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Alpha Dream, the studio behind the Mario & Luigi games, have filed for bankruptcy


Armagon
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https://gonintendo.com/stories/345904-alphadream-developers-of-the-mario-luigi-series-file-for-bank

Yeah, as the title basically states, the Mario & Luigi devs have filed for bankruptcy (main cause seems to be debt). This sucks because I really enjoyed the Mario & Luigi games, even moreso than the Paper Mario games and unless Nintendo either acquires the IP (they actually don't own M&L despite owning the characters) or hires all of the now unemployed devs (hopefully this, as it'd be a win-win for everyone), the Mario & Luigi series is dead.

Edited by Armagon
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That's a shame. I can't say I was anticipating a sixth game in the series. Besides Bowser's Inside Story, those games were, at best, a holdover as we waited for a proper Paper Mario sequel due to the similar battle system and tone. Sort of a handheld companion series. According to wikipedia, that group was partially made up of folks that worked on Super Mario RPG, including the game's director, who in turn inspired the development of its spiritual sequel, Paper Mario. This is where the legacy of action commands end, I suppose. Well I guess the South Park: The Stick of Truth had basically the paper mario battle system but I never played the sequel to know if action commands still exist in that series.

Had Alpha Dream been given some other IP they could have made something other than sequels. My friend and I theorized they'd be perfect for our theoretical Kirby RPG. If Nintendo could hire the developers into a new team or buy the company that'd be excellent but it should be clear from my post at this point I'm not interested in the continuation of the mario&luigi series. All it deserves in my opinion are compilations/remasters on current nintendo hardware. But it'd be tricky since the Nintendo switch has no dual screen functionality. Every entry in the series would have to be completely reworked besides super star saga which was already remastered just a few years ago for a dual screen system.

Edited by Glennstavos
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They shouldn't of even thought of making not just one but TWO mario and luigi games after paper jam as around that same time the switch was already out = 3ds installbase is 99.9% DEAD!! It was obvious from the start these two games should've been switch titles, along with other games released around this time like fire emblem echoes and metroid samus returns. I wanted to think they were just cheap and easy titles to make, but it seems this wasn't the case...

It really sucks as I loved this series, especially the original bowsers inside story (not a fan of the dream team style of sprites in the remake) and was really hoping we'd get a switch installment...just goes to show you, you need to stay informed about what your companies bosses are planning with regards to when their next consoles are coming out, or else you'll be left behind and literally be filling for bankruptcy!!

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1 hour ago, Captain Karnage said:

I'm pretty sure Nintendo owns 100% of all the original characters. 

It wouldn't surprise me if they decided to buy them out, and make them a 2nd party developer 

I hope so. I'd love to see more of the games. I mean we didn't even get a remake of Partners in Time.

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Saddening to hear this, I thoroughly enjoyed M&L, though I didn't buy either of the 3DS remakes. They were fun, my preferences being for Superstar Saga and Dream Team (minus the giant Luigi fights).

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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11 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Saddening to hear this, I thoroughly enjoyed M&L, though I didn't buy either of the 3DS remakes. They were fun, my preferences being for Superstar Saga and Dream Team (minus the giant Luigi fights).

Yeah. The Giant Bowser fights in Bowser's inside story worked because it was a typical Bowser thing. Turning giant and fighting. The Giant Luigi ones felt shoe-horned by comparison.

That said... I'm one of the few people who bought both remakes on release (actually played through the original Superstar Saga and the remake back to back, though that was because I bought a copy of the original and was sending it as a gift to a friend overseas). I had a hell of a time finding a copy of Bowser's Insider Story + Bowser Jnr's Journey.

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7 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

The Giant Luigi ones felt shoe-horned by comparison.

My biggest issue with the Giant Luigi battles is that they were dreadfully heavy in how much attacking the enemies got to do. You had to dodge and block so much stuff before you yourself finally got a chance to strike back and actually hurt the darned foe. And OOF! if you felt you had to heal instead of attack.

My other fault with Dream Team was some wasting of Antasma, Dr. Snoozemore, and Dream's Deep narratively. I don't expect good plot in M&L, but I felt these things could have been explored more. 

On the positive side, I liked the aesthetics of this game, P'illo Island was great. And I loved the Mario Bros. having the floating talking duo of Starlow and Prince Dreambert with them.

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41 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

The Giant Luigi ones felt shoe-horned by comparison.

Frankly, I was fine with them, if only because they gave Luigi friggin' character development, somehow. It says something that, so many years after playing Dream Team, the introduction to the final giant battle is still the moment that I remember most vividly about the game.

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1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Frankly, I was fine with them, if only because they gave Luigi friggin' character development, somehow. It says something that, so many years after playing Dream Team, the introduction to the final giant battle is still the moment that I remember most vividly about the game.

Yeah well, let's put it this way. When my complaints in the series are the Giant battles, the decrease in series characters in Paper Jam, and the way hammers and bros attacks (or attack items rather) functioned in Partners in Time... well, the series has avoided a lot of potential complaints.

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26 minutes ago, Perkilator said:

There's still a flicker of hope.

This is definitely some good news .

Edit: 

 

Yeah, so looks like whatever they are working on is basically a "one last thing" deal.

Edited by Armagon
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Not surprised by this. The quality of its recent games had gone down and when the remakes came around I thought I'd be excited for them but they just lacked a lot of the charm that the original one's had. Nintendo's shit idea of changing the npcs to into generic toads/koopas etc. when they already had fantastic designs to work with was a slap in the face. Even the music which I've always wanted to hear remastered was subpar and can't possibly hope to compare to the original gameboy soundtrack.

Hopefully Nintendo starts taking better care of its rpgs now but I doubt that'll happen.

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Disappointing news.

While I never really was invested in the Mario and Luigi games, I remember playing Superstar Saga on a demo machine way back in the day. Years later I managed to beat the game on the Wii U and loved my time with it. I love my sprites and sprite animations, but 3D models are probably cheaper and easier to do these days...

With Paper Mario off doing its own thing since Sticker Star, I don't have high hopes for a great Mario RPG to be coming around any time soon.

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I've always been a big fan of Mario & Luigi, so I'm sad to see this happen.

Nintendo could get another developer to continue the series like with Donkey Kong Country, but would they want to?

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