When it comes to a new Mario RPG, one of the things we always like to try here at Gaming Reinvented is reaching the level cap for the game.

As a result, we’ve got the bros to level 99 in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Bowser’s Inside Story and both versions of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door…

Level 30 or so in Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario…

And level 100 in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Dream Team and Paper Jam. It’s basically a rite of passage here on the site, and something we wanted to try the minute we had access to Brothership.

So, here’s the point where we did so for that game too:

As you can see, it works much the same way as in the 3DS titles. You’ve got a maximum level cap of 100, and the game stops letting you getting any more EXP past that point.

But there are differences nonetheless. Differences both positive and negative.

On the positive side, Brothership seems way less interested in slowing down your stat gains at higher levels. As a result, your stats will go up by 3-6 at a time regardless of the level you’re currently at.

So, your total stats will be far higher than in previous Mario & Luigi games. Indeed, while Dream Team capped our stats in the 400s and Paper Jam had them in the 300s…

Brothership has them in the 600-800 range instead. It’s quite the difference to say the least:

Unfortunately, there’s also a downside to the changes in Brothership too. Namely, the time taken to actually reach the level cap.

Since you see, while in the previous Mario & Luigi games you needed this amount of EXP to max out your level:

Game	Max Level	EXP Needed (Mario)	EXP Needed (Luigi)	EXP Needed (Extra 1)	EXP Needed (Extra 2)
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga	99	946,405	946,498	N/A	N/A
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time	100	501,118	501,118	507,082	507,082
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team	100	3,000,000	3,002,500	N/A	N/A
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam	100	1,764,930	1,767,430	1,769,930	N/A

And you need about 9000 EXP to do so in Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door…

You need 9,999,999 EXP to max them out in Brothership.

No, we’re not kidding. You need nearly 10 million experience points to reach level 100 in Brothership.

That’s utterly insane, and dwarfs the previous games by an almost absurd degree. Like, it’s 10 times more than Superstar Saga, and 3 times more than Dream Team.

So, if you’re trying to max out anyone’s levels here, you’d better be in it for the long run. Because this will take you far longer than in any previous Mario RPG.

What’s more, that’s not the only difference between Brothership and other games. No, we noticed quite a few other intriguing differences too.

Like the enemy and boss stats in this game. Put simply, they’re far higher than in past games, with many enemies having HP on par with the bosses from previous titles.

For example, the Seedlusa enemies in the final dungeon have 3086 HP. That’s on par with Elder Princess Shroob from Partners in Time, and higher than the Dark Star Core and Dreamy Bowser from later games.

And it’s hardly the only example. No, plenty of enemies have 1000 HP or more in that dungeon, putting them above most of the earlier game’s bosses in sheer tankiness.

So if you’re fighting them (especially to grind levels), you’ll just notice how much slower it takes to bring them down. They shrug off attacks from even level 90+ characters, and survive Bros Attacks like there was nothing to it.

Finally, there’s some weirdness with the enemy respawn logic. You see, in past games, enemies tended to respawn in a very predictable way. The game would only track 21 defeated enemies at a time, and then slowly start respawning the earlier ones each time you defeated another one.

As a result, you could always guarantee a respawn by simply doing laps of an area. By the time you go back to the beginning again, the first few monsters would be back, and the cycle would repeat itself.

That’s not the case in Brothership. Instead, enemy respawn logic seems to be completely and utterly broken in this game, to the point we have no idea how it even functions.

Okay, you can always guarantee a respawn if you leave the island you’re on. By doing that, every monster there will have respawned by the time you go back.

But there’s nothing remotely as consistent if you stay in the same place. Instead, the game seemingly respawns enemies whenever the bloody hell it feels like.

And it’s really noticeable if you try level grinding in the final area. Since while the enemies in the top most room on the ground floor will respawn if you clear out the enemies in the lowest room, and vice versa…

The ones in the other rooms linked to the elevator hub area will not. They’ll seemingly never respawn without leaving the island, at least not consistently.

So, you have two choices here. Either you ignore them and just defeat the enemies in the other two rooms over and over again…

Or you walk around said rooms at random points, whereupon the enemies will just sometimes magically respawn when off camera. No, we don’t know how that works either. They’re literally gone one second, there the next. Sometimes you even get to see them load in there and then!

Finally, there’s the matter of extra experience points. In previous games, there were multiple means of getting this. You had items like the EXP Boots and EXP Bro Gloves, which would increase the amount of experience gained upon defeating an enemy (and which could be equipped on multiple characters at once). You had badge effects that would multiply EXP gained by 1.5 or even 2 times their normal value, once active. There were Battle Cards to do the same thing, at least in Paper Jam…

Plus, there were consistent sources of ‘metal slime’ esque enemies you could grind against too, which would guarantee a ton of experience points when defeated. Like the Gold Beanies in Superstar Saga and Dream Team, Amazy Dayzees in the Paper Mario series, Gold Koopeleons in Partners in Time and shiny enemies in Paper Jam.

Brothership doesn’t have these luxuries, at least not to the same extent. There’s the Arc Scope, which increases EXP by 15% if you win without taking damage…

And that’s about it. There are no Battle Plug combos that boost your EXP, no other pieces of gear that do the same…

Plus, the only metal slime enemy only appears if you use a single Battle Plug combo and get extremely lucky.

So, your options are very limited. Equip the Arc Scope, make sure the Bros have selected the Quick Level Up rank bonus at some point, and pray the Seedle-ize strikes lucky and gives you a Gold Seedle. If that all goes to plan, you might, just MAYBE hit 10,000 EXP in a single battle.

Either way, it’s a lot trickier to reach the level cap in Brothership than in previous Mario RPGs, and we’d strongly advise against trying unless you have an ungodly amount of patience and free time on your hands. The process is just a complete slog right now, even by video game level up standards.

Regardless, that’s what the max level is in Mario & Luigi: Brothership, and how we eventually achieved it despite the game’s many attempts to slow us down. If you found this interesting, check in later when we one-shot the final boss with these stats…

And leave your thoughts on the whole ordeal in the comments below, on social media, or on our Discord server today!