Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Shows The Power Of Luigi’s Imagination

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team is AlphaDream’s fourth RPG, and this game is all about Luigi’s dreamy powers. When you’re inside one of Luigi’s dreams, the game plays like a 2D sidescroller. Pressing A makes Mario jump and pressing B makes Luigi jump so the controls are quite different from New Super Mario Bros.

The part I played had the platforming part on the top screen and Luigi sleeping on the bottom screen. Soon enough, I reached a point where Mario and Luigi couldn’t go any further because the next platforms were too high. That’s where Dreamy Luigi comes in handy. He can use his imagination to take over objects like a column that transforms with Luigi’s face and a bush moustache.

You can pull Luigi’s moustache on the bottom screen to grab Mario and fling him to higher ground. Later in the level, Luigi uses his Luiginary powers to make dozens of tiny Luigis. Mario rides a stack of Luigi clones to scare a small army of monsters and he the Luigi tower is also heavy enough to break ground so the duo can move forward.

Dreamy Luigi also powers up Mario during Mario & Luigi: Dream Team’s battles. AlphaDream uses a similar battle system where you can inflict extra damage by hitting A during an attack animation. If you press the button at the right time, you can make a wave of Dreamy Luigi’s shake the ground during Mario’s hammer attack or make Luigi stomp on an enemy. Another demo had a Kaiju fight where a Godzilla-sized Luigi fought a gigantic robot. I held the 3DS like a book and swiped the screen to make Luigi attack.

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team like the other Mario RPG games puts an emphasis on humor and the parts I played had clever jokes. The demo has a lot of text and if that’s any indication to go by there may be even more text in Dream Team than other portable RPGs.

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team is slated for release on August 11 in North America and in July for the rest of the world.