It’s been almost 4 whole years since it was announced that Mario and Luigi series developer AlphaDream filed for bankruptcy. Unable to keep up with their growing debts and declining sales, the studio closed its doors on October 1st, 2019. Clearly not enough people were interested in helping continue the only real Mario RPG series for years up to that point.
The fact of the matter is, sales were on the decline after the DS era with Dream Team selling about 2.62 million, Paper Jam selling less than half of that at 1.06 million, the Superstar Saga remake selling about half of that at 510K copies, and last and certainly least the Bowser’s Inside Story remake at less than 35,000 copies worldwide.
After Paper Mario went off the rails starting with the Wii entry, Mario and Luigi was the only avenue left for traditional Mario role playing games. And it’s not just experience points and leveling up that this game had. There were also unique original character designs, wacky off the wall scenarios, turn based battles that actually mattered, and plenty of optional activities that you could partake in. Heck, even Nintendo themselves said [at E3 2016](https://youtu.be/dlcNubU6bYA?feature=shared) that Paper Mario was unlikely to return to its RPG roots because the Mario and Luigi series existed.
So if you were complaining about Paper Mario losing its way, you had options available to you even at the time. But with AlphaDream gone, it left a huge Mario RPG-shaped hole that wouldn’t be filled for years. So for those of you who were into Mario RPGs but not Mario and Luigi, I have to ask why? What was it about Mario and Luigi that turned you off from this series, especially with “modern Paper Mario” at its apex around this time?
by Asad_Farooqui
13 Comments
who said its dead? other franchise have gone far longer with no game.
At the very least Superstar Saga and Inside Story were brought to modern hardware with their 3DS remakes.
SMRPG and TTYD fans had to wait for a re-release for far longer.
If it means future Paper Mario games go back to being actual RPGs, I don’t mind
What’s y’all thoughts on 3d Mario being dead? It’s been 5 whole years since we got the last one
I liked the M&L games, but I don’t think they really stand out from eachother that much. The novelty wore out after Parters in Time.
I enjoyed the first game quite a bit, the second was only decent. I could never get myself to finish the rest. Bowser’s Inside Story I made about half way through twice. I always preferred Paper Mario as an RPG. I’m happy this series died if we can go back to that. Alpha Dream only got more and more linear and tutorial heavy as they went on. The super moves were also too repetitive and long winded. It killed their games appeal to me.
I happily bought Dream Team and I enjoyed it. It sold very well for a reason.
But then you get to Paper Jam and it’s one of the most bland and mediocre games ever released. There was nothing appealing about that game, I only bought it digitally at a huge discount during E3 2016. Yup, it felt like playing Sticker Star but with good gameplay at least.
I was excited for Superstar Saga but then I saw the [sanitization of the enemy designs](https://cdn.checkpointgaming.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/04211330/5a9b96f8fde2bfc210e6917b49b8db45b1e3172b_hq.jpg), as well as many funny expressions or animations of the original being underwhelming in the remake, so I decided to skip it and play the original again.
Alpha Dream deserved Bowser’s Inside Story to flop by releasing it on 3DS in 2019 instead of Switch. And I didn’t think twice about not getting it. I was so tired of the Dream Team visual style, I found the original graphics to be more unique and appealing. The 3DS version runs at 30 fps instead of 60 like the DS original (Superstar Saga runs at 60 fps so why?), it has more input lag, Bowser’s attacks are done in the touch screen but shown in the top screen now, which is not ideal. And the most important thing…. **you could already play the DS release on 3DS and it was at like $10 in most stores.**
So don’t go around blaming people for the poor sales, Alpha Drean brought it to themselves with their failures on mobile and bad products after Dream Team.
Nintendo owns the franchise, hopefully they have handed it off to another developer who’s working on a new entry as a launch title for the next Switch!
Misread the title and thought *Damn! Bowser finally got ’em*
If it means we get the return of classic paper Mario, I celebrate its death.
The first three games were amazing, but the second half of the franchise became to gimmicky, hand holdy, and bland.
These posts are so tiresome. You have no idea what’s going to happen with any series, and yet you’re comfortable declaring this one dead.
People only really started to care about Mario + Luigi after Alpha Dream capsized, only because Paper Mario didn’t fill the same void.
I think that says it all right there.
The first one was amazing. The other ones were kinda meh and just made me upset that this is what they sacrifice good paper Mario for. I would much rather have proper sequels to the first two paper Mario games than more Mario and Luigi. It’s kind of dumb though that Nintendo was just like “we can’t have two different Mario RPGs” even dumber when one was a home console franchise and one was a handheld. They could very easily both exist without problem.