There are bland RPG's. You know the kind. Stuck in an ambiguous medieval setting, a squishy wizard, and a dark lord/dragon threatening the Kingdom of Generica!
This however, is the total opposite of a generic RPG. One full of color, one with vibrant dialogue, fun music, an abandoned trait of Luigi, and most importantly a parody of coffee shops! Ladies and Mentlegen, I present to you the first RPG I ever played: MARIO AND LUIGI: SUPERSTAR SAGA!

Graphics: 9/10

This game looks great on the GBA! The colors are bright when they need to be. And also can be dark and mellow too. The characters all look great! Mario and Luigi look great. And so do the Toads and Beans. Although there are a few characters that you'd swear are just copied and pasted. The enemies look great too. They are all bright and unique. And the recolored harder versions of enemies are kept to a minimum.
The backgrounds and each location look amazing as well. They all look amazing! Some are really unique like Stardust Fields, or Joke's End. But then again, places like Bowser's Castle or some areas of Chucklehuck Woods look exactly how you'd expect. But it's a overall pleasing visual experience.

Addictiveness: 7/10

There in an incredible amount of addictiveness to this game. Not entirely because of replayability, but really just because it's so fun! During your first playthrough you'll have trouble putting the game down. There's not much else to say about it other than WARNING: HIGHLY ADDICTIVE!

Sound: 10/10

Superstar Saga has some of the best music you'll find on the GBA! Each location's music is incredibly catchy. They all fit their locations perfectly also. You may end up traveling back to locations just to hear the music there. The battle themes are great too! To this day I still have some of those in my head. My personal favorites are the one that plays when you fight a normal enemy, and the one when you fight Popple.
The sound effects are great also! The jumping, hammering, and Mario and Luigi's voices are all clear and smooth. Especially for a GBA game. Of course, Mario and Luigi mostly speak jibberish to each other. But you'll get the ocasional "Oh yeah!" or they'll say what power they're using. (Jump, Hammer, Spin, High Jump, Fire, and Thunder) They also yelp when hit by some attacks, and if Mario falls in battle, Luigi yells "MARIO!!!", and vise versa when Luigi is down. Just a neat little thing they did. Expect lots of great sound effects, and beautiful music while playing!

Depth: 6/10

The game doesn't have many sidequests to it. Just two that I can actually remember doing. But the game itself has a decently long main story to it. With a lot of locations, you'd think there would be tons to do, but Superstar Saga sadly doesn't deliver much to that. You can replay minigames for rare items though.
The sidequest I remember the most is this: Once you get a certain Hammer technique, you can interact with weird markings on the ground for beans. You can brew those beans at your friendly neighborhood Starbeans to make different blends of coffee for either Bro. They are like better versions of normal items. And with each new one you make, a certain Professor will show up with some new antics, and you get a helpful badge to put on a Bro. Enough to make one shout "Egad!" eh? Aside that you've only got a somewhat long main story, and that's it.

Story: 8/10

We all know the Mario routine by now right? Well, this time it's Peach's...Voice that was stolen? Well, I'm sure Mario and Luigi will make Bowser give it back. Huh? Bowser comes in right after her voice was stolen? Weird...So, the TRUE perpetrator according to Toadsworth is the Beanbeabean Kingdom's Goodwill Ambassador. And they replaced her voice with an explosive vocabulary! So Mario, Luigi, and even Bowser set off together to find the two beans responsible and set things straight.
It's a pretty good story, not what I was expecting of it anyway. There are plenty twists and turns to the story too. It's well written, and more importantly, as fun as the game itself! It's definitely one you won't soon forget.

Difficulty: 6/10

The game isn't TOO hard. There are a few puzzles that may give you trouble. But it won't be anything too bad. The battles aren't too much either. Some bosses you may find really hard, but that may be because you're a bit under leveled for the fight. The game has a rough cycle of you being REALLY under leveled, or really overpowered. And with the right badges, you can make really quick work of almost any fight. While tricky to do, it really does kick a few notches off the difficulty.
It's not as bad as I made it sound, trust me. This is one of those games everyone needs to play at least once.
Battling itself is really easy to do. A is all of Mario's moves, while B is all of Luigi's. You have a three different kinds of attacks: Jump, Hammer, and Fire/Thunder. Think Paper Mario, but with one more kind of attack to it. Then instead of magic, or flower points. We have Bro Points. You can spend these to unleash a powerful Bro's Attack! Which is exactly what it sounds like. Both Mario and Luigi team up to unleash a rather powerful attack on their foe. Well, powerful if you hit the right buttons at the right time that is.

The only major complaint I have is, the Starbeans sidequest was supposed to feature a lot more Nintendo characters. Like Warrio, Fox, Olimar, Link, and an Excitebike rider. Nothing really big, but having something like that would have made the game a perfect 10 for me.

Superstar Saga is incredibly fun! I enjoyed almost every minute spent playing it! It's an interesting take on the RPG series. The wackyness of Mario mixed in with a better story, interesting characters, and good writing. But that is kind of expected by Mario RPG standards. But that's why they're so beloved by fans. It's not often when Peach isn't kidnapped by Bowser. But when it comes to that, oh boy, you're in for a treat! xD
With a port on the Wii U, the GBA cartridge becoming cheaper online, and our lovely RGR. You'll have plenty of opportunity to experience this game for yourself.

Yay, you reviewed one of my favourite games! It would've been really cool if those other characters had appeared in the Starbeans café, although Elvin Gadd his entrances are funny as well. He even mentions a bathroom! 

The only small flaw I see in your review is that according to Toadsworth the perpetrator came from the Beanbean Kingdom, but in the game some random toad mentions it, all Toadsworth does in the beginning of the game is giving you the awesome suitcase. 

Have you managed to get the Piranha Suit as well? That's a pretty cool thing to get. 

A user of this : I really like GBA games, so I will check this out. However, take a look at your addictiveness section again. Its highly addictive WITH a warning, and you'll have trouble putting the game down the first playthrough ... then you give a 7. LOL. Even if its a one-time play game, it still seems this score could be higher.

juuldude : Oh, thanks for that. xD I got my games mixed up there. I actually haven't got that. What is it? ^.^'

Great review, User! You really did this game justice here, man.

It's been a while since I've gotten to leisurely read reviews made by staff reviewers (I typically have enough on my plate reading reviews by people that can't feature their own reviews as well as scanning for rule violations and plagiarism to keep me from even wanting to read over staff reviews, let alone read them in their entirety. lol), so this is the first review of yours that I've seen in a good while. Needless to say you've improved even more since I last saw, and you made one of the best reviews I've read in a while. Nicely done, man. *rates 5/5*

A user of this : Great review I was actually playing this game on this site now but idc if u spoil the game