Mario & Luigi: Brothership Scores 80 On Metacritic

Ahead of the game’s launch later this week, review aggregator Metacritic has published the Metascore for the Mario & Luigi: Brothership.

With 63 critic reviews at the time of this writing, Mario & Luigi: Brothership has been given a Metascore of 80. Metacritic classifies this score as “Generally Favorable”. This rating is about on par with Paper Mario: The Origami King, the newer Switch entry in Nintendo’s other Super Mario role-playing game series. However, it is lower than both Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and Super Mario RPG, which received scores of 88 and 83 respectively.

Check out what some of the reviews had to say below:

Nintendo Life ~ 90

Mario & Luigi: Brothership takes this long-running RPG series to new heights in a high-seas adventure that’s packed full of top-notch combat, inventive variety, a positive and thoughtful story, and lots signature comedy from the dynamic duo themselves. This is a big game, packed full of surprises and fun, and the all-new Battle Plug system, alongside lots of flashy specials, a fittingly emotive art-style, and a world that brimming with puzzles and challenges, make for a must-play in our book.

VGC ~ 80

Mario & Luigi Brothership is a triumphant return for the series, maintaining the spirit and action-oriented platforming of its predecessors, coupled with fantastic exploration and satisfying battle mechanics.

Eurogamer ~ 80

A relatively minor instalment, but in a series this magical, that’s still good news.

It took us some real adjustment to accept Mario & Luigi: Brothership for what it is, but once you do, there’s genuine enjoyment to be found here. You have to learn to follow its pace and accept its shortcomings, because it won’t change its ways and blossom into a top-tier Mario RPG. Still, the ride will be worth it for some to experience its bright points.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership is an incredibly disappointing return for an RPG series I’ve always loved. Apart from the combat, it fundamentally misunderstands its own past success, and completely fumbles Luigi’s role in puzzle-solving and exploration by making him more of a pain than a partner. The story is simplistic and unoriginal, its attempts at humor fall flat, and the overly chatty writing holds your hand to a ridiculous degree. It’s not a total disaster, as the excellent, flashy turn-based battles are some of the best this series has ever had – but even those somehow manage to wear thin as the repetitive final act crawls across the finish line of this roughly 34-hour campaign, which suffers from surprisingly bad performance issues nearly the entire time. The Switch has been home to many triumphant revivals for Nintendo, but the Mario & Luigi series has sadly missed the boat.