Nintendo Announces Mario & Luigi Dream Team Bros

Today's Nintendo Direct presentation announced the Year of Luigi, a whole year dedicated to games showing off the green capped younger sibling of the Mario Bros. One of these games is the next installment of the Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga of RPGs entitled Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros.

Dream Team Bros features two world mechanics, much like Bowser’s Inside Story did. The game will take place half in reality and half in a dream world. To get to the dream world, one of the Bros has to go to sleep, and that is where Luigi comes in.

When Luigi starts napping in the real world, Mario jumps into his subconscious mind. While the real world is a fully 3D map, the dream world is a 2D world only, once again drawing a parallel to Bowser’s Inside Story.

There, he teams up with a dream version of Luigi who has all sorts of weird dream powers. Luigi will be able to clone himself, transform into objects in the environment, grow to massive sizes, and more. Many of these dream powers make use of the 3DS’s unique control schemes. For example, the released trailer shows a section where you pull on Luigi’s moustache with the touch screen in order to alter platforms in his dream world. Luigi will also be capable of dream themed attacks, each of which are controlled via their own mini-game. For example, one attack essentially has Mario playing Katamari Damacy with a gigantic ball of Luigi’s … weird.

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has confirmed that Mario & Luigi: Dream Team will be released in North America on August 11^th, with a later release in Europe on July 12^th and a Japanese release on July 18^th. The game will be released both in retail stores and as a digital download via the 3DS eShop.