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Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga's Elemental Powers; What Happened?
Posted 23rd October 2009 at 12:23 AM by cheat-master30
Tags mario and luigi bowser's inside story, mario and luigi partners in time, mario and luigi superstar saga
If you had played Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga, you will have known of the part of the game where Mario and Luigi gain the powers of Fire and Thunder respectively while trapped on a remote island. However, this usually minor skill ended up becoming one of the most important keystones of the entire game, with nearly every enemy you came across having a weakness to one or the other, and another two or main abilities based on these elemental powers.
In all matter of fact, this was probably the best addition the series could even have had. You ended up going through another five or six areas after gaining these skills, all of which used it to their advantage. Every enemy was apparently element coded. And it played a major part in the battle system.
But later games in the series seem to have lost this whole element. In fact, the later two games make the element weakness/critical hit system nearly completely useless due to a lack of these abilities as the baseline. Partners in Time just near enough lost the whole system in one go, with no real potential to even use fire or thunder type abilities on the overworld or in battle. Okay, some attacks were fire based, but they didn't really do a whole lot, with very few enemies actually being affected by them. Does anyone honestly remember a time where the Fire Flower or Mix Flower did double damage and 'Critical Hits' to an enemy in that game? I sure don't.
Bowser's Inside Story seems to have continued this trend. This is actually really unfortunate to be honest with you, since Bowser, with his fire breath practically screams this kind of system being revived. But again, you don't get to use it much. His fire breath, while pretty good in terms of power has pretty much no element effects, since about 10 enemies total are actually even affected by it (it may even literally be five enemies or less to be perfectly honest). He gets to use it on the overworld, which is fairly good... except it never gets really required after Plack Beach and Dimble Wood.
Not to mention that the 'how could you not make this weak to fire' boss Blizzard Midbus takes standard damage from fire attacks, and that it's only real use in a boss battle is vs the Fawful Express, and you've got a quite an underused mechanic. Don't even mention Mario and Luigi. They get the Fire Flower, and that's about it. Yeah, the critical damage attack is the worst Special Attack in the game, and since no bosses are even remotely weak to it, you'll be sticking to Magic Window and Mighty Meteor through most of the difficult times.
I'm not even sure what to say here. Maybe the next game should bring back the fire and thunder type abilities, or least use the fire based one in a moderately decent way after the last two games completely neglect it to much degree.
In all matter of fact, this was probably the best addition the series could even have had. You ended up going through another five or six areas after gaining these skills, all of which used it to their advantage. Every enemy was apparently element coded. And it played a major part in the battle system.
But later games in the series seem to have lost this whole element. In fact, the later two games make the element weakness/critical hit system nearly completely useless due to a lack of these abilities as the baseline. Partners in Time just near enough lost the whole system in one go, with no real potential to even use fire or thunder type abilities on the overworld or in battle. Okay, some attacks were fire based, but they didn't really do a whole lot, with very few enemies actually being affected by them. Does anyone honestly remember a time where the Fire Flower or Mix Flower did double damage and 'Critical Hits' to an enemy in that game? I sure don't.
Bowser's Inside Story seems to have continued this trend. This is actually really unfortunate to be honest with you, since Bowser, with his fire breath practically screams this kind of system being revived. But again, you don't get to use it much. His fire breath, while pretty good in terms of power has pretty much no element effects, since about 10 enemies total are actually even affected by it (it may even literally be five enemies or less to be perfectly honest). He gets to use it on the overworld, which is fairly good... except it never gets really required after Plack Beach and Dimble Wood.
Not to mention that the 'how could you not make this weak to fire' boss Blizzard Midbus takes standard damage from fire attacks, and that it's only real use in a boss battle is vs the Fawful Express, and you've got a quite an underused mechanic. Don't even mention Mario and Luigi. They get the Fire Flower, and that's about it. Yeah, the critical damage attack is the worst Special Attack in the game, and since no bosses are even remotely weak to it, you'll be sticking to Magic Window and Mighty Meteor through most of the difficult times.
I'm not even sure what to say here. Maybe the next game should bring back the fire and thunder type abilities, or least use the fire based one in a moderately decent way after the last two games completely neglect it to much degree.
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