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 Mario & Luigi's house |  Luigi gets drafted |  Aboard the Koopa Cruiser |
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 Beanbean Castle Town |  Fighting enemies |  Minions' Quest |
An evil witch from the Beanbean Kingdom, Cackletta, steals Princess Peach's voice and replaces it with explosives, complicating Bowser's plans to kidnap Peach again. Mario and Luigi travel to the Beanbean Kingdom aboard the Koopa Cruiser in pursuit and to uncover what possible use Cackletta could make of Peach's voice.
The Nintendo 3DS seemed to be the system for Nintendo to remake their old games on. First, Ocarina of Time; last, Bowser's Inside Story. Between that and that, though, there was this. AlphaDream redrew some of their old art assets and reused a lot from their earlier Dream Team and Paper Jam to remake their 2003 Game Boy Advance game. A strategy game, Minions' Quest based upon Bowser's army on their own quest to rescue their employer replaces the Super Mario Advance port of the Mario Bros. arcade game this time.
I haven't played Minions' Quest myself yet, I've been pretty much tunnel-focussed on the main game. I like how you can track an opponent's attack patterns and then make Mario and Luigi jump or hammer to defend during fights. This even works with bossfights. Honestly, it makes the fights against Hoohooros and Queen Bean so easy, it feels like cheating. Even so, there's always a heart box and a save album somewhere near a major plot-advancing fight so you can ensure the Bros. are in fighting form at exactly the time they need it.
If you're familiar with the Game Boy Advance original, you'll probably find this version quite a bit easier, both for the stated reasons and various other esoteric reasons mostly having to do with battle mode. Also, you might be wondering why there are random Xbox logos on the ground in various out-of-the-way places—these are actually the locations of the hidden beans, which Luigi can unearth after learning how to dunk in Château Chucklehuck. The GBA version had some bean hollows that would not show themselves unless the game detected the Game Boy Player hardware; now all bean hollows are visible from the start. Well, they're not Xbox logos, they're just X'es. Even though they really do look like Xbox logos.
This game had the good fortune of being the first abandonware game I played on my jailbroken 3DS last December. It did something I'm not accustomed to games doing anymore: it made me excited to play again. Even though its linear nature makes it hard to play in the game like I used to do with Majora's Mask 64, I love the feeling of dodging or countering enemy attacks. It makes me feel like an effective tactician to face a midlevel boss and come away from it with only a handful of HP in damage because I was able to so efficiently dodge and counter. Plus, I like how you can find audiotapes lying around that have game music on them that you can listen to. Sound-test modes are my jam.
10/10, would recommend. The remake's quality of life improvements make the GBA original look like a doddering old fogey, to the point I'm going to change my 15 Essentials recommendations.
