Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
| Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga | |
|---|---|
North American box art | |
| Developer | AlphaDream |
| Publisher | Nintendo |
| Director | Yoshihiko Maekawa |
| Producers | Shigeru Miyamoto Tetsuo Mizuno |
| Designer | Hiroyuki Kubota |
| Programmer | Masashi Haraki |
| Artists | Masanori Sato Toshizo Morikawa |
| Writer | Hiroyuki Kubota |
| Composer | Yoko Shimomura |
| Series | Mario & Luigi |
| Platform | Game Boy Advance |
| Release | |
| Genre | Role-playing |
| Mode | Single-player / Co-op |
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is a 2003 role-playing video game developed by AlphaDream and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It is the first game in the Mario & Luigi series. The story follows Mario and Luigi as they travel to the Beanbean Kingdom in order to combat Cackletta and Fawful, who stole Princess Peach's voice for the purpose of harnessing the power of a special artifact called the Beanstar.
Superstar Saga is the third role-playing game in the Mario franchise, following Super Mario RPG (1996) and Paper Mario (2000), and features a lighthearted, whimsical script with a greater emphasis on comedy than earlier titles. The player controls Mario and Luigi simultaneously as they traverse the overworld, fight enemies, gain experience points, and find new items and gear. The battle system differs from traditional role-playing games, with more emphasis on timing and elaborate attacks called Action Commands. Created by Shigeru Miyamoto, Tetsuo Mizuno, and Satoru Iwata, the game was announced at E3 2003, later releasing the same year.
Superstar Saga was critically acclaimed, with reviewers praising the game's writing, tone and battle system, though its gameplay and top-down perspective received mixed reactions. Critics have since ranked it among the best games on the Game Boy Advance. It was a commercial success, with over 2 million copies sold, and it became a Player's Choice title. A follow-up, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, was released for the Nintendo DS in 2005. An enhanced remake with additional story content, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions, was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2017. The original game was rereleased for the Wii U's Virtual Console in 2014, and the Nintendo Classics service in 2023.