Full Let’s Play
Luigi’s Quest: Trouble in Sarasaland is a Mario Land-themed episode where Luigi must chase after Tatanga to recover a newly discovered mineral, Sarasium, and rescue his brother and friends since they were turned to stone! With only Daisy and her subjects to cheer him on, Luigi sets out to stop Tatanga and the bosses of the four kingdoms.
Let’s Talk About Assets!
A lot of custom stuff from I dunno quite where. Luigi has a fresh new skin and lots of enemies have been imported or restyled to match their Mario Land counterparts. It’s like a modern reimagining of the setting with some non-retro additions for variety. On top of the minions, the bosses are all unique as well. Some of their behavior is adopted from the original, but each has a fully customized battle style that suits them.
Music comes from various sources as SMBX productions often do. Mario Land remixes are present among other Mario and non-Mario fare. The songs chosen fit quite nicely and I didn’t notice anything out of place. Sound effects are a different story, as several new ones have been added, but don’t always feel right among the usual cartoony bops. They’re a bit louder and don’t fit the style, though this is mostly a nitpick.
Let’s Talk About Writing!
This episode has a fair amount since it’s story-driven and aims to flesh out Sarasaland and its characters more thoroughly. Cutscene choreography is rather stiff and the dialogue has some occasional awkwardness, but I’d say it achieves its goals despite this. There’s an intro, outro, and between-world scenes that take place with each boss you defeat. It begins with Tatanga stealing the Sarasium deposit while Daisy is showing it to the bros. and Peach. After all diplomacy checks fail, Tatanga fires a beam that catches everyone but Luigi and Daisy, turning them to stone. Unable to use the powerful weapon in quick succession, Tatanga makes a break for it and Luigi pursues.
For the rest of the scenes, Tatanga holds a council with the bosses of the kingdoms, getting more desperate as they drop one by one. He eventually hires a mercenary to take out Luigi, which brings in another unexpected villain. Other characters and world-building moments occur throughout the levels.
While the plot is appreciated and it was good to see more of these neglected foes of the past, the outcome is a bit of a letdown. It goes about the way you’d expect in that Luigi defeats Tatanga and rescues his fellows, but he doesn’t quite resolve the conflict as Tatanga gets away. Perhaps it’s sequel bait, but it makes the conclusion somewhat dissatisfying.
Let’s Talk About Design!
It’s a decently challenging episode with some fun and interesting gimmicks. It leans into the variety offered by its many custom NPCs to give it a new feel compared to what you’d usually see in SMBX. Dealing with Mario Land foes and other oddities helps keep things fresh.
Further adhering to the setting, super ball flowers are the primary power-up you’ll find. Some stages also feature leaves, but the super balls rightly take center stage. They fly in diagonal lines and ricochet at 90-degree angles, bouncing for a long while before vanishing. They’re not so good for enemies down the road, but perfect for taking out aerial threats, and they’re also useful for finding fake walls. Many of the episode’s secrets are hidden behind ordinary-looking walls, which would be really annoying if not for this power-up that can expose them if you pay attention to the bouncing. About the only gripe I have is that they use the original sprite for the flower, which looks totally out of place.
Other gameplay gimmicks include shump levels just like the classic game. Luigi can pilot a submarine or plane (they both work the same) and zip around like he’s in Touhou or something. The hitbox in these vehicles felt wonky to me and I never quite got the hang of it, but the stages are doable and mostly reasonable in their challenge. You even fight a couple of bosses with these mechanics.
There isn’t a lot to collect in this episode, but each stage does feature one Sarasium Shard to find, so you need to keep an eye out for secrets. While it isn’t much, it’s enough to encourage exploration. The shards are needed to access the final world, so it behooves you to gather them as you go. Stage titles show if you’ve found them and a convenient warp zone is provided if you reach the end without enough. Apart from those, there aren’t many collectibles to speak of. Extra lives are scarce, so you’ll have to stockpile coins dutifully to keep up or just game over repeatedly in shame.
The stages are generally sound in their design. I encountered some rough patches, but chances are they were cleaned up by the dev since they tuned in and saw where I had struggles. The one thing I noticed consistently was the use of what I call “lazy blocks,” those dashed line selectively-solid bricks that only let certain things pass. I’ve been saving a rant for these, but here’s the mini version: these objects are most often a crutch, used either to micromanage the challenge of a stage or create a setup that would be more difficult/less convenient to arrange otherwise. Examples of this are notable throughout the episode and nearly every stage makes use of them. I know this doesn’t bother most people given how widespread their use is, but that won’t stop me from calling it out. Don’t need those lazy blocks, bruh!
Let’s Wrap This Up…
As a pseudo-sequel to the original, Trouble in Sarasaland is a worthy episode, both honoring and expanding on the Game Boy title. Luigi gets to be the main hero for a change and there’s plenty of appreciation for oft-sidelined characters. Innovative stage design and bosses make for a decent challenge, if just a bit much at times. I’d definitely say the strengths outweigh the flaws, and it’s likely more solid of an experience due to updates since I played.
4/5
Every alien base needs a big screen spy machine.
