In Mario & Luigi: Brothership for the Nintendo Switch, one of the biggest additions to the game is the Luigi Logic mechanic. This mechanic is used on both the overworld and in battle, and has Luigi use the environment to deal with challenges in some very interesting ways. Like how he sends Sharpcask hurtling down a series of conveyor belts in the second Great Lighthouse battle:
Or how he and Mario fight Glohm Bowser in a shoot em up sequence via a stolen airship.
it’s a cool mechanic, and one which definitely makes key parts of the game stand out.
But did you know it was going to be used even more often? Indeed, thanks to an interview in Famitsu (and post on Reddit), we now know that Luigi Logic was originally planned to be possible in every single enemy encounter in the game. Here’s the original quote from the article, as best translated by us:
Luigi Logic was originally conceived as a way to solve puzzles on the field, but we also decided to incorporate it into battles as well. In fact, we actually wanted to have Luigi Logic available in all enemy battles, but there were so many enemies that it wasn’t realistic. As a result, we only ended up implementing it in boss battles instead.
Originally, we also thought of having boss battles change location as the battle progressed, so we combined that idea with Luigi Logic to make the battles more interesting.
Yeah, it’s pretty insane to think about. Imagine being able to use Luigi Logic against literally anything, and each battle playing out in a different way because of that. It would certainly make for a more dynamic battle system, that’s for sure!
But we understand full well why they scrapped it here. For one thing, can you imagine how much work would be involved in this?
Indeed, while the final games has only 7 battles with Luigi Logic segments, the whole game actually contains 46 unique regular enemies and 14 unique bosses in total. So while Luigi Logic in every battle would have been an interesting setup, it definitely would have required a lot more resources than Nintendo and Acquire were likely able to devote to it.
And that’s just assuming they stick to one Luigi Logic setup per enemy type. If they bothered to give each of the Glohm versions their own Luigi Logic mechanics, and did the same for late game enemy clones like Capnap Rs and Palooka Rs…
Then the total number of Luigi Logic segments needed would hit 133. Yeah, that’s completely infeasible, even for a dev team with ten times the number of resources.
What’s more, even ignoring feasibility for a minute, there’s also the issue of viability too. Because here’s the thing: Luigi Logic only works in boss battles because bosses tend to have enough HP to tank your hits for 20 minutes or more.
As a result, the game can then throw in a change of pace partway through, and have you use the mechanic to open them up for extra damage for a few more turns. That balances out their health pools, and stops a long fight getting too tedious.
Problem is, that doesn’t really apply to most other enemies. In fact, with the exception of the enemies in the final dungeon and Monster Mania sidequests, the majority of Brothership’s monsters are simply too short-lived for Luigi Logic to ever be worth doing one of these sequences. So, they’d probably never get used anyway.
Regardless, it’s an interesting idea, and one that shows how ambitious Mario & Luigi: Brothership was during development. So, check out the original article if you want to learn more about ideas cut from the final game…
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