Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

Overview

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, known in Europe and Australia as Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros., is a 2013 role-playing video game developed by AlphaDream and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. The successor to Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (2009), it is the fourth installment in the Mario & Luigi series, and a part of the larger Mario franchise.

The story of Dream Team follows Mario and his brother, Luigi who, after being invited to Pi'illo Island for a vacation, become embroiled in a journey to retrieve a powerful artifact before Bowser and Antasma use it for evil intentions. The gameplay takes place from a top-down perspective and has the player controlling Mario and Luigi simultaneously, solving puzzles and platformer sections and overcoming turn-based battles across Pi'illo Island, the game's overworld. The player also makes use of Luigi's dreams, called the "Dream World", where gameplay shifts to a two-dimensional side-scrolling perspective and emphasizes using Luigi-based gimmicks to their advantage. Combat in both worlds is turn-based.

Dream Team was made to emphasize Luigi due to the developer's decision to focus solely on Mario and Luigi as characters and the feeling that Luigi was often underrepresented in the series. The original notion was to make a scenario involving multiple Luigis on-screen at one time, and as more Luigi-themed ideas were conceptualized, a dream setting was set to justify their inclusion. The worldbuilding was redesigned to be three-dimensional, a first for the series, but characters retained their two-dimensional qualities with newly added stereoscopic depth. Characters were made to not only push the limits of comical expression but to test the restrictions of Nintendo's intellectual property team. The game was announced at E3 2013 and released in July internationally and early August in North America. Its release was made to coincide with the Year of Luigi, the 30th anniversary celebration of the character that saw many Luigi-oriented titles and merchandise.

Official trailer

Trailer. Watch on YouTube

Gameplay

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team - Gameplay Walkthrough Part 1 - Pi'illo Island Intro (Nintendo 3DS), ZackScottGames. Watch on YouTube

Screenshots

Game details

Genres

Platform, Puzzle, Role-playing (RPG), Adventure

Developer

AlphaDream, Good-Feel

Publisher

Nintendo

Series

Mario & Luigi

Platforms

Nintendo 3DS

Age rating

ESRB E10+

Modes

Single player

Yes

Local multiplayer

No

Online multiplayer

No

Co op

No

Age ratings

USK

6

CLASS IND

L

GRAC

ALL

ACB

PG

PEGI

3

CERO

A

ESRB

E10+

Release dates

Editions

Check out the store

Playable today

Playable offline todayYes

The whole game plays from the card.

Online

Plays offlineYes

Reception

Aggregates

Outlet	Platform	Score	Scale
Metacritic	3DS	81	100

Critics

Outlet	Score	Scale
IGN	8	10
GameSpot	8	10
Game Informer	8.5	10
Eurogamer	7	10
GamesRadar	4	5
Nintendo Life	9	10
VentureBeat	90	100

Staff and cast

Staff

Role	Name
Developers	AlphaDream, Good-Feel (giant battles)
Publisher	Nintendo
Director and writer	Hiroyuki Kubota
Producers	Akira Otani, Yoshihiko Maekawa, Toshiharu Izuno
Programmer	Makoto Aioi
Artist	Akira Noguchi
Composer	Yoko Shimomura

Notes for collectors

• Mario and Luigi are controlled together on separate buttons across Pi'illo Island.
• In the Dream World, inside Luigi's dreams, the game turns into side-scrolling platforming.
• Released for the Year of Luigi, the character's 30th anniversary.
• Giant battles were made with Good-Feel.
• 2.7 million copies sold by 2023.

Credits

Publisher

Nintendo

Developer

AlphaDream, Good-Feel

Director

Hiroyuki Kubota

Released

2013-08-10

Age rating

ESRB E10+

Region

US

Time to beat

about 40.3 hours