Mario & Luigi: Drawn Out

Mario & Luigi: Drawn Out
The game's cover art
Developer(s)	AlpacaSoft AlphaDream
Publisher(s)	Fantendo
Director(s)	Lollama13
Platform(s)	New Nintendo 3DS
Genre(s)	RPG, Adventure
Series	Mario & Luigi
Predecessor	Mario & Luigi: Dino Trio
Release Date(s)	August 2022
Age Rating(s)	E10+ (ESRB) 7 (PEGI) A (CERO)

 Mario & Luigi: Drawn Out (Mario & Luigi: Arts and Crafts in Europe and Mario & Luigi RPG 7 in Japan) is the seventh game in the Mario & Luigi series of RPGs, it is developed by AlphaDream and AlpacaSoft for the New Nintendo 3DS. Mario & Luigi: Drawn Out is the sequel to the Nintendo Switch game Mario & Luigi: Dino Trio and it is set for release in August of 2022.

The game follows the Mario brothers, who find an ancient scroll underneath Peach's castle, which contained a paintbrush-like person named Bristle, who told them about his twin brother, Crafty, who shall bring about utter chaos if his scroll, the Ink Scroll, is opened, so the three of them, along with the Paint Scroll and Starlow, go on an adventure to find and stop Crafty.

This game brings back the 2D sections from past games in the form of the Paint World, a world inside of the drawings in the Paint Scroll, as Mario explores the Paint World, Luigi can use Bristle to change and add to the drawings, allowing Mario to progress.

Plot

The game is not actually divided into chapters, it is just a simple way to organize the story

Chapter 1: The Paint Scroll

The story starts with Mario and Luigi being called to Princess Peach's castle for an emergency situation, when they arrive there, the emergency is much less severe than they expected it to be, Peach explains that there is simply no water to make tea for a royal meeting she is having, so she wants the Mario bros to take care of the plumbing under the castle, Luigi almost walks out and back home, but Mario drags him to the castle basement by his overalls and they get to work.

As Luigi is bored, he decides to explore the labyrinth that is the basement of Peach's castle, until he finds an odd door and calls Mario to go and see it as well. They open the door and go into the mysterious room, which turns out to be a library, filled with old, dusty books and bugs, Luigi is too scared to go into the dark library, so Mario goes all the way to the back and finds a scroll of some sort, he takes it back to Luigi, whom he trusts to guard the scroll while Mario finishes the plumbing work.

The battle between Mario and Bowser

Once they're done, the brothers take the scroll upstairs and to Peach's meeting room, which is being attacked by Bowser, who tries to kidnap Peach once again, Bowsert taunts the bros and dares them to beat him again, Mario tries to get Luigi to fight with him, but Luigi insists that he has to protect the scroll, as Mario told him to, so Mario faces Bowser alone.

Once the Koopa King is defeated, Starlow emerges from beneath a table and sees the scroll that Luigi is carrying, she claims she's seen it before in some way and tells the Mario brothers to open it up, they obey and open up the scroll very carefully, Starlow bumps into them to speed things up and a beam of color bursts out from the scroll and blasts Bowser away, from the beam comes a small person with hair resembling a paintbrush, he slowly descends to the floor and greets all of the people around him, introducing himself as Bristle, prince of Artsia, when Peach questions him about "Artsia" and who he is, Bristle is unable to reply, as he does not remember anything, except for the fact that he has a twin brother named Crafty, who shall bring chaos onto the kingdom if he's not stopped.

Chapter 2: Adventure in the Plains

The four characters walk out of the castle and onto Green Green Plains, they begin exploring and find a group of Goombas, seemingly planning something together, the Mario brothers, Starlow and Bristle approach them and most of the Goombas run away, only two stay to try and fight the brothers, in battle, Starlow teaches the bros how to counter enemy attacks and do commands with both of them.

After beating the Goombas, the team continues forwards and comes across a broken pedestal with a blocked off path in front of it, Bristle manages to use some sort of magic to fix the pedestal, but he gets very tired from it. Seeing the pedestal makes him regain a memory of how they work, Bristle tells Luigi to place the open Paint Scroll on the pedestal, which glows at the presence of the scroll, Luigi obeys and places the scroll on the table-like pedestal, Mario then begins to glow, to the surprise of all of them, he approaches the scroll and gets sucked into it. Mario opens his eyes and he is in a world that looks like a painting or drawing, like the ones he caught a glimpse of on the scroll. He walks forward and finds a large boulder, he pushes it and the boulder in the real world is moved, Mario then leaves the drawing world and none of them have any clue what happened.

The group progresses through the plains and finds an odd flower in the middle of a clearing, which has a path leading out to the beach, the four of them are quickly met by Kamek on his magical broom, who shouts at them to get out of the way so he can find Bowser, when Mario & Luigi insist otherwise, Kamek claims he's been trying out a new type of magic from something Bowser found, he fires a black glowing blob into the flower and it grows into a big black Piranha Plant with legs and leaf arms, that goes on to fight the Mario brothers.

Once Inky Piranha is defeated the group is able to continue on their way to Azure Coast.

Chapter 3: Seas of Trouble

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Gameplay

Mario & Luigi: Drawn Out plays like a normal Mario & Luigi game, it is a top-down RPG for the most part, it has some elements of normal Mario games, like floating blocks and platforms, jumping on enemies, etc. Mario and Luigi are, respectively, controlled with A and B, the shoulder buttons switch overworld actions and certain things are done with the stylus.

The unique overworld feature of the game is the Paint Scroll, certain areas of the game have glowing pedestals to place the scroll onto to have Mario go into the Paint World, where he has the help of Painted Luigi in the drawing world and the real Luigi out of the scroll, who can draw on the scroll to help Mario and his painted-on counterpart. Pressing the Select button switches between the normal playing mode as Mario and the drawing mode as Luigi, only certain shapes and patterns are recognized and placed into the Paint World, such as rectangles for platforms, 'Qs' for bombs, among other shapes and drawings.

Mario and Luigi have a set of stats to keep track of, below are all of them:

Name	Description	Icon
HP	How many hits a character can take before falling, if it gets too low, it can be refilled with certain items.
BP	Allow the player to use Bros Attacks in battle, if it runs out, it can be refilled with certain items.
POW	How much damage a character does to another.
DEF	The more defense a character has, the less damage they'll take from an attack.
SPEED	Determines who attacks first in battle.
STACHE	Grants the player more lucky hits and discounts at stores.

Stats go up normally through leveling up, but for every level up, the player cna choose a certain stat to go up further.

The rank system returns, with the following ranks present:

• Shroom Rank - Starting Rank - 1 Equipment Slot
• Shell Rank - Level 15 - 2 Equipment Slots, Chosen Bonus
• Flower Rank - Level 25 - 3 Equipment Slots, Chosen Bonus
• Star Rank - Level 35 - 4 Equipment Slots, Chosen Bonus
• Rainbow Rank - Level 45 - Hero's Badge (Mario), Helper's Badge (Luigi)

Battle System As in the overworld, Mario and Luigi are controlled with A and B, the character on the field with the highest speed always attacks first, if one character's HP reaches 0, they lose, depending on which side loses all of its fighters first, this means defeat or victory for the player. 

The basic actions for the brothers consist of:

• Jump
• Hammer
• Bros Attacks
• Item
• Run

In battle, the bottom screen serves as a skill card selection, there are many different skills to be used in battle that help the player in different ways, such as healing Mario and Luigi, increasing their attack, decreasing enemy defense, etc. The cards cost Color Points, which are gained through paint pots scattered around the world alongside coins. Skill cards can be used safely, without taking up a turn, as they simply help the player in battle.

Characters

Playable

Picture+Name	Description
Mario	The great hero of the Mushroom Kingdom, always rescuing Peach from the evil king Bowser.
Luigi	Mario's brother, he's always helping out in any way he can.

Supporting

Picture+Name	Description
Princess Peach	The benevolent ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom and Mario's love interest, she is a very kind person.
Starlow	A small Star Sprite that's been helping out the Mario bros for a long time.
Toadsworth	Peach's caretaker, Toadsworth is always doing his job and watching over the princess to keep her safe.
Toadbert	A blue, nerdy Toad who can be trusted to share information with the Mario bros.
Bristle	The prince of the ancient kingdom of Artsia who helps the Mario bros find their way to Crafty, his evil twin brother.

Antagonists

Picture+Name	Description
Bowser	The evil Koopa king is the one who found the Ink Scroll and freed Crafty into the world.
Kamek	Kamek is Bowser's loyal helper, always on the king's side.
Crafty	Crafty is a being of destruction, he is not to be freed from his scroll, but Bowser did it anyways.

Locations

There are a few different large areas to be explored in the game, all of them with their unique enemies, events and bosses. Below is a list of all of the locations in Mario & Luigi: Drawn Out (Along with their Paint World counterparts)

Peach's Castle

The princess' castle serves as a tutorial for the basic overworld actions at the start of the game, there are no enemies here, no bosses and no Paint World pedestals to use.

Green Green Plains

A grassy field with rocks, hills, trees and flowers, it is filled with very basic and weak enemies and only has a few pedestals to use when it is revisited later in the game. This area has four hidden pedestals to find Paint Stones, one of them being mandatory.

Bosses:

• Inky Piranha - Lvl 6
• Bowser - Lvl 17

Painted Green Green Plains

The Paint World counterpart of Green Green Plains, obviously. It is first used to teach the player about the Paint World, it is later revisited around the end of the game to find the Great Paint Stone so that the characters may be taken to Bowser and Crafty's castle.

Bosses:

• Painteon - Lvl 30 

Azure Coast

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Saffron Sands

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Lavender Lushes

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Ivory Iceberg

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Mount Vermillion

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Scarlet Crater

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Bowser's Inkblot Fortress

The final area in the game, it is a floating castle made from Crafty's ink magic, which was used on Bowser's castle. The upper floors have ink dripping from the walls and ceiling and dark lava. There are no pedestals in this area.

Bosses:

• Kamek - Lvl 37
• Lord Crafty - Lvl 43
• Inked Bowser -Lvl 55

Inked World

The world inside of the Ink Scroll, it is dark and colorless, it is only accessed twice in the entire final dungeon, it uses all of the different drawings that Mario and Luigi have learned to use in the normal Paint World.

Bosses:

• Crafty - Lvl 30

Sidequests

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Bros Attacks

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Enemies and Bosses

Normal Enemies

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Bosses

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Items

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Soundtrack

All tracks were composed by Yoko Shimomura.

• A New Quest Begins
• File Select
• Disaster!
• Danger, Danger!
• Pay Attention
• Victory!
• The Koopa King is Near
• Crafty, Master of Ink
• Bring it!
• Battle in the Paint World
• Fighting Stronger Foes
• Lord Crafty
• Wrapped in Darkness
• More TBA

​Gallery

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Similarities and references to other games

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Trivia

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