only drops Piranha Swing. This way both items can finally be obtained. It only took 14 years to happen...

Besides the game mechanics, the graphics of the game look really nice and the rooms themselves are in 2D unlike the Dream Team and Paper Jam 3D models. I didn't even notice it at first, but they don't look bad at all. The final boss has also been changed quite a bit graphics wise and feels much harder than the original.

The music has also received a pretty good uplift. Some repetitive tracks from the original like the Chucklehuck house and Joke's End are a bit more varying in melody which is nice. For some stupid reason, obtaining the Great Force item now plays the Zelda "item get" sound from Ocarina of Time. This of course would have made sense in the context of the original planned cameos, but as they weren't actually put into this remake either, this reference comes out rather random and out of place.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Minion Quest. It feels like a freemium phone game or something you would expect to find in the eShop and not a full fledged sidegame to Superstar. It comes up with its own explanations (retcons if you prefer) for some things in the plot that aren't mentioned in the main game and is full of hit and miss jokes. The grinding is pretty bad, but as a whole, Minion Quest very well could've been way worse. Definitely not something I would've put as a selling point.

Would I recommend the game? I'd say if you've only played the original once or twice many years ago or are completely new to the series, I'd definitely pick this up. If you're someone who's played the old one a lot, this version doesn't offer too much new things aside from Minion Quest. For those curious, a hard mode isn't present either. So, if a side "strategy" game isn't really your cup of tea and you don't care about a graphical uplift or QoL changes, feel free to skip.