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YMMV / Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Antasma. Card-Carrying Villain who wants to conquer the world or Tragic Villain who merely wanted to travel to the real world?
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Antasma. Some fans of this game prefer him over Bowser by a long shot and would've much preferred him to be the final boss instead of Dreamy Bowser. The fact that he has arguably the best battle theme in the whole game helps. Others criticize him for his rather lacking characterization for a Mario RPG Big Bad. Finally, people who find him Rescued from the Scrappy Heap upon finding out that he's not the Big Bad meet opposition from people who preferred him over Bowser (and thought he was gonna be the Big Bad).
    • Bowser. Some fans are happy to see him as a powerful and somewhat intelligent, menacing villain once again. Others criticize him for betraying potential new fan-favorite villain Antasma and hijacking the plot from him, and believe that such portrayals of Bowser should be confined to the main series games rather than the RPGs. There's also the fact that Bowser has lost his humorous Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain portrayal from his other RPG appearances in exchange for straightforward villainy.
    • The Elite Trio (Private Goomp, Corporal Paraplonk, and Sergeant Guy). Some are not happy they returned, but others were. Then there's going into whether or not you enjoyed their boss fight.
    • In a game that is supposed to be celebrating Luigi, Dreamy Luigi ends up feeling more like an item than a partner, as he is not directly controlled by the player and merely serves as a powerup for Mario. On the other hand, many feel like the Luiginary attacks help him stand out and really give him a chance to shine, especially considering Luigi was treated as the franchise's biggest Butt-Monkey for so many years.
  • Best Level Ever: Mount Pajamaja, a climb up a huge Hailfire Peaks-themed mountain topped off with a challenging but fun boss battle and gorgeous music for the snowy portion. Additionally, many of the game's Funny Moments are here thanks to the Massif Bros., the Muscle Lord statues, and the Mega Pi'illos.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: During the battle with the Smoldergeist, Starlow randomly casts a gust of wind to blow out his fire. The Mario Bros. are stunned for a few moments, then the battle resumes as normal and neither that moment nor Starlow's ability is ever brought up again. This was because of something lost in translation: Starlow was originally making a bad pun that led to the gust of wind and Stunned Silence from the Bros. (gusts of wind are the Japanese equivalent of chirping crickets in response to a bad joke)
  • Breather Boss:
    • The Fly Guys R fought at Pi'illo Blimport are treated as bosses, but are just normal Fly Guys R. No new attacks or gimmicks, and no more health or higher stats than usual. And you've beaten up dozens of them already.
    • Popple is fought right after beating the Wiggler; in the exact same fight, nonetheless. He is much weaker than the Wiggler and has two easy to dodge attacks, so he shouldn't put up much of a fight.
  • Breather Level: The entire Ultibed quest, at least in terms of the part finding. Mini games, basic enemies, already visited areas, not much that's actually difficult in the slightest. Which is nice, considering it comes right after Driftwood Shore and its dream world, and right before Wiggler, Popple, Dreamy Wakeport 2, Earthwake and Somnom Woods, all of which are much more difficult to beat.
  • Broken Base:
  • Catharsis Factor:
    • Admit it: Chasing down Bowser Jr. by hijacking his Clown Car when he's out of it is immensely satisfying! The fact that it's an inversion of how things usually go when a chase sequence is initiated is the icing on the cake.
    • Fighting Popple, who Took a Level in Jerkass for this game, is also immensely satisfying despite (and perhaps because of) being incredibly easy. It's really too bad that he's not in the Battle Ring.
  • Contested Sequel: Fans generally either view this game as the best Mario & Luigi game or the third-worst next to Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, although nobody really dislikes Dream Team outright; the most common points of criticism are the slow pacing and Forced Tutorials. It also has slightly worse reviews than previous installments in the series, though it's still quite well-reviewed.
  • Cry for the Devil: Even though he's The Dreaded who has a stronghold over Pi'illo Island, many fans ended up feeling incredibly sorry for Antasma when he was betrayed by Bowser, who he showed genuine respect for, just because Bowser wanted the power of the Dream Stone for himself, resulting in Antasma suffering a Villainous Breakdown.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Cocoknights have a particularly devious attack where they surround you in a whirling circle. This requires you to stay in the center while they move around, and you have to jump over them when they stop. Their spear-tossing attacks are also fast and it's difficult to spot where the thrower is on the field.
    • Beehosses control swarms of bees to do their attacks. Counterattacking the bees will cause them to swoop down on you in an attack that cannot be dodged. It's an enemy you have to dodge with zero countering, which is harder than it sounds.
    • Most of the Dream World's enemies are Demonic Spiders, but special mention to Lob-omb (and their R variant) with their attack where they throw one big bomb. Sometimes, it's thrown next to you or behind you, and predicting that and dodging the attack is really difficult because it goes so fast. And it deals a huge lot of damage.
    • Pi'llodactyls start out in the background, the first enemies that you need a Taunt Ball to engage. Their stats are ridiculously high compared to other enemies on Mt. Pajamaja, with three times their HP, high defense, and a fireball attack powerful enough to 2HKO and that still requires you to repeatedly jump off of the resulting burn spot even if you dodge it.
    • Dark Blocks have an attack that involves hitting the block multiple times in a row with precise timing, Failure to counter it deals a decent chunk of damage and possibly inflicts the dizzy status. It's a Dream World enemy, so you don't have a second character to bail you out if things get dicey.
    • Mechakoopas have some very annoying attacks, but the kicker is that attacking them causes them to malfunction, which reverses their attack pattern and makes countering them much harder.
  • Difficulty Spike:
    • When you start out the game, things are fine and dandy. it throws you a curveball now and again, but for the most part remains your smooth-sailing Mario & Luigi game. Suddenly, Bowser in Dream's Deep. A bit of a warning sign, not too bad, but unusually hard for being so early on. Then meet Big Massif and his disciples. The game wasn't lying when it said at the beginning that it's best to beat every enemy you see, because you will need the levels and understanding of the gameplay mechanics by the time you reach these guys. Steel yourself, because the game pulls no punches now. And you can't even level-grind if you have problems with the giant battles.
    • Speaking of giant battles, the Robo Drilldigger should be an easy win since it's mostly a glorified cutscene, Mount Pajamaja is a lot tougher but only his train attack is fairly hard to counter (thankfully he doesn't do it that often). But then comes the nasty robot/poltergeist known as Earthwake. He will hit you HARD and you will often have to make a Sadistic Choice between wasting an attack turn and healing or attacking and risking getting killed.
    • The biggest difficulty spike comes around Mount Pajamaja, where the enemies become stronger, the bosses far more difficult, and when you're finally treated to battles with traditional Mario enemies in Driftwood Shore, you find that they're freakishly overpowered (even the lowly Goomba can kick your ass if you take it lightly).
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • So far, the Massif Bros. (with their random beef references and muscle obsession) seem to be the most popular new characters in the game, and one of the things even some of the more harsh critic reviews call hilarious.
    • Kylie Koopa's (originally from Partners in Time) popularity alone earned her a spot in this game. Her optional quest in this game is also regarded as pretty fun in general.
  • Evil Is Cool:
    • Bowser's role in this game has been hailed by many of his fans as one of his best villainous appearances in the Mario franchise.note 
    • Antasma, while he ultimately gets shafted by Bowser, is still very powerful and cool-looking, and popular with fans.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • Giant Giant Bowser, of course, for the result of an already-giant Bowser getting a second size boost at the end of his battle.
    • Alternatively, Tera Bowser, to reference the final event in Super Smash Bros. Melee where you fought Giga Bowser, Ganondorf, and Mewtwo, and Giga Bowser could possibly grab a random Super Mushroom to increase his size even further.
    • The "Blunder Bomb" for the Expert + Risk Badge combo.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple:
    • Starlow with Dreambert, as they have great chemistry together.
    • Deviantart has been brimming with Brickle/Britta art as of late.
    • Among Japanese fans there's Bedsmith/Broque Monsieur, a Crack Pairing of extremes that manages to be ridiculously popular.
  • Fanon: In fanart, Antasma is often depicted with more of the physical qualities of a real bat, such as fur and large, pointed ears.
  • Franchise Original Sin:
    • Antasma is criticized by some for being a Flat Character, but he really has no less characterization than most of the previous Mario RPG villains. The difference is that those villains either had quirky and more fun underlings to pick up the slack for their flat characterization (Cackletta) or were aliens/eldritch abominations that didn't require much characterization in the first place (Princess Shroob, the Dark Star). Antasma doesn't have either to fall back on, so he stands out more as a flat character.
    • The Forced Tutorials are one of the game's biggest criticisms, but Forced Tutorials have always been a problem in the Mario & Luigi series. It's only that Dream Team happened to have even more tutorials than usual, as a result of having more abilities that need to be taught to the players. Funnily enough, Paper Jam ditched Forced Tutorials for the most part, instead being replaced with short tests for the new moves.
  • Game-Breaker:
    • Birthday equips. These multiply a stat by 400% on your birthday (as set by the 3DS clock). Keep changing the date and you've got a ridiculously overpowered set of gear that can smash through anything.
    • Time freezing badges. Combine the Gold Badge and Miracle Badge, and you can stop time to use ridiculously overpowered attacks like the Zee Egg and Star Rocket twice before the enemy can even move. And then use the same effect again the second it runs out, for a max of four times in a row - or a whopping five if you time the Badge Meter's charging just right.
    • The Golden Equipment gives bigger stat bonuses based on the number of coins the player has acquired. Considering how easy it is to accumulate coins, this item quickly becomes one of the most overpowered gear sets in the game.
    • 1-Up Gloves. If either Bro gets knocked out, he gets auto revived immediately as long as you have a 1-Up Mushroom handy. This is so powerful that this item can be permanently missed if Mammoshka doesn't drop it at the end of his battle, which has a 50 percent chance of happening as opposed to the normal boss rate of dropping their rare item 100 percent of the time.
    • Bottomless Gloves gives you infinite items. In the Battle Ring, this completely annihilates much of the difficulty. Combined with Max Candy, it gives an unlimited full heal on command.
    • The Wellington/Farmer's Boots give the ability to occasionally get Beans instead of coins. Combine this with Dream World enemies and Luiginary Ball, and you won't need to care about stats in the nearest future.
    • The Guard/Master Badge (Protects a Brother from 6 attacks) combined with the Risk/Silver Badge (Powers up everyone on screen) offers the perfect mix of attack and defense and can trivialize most battles.
    • The Angel Bangle mixed with the Casual Bros. Rank Up effect. The Angel Bangle restores 20 HP and 10 BP a turn. Casual Bros. cuts the price of special attacks in half. None of the special attacks exceed 20 BP, so none of the moves with Casual Bros. will exceed 10 BP. And since you heal 10 BP a turn, this means infinite Bros. moves, with absolutely no restrictions outside of the superboss.
    • Bros. Boots recharge your BP whenever you use a Jump attack, based on how much damage you do. The effect stacks with Bros./Luiginary attacks that use the boots, and given that those attacks do way more damage than jump attacks do, you'll often recover more BP with the boots than you used to perform the attack in the first place.
    • The Star Boots, which make any jump attack or special boot based attack recover health after you damage an enemy. Combined with the Angel Bangle, you'll probably never have to worry about health again for the most part.
    • Badge Charge Meter booster badges. It's possible to get this stacked up so high that you can fill the badge meter several times in one attack.
    • Silver + Miracle Combo. It says Resets status to the last turn, but it actually resets the status of both Bros to how it was at the start of the battle. This cures status effects and heals damage, effectively acting as both a Max Candy and a Refreshing Herb for both characters. It's also very 'cheap', in that the bar for it is filled in just 14 hits (compared to more than 20 for most other powerful badges).
    • The Slingsniper, despite not being the last Bros. Attack you get, has a special property to it that can make it way stronger then any of the other ones in the game if it's used properly. If you're fighting a large enemy, a star indicator will appear on them, and having Luigi score a direct hit on the star will cause the already strong attack to deal a critical hit for even more damage.
    • The Master Gloves. If you can get an Excellent on a Bros. Attack or Luiginary Attack, your BP is refunded. With this, you can spam the most powerful moves in the game with no cost, if you're good enough.
    • The Quick Healer rank-up effect. It doubles the effect of all healing items, much like the Delicious Gloves from the previous game. However, what makes it broken is that, like the Delicious Gloves, it affects the other Bro if the Bro with the effect uses a healing item on them; therefore, you only need one Bro with the effect. With this effect, Ultra Nuts, which usually only heal a meagre fifty Heart Points, act as a party-wide Ultra Mushrooms, Mario can fill up his massive health in the Dream World in one turn, and Max Candies restore absolutely ludicrous amounts of Heart Points. and Bros. Points.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • Hermite Crabs. They're basically the only enemy in Wakeport outside of the Dream World, can't be killed with a preemptive strike and have hard to dodge, annoying attacks.
    • Fly Guys (and their R counterparts) take time to defeat and are constantly bringing in more Goombas to lengthen the battle.
  • Goddamned Boss:
    • The Elite Trio (Sergeant Guy, Corporal Paraplonk, and Private Goomp) can be rather annoying. None of them are terribly difficult to dodge or terribly difficult to defeat individually, but you can't beat them unless you take them all out in a single attack. Not in a row, on the same turn; any of them that aren't KOed will revive any that are, and they will happily combine this with a Mushroom or two to heal. Thankfully BP can be restored with badges and you can exploit Sergeant Guy's cannon to damage them all at once.
    • Mt. Pajamaja is a Damage-Sponge Boss unless you take a turn to flip him over with the Hammer Uppercut. This is especially irritating in the Giant Battle Ring, as he is likely the only boss that you will run the risk of losing by running out of turns.
    • Of Big Massif's four disciples, Beef Cloud is the biggest offender. He has quite a bit of HP for a disciple, only being beaten by Sorrow Fist, and his DEF is quite high for the point in the game at which he's fought. However, he is unable to attack, meaning that you technically cannot lose this fight. He also has a Healing Factor that heals him in real-time rather than in turns, which means that if you're lacking in POW or BP, the fight can potentially drag on for hours if you can't wake him up for at least one turn.
    • The third (and proper) fight with Kamek is a complete pain from start to finish. From the beginning, he splits into four clones, all with their own attacks. His attacks are easy enough to dodge, but one of his bodies buffs the others stats, and another heals for just over 100 HP (something that regular attacks can barely break when they have their defense buffed). Now remember that, since it's the Dream World, you only have one move between the enemy attacks. Combine this with how all of them can attack one after the other and you have a boss that takes ages to beat.
  • Good Bad Bugs: It's possible to split up Mario from Luigi by making Mario into Mini Mario and doing a clip involving a bridge in the eastern room with Viruses in Mushrise Park. By entering a Mini Mario section from out of bounds, then having Mario walk through the exit, Mario can leave Luigi inside and experience a world of softlocks and areas he can't traverse without his brother. Jumping on an enemy to first strike them restores Mario to his normal height, and Luigi can be rescued and returned to Mario's side by using the clip again to enter the loading zone the rainbow-colored spring hill launches the Bros to.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The Giant Luigi battles in this game were done by Good-feel. Years later, they would develop Princess Peach: Showtime! and during one of the Mighty Plays Peach becomes a giant like Luigi was and fights a UFO Mothership.
  • Ho Yay: Bedsmith's constant desire to "take a nap on" and "have a Pi'illo fight with" Dreambert has some very romantic undertones. The hearts that appear while he's saying this and Dreambert's horrified reaction to it says it all.
  • It's Hard, So It Sucks!: The game has noticeably more difficult enemies and bosses than the previous games, resulting in a significantly more unforgiving gameplay experience that some have found frustrating. It doesn't help that since your stats don't matter for the giant battles, Level Grinding won't make them any easier and the motion controls can be frequently unresponsive.
  • It Was His Sled: The identity of the Final Boss soon became one of the most talked about aspects of this game, thanks to it breaking a tradition that was present in almost every previous Mario RPG. It's Dreamy Bowser, who for once does not end up being usurped by a more powerful antagonist, but instead backstabs Antasma and firmly takes his place as the true mastermind behind the game's plot.
  • Memetic Mutation: Dynamax/Gigantamax Luigi Explanation
  • Padding: Mole Hunt in general. You have to play this mini game twice, and there's not any real story related reason for it in either instance. Seems they just wanted a way to pad out Driftwood Shore...
    • The Ultibed quest is also seen as this, as it's nothing but a romp through the game's areas you've been to before, including Driftwood Shore which you just came out of, the enemies are bland and uninspired (out of the 10 enemies you fight in the Ultibed side-portions, half of them are nothing but harder R versions, and the game has the gall to present a group of Fly Guy Rs as bosses despite there being absolutely no difference between them and the regular ones statwise), and it forces you to do the Mole Hunt minigame listed above AGAIN. The only upside is that you start it by having more interactions with the Massif Bros, and at the very least it ends with the amusing battle against Wiggler and Popple, and the awesome Giant Boss battle against Earthwake.
  • The Scrappy: The Mole Hunt Proprietor, who runs the Mole Hunt minigame, a minigame that you're only playing because this idiot wants to make a quick buck off you by withholding access to the next part of the game until you pay him. (Granted, 10 coins is a pittance by the point in the game where it comes up, but still...) It's as if Moneybags reincarnated into the Mario universe.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Ring puzzles in Somnom Woods. Major Guide Dang It!, made worse by the lack of guides and ridiculously complex solutions needed. Made slightly easier if you wait before starting one, study the layout, figure out the path beforehand and take note of the shadows of the rings on the ground to better gauge their position.
    • The fact that Luigi's equipment has no effect on Dreamy Luigi and thus no effect on Mario when they combine in battle. Considering you only have one turn instead of two like in the real world, this makes most dream battles, and especially dream boss battles much tougher than they have the right to be, and the lack of a second character to revive the first will guarantee at least a few retried battles.
    • Unlike every other boss, there is only a 50% chance of Mammoshka dropping his rare item at the end of the battle. If you're unlucky, you'll either have to fight him again and hope for the best, or his item becomes lost forever.
    • The gyro controls can also take some getting used to. It doesn't help that they are responsible for a possible Game-Breaking Bug in the game. Not only can they hurt you against the Zeekeeper but they're needed to finish off Giant Bowser. Even though the final phase is pretty easy, screwing this up causes it to repeat, turning it into a potential battle of attrition, and getting hit by one of Giant Bowser's attacks in this phase can be a one hit KO if your HP is less than 2/3 full.
    • The giant battles follow a different set of rules from the game's standard battle system. They are not affected by levels, stats, gear, or items, nor can you do them in Easy Mode after dying. The Giant Battle Medley gets special mention for forcing you through all five, with the only opportunity to heal being when Mushrooms appear during Zeekeeper X's egg attack or fall whenever Giant Bowser X drops into lava during the "Repel the Shell" segment.
    • The Drill Stomp, aka the "I sure do wish I was ambidextrous" attack. Drawing circles on the touchscreen may seem simple enough, but you have to draw a lot of them (there is very little leniency), you have to do it three times in a row, the direction of the circle is randomized for each of the three rounds each time, and depending on whether you are left-handed or right-handed, one direction will almost invariably be much harder to do than the other.
    • The lack of any function to quit and reset to the title screen. (You have to go back to the 3DS's home menu, confirm, reopen the game, go past the 3DS logo screen, skip the pre-title cutscene, hit "Start Game", then you can finally select your game file.) Not having it makes certain things, such as fighting Gold Beanies, more tedious than they need to be.
  • Sequel Difficulty Spike: The enemies hit very hard in this game, and especially the bosses are very capable of decimating you if you're not careful. And if that's not bad enough, they added a Hard Mode on top of that! Enemies are even tougher, and the already-narrow window of timing for button presses practically is cut in half. On the other hand, the game also includes Anti-Frustration Features such as Easy Mode, and there are several combinations of badges and equipment that are plainly overpowered. The game is overall harder than its three predecessors, but includes options to soften the difficulty.
  • Surprise Difficulty: This game is by far the hardest Mario & Luigi game yet. It has bosses with a ton of health and healing abilities, difficult to dodge attacks, tricky to master Bros. Attacks, and some surprisingly very challenging giant bosses and sidequests. And it gets worse on Hard mode.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • That One Achievement: Completing the entire challenge list to earn the Duplex Crown. There are some standout challenges:
    • Dodging certain enemy attacks like the Hermite Crab, Beehoss, and Mechakoopa.
    • Dodging the background enemies attacks, since you have to be lucky enough to find them in the first place which is completely random and rare on top of it as well.
  • That One Attack:
    • Earthwake's hammer attack, since it's very hard to block, does a ton of damage and is used about 10-15 times in a row on hard mode.
    • Pi'illodium's hammer attack. He slowly rises offscreen with a counter dropping down. It continues even when you can't see him, so you better know when it hits "0", and even then, be prepared for the speed at which Pi'illodium slams down on his target. Mess up the timing, take massive damage (and possibly dizziness). He also has another one in the form of his self destruct move, which operates on a real-time timer in a turn-based game.
    • Antasma's bat attack in his final battle can pull Mario into a Dream Within a Dream, where he chases the hero while spitting dark flames. Mario has to find the correct exit to wake up, but jumping into an incorrect hole deals further damage,
    • Mt. Pajamaja's charging attack is somehow easier to stop with the X version, as your sliding on the Touch Screen barely registers in the original battle unless you are practically slamming on it.
    • The Zeekeeper's dimensional rift attack. Even when the gyro controls are actually working properly, it's still a pain to avoid the energy balls AND his ramming attack.
    • The Beehoss' bee swarm counterattack. When attacked, it fires a hard-to-dodge swarm of bees which deals heavy damage if jumped on.
    • The Mechakoopas' fireball march. In theory it sounds simple: bait them by moving into their path, then move back once they're done shooting. In practice, it's all but undodgeable, as there's no way to move out of their way and back quickly enough without getting hit by another Mechakoopa's fireballs. There's a good chance they'll use this attack before you can even move, up to five times in a row.
    • Torkscrew can dig towards one of the Mario Bros, then pop out a second later. You have to jump to avoid the drill, but if you're even a split second too early, the Bro will get caught, forcing the other to chase Torkscrew past several rows of bombs.
    • Mammoshka's giant rock. It hits both Bros. for massive damage and you have to hit it 3-5 times to get rid of it. Both Bros. have to hit it at the exact same time; if one is slightly off, then the rock will crash into the other Bro for massive damage. That alone would be challenging, but the worst part is that it goes off-screen the 4th or 5th time it is hit. Unlike Pi'illodium's hammer, which comes down on a timer, there is no tell for when it's coming back down aside from memorizing the timing.
    • When Giant Bowser goes behind a fortress, one attack involves an army of Spear Guys running up to Giant Luigi to stab at his legs. You must tap on them to get rid of them, but doing so without taking at least some damage is virtually impossible, and the stabbing doesn't stop until every last Spear Guy is gone.
    • Chasing attacks in general. Bosses will occasionally force the Mario Bros. through a long running sequence that requires constant evasion. Even those that end after a single attack connects tend to inflict heavy damage.
    • The Dark Blocks have the "hit the block" attack. They will show a counter (usually 3 to 7) and then start moving back and forth above Mario's head, and every time he jumps under the block and hits it, the counter will decrease by 1. If you get it to 0, then you have successfully countered the attack. If you don't, then the block will slam down on Mario's head for a good chunk of damage as well as the chance to inflict dizziness. And hitting the block at the right time is a lot harder than it looks, because it's an attack where you have to move forward and back in 3D space, and the block moves so quickly that it's not really a fair test of skill to hit it in time.
    • Dreamy Bowser has two of these. First is a hammer attack where he hits one of the brothers (signaled by a coin flip) at a very fast speed. If you counter he will then hit the other one and it does huge damage to both brothers. The second has him summon dreamy versions of enemies to fight the Bros while Dreamy Bowser goes into the background and heals himself.
  • That One Boss:
    • The Zeekeeper. He is constantly fleeing, and getting hit slows Luigi down, allowing the boss to perform another series of attacks. It gets worse when he begins travelling across dimensions, and you are forced to control Luigi with the gyro controls: Due to a fairly common Game-Breaking Bug, the gyro controls can often fail to register, making this fight impossible to win.
    • Giant Bowser is by far the most complex giant boss in the game with tons of different attacks that the player has to quickly adapt to. It also has a gyro phase that requires precise timing to get around a sequence of fireballs.
    • The second and final fight with Antasma. Not only are all of his attacks hard to dodge, but they also have a chance of putting Mario to sleep, sending the hero to a nightmare realm that can only be escaped by dodging Antasma's fireballs and going into one of five holes. The fireballs have the unfortunate effect of knocking Mario forwards when he's hit, which will, more often than not, force you into a "bad" hole that deals further damage. Later into the fight, he will capture Luigi with one of his Antasmunchies, forcing the player to waste a turn just to free him.
    • Big Massif in the Dream World. If you are to kill any of his Mooks, depending on how many you killed, Big Massif gets a Power Bonus; since all of your Dream World attacks are Herd Hitting Attacks, this is almost guaranteed to happen. Worse yet, he summons more and more of them every turn. You can't just relegate yourself to weak attacks to avoid killing them either, as Big Massif has a chasing attack that grows in strength for every Mook he has with him, which is further boosted when he's pissed off. You have to keep the Mook count to a minimum and - more importantly - get good at dodging Big Massif's attacks, or he'll mop the floor with you.
    • Big Massif's disciples. All four of them have a special gimmick in their fights that turn each of them into a Beef Gate and require you to have a working knowledge of all your battle skills up to that point. If you don't, then they could be even more frustrating than Big Massif himself. The hardest of the disciples is Thunder Sass. He has the lowest count of HP for all four disciples, but this is well made up for by the the fact you can only damage him via counter-attacks.
  • That One Level:
    • Dreamy Somnom Woods is a maze with lots of puzzles and confusing rooms, capped off with a frustrating battle against the Zeekeeper.
    • Driftwood Shore is another example. Though the layouts aren't anything too difficult, the enemies are incredibly annoying, as most enemies in the area have a way to summon more enemies to make the battle last longer (the Fly Guys in particular just love to bring in more Goombas even when there's already some on the field), and the one that DOESN'T have insanely high defenses that pretty much forces you to fight it with countering only. The dream world version isn't any better, as it features Lakitus and Spinies, the former throwing the latter out and someone creating more Spinies than they threw at you (ie. they throw two at you, only for five to come into the field afterwards) and the Piranha Plants that can summon Nippers in the background, effectively giving them two attacks per turn per Plant. It also features some of the worst characters in the entire game; the Mole Hunt Shelltop for being a money-grabbing sleazebag that slows the game down to a screeching halt just to squeeze some coins out of you, and the Seadrings for their obnoxious and unfunny quirks, with the sister in particular being seen as the worst out of all of them, and the fetch quest they give you can also take longer than expected if you don't know to grab all three eggs before going to the main Dream World section, forcing you to backtrack over and over again. The only saving grace the area has is its music, it having the strongest store in the game, and the fun boss battle against the Elite Trio.
  • That One Sidequest:
    • The Mad Skillathon Challenges and Battle Broque Madame, which are minigame score attack challenges which require perfect scores and mastery for 100% Completion.
    • The Battle Ring, where you have to play against stronger versions of bosses. The Giant bosses in particular are utterly brutal and require playing perfectly, which is not helped by them lacking the possibility of getting easier by grinding or forced motion control sections that can be unresponsive at times, there's also how they requiere an insane amount of spinning the stylus on the touch screen for some attacks and defense, if you're going to take them on for 100% Completion, say goodbye to any non-scratched touch screen you might have.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • Believe it or not, this game got some flak for using 3D graphics instead of 2D sprites. However, it later turned out to actually use a combination of both.
    • Some people are already giving this game flak for having Bowser be the final boss, although the move is being received much more positively than in Paper Mario: Sticker Star, due to Bowser breaking out of his Dumb Muscle Big Bad Wannabe niche usually seen in the Mario RPGs while still keeping his personality.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Considering the main plot of the game is going through Luigi's dreams, some had hoped to see more references to past villains, an exploration of Luigi as a character, and generally take the game down a darker road. Especially with the concept of Dream's Deep, being an especially trippy area representing Luigi's deep subconscious. After a surreal first entry, not much was really done with the idea, as it is only ever explored once again and that time was more for starting the Ultibed quest than anything with Luigi or his history.
  • Underused Game Mechanic: Luiginary Ice used in Dreamy Mount Pajamaja. The mechanic works like this: Starlow uses Luigi's hand to push a button to either heat up or cool the spot Luigi is sleeping on to make a sun with Luigi's Likeness appear in the dream Mario is in. This is used to melt ice and thaw water or freeze them. This, however, is only used in one specific dreampoint when Luigi is affected by the dreambeats. So after Mario escapes the Dream, Luiginary Ice never returns again.
  • Unexpected Character: Bowser Jr. is an interesting case. He usually wouldn't be unexpected, but he doesn't show up at all until he's revealed to be the superboss, showing up with no foreshadowing whatsoever.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Antasma was commonly mistaken for a female when previews for the game first came out, thanks in large part to his gender-ambiguous clothing, his feminine sounding name, and his resemblance to Cackletta, a previous female villain whose gender was more easily discernible.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: Much like Pokémon's transition from the DS to the 3DS, Dream Team faithfully translates and enhances Mario & Luigi's quirky graphical style into a gorgeous 3D Sprite/Polygon Mix.
  • Win Back the Crowd: This game, along with Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and Super Mario 3D World, was able to convince fans (albeit not yet completely) that the Mario franchise still had some ideas left in it, after a long line of controversial Mario games (namely New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Paper Mario: Sticker Star).
  • Woobie Species: The Pi'illos, who were trapped in the dream world after they stopped Antasma for the first time.

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