Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood (Nintendo Switch, £49.99)
Verdict: Okay
Mario, who are you now? Role-playing games derived from the main mustachioed plumber platformers used to be pretty rare, but in the last year alone we’ve had three releases that put conversations and turn-based battles over good old-fashioned jumping.
First there was a remake of 1996’s Super Mario RPG. Then there was a remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door from 2004. And now there’s a new game, Mario & Luigi: Brothership, the first proper sequel to Mario & Luigi since 2015.
As with all Mario releases, there’s a lot of charm. It begins with our hard-working heroes being sucked through an interdimensional wormhole and thrown into a world of kitschy creatures whose society has literally fractured into several islands. Your task: put it back together.
Mario, who are you now? Role-playing games derived from the main mustachioed plumber platformers used to be pretty rare, but in the last year alone we’ve had three releases.
The world is quirky and colorful, but it’s not the usual torrent of ideas and imagination. The game mechanics are usually quite superficial.
As with all Mario releases, there’s a lot of charm. It begins with our hard-working heroes being sucked through an interdimensional wormhole and thrown into a world of kitschy creatures whose society has literally fractured into several islands.
And it continues with fun gameplay. Brothership pulls off a great mix of JRPG (Japanese role-playing game) combat – you take a turn, the bad guys take their turn – and Mario-style flourishes.
If you want to deal some serious damage, you’ll have to time your button presses as if you were actually bouncing around a platforming level.
But there’s also something a little… strange.
The writing is fun, but not as fun as either of the other two Mario RPG releases this year.
The world is quirky and colorful, but it’s not the usual torrent of ideas and imagination.
The game mechanics are usually quite superficial.
So if you want to play a Mario RPG, it’s probably best to try somewhere else. At least today we have many options to choose from.
Horizon Zero Dawn: Remastered (PlayStation, PC, £44.99 or £10 upgrade for those who own the original)
Verdict: A new dawn
It’s only been a few weeks since I complained about a remastered version of 2015’s Until Dawn. That game already looked pretty brilliant, so why bother polishing it up a bit and getting people to play (and pay) again? Now Sony has released a remaster of another brilliant game from an even more recent year, 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn (no relation). So I’m surely ready to complain some more.
Except this time it’s different. It’s been a pleasure to return to Aloy’s origin story through this revived release. Here I am wandering around a postlapsarian future Earth, shooting arrows at huge robot dinosaurs, and enjoying it more than ever.
Part of this is the sheer beauty of this remaster. Buying it allows you to keep the original Horizon Zero Dawn, allowing for an easy comparison between the two, and the difference is greater than you would expect.
The landscapes are more lush. The most realistic animations. Aloy’s face is more human and expressive. There are some annoying graphical errors.
Part of this is the sheer beauty of this remaster. Buying it allows you to keep the original Horizon Zero Dawn, allowing for an easy comparison between the two, and the difference is greater than you would expect.
Unlike Until Dawn’s remaster, which is sold as a completely new game, priced at around £60 even if you own the original, Horizon Zero Dawn’s is simply a £10 upgrade option.
The landscapes are more lush. The most realistic animations. Aloy’s face is more human and expressive. There are some annoying graphical bugs, like bowstrings going through people’s bodies (ouch), but overall, like the 2022 sequel Horizon Forbidden West, this is now a current-gen game to wow players with. elders of your village.
And, even better, it’s cheap. Unlike the Until Dawn remaster, which is sold as a completely new game, priced at around £60 even if you own the original, Horizon Zero Dawn is simply a £10 upgrade option.
If you don’t already own HZD Prime, you can buy a second-hand copy and access the upgrade that way. Which is, presumably, exactly how Aloy would like it.
In a world of rocks and dinosaurs, a tribal scavenger must take whatever he can get.
