Official Review
With that out of the way though, let's talk Mario. The Mario & Luigi series is pretty well-loved at this point, with it dating back to 2003 on the GBA. Side-stepping the plumber's usual platforming peril, the series slaps the titular brothers in a much more story-driven RPG setting, complete with turn-based battles and puzzles to solve on their adventure. Of the five games currently available (plus two 3DS remakes), Partners in Time is the only one with any real sense of nostalgia for me, being the first game I bought for my DS all those years ago. Having not touched it since then, I was curious to see just how well it had aged, and whether it was still worth checking out in 2024 with a new game just on the horizon.
Into the Time Hole!
The central plot of Partners in Time is a fun one, if a little confusing on the surface. In a not-so-distant past, the Mushroom Kingdom was invaded by a hostile alien species known as the Shroobs. The kingdom of that time seemed to win the day, with the Shroobs all but extinct in future Mario & Luigi titles outside of one or two stragglers. Why are the Shroobs important? Outside of their very fun to say names, they manage to find themselves as the central antagonists to this story as Princess Peach and two of her assistants unknowingly end up in the midst of the original invasion as they travel into the past using E. Gadd's latest invention: a time machine. This sets off a new series of events as Peach is captured, and our favorite red and green duo follow along into the past to get her back.
I like this setup, though it did leave me with some questions. Why send the princess on something that doesn't appear to have been tested with people beforehand? And worse yet, why send her to the start of a coming invasion? The latter question I've seen get some decent speculation online, and the theory I quite like is that E. Gadd just didn't know, having been something of a hermit professor living in a place that wasn't really hit by the invasion at the time. Beyond that, you can just assume all the major players that would have remembered didn't know what time period E. Gadd had set the machine to, and you have a roundabout explanation for things. Was it still stupid to send the princess either way? Oh absolutely, but this is the Mario universe. We generally let these things slide.
From that starting point the brothers meet their childhood selves and team up in order to rescue the princess and save the kingdom. There's a few more details, but they're not entirely important. You get to meet and interact with a really great cast throughout the adventure, with the plot and its various turns really being one of the high points of the game for me, even if it is quite the short story.
Time is Linear?
The gameplay loop is quick to form around the plot. Your goal is to collect the fragments of the Cobalt Star, the time machine's source of power. Though you don't know all the details out of the gate, it seems it was shattered as Peach used it to defend herself against the Shroobs, with its power being your best bet for beating them once and for all. In Partners in Time Peach's Castle serves as a hub to the various locations in the game, utilizing Time Holes that appeared shortly after things went badly to venture to set places in the past.
Hub areas are a bit of a sticking point for me. They can have great potential, especially in games where progression isn't strictly linear. In games like Mario 64 and Galaxy, the hub areas work really well for letting you pick and choose the stars you want to tackle, while giving you easy access to go back to earlier levels to revisit areas or pick up things you've missed. Hubs can also act as a point of development, anchoring you in one place to see it evolve as the game progresses, naturally either opening up new areas or developing because you've visited a new area. Peach's Castle really falls short on what I think makes a hub great, being a remarkably static map that opens up in a set way without it really feeling like your progress is the reason for it. Instead, it opens up because it has to in order for you to progress.
It's a missed opportunity. After finishing an area, you'll return to the present, find a new skill that just so happens to be ready for you to learn, and then use it to reach another area of the castle that houses a new Time Hole. With how little the events of one Time Hole impacts another for the first few Cobalt Star fragments, this really would've benefited from giving the player more choice in the order they're visited. Where there are skills that need to be learned to progress in the areas, they could have been taught within the areas themselves, perhaps also being a means of accessing secrets in the other areas if tackled in a certain order. This kind of tweak would have gone a long way in making you as the player more involved in the plot, and really could've helped in the larger absence of side content throughout.
In Partners in Time you're given next to no reason to go anywhere beyond your target destination, with your target destination often communicated really quite well to you in-world. You have no zany side-quests, and areas that are off the beaten path really don't reward you with anything outside of a few coins. For the first half of the game I would fight every enemy I saw, and go down every path in hopes of seeing everything. After a certain point though I really just realized it wasn't worth the effort. The best the game has in terms of extra content is collecting beans for a familiar face, but even these are just something you trade for unique badges.
Though I did find myself wanting more in places, I have to give credit and say that each area does feel well-paced. For those who are just going from Point A to Point B, the puzzles are often simple to follow but satisfying all the same, with no one map outstaying its welcome. It feels as though some attention clearly went into the main path, with the Shroob's influence quite thoughtfully weaved throughout. It's really just a shame it didn't go all too far beyond that, especially when the game can be beaten in around ten hours casually.
Turn-Based Trauma
Combat in the game is really simple to pick up, utilizing a turn-based system with attacks that need to be timed for the most damage. Your basic moveset is a jumping attack and a hammer attack, both of which getting a boost in power if you use both the baby and adult character. These attacks do a good job in clearing out basic enemies but for those wanting to speed things up, especially in boss fights, you'll be left wanting a little more oomph. And that oomph comes in the form of "Bros Items".
Bros Items can either be found in question mark blocks or bought at Peach's Castle, with more items unlocking as you progress through the game. As their name might suggest, each item relies on you having a minimal number of bros, with some needing two, and others needing all four to be active in combat. These items are really the key to unlocking your higher damage numbers, each having their own timings and inputs to learn to get the most out of them. I can appreciate the variety on offer, and certain items really do act as a skill test for their ability to go on infinitely if you can keep up with the increasingly-tight windows for pressing the right button. Being somewhat poor at these kinds of timing-based actions myself, I usually just kept a healthy stock of Canonballers on hand; they're relatively cheap, only require four easily communicated inputs, and do around four times a regular jump. I never really felt incentivized to try some of the riskier items knowing that if I messed up early, I could do less damage than a basic jump.
This came back to bite me later in the game as bosses in particular got bulkier, leading to long drawn-out battles. On paper these fights were actually quite interesting, with the majority of them having a puzzle element to solve to have a shot at hitting a boss's weak point. The weak point might be communicated visually like with a bandage over a certain part of the boss, or sometimes quite organically through knowledge you've gained in the areas prior. After a certain point in the game I did find myself starting to hit a wall with bosses, with my lower damage meaning it would take multiple cycles of getting the boss into their vulnerable state. The first time you do it you get the satisfaction of solving a puzzle. If like me you manage to get onto a third or fourth time though, you really just want the fight to end. This isn't going to be something that's an issue for everybody; if you're proficient with timing-based inputs I can imagine you'll get on well here. For those like me it's something you should be prepared for.
A Standout Soundtrack
Though I do have my issues with Partners in Time, one area I can't fault in the slightest is the game's soundtrack, and to some extent the graphics too. I'm no expert in music theory or anything like that, but every time I got to a new area I would hear a track start and just think to myself "yep, that is the perfect fit". You have older themes getting new arrangements in the case of Yoshi's Island, and others just standing out on their own merit. This is a game to play with the volume on for sure.
The graphics aren't necessarily anything that stand out, but the smaller details are things I do appreciate. You have warp pipes with their destination drawn far-off in the background, the maps on the top screen being fantastic renditions and simplifications of the areas you're working through and their points of interest. It's not pushing any boundaries, but it comes together in an incredibly cohesive way that just works really nicely. It's something worth mentioning in my books.
Accessibility & Emulation
For these retro reviews, I also wanted to take a moment to talk about the larger availability of the games being covered, as well as any quirks to expect should you want to emulate them. Partners in Time did actually see one re-release on the Wii U's Virtual Console at £8.99. If that option were still available, I can see it being a pretty solid way to experience the game. Obviously that isn't the case with the doors to the Wii U's library now solidly shut, meaning your only real options are between eBay and emulation, and my lord was I surprised to check eBay.
In the UK the situation isn't dire. If you're happy with just the cartridge, there are currently a number of listings between £15 and £25, and based on my time playing it I do feel it's worth that much. If you're wanting it with a box though I don't see anything below £42, with the situation only worsening for Americans. I don't know when it happened, but you folks seem to be looking at $60 for just the cartridge, which is more than twice as much as the cheapest I could find in the UK. At that price, other options may be advisable.
If you are wanting to emulate, you'll be happy to know that Partners in Time doesn't use the touch screen at all during gameplay. Where you might run into problems though is in the game's reliance on using both screens at the same time, notably in combat. This isn't something you could feasibly get away with on a smaller single-screened device like the RG35XX SP; you need both screens, and you need them to be stacked to best keep track of characters moving between screens. I personally played through the game using the "MelonDS DS" core of RetroArch on the Odin 2 Mini, utilizing the core's hybrid display mode. What this does is give you one large screen, and puts both displays to the right stacked on top of each other, as you've probably seen from the screenshots. Adding to this a hotkey that swaps which the large screen is, you end up with a really comfortable way to play the game. You do still need to get used to the fact that the game expects a gap between screens, but it's definitely manageable. I'm certain that a DSi XL will be the best way to play this, or any of the 3DS models if you don't mind the blurry filter that's forced when in DS mode, but I certainly enjoyed emulating all the same.
An Adventure for the Ages?
Playing Partners in Time in 2024 has opened my eyes a little to the game's shortcomings. I can understand why it's regarded as one of the weaker games in the Mario & Luigi series, even without playing the other games yet. Having said that, I can still appreciate it for what it is. What we have is a short game that's a straight path. You've got a fun story with great writing and characters, paired with a battle system that while tiring at times, did manage to keep me engaged throughout. This isn't a perfect game, but if you've perhaps played the other games in the series and skipped over this one thanks to some of the bad press it's got in recent years, I'll say it's one worth visiting.
