Mario and Luigi: Dream Team Bros. (Hands-On) (Nintendo 3DS) Preview

Guess what? Princess Peach has been kidnapped. Shocker, right? Well, this time she has been whisked off to a dream world that for some reason can only be accessed by Luigi, with Mario jumping into a special portal that appears above the snoring green brother's head at various points in the game. However, Mario in dream world is not alone, since a 'dream' version of Luigi appears, one that is supposedly a little bit taller, stronger, and…more handsome! Yes, humour is key in Mario and Luigi: Dream Team Bros. and it is apparent right from the very start. Whilst Paper Mario: Sticker Star felt surprisingly stale, AlphaDream's latest continues the belly-laughs thanks to the quirky script and hilarious interactions between the brothers themselves and with others. The regular utterances of Italian-styled gibberish, complete with over-the-top hand and facial gestures cannot fail to raise a titter from time-to-time, and help make the game even more enjoyable.

In the gameplay stakes it all feels extremely familiar, dating back to Super Mario RPG on the SNES for battle style, with it slowly being developed over the years since Square Enix's classic. Here Mario and Luigi take turns to leap on enemy heads (presumably other weapons will be available later in the game, as per the norm), with the correct timing of button presses increasing damage doled out, and helping with defensive duties when foes are ready to strike, sometimes even landing a counter-attack blow if lucky.

As for new elements, discovered in the early hands-on, the game focuses a lot on using Luigi in the 'real' world to help out the dynamic duo in the dream land, rather like how interacting with Bowser helped them when inside his body in the DS game that Cubed3 loved so much. Two early examples encountered were dragging the edge of Luigi's moustache with the stylus to pick up Mario on the top screen and then letting go to fling him to new heights, whilst another had the player tickling Luigi's nose to make him sneeze, thus pushing blocks in the far distance into the foreground for easy access to items or to create new platforms for progress. This is where the 3D effect works really well, but it also comes into good effect during battles when watching movement patterns of enemies.

Familiar battling, with an added twist of dream Luigi becoming one with Mario in the depths of the sleep-filled sections to devastating effect (Mario hits an enemy, and a tirade of Luigis come following after if the strike was timed right); cute visuals that are reminiscent of chunky Super Mario RPG or Golden Sun characters; a mix of open world exploration and 2D platform scenarios; a highly addictive soundtrack laced with laugh-out-loud voices and sound effects; and plenty of complementary additions that do not deviate too much from the excellence of Bowser's Inside Story, yet feel fresh enough to not feel boring. Basically, all signs point to a piece of pure gaming goodness and yet another hit from AlphaDream.