Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (Mario & Luigi RPG 4: Dream Adventure in Japan and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros. in Europe & Australia) is an upcoming title for the Nintendo 3DS. It is the fourth installment in the Mario & Luigi series. The game will be released in Europe on July 12th, Australia on 13th, Japan on 18th and North America on August 11th.

It is part of "The Year of Luigi" alongside Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and the New Super Luigi U DLC for New Super Mario Bros. U. The two titles and the DLC are in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Luigi's debut. As such, Luigi has a much bigger role in the game than in the previous Mario & Luigi games. A special edition of Nintendo 3DS XL with a Luigi themed print will be released in Japan as part of the event and include the digital version of Mario & Luigi: Dream Team preinstalled on the SD card.

Story
Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Toadsworth, and the Toads are invited to Pi'illo Island and travel to the island for sightseeing. While touring the island, Luigi takes a nap on a special pillow which opens a portal to a place called Dream World. This allows Antasma to pull Princess Peach into the world. It is later explained that there are two powers in the Dream World, the Dreamstone and the Darkstone, though the latter was destroyed by Antasma in order to create chunks so it is able to turn the Pi'llows species into stone. Mario and Luigi travel to rescue the princess and free the frozen Pi'llows.

Gameplay
The gameplay seems to shift between Luigi's dream world, where Mario and Luigi move in a 2-D fashion and the regular world, where they freely roam the overworld, unlike the previous three titles. While Mario is playing inside Luigi's dreams, Starlow can move Luigi's face to affect the area, such as spinning platforms. The battles appear to give the player coins, similarly to the Paper Mario series. Due to the shift to 3D, the game also uses a new art style. Badges similar to those in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story seem to make an appearance in this game. Sometimes Gifts may also appear in between battles. Giant battles from Mario & Luigi's Bowser Inside Story return, this time with Luigi instead of Bowser.

Giant Battles
Giant battles play similarly to the ones in the previous installment. With the boss on one screen and Luigi on the other. The battles now offer a choice out of left handed or right handed play. In this installment several things are different. Luigi is able to perform extra jump attacks like in normal battle. Also for Luigi to heal himself he has to get Mario to throw him mushrooms. The player has to tap to the timing of Marios throws to catch the mushrooms and heal Luigi. Mario get's worn out after one of these moves and must recover for a few turns. Another new feature is that to finish a boss a special move has to be performed. This works with Luigi jumping high and grabbing a star, which Mario hops on, and throws it at the boss. The player has to line up the star's trajectory with the boss's heart to finish them off. It is currently unkown what happens if they miss.

Playable

 * Mario
 * Luigi
 * Dreamy Luigi (Dream World)
 * Starlow (Dream World)

Other

 * Princess Peach
 * Toadsworth
 * Toads
 * Bowser
 * Yoshi
 * Starlow
 * Antasma, the antagonist, described as a "ghostly bat king" and feared by the Pi'llow people as a nightmare
 * Pi'llows
 * Dreambert, leader of the Pi'llow people
 * Eldream, a Pi'llow mentioned by Dreambert who can help Mario and Luigi
 * Dr. Snoozemore, proprietor of Pi'illo island, who is mysteriously absent when the heroes arrive at the island.
 * Beanish
 * Citizens of an unknown village, some of which resemble brown Hoohooligans.
 * A multi-colored owl-like race.
 * Broque Monsieur
 * Other members of Broque Monsieur's race.
 * A male character resembling a plumber.
 * A female character which is possibly a miner.
 * Unknown character in red with blue shoes.
 * A character similar to a sheep.

Enemies

 * Purple rock-like enemies with brown, Goomba-like feet (Japanese ユメボー Yumebo, roughly "Dream People" .)
 * Gray rock-like enemies with hands, with faces similar to Junior Shrooboid's or Shrooboid Brat's. They attack in the overworld by tossing boulders.
 * Bloatula
 * Storks, orange drill enemies
 * Golden drill enemies
 * Pink creatures with green leaves on their heads
 * Orange spheres with spikes on their heads
 * White ghost-like creatures with black eyes
 * A purple, pink and peach goo monster
 * A dumbbell-like creature
 * A pink and yellow moth creature
 * Blue Fly Guys
 * Viruses
 * Crab-like creatures similar to Sidesteppers
 * Red and pink birds
 * A yellow ball enemy with brown feet, a white spike on its head, and goggles.
 * A volcano that charges Mario and Luigi.
 * A Robot, that's On the fritz, with a Snifit face that chase's the bros.
 * Drillogger
 * A shark with a drill on it's head.

Items

 * Attack Piece Blocks
 * Coins
 * 10 Gold Coins
 * Mushrooms
 * Super Mushrooms
 * Nuts
 * Super Nuts
 * Wonder-nuts
 * Syrup
 * Super Syrup
 * Candies
 * Super-Candies
 * 1-Up Mushrooms
 * 1-Up Mushroom+s
 * Refreshing Herbs
 * Ghost Cookies
 * Secret Boxes

Badges

 * A Badge shaped as a Mushroom.
 * A blue Badge with a yellow star on it.

Battle system
The battle system in overworld is similar to those in previous titles, but the system in Dream World is different, as Mario will fight in all battles with Luigi's dream power. There are now five categories of attack, as in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. They are Jump, Hammer, Item, Luigi's face (which are Bros. Items in Dream World) or Red Shell (which are Bros. Items in the overworld), and Flee. There can be more than five enemies in battle, as in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. The Rank feature returns again. One change is the lack of Lakitus from the level up system.

Ranks

 * Mushroom Rank

Bros. Attacks (Special attacks in the overworld)

 * Fire Flower
 * A Propeller Block like flying disk which makes the Bros. fly and land roughly on the Enemy.
 * 3D Red Shell
 * A turbo-charged skating board.

Luiginary Attacks (Special Attacks in Dream World)

 * Balancing on a ball of Luigis and kicking it strongly near the enemies.

Locations

 * Real World
 * An area called "Pi'illo Island", where the game will presumably take place in.
 * Pi'illo Castle
 * A town area inhabited by brown creatures resembling Hoohooligans. It also contains a shop.
 * A quarry area with fences on the floor and rock enemies.
 * A grassy area with mountains.
 * A shop with small pink creatures as employees.
 * Dream World
 * A grassy area with flowers.
 * An area with wooden floor with orange drill and purple slime enemies.
 * A dark blue void area with Luigi's face on the background, with "Don't leave me behind, big brother" messages passing through the screen. Also there are sketchy images of Luigi chasing Mario. Some places have some of Luigi's facial features being pulled apart and squished together.
 * A grassy area with rolling rocks.
 * A bright castle area with a greenish blue background.
 * A snowy area where a giant Luigi faces off against a volcano creature.
 * A castle with purple rock enemies.
 * A Bridge which breaks down and leads into a cave.

Trivia

 * This is the first game in the Mario & Luigi series to be rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and Up) rather than the usual E (Everyone) by ESRB.
 * This is also the second Mario game (excluding Donkey Kong and Wario series) to receive this rating, after Mario Strikers Charged.
 * This is also the first game in the Mario & Luigi series to depict the letters on Mario & Luigi's caps as red and green, respectively, instead of black, and to have Luigi's pants reach his shoes, hiding his socks.
 * This is the second game in the series to have giant boss battles that require the DS to be turned on it side.