Mario & Luigi: Dream Team
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This is the fourth game for the Mario & Luigi series and also the first amongst them to be released on the Nintendo 3DS.
Invited to a luxurious island resort, Mario and company board a blimp to Pi'illo Island; however the cruise takes a dark turn after a mysterious pillow appears and a malevolent spirit picks a fight with Mario. After an emergency landing, the promotional tour largely proceeds as planned until Peach and Toadsworth discovered an ancient, pillow-shaped relic in the depths of Pi'illo Castle. As the protagonists inspect the artifact after Luigi decided to take a nap on it, Princess Peach is pulled into the Dream World and Mario dives in after her to rescue her.
Tropes used in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team include:
- Advancing Boss of Doom: Most of the regular bosses in this game have an attack where they chase the heroes into the foreground and continually attack them until they tire themselves out or they run into something.
- Berserk Button: Kill any of Big Massif's Hooraws, he not only gets angry, his attack power actually gets an temporary boost. And killing off enough of them can turn into an One Hit KO on account of how pissed he is.
- Broken Bridge:
- The obligatory literal example is the Mario Bros. trying to cross an rickety bridge south of Pi'illo Castle to reach Mushrise Park, but the bridge gives out and the heroes are forced into travelling south to continue the plot after they escape the abyss.
- And the various exits that are leading out of Mushrise Park are obstructed with debris caused from a violent storm. The only road that's open is the one leading to Dozing Sands.
- Glass Cannon: Statistically speaking, Thunder Sass has the lowest defense & health amongst Big Massif's four disciples while boasting the highest attack power. Mainly because his fight is a "counterattacks only" challenge.
- Flunky Boss: Big Massif and three of his apprentices have a small army of Hooraws that participate in certain attacks and to serve as a buffer for the standard hammer attack.
- Lightning Bruiser: Out of all the named Hooraws, Thunder Sass moves the fastest and hits the hardest when it comes to attacking.
- Me's a Crowd: In the Dream World, Luigi can generate a seemingly infinite number of copies of himself called "Luiginoids." In combat, they pitch in by turning Mario's attacks into crowd-clearing shockwaves and landing on nearby enemies after he jumps.
- Keystone Army: Defeat every Dreamcap Captain on the battlefield will cause the remaining Dreamcaps to huddle in fear and eventually retreat instead of attacking.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Thunder Sass, the shortest one out of Big Massif's apprentices manages to be the one who hits the hardest.
- Rank Up: While their actually ranks are still the same as they were in the last game, Private Goomp, Corporal Paraplonk, and Sergeant Guy were promoted to being one of Bowser's elite minions.
- Shockwave Stomp:
- Instead of just running towards an enemy to hit it with a hammer, in the dream world, Mario's basic hammer attack is replaced with him slamming the ground with his hammer to summon several Luiginoids to do the same thing in order to cause a shockwave.
- Just like in previous installments, some of the bosses are capable of doing this; such as Big Massif's pursuit attack has Mario avoiding where he lands, but the ensuring shockwaves, as well.
- Shifting Sand Land: While Dozing Sands doesn't have any pyramids, it does have NPCs complaining about the heat, sand flows that you can't climb, monsters hiding under the sand, and the soundtrack that goes with the desert theme.'
- Stone Wall: Beef Cloud is incapable of actually attacking. However, he's constantly heals every few seconds and has an unusually large amount of health compared to the rest of Big Massif's disciples.
- Training Boss: The first battle of the game pits Mario against Antasma, one of the main villains. Despite his prominence, Antasma is incapable of dealing any damage and this fight is essentially an opportunity to get used to the jumping mechanics.
- Warmup Boss: The battle against Dreamy Mario is where the game stops holding your hand: No advice, no explaining the enemy's abilities, and it's as long as an regular boss battle.
- Zerg Rush: A lot of enemies in the Dream World will launch an attack against Mario by charging towards him in a group or attacking in quick succession as opposed to the genre's standard of everyone taking a turn to individually strike somebody.