While Mario & Luigi: Brothership was published by Nintendo, the RPG was developed by Acquire. For those unfamiliar with Acquire, the developer has previously worked on several games published by Square Enix, including the Octopath Traveler series. Octopath Traveler was the first of the publisherās games to use the beloved HD-2D style, and there was initially some consideration about giving Mario & Luigi: Brothership a similar look. In an interview published to Nintendoās official website, co-producer Akira Otani talked about how the idea was briefly considered, but eventually abandoned. Instead, Otani wanted a look that better channeled the box art designs used for past games in the series.
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āThere was a point where I thought an HD-2D approach like OCTOPATH TRAVELER could be a possibility. However, previous Mario & Luigi games were pixel art, and the artwork on the packaging, et cetera, consisted of drawn illustrations,ā said Otani. āFor other Mario games, the in-game visual design and the main illustration match, but because they didnāt for the previous Mario & Luigi games, I thought it might have been harder for customers to recognise what kind of game it was. I wanted to align the game and the artwork at some point. Thatās why my dream was to make the next one in 3D.ā
The Mario & Luigi series began life on Nintendo handhelds like Game Boy Advance, DS, and 3DS, where the in-game sprites were similar to the character designs from the box art, but far from a perfect replication. The jump to Switch offered a chance to capture that look, so it makes sense that Nintendo would want to do that, rather than drastically changing things up. The developers at Acquire had similar thoughts, preferring to go with a new 3D style, as opposed to trying to compete with the 2D visuals that had appeared in past Mario & Luigi RPGs.
āā¦I could see how great the pixel art animation was in past Mario & Luigi games, both from a technical and stylistic perspective. I didnāt think it would be easy to make something on that level or even better. So I thought, in that case, challenging ourselves to make Mario & Luigi in 3D would enable us to add lots of new and appealing elements into the game that werenāt in previous ones,ā said director Haruyuki Ohashi.
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Itās interesting to think of what might have been, had Nintendo and Acquire decided to use the HD-2D style for Mario & Luigi: Brothership. However, the decision was probably for the best. Brothership marked the first new Mario & Luigi RPG in nine years, so it was important for Nintendo to give the game a look and feel that better fit with the rest of the series. In ComicBookās review of the game, we found that Brothershipās animation was one of its biggest highlights. While HD-2D has plenty of strengths, fans would have missed out on the gameās great visuals as a result. Perhaps one day fans will get a Mario RPG in HD-2D, but the choice probably worked for the best this time!
Would you have preferred an HD-2D style for Mario & Luigi: Brothership? Do you think it was the right call to make the game in 3D? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter atĀ @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky atĀ @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram atĀ @Dachampgaming!