In a time where the last official Mario and Luigi game released (that wasn't a remake) was Paper Jam, a game I didn't really like, seeing this game come out of the woodwork after Alphadream's demise was, honestly a surprise. It was a bit hard to believe Mario and Luigi would be making a comeback, but then again, Super Mario RPG also got a whole remaster too, so I guess it's not totally surprising. As a game, though, it's alright. It's never going to reach the high highs of Superstar Saga or Bowser's Inside Story, but it's luckily not another Paper Jam in the story department. Even then, the story's nothing to write home about. I do feel that the final antagonist coming in at the last 10 hours or so of the game was a bit eh, and I did like how the current antagonist didn't even view Mario and Luigi as a legitimate threat at the start. The whole "never remembering names" thing was a little weird, but eh, who cares. However, the thing is that Brothership does have several things going against it. The first and biggest red flag is the slowness of the earlygame. You go for quite a while before you finally get your first set of Bros. Moves. Ususually, you get more combat options fairly early, but you don't get Bros. Moves for quite a bit. Same for the game's main gimmick, the Battle Plugs. You don't get access to them at all until the second sea, and some of the recharge times on these things are pretty absurd, basically mandating the accessory that speeds up plug recharge times. On the other hand, they do have a variety of functions that do help diversify fights, from dropping a defense piercing iron ball (the game never tells you outright the iron ball pierces defense, by the way), damage reduction and later a plug that outright protects you from all harm for 3 attacks, plugs that ensure your attacks do critical damage to certain enemy types, and even auto using items so you don't have to waste turns on that. There's even one in the lategame that lets you attack an entire second time. Some of these plugs only work with regular jump and hammer attacks, giving more reason to not just nuke everything with Bros. Moves...even though that was still my primary go to in the lategame because I caved and started abusing the combination of Auto Excellent and Bros. Boost to maximize damage without the risk of screwing up action commands. I am on the fence about the inclusion of a plug that literally does the action commands for you. That along with, once again, the charge times, makes some plugs harder to use than others. One other thing that did dissapoint me was the generally low number of boss fights overall, and even among them, major standouts like Ghlom Bowser or literally Zokket himself don't have unique battle themes. You would think major players like them would have their own themes when you finally face off with them, but nope. Overall, the music was just...eh, alright. Like the story, nothing to write home about, and certainly not hitting the highs of Superstar Saga and Bowser's Inside Story. To conclude things, I would say this is not a 5/10 game. Is it a bit slow at times? Yes. Does waiting 3,000 years for the Battle Plugs you want to use a bit of a pain? Yes. Is it in the same class as bad games? No. Then again, there's a good reason I don't do a 1-10 rating system. Who knows, because of IGN's infamous review, we may never see another Mario and Luigi game anytime soon, especially with how current Nintendo is (as of 2025.)

(Actual final playtime is 27:32). Good news, everyone. You no longer need to pay an arm and a leg AND own a PS2 or PS3 to play Raidou, because this game exists now. A series that's normally turn based RPGs suddenly having an action game isn't the rarest thing ever, but it's a bit surprising that Atlas jumped on that proverbial bandwagon back when this game originally released. The original version of Raidou 1 is apparently very stiff and slow, so from what I've heard, this game borrows stuff that was added in Raidou 2, which is still locked to old system purgatory for the forseeable future. Anyway, we're not here to talk about old PS2 games. We're here to talk about a remaster of an old PS2 game. I never played the original Raidou 1, so this was my first real experience to Raidou in general, even as a character since I didn't play Nocturne's HD Remaster or the bonus dungeon of Soul Hackers. Honestly, I don't really have any strong opinions about Raidou as a character. He's a silent protagonist who talks a tiny bit at the very end of the game. I guess he has a strong sense of justice, considering all the nonsense he gets put up to. Beyond that, I don't have much to say about him as a character. He exists, he is the vessel we use to beat up demons with a sword and the power of gun...and demons, mainly. So gameplay wise, I do think it makes sense that Raidou's damage on it's own is like slapping someone with a wet noodle while your demons are the real damage dealers. The offset about his low damage is that his attacks are fast, which is nice. Additional things like the combat skills and Devil's Bane do help add onto Raidou's individual contributions to fights, and he needs to get in there and slap things around to build up MAG so demons can use their skills. The Sword Alchemy was pretty cool, even if the weapons only affect your strong attacks. I personally stuck to only using swords the entire game after trying out spears and axes a little, but I did make some spears and axes for the skills they give Raidou to play around with. I do wish there was a bit more elemental variety, though, as the Sign skills you get through story progression are the only real form of Fire, Ice, Wind, and Elec damage Raidou gets on his own without needing demons to back him up. If I had to put it simply, Raidou is mainly a support who sometimes has to get down and dirty in the battlefield. The demons, however, are the real MVPs. I do feel, though, that the Loyalty system is pretty worthless aside from getting some new passives to pass down. At the very least, it's miles better than Soul Hackers because it doesn't negatively affect you at all. Books can teach demons new skills if you want to amp up something you want to keep long term. For example, Idun was my mainstay demon once I made her. She could heal, she could buff, and I slapped some new magic skills on her to keep her viable the rest of the game. The one thing is that demons do have hard caps on their stats, even if you have max magic. The vitality passive can offset a demon having a low-ish max Vitality stat, though, or slap Life Gain/Surge on them to boost their HP up. The other main draw about demons are their investigation skills. While I do think Inspect gets a lot more usage overall than most others while many of the other ones only really see uses a couple of niche times, I liked how demons were used for more than just fusion fodder or combat partners. I did end up keeping around several earlygame demons in my stock all the way to endgame just in case I needed a certain investigation skill for something. There's also something very funny about just walking around The Capitol with Mara following me around. I don't know if Aril Rifts were a Raidou 2 addition or something from Raidou 1, but they are pretty grindable once you hit Episode 8, and if you're willing to run around and do all 20 over and over, you can pile up on grimoires to spike Raidou's level and get access to high level fusions. Sadly for me, the demon I wanted to make was Level 80 and I only had enough grimoires to reach Level 74 before I took care of the remaining Case Files (except the NG+ one). As for the story, it was...passable. I will admit all the "time travelers from the future" and "android Dark Summoners" and multiple parallel worlds thing did go a bit over my head in the second half. Something about the entire plot being because of a Raidou from the future felt...weird, in my opinion. The final boss was pretty interesting, though. I do hope that one day, we get a Raidou 2 Remastered...or hell, even Digital Devil Saga, but I'm not getting my hopes up about that second one as much as I'd love to see it.