Mario & Luigi

Main games

• Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga was released on the Game Boy Advance in 2003. It follows the journey of Mario and Luigi as they attempt to track down Cackletta, who stole the voice of Princess Peach. It established the gameplay formula that would be iterated on throughout the series including the (often simultaneous) control of multiple characters, puzzles and dodging enemy attacks during turn-based combat through well-timed inputs.^[5]
• Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time was the first Nintendo DS title and released in 2005. The introduction of Baby Mario and Baby Luigi doubles the amount of simultaneously playable characters to four, with the option to separate into pairs.^[7] Set in the Mushroom Kingdom, the plot incorporates time-travel elements, as Mario and Luigi must rescue Princess Peach after she is sent back in time by the alien Shroobs.^[9]
• Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story released for the Nintendo DS in 2009. Antagonist Fawful causes Bowser to inhale several Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants, including Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach. It follows Mario and Luigi's perspective, sometimes through two-dimensional gameplay taking place inside of Bowser, with other sections instead following Bowser's perspective via three-dimensional gameplay sections spent controlling him.^[4]
• Mario & Luigi: Dream Team was the first Nintendo 3DS game and released in 2013. Alternating between the real world (within Pi'illo Island) and the dream world, Mario pursues damsel-in-distress Princess Peach with frequent help from Dreamy Luigi.^[10] In the dream world, the touch screen is utilised to tug on Luigi's moustache as he sleeps, in order to control various aspects of the world such as palm tree branches and the flow of time.^[11]
• Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam was released in 2015 on the Nintendo 3DS. Princess Peach and Paper Princess Peach are captured by Bowser and Paper Bowser, so Paper Mario joins Mario and Luigi to save them. Controlling the three characters simultaneously, the player may use Trio combos in battle while acquiring boosts through battle-cards. Some puzzles in the overworld take the form of minigames.^[12]
• Mario & Luigi: Brothership released in 2024 for the Nintendo Switch. It follows Mario and Luigi's mission to reconnect the islands of Concordia, accessed by sailing a moving island. It introduces mechanics such as Luigi Logic, where for the first time in the series, Luigi may act independently from the player during gameplay, and Battle Plugs which provide boosts in combat with a limited number of uses before needing to be recharged.^[13]

Remakes

• Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions is a Nintendo 3DS remake of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and released in 2017. It adds the side mode Minion Quest: The Search for Bowser, involving forming a horde of troops to battle against a horde of enemies, with three types of troops, strong and weak to one another in a rock-paper-scissors fashion.^[14]
• Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey is a Nintendo 3DS remake of Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story and was released in 2018. The additional side mode Bowser Jr.'s Journey is present, playing largely similar to Minion Quest, with additional special moves.^[15]

2000–2003: AlphaDream founding, conception and first game

AlphaDream was founded in January 2000 by former employees from Square including Chihiro Fujioka, director of Super Mario RPG, and Tetsuo Mizuno, Square's second president.^[16][17][18] Square had previously developed Super Mario RPG, the first role-playing game (RPG) starring characters from the Mario series. After a number of smaller games, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga was AlphaDream's first game to be released outside of Japan^[19] on November 17, 2003.^[20]

The Mario & Luigi series took inspiration from Super Mario RPG when it came to turn-based combat, which AlphaDream producer Yoshihiko Maekawa co-directed. In an interview, he noted how one inspiration for Super Mario RPG was a children's toy in Japan where buttons had to pressed in time with music. From there he conceptualized turn-based mechanics that blended real-time action with general RPG gameplay by allowing the player to make timed button-presses to be more successful in their attacks. AlphaDream iterated on this timed button-pressing concept for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga by letting the player dodge enemy attacks entirely.^[6]

When it came to characters in the Mario franchise at the time, they were generally underdeveloped personality-wise. Since Mario & Luigi mainly employs a text-based story, and would see the duo interacting with many different characters across the storyline, AlphaDream wished to approach the characters from scratch. With Nintendo's approval and support, characters such as Luigi were reworked by the team, attempting to stay true to what originally made them charming to fans.^[6]

2004–2009: Nintendo DS era

Nintendo revealed Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (then called Mario & Luigi 2) at E3 2005, where a playable demonstration of the game was available. The demo consisted of three levels, each accompanied with a tutorial to guide the player. Each level had a different objective and represented the characters' abilities in the game, such as the use of the hammer.^[21] Between the game's unveiling at E3 and its release, Nintendo of America revealed details of the game relating to Partners in Time's plot and gameplay,^[22] as well as the fact that it would be compatible with the "Rumble Pak" feature.^[23] Partners in Time was first released in North America on November 28, 2005.^[7] Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story was revealed to be in development in October 2008 in Japan at Nintendo's Tokyo Press Event under the temporary title Mario & Luigi 3.^[24] The North America and Europe release was announced at the E3 2009 event and it released on September 15, 2009.^[25]

2010–2015: Nintendo 3DS era

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team released on June 30, 2013.^[11] With the introduction of three-dimensional graphics on the Nintendo 3DS, AlphaDream was given the opportunity to change their two-dimensional sprites to three-dimensions with the updated hardware. However, Maekawa believed the company not only got very good at designing sprites due to limited graphical capability on prior consoles, but they also helped convey comical expressions, so they were kept and only the world assets were fit to 3D for the next installment.^[26] Akira Otani, a producer of the series, considered the animation to be the main reasoning for the extensive development process of Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. He mentioned how it takes up to six people to design the animations for the characters alone.^[27]

When it came to Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, the underlying goal was to put emphasis more on Luigi, as Maekawa considered him to have less depth even after the reworking of his character. One of the first ideas suggested for the game's gimmick was having a large number of Luigis on-screen at one time, an idea that became more feasible with time due to advancing hardware. They began coming up with ideas for a context where having multiple Luigis would make sense, and they decided on having the game taking place inside a dream. Due to the limitless potential of a dream world, coming up with level ideas was simple. This also helped with idea brainstorming for new attacks; director Hiroyuki Kubota mentioned a prototype for an attack involving Luigis coming together to form a volcano that would erupt, but it was scrapped as it was deemed too hard to control and not as fun as they wanted.^[26]

During development of the second 3DS title Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, released on January 22, 2016,^[28] production was overseen by Paper Mario series developer Intelligent Systems.^[29][30] According to the developers, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam was created not only to make a crossover between the Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario series, but additionally to introduce the gimmick of having a third character to control simultaneously, stemming from the idea of using the third button to control a second Mario. The team was keen on not sacrificing simplicity for extra content, one of the ultimate goals for both the Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario series. When one of the prototypes of the game that involved rapid and sudden button presses was presented to Shigeru Miyamoto, he turned the concept down and asked for it to be simpler.^[31]

2016–2019: Remakes and studio closure

Following Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, AlphaDream began work on releasing remakes of older games in the series, with Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions releasing on October 5, 2017.^[32] Another remake followed, being Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey, which was released on January 11, 2019^[15] for the Nintendo 3DS. The team did consider releasing it on the Nintendo Switch, but eventually decided otherwise, mainly in favour of the keeping the dual screen aspect of the original games. Bowser Jr. is the focus of the side story because they wanted to build the parent-child narrative between him and Bowser. AlphaDream decided to skip Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time due to Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story being the most successful game in the series at the time, and due to positive overseas reception of the antagonist Fawful.^[30]

From 2018 to 2019, AlphaDream began searching for people to hire, including graphic designers and production assistants with the intention of future games for the Nintendo Switch and smartphones.^[34][35] The remake Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr's Journey sold poorly and was one of the worst-selling Mario games in Japan.^[35] Other release plans for the 3DS were cancelled because of the low sales, also marking the last Mario game on the console. By March 2018, Yahoo! Japan reported AlphaDream was £3.5 million in debt (US$4.3 million) due to development costs, leading to the company filing for bankruptcy in October 2019.^[33] In January 2020, Nintendo filed a trademark for the series in Argentina,^[36] and while most assumed Nintendo was simply protecting their IP, it also led to speculation that the series would hopefully continue on a later date.^[37][38][39]

2024: Nintendo Switch era

In June 2024, the sixth installment in the series, Mario & Luigi: Brothership, was announced^[40] and was released on November 7, 2024 on the Nintendo Switch.^[41] This is the first game not to be developed by the now-defunct AlphaDream.^[42] Nintendo nevertheless noted that "some of the original developers" from the franchise were involved in the development of Mario & Luigi: Brothership.^[43] It was later revealed that Mario & Luigi: Brothership was developed by Acquire; the information was found in the game's intellectual property notices.^[44] With this title, the art-style shifted to full 3D, with Akira Otani commenting that a HD-2D style akin to Octopath Traveler was once considered but scrapped.^[45]

Awards and nominations