Recently I completed The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. It was great, I had a lot more fun with it then I expected. But one thing that struck me was that while playing it, I kept feeling a sense of deja vu, and thoughts of Mario & Luigi: Brothership entered my head. After much thinking, I've decided it would be fun to try something new, and do a comparative analysis of the two games. The more I thought about it, the more I realized these games actually have a lot in common. So, for a fun spoiler free look at both titles, they're similarities and differences, and which one succeeds more, head on down below!
First I should establish the connection between these games, because why compare them? The first obvious similarity both games have is that they released in the same year: 2024. But that isn't the only time these two series have released new installments together. Allow me to take you back in time.
While the Legend of Zelda series has enjoyed a dramatic growth in popularity thanks mostly to Breath of the Wild, the 2D Zelda series, which has existed alongside its 3D counterpart, has remained dormant. While 3D Zelda rose to the heavens, 2D Zelda went on its longest hiatus ever, receiving only a remake of Link's Awakening in 2019. The last new 2D Zelda was The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, which released for the 3DS in November of 2013. It had been 11 years since the last 2D Zelda, the longest gap ever for the series. But you know what else got a new installment in 2013?
That's right, by sheer coincidence, the Mario & Luigi series, often overshadowed by its console counterpart, the Paper Mario series, received a new installment. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team released in August of 2013. While it wasn't the last new Mario & Luigi since Brothership in 2024, the next installment in the series, Paper Jam, would release only two years later in 2015, and then nothing, meaning it would be a 9 year wait for Brothership. Both 2D Zelda and Mario & Luigi went a very long time without a new game, and just like 2D Zelda, such a long wait was unprecedented for the Mario & Luigi series.
Take the Mario & Luigi to release before Dream Team: Bowser's Inside Story. It released in September of 2009, only four years before Dream Team. Why am I bringing this up? Well...guess what else released in 2009?
That's right, in December of 2009 The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks released, which was the 2D Zelda before A Link Between Worlds.
This is what initially stirred my connection of these two series. In a coincidental way, in the past 17 years, both the 2D Zelda and Mario & Luigi series received three and four new games respectively, and it just so happens that three of those games all released during the same year, and during the second half of the year at that! The reason I got a sense of deja vu while playing Brothership and Echoes of Wisdom is because I realized that I actually have a history of playing a new Mario & Luigi game and a new 2D Zelda game back to back. It brought me back to 2009, when I was living on my own for the first time in university, and amidst the uncertainty and fear that brought, I had Bowser's Inside Story and Spirit Tracks to comfort me. It brought me back to 2013, when I graduated college and was living with my parents, working full time for the first time and uncertain what to do with my life. Amidst that tumultuous time, I had Dream Team and A Link Between Worlds to comfort me. I've come to associate these series together because they just so happen to keep releasing together, and I consistently buy and play both at launch.
Still, this isn't the only connection these two series have. As I hinted at above, both are the younger sibling series of console counterparts that generally gain more critical acclaim, sales, and attention, those being the 3D Zelda and Paper Mario series. I've always wished the 2D Zeldas and Mario & Luigis got more attention.
Additionally, both series have been absent for a very long time: 2D Zelda for 11 years, and Mario & Luigi for 9 years. In the absence they have both received remakes, in 2017 and 2018 there were remakes of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and Bowser's Inside Story respectively, and in 2019 there was a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.
But this long absence meant that when both series finally returned in 2024, they were different beasts. History does not freeze after all, and the industry had changed. Alphadream, the company behind the first five Mario & Luigis, had gone bankrupt, and now a new company named Acquire was taking up its mantle, making changes from what came before inevitable. Furthermore, the Switch had succeeded at that time, taking over Nintendo's handheld systems. This would be the first Mario & Luigi on a system with the power of a console, things were going to feel different.
For Zelda, Echoes of Wisdom is the first installment made by Grezzo. While they received help from Nintendo, this was the first 2D Zelda not made wholly by Nintendo since The Minish Cap in 2004. Additionally, the Zelda series has changed a lot since then, thanks to the massive success of Breath of the Wild. Zelda has become more of an open world series, with open ended gameplay becoming a core part of its formula, separating Breath of the Wild from previous installments. Echoes of Wisdom was going to be influenced by this, and it was going to feel different from previous 2D Zeldas.
All this is to say, I hope I have been able to convince you that these two games, and their series in general, have a lot more in common than you might initially think. So let's explore these, how did Brothership and Echoes of Wisdom handle the new standards set for their series, and how did these new developers change the way these games work? And ultimately, which one succeeded more?
Let's start with Mario & Luigi: Brothership. As I noted in my full review of the game, one thing I noticed from interviews with Acquire is a deep insecurity within the team. This was not only their first Mario & Luigi game, but first collaborative game in general, and with Nintendo of all companies! There was a deep concern about making Brothership not feel too different from previous installments, and you can see this in the final product. Brothership retains the familiar battle system the previous games had, and Mario & Luigi as characters maintain that fun charm and important focus the series is known for. It really is a game about Mario & Luigi.
I also stated in my review that the game feels like Superstar Saga, the first game in the series. Less confident in what it can do with Mario & Luigi, Acquire chose to stick to the basics and create a game that wears its previous installments on its shoulders. One detail about the game that I think illustrates this is the Bros Attacks. Brothership has ten Bros Attacks in its arsenal, and five of them are taken from previous games in the series. Only one of the five operates differently then in its previous game, and where some might enjoy the references, I found it disappointing. To have only half of the Bros Attacks be original inventive moves that were fun to learn was disappointing, and that's something I felt with the game in general. Because Brothership tries so hard to be a Mario & Luigi game, it tries too hard, in a way that has the game feeling almost basic compared to previous installments, and like it lacks its own identity. I missed not having a new playable character to play as and focus on, which all the previous entries had.
At the same time, I can't really fault the developers for doing this. I am likely in the minority in playing this game as a longtime fan, I imagine many players of Brothership have never played a Mario & Luigi game. As an entry into the series, it's great that Brothership retains so much of what came before and sticks to what Mario & Luigi has always been about at its core: a fun JRPG that focuses on the two Italian plumbers and their brotherly bond, both mechanically through gameplay, and thematically through the story.
On the other hand, it's clear that Grezzo felt a lot less insecurity about making a new 2D Zelda. This wasn't their first one after all, they were behind not just the Link's Awakening remake, but also the Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask remakes on the 3DS. Grezzo has a lot of experience in Zelda, and reading the developer interview of the game shows just how excited they were to make it, and how many innovative ideas they went through during development. They went above and beyond in making Echoes of Wisdom feel distinct from what came before.
Zelda is now the main character, which is unprecedented for the entire Zelda series, and the echo system leads to the gameplay feeling totally different from any other 2D Zelda. As a long time fan of the series, I loved this. I love when Nintendo makes each installment in their series feel totally different, and it's one thing I've love about the 2D Zeldas in general. A Link Between Worlds felt totally different from any 2D Zelda in 2013, thanks to its merging into the wall mechanic, and Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks felt totally different during the DS era, due to their controls being entirely touch screen oriented.
Yet if Echoes of Wisdom feels different from every previous 2D Zelda, the Zelda games it feels the most like are Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. The echoes system borrows heavily from the design philosophies of those games. Echoes of Wisdom is fairly open, allowing you to explore its entire world whenever you'd like, and rather than the player gaining new weapons and equipment incrementally throughout the adventure, all your power ups and abilities revolve around the echo system, which you get very early on, similar to the core abilities of the great plateau in Breath of the Wild.
At the same time, Echoes of Wisdom still feels distinct, very different from Tears of the Kingdom, which I would argue feels more like an improved version of Breath of the Wild, rather than a new game. Being 2D by itself makes Echoes of Wisdom feel different, but it also feels more like a traditional Zelda. Despite the open nature of the world, the story follows a more linear path, and the game even has dungeons, and they feel a lot more like the traditional dungeons of old then those in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. But the biggest difference between these games that I felt, is that while Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom can take you over 100 hours to complete, depending on how much you want to explore, Echoes of Wisdom can be completed in a mere 25 hours. It is short and compact while still offering the feeling of exploring and getting sucked into a fun open world, and I loved this.
Returning to Brothership, while it was also treading new water, it didn't have a game like Breath of the Wild to base itself off of. It doesn't seem to have been influenced much by the Paper Mario titles, I would argue if there is outside influence in Brothership, it comes from the Octopath Traveler games, which were also developed by Acquire. The Octopath games, like many JRPGs, have a great emphasis on their stories, with lots of cutscenes and dialogue fleshing out the main cast of characters, lore of the world, and the many side characters that inhabit it. This is also true of Brothership, the game has far more characters, cutscenes (which benefit greatly from the Switch hardware), and side quests then any previous Mario & Luigi title.
This is cool to see and makes Brothership feel distinct not just from the previous Mario & Luigi games, but the recent Paper Mario titles as well, which threw the idea of story and dialogue out the window. It is disappointing then that while the emphasis on dialogue is great, the dialogue itself leaves more to be desired, and often felt rather basic and dull during my time with the game. Brothership also tries harder to be a grand epic scale of an adventure, again, similar to the Octopath games. My final playtime in it clocked at over 45 hours, compared to Echoes of Wisdom's 25. While I didn't dislike the length, I do think I would have enjoyed the game more if it was shorter. You don't need to make a game over 40 hours for it to feel like a grand adventure.
The other great changes Mario & Luigi makes is the addition of a battle plug system and Luigi logic system. I greatly enjoyed both of these, they made battling and exploring more interesting, and kept me more engaged than I otherwise would have been. They were a lot of fun.
If I compare them to the echoes system, I actually enjoyed the echoes system less. Battle plugs are a really cool form of equipment and abilities, and with the many inventive ways you can combine them, plus the strategic element of managing their cooldowns, it made the battle system constantly engaging, and made boss battles a heck of a lot of fun. On the other hand, Luigi logic made exploring the world a lot less tedious then it could be, since you can have Luigi complete any simple tasks as you run around, and working with his AI is a lot of fun for certain puzzles.
The echoes system on the other hand, while fun, has its share of issues. For one thing, despite there being loads and loads and loads of echoes to play with, at the end of the day, so many of them have similar functions that you could easily shrink the number of echoes in half, probably even more, without losing much. Having a whole bunch of echoes that do similar things makes organizing them difficult, and it means when you want to find a specific one, it can take a while as you get lost in the huge amount of them. Brothership for its part keeps the number of battle plugs from ever getting too high that they feel overwhelming, which I appreciated.
The echoes system also makes combat feel very different from previous games, and I'm still not sure if it's for the better. Commanding enemies to fight on your behalf sounds fun, and it is initially. However, the act of having to summon an enemy, and then rely on its AI to attack enemies properly makes battles take longer than they would in previous 2D Zeldas. The AI of your enemy companions isn't smart, and can result in disposing of simple enemies taking longer than it needs to. It says a lot that they gave Zelda the ability to turn into Link temporarily and be able to swing a sword, as if they weren't confident in players being able to enjoy combat with companions.
Looking to Brothership, Luigi logic provides a lesson. There, Luigi can only ever be commanded to do simple tasks, so the AI never becomes a frustrating problem like it does in Echoes of Wisdom, due to the complexity of combat. I'll conclude this by saying that, I would be happy if the next Mario & Luigi has battle plugs and Luigi logic, but in the next 2D Zelda, I'd prefer they not bring back the echoes system and try something new. Don't get me wrong, I loved it and it made Echoes of Wisdom feel distinct, but I feel like I've gotten my fill of it and would prefer to move on.
Overall though, I had similar feelings on Brothership and Echoes of Wisdom. While I had issues with both of them and could be picky, it felt so wonderful to finally have a brand new Mario & Luigi game and 2D Zelda game to play, and playing through both reminded me how much I love both of these series, and how fortunate I am that now for three years of my life, I got to play a new Mario & Luigi and 2D Zelda game back to back. If you were to ask me which one I preferred overall, I would say Echoes of Wisdom, but that I generally enjoyed the DS and 3DS counterparts more than these Switch installments. Nevertheless, I had an excellent time with both games. My biggest wish is that it's not another 9+ year wait until the next new game in both series. Who knows, maybe I will continue this fun tradition and not play a new installment in one series until the other series gets a new game, so I can play both back to back again.
Thank you so much for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it. Do you have a series or games you associate with each other because you happen to play them back to back so much?
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