Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood suggests that a new Mario RPG era may be approaching.

I wrote a brief essay on the reactive turn-based fighting in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 exactly one week prior to the June 18 Nintendo Direct. and how it served as a wonderful stand-in for Nintendo's dormant series, while simultaneously reminding me of the Mario & Luigi games. I also hoped that Mario & Luigi would make a comeback at some point, but I never imagined that, at Nintendo's most recent showcase, my wishes would be granted only seven days later.Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood is the title. The first new Mario & Luigi game in nine years is slated for release in November, and it looks just as I imagined the franchise would on a home console after being limited to Nintendo's handhelds. The traditional turn-based fighting, evading and parrying strikes, meeting new people and exploring a whole new area, colorful graphics, and physical humor. Mario & Luigi is back and better than before, like a dazzling phoenix. But this signifies more than simply the comeback of this particular series. Given the last 12 months that Nintendo has enjoyed, this might very well represent a true comeback to Mario inspired RPGs in general.

Nintendo first revealed plans to recreate 1996's Super Mario RPG in June of last year. A few months later, the company confirmed plans to remake 2004's .also Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. For years, devoted gamers hailed both titles as the pinnacles of their childhood (the latter being one of my personal all-time favorites), but Nintendo never gave them much credit—so much so that a more skeptical mind could charge the company with attempting to deny their existence. Though we all believed that requests for re-releases on contemporary technology were unanswered, they would sometimes be mentioned.If the two titles had been included in the Switch's online service, fans would have likely been content, but instead we received complete remakes that kept the original charm of the games while modernizing them for a new generation of players. Regarding The Thousand-Year Door, I would contend that, in spite of a few very small complaints, the remake is superior to the original since it was meticulously and carefully made. It's obvious that those working on the remake thought highly of the original and cherished it just as much as fans did.The condition of Mario RPGs at the time made these remakes even more significant. In the early 2000s, Intelligent Systems produced the Paper Mario video games for home consoles, while AlphaDream produced Mario & Luigi for handheld devices. Fans like me were more than delighted to participate in both, much like the man in the two cakes meme, even if they had certain similarities. Nevertheless, something changed in the 2010s. Paper Mario quickly changed from being a role-playing game to more of an action-adventure series once many of the conventional mechanics were worked out. The comic scripting remained, but the narrative and character designs became less intriguing and diverse as a result of a purported edict that prohibited the games from "modifying" or "creating original Mario characters" (via VGC).Paper Mario producer Kensuke Tanabe told Eurogamer Germany (translated by NintendoEverything) in 2020 that "Nintendo has another RPG series starring Mario and we wanted to distance ourselves from it by making an adventure game with a focus on solving puzzles." This statement further suggested that the reason for the abrupt shift was due to the Mario & Luigi games. To be honest, this is a really confusing answer considering how well the two shows coexisted for years. The timing of that announcement was also poor, as the previous year, the Mario & Luigi developer AlphaDream filed for bankruptcy due to dwindling revenue, implying that its final two games—remakes of the first and third Mario & Luigi titles—did poorly in terms of sales (via NintendoLife). Actually, at the time Tanabe spoke the previously mentioned thing, AlphaDream had already shut down, thus it seemed as if the Mario & Luigi series had nowhere to live.

So, the last several years were really bad for anybody seeking a Mario-themed RPG, with Paper Mario changing genres and uncertainty surrounding the future of Mario & Luigi series. Then came the one-two punch of the previously stated remakes. Even if there was still reason for joy, I wasn't prepared to declare that Mario RPGs had a new chapter just yet. At the time, it was clear that Nintendo was getting ready for their next system, which would probably have the actual big guns. Therefore, the business has resorted to remakes, remasters, and re-releases to keep supporters of the Switch entertained. Remember that we've also remade Another Code this year. in addition to Mario vs. Donkey Kong, a port of Luigi's Mansion 2 is also available. a port of Donkey Kong Country Returns around the corner in early 2025.Regarding the RPG remakes, I had a suspicion that Nintendo was also experimenting to see whether or not there was indeed as much demand for these titles as fans had claimed, or whether they were simply a noisy minority clinging to their memories. While we don't have exact numbers for the Paper Mario remake, it was reportedly at the top of the physical sales charts in Japan for its first two weeks (via Gematsu), Nintendo revealed in its last fiscal report that the Super Mario RPG remake had sold at least 3.31 million units worldwide. Even more successful than the Super Mario RPG remake, it also topped the UK physical sales rankings, according to Chris Dring of GamesIndustry.biz.Overall, they seem to have been well received, which gave me optimism that Nintendo will revisit the Mario RPG franchise. Alternatively, attempt more remakes, such as the original Paper Mario. However, the release of Mario & Luigi: Brothership leads me to believe that these remakes were a fresh start rather than a test run. Since Brothership is set to premiere in only five months, it is clear that the proposal was not made in reaction to the previous remakes' commercial success. Since all three games had to be developed in a short amount of time, it seems likely that Nintendo is already planning to bring back its Mario RPGs.

Image courtesy of Nintendo

In theory, this may mean that Paper Mario is back to its previous level of success, but the promising sales of The Origami King in 2020 (the last entirely original entry) implies that I wouldn't be shocked if it continues to use its current formula. (For the record, the fastest-selling Paper Mario game was The Origami King, with 2.82 million copies sold in three months.) Even so, Nintendo has already released a new Mario & Luigi, so perhaps that will not finish the series, provided Brothership doesn't completely collapse in the sales statistics, but what if Super Mario RPG gets a straight sequel? Or maybe something wholly unique that incorporates novel concepts while keeping the beloved RPG aspects from earlier reimaginings?I'm enthusiastic about what future Mario RPGs on the Switch 2 may look like since the existence of these three games at all indicates that Nintendo values the Mario RPG fanbase. Although it's unlikely that such initiatives will materialize for a number of years, I feel more optimistic today than I did at this time last year.I would have considered you insane at the beginning of 2023 if you had told me Nintendo would release three Mario RPGs in a year, two of which would be remakes of cherished old games. Nintendo, however, is doing just that. I may be getting ahead of myself and this all becomes tragically antiquated in the far future, but for the time being, I'm certain that the Mario RPG fandom will endure.