Headscratchers / Mario & Luigi

• What happened the the Firebrand and Thunderhand powers? They saw a lot of use in the first game and just disappeared later. Did the Bros. simply forget they could do that?
  • Typical Bag of Spilling syndrome.
• Of all three games, there are two things that bug me. One: why is everything that has to be done by the bros together ALWAYS colored red and green? And second: are Mario and Luigi some sort of martial art experts, given how they (or the player, depending on your point of view) almost always seem to be able to determine which of the bros is about to be attacked, and how?
  • First off, Gameplay and Story Integration. Second, it's fairly easy to tell if something's flying right at you if no one ends up attacking from behind save atleast two or three cases per game. It's less foresight and more reflexive.
• Fawful, in all three games, speaks of how "red and green puts the fog of rage in [his] eyes". His cloak is red. His skin is green. Is Nintendo making a funny, or..?
  • He doesn't use mirrors very often.
  • Fawful often refers to the Mario Bros. as "Red" and "Green", he's talking about them rather than the colours.
  • To be honest, to me it just ends up sounding like he somehow gets roid-rage-induced bloodshot eyes from smoking too much weed.
  • He's so insane he makes Deadpool look like a perfectly sane and reasonable individual.
• With everything in all of the Mario & Luigi games being color-coded red for Mario and green for Luigi, how does someone who's red-green or entirely color-blind play this game? Any guesses would be welcome, but I would like to hear from someone who has such color-blindedness.
  • Many of the red and green elements are also marked with M's and L's. Not all, but many.
    • True. There are the stuff like that hammer minigame in the third game with the synapses or whatever they were though, and the Thwacks on Thwomp Volcano in the second game, where it's simply indicated by color. But yeah, color-blind people might still get hindered, but not as much as I initially thought.
  • Color-blind person here. The colors may look the same, but the intensities are different. It's like how two different shades of blue can be easily distinguishable even though they're both blue. Other games that use closer-together shades ARE impossible for me to play — for instance, the card game SET.
  • Red-green troper here. Throughout all the games I can easily distinguish the difference between the two colors and identify them as red and green each. (As confirmed to me by the logo on the blocks) The problem lies in the hues of red and green spectrum, making it more difficult for me to tell apart close-together hues of red and green than an able viewer can.
• Am I missing something? Nintendo Power keeps going on about how apparently Superstar Saga is the funniest game in the world. I've played through it a few times. It's got some good lighthearted humor, but nothing really spectacular in terms of amusement, unless it's about Luigi being a Butt-Monkey.
  • You're not the only one.
  • It's almost as if humor is subjective, and the game just really clicks with their sense of humor, but not yours. And that's okay. What a crazy concept, right?
• In the mainstream games, Luigi is faster than Mario, so why is his speed stat lower?
  • Because compared to Mario, Luigi has poorer traction and acceleration and is described as being clumsy. Hell, most of the 2D platformers Luigi's in show him as the slower one.
  • Luigi having the lower speed stat also makes it so Mario leads in battle. It's a characterization thing as much as an ability thing.
• Anybody else confused as to why it is Nintendo is skipping over remaking Partners in Time and going right to a remake of Bowser's Inside Story? I don't get why they're skipping it.
  • They knew that Bowser's Inside Story was more popular and different enough from Superstar Saga to not be redundant, so they decided to take a crack at that one first. There are a lot more major assets that they can pull from the 3DS games, like Bowser Jr. and the giant battles, rather than having to make from scratch again, like the babies and Shroobs. It would also be more difficult to tack a side story onto that game like with Bowser's Minions and Bowser Jr.'s Journey due to the time-travel structuring of the plot, unless they can come up with a riveting story for E. Gadd or Kylie Koopa. It's not like they'll ignore Partners in Time forever; I'm willing to bet that it or a new game with the babies shows up on the Switch in 2021, redesigned from the ground up.