Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

What happens when Mario is robbed of his voice, Luigi is made half a coward, and the whole farce is written by a scenarist who is evidently poking fun at everything, himself included? You get Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, one of the funniest RPGs ever to appear on a Nintendo handheld.

The key idea is brilliantly simple: you control both brothers at once, each tied to their own button (A for Mario, B for Luigi). In the field this means mischievous puzzles and combined moves; in battle, the absolute foundation of the fun – action timing. A well-timed press at the moment a jump lands or a hammer strikes strengthens the attack, and likewise a timely press lets you block or dodge an enemy hit entirely. Battles are thus not a passive wait for numbers, but an active, almost rhythmic game.

The second draw is the writing. Superstar Saga overflows with wordplay, absurd situations and unforgettable villains – above all the utterly insane Fawful, a fan icon whose contorted English („I have fury!“) became legendary. The humor here is not decoration but a load-bearing pillar of the whole experience.

The game runs briskly, is visually adorable and full of exaggerated expressions and animation that turn both brothers into a comedy duo without a single intelligible word. Bit by bit you acquire new shared abilities that open up the map and new combat tricks, so the system keeps growing and never grows stale.

Behind the game stood the studio AlphaDream, and it was the first entry in the Mario & Luigi series, which subsequently grew into several beloved sequels. Superstar Saga laid the foundation of its formula – the combination of action battles, buddy mechanics and self-assured humor – and to this day ranks among the best a handheld Mario RPG has offered.

Why play it: A clever, hilariously funny RPG whose combat timing turns every fight into a little mini-game – and the start of one of the most beloved detours in Mario's world.