Nintendo made that clear with a banger Nintendo Direct in June that opened with a genuinely lovely surprise: a new Mario & Luigi RPG. Mario & Luigi: Brothership is the first game in the beloved series of brotherly turn-based RPGs in nearly a decade,

Brothership is classic Mario in terms of narrative structure and design in this way, only now with a high seas twist. It's like someone binge-watched Indiana Jones' most thrilling scenes while blasting the relaxed tunes of Jimmy Buffett and thought: "What if we made this a Mario & Luigi game?"