Mario & Luigi: Night Shades

Mario & Luigi: Night Shades  is a Nintendo 3DS game developed by AlphaDream and published by Nintendo. It is the fifth title in the Mario & Luigi series of role playing adventure games. In this game, Mario and Luigi are forced to work together with their rivals, being Wario and Waluigi as they have to stop the Mushroom Kingdom  from being stuck in an eternal lunar eclipse caused by an unknown force.

Story
The story begins with a small festival being held at the entrance to Peach's Castle. Many toads and beanish, even a few Koopas, are there. A huge banner says Welcome to the Lunar Festival!! Princess Peach comes out in a special gown, and wonders where her guests of honor are. Then, Mario and Luigi show up, asking what the festival is for again. The princess then explains that every million years or so, a great combination of both a lunar and solar eclipse causes the entire planet to open up for exactly 96 hours making the sky go dark. It then causes heat from the center of the planet to be revealed, and thus, the lost Solar Kingdom comes from behind the Earth's core. The solar energy sent out from the sun to the core then causes every one and anyone who enters the core to become much more powerful.

Mario and Luigi then sit down to watch. Then, Bowser's airships appear!! Bowser jumps from the command ship, He says he plans to use the Solar Energy to become the supreme overlord of the entire Mushroom Kingdom! Mario and Luigi plan to stand in his way, of course. Then, the tutorial battle begins. Toadsworth will explain the basics of battle. Bowser will be defeated after 3 turns.

Once Bowser is beaten, he wants the entire Mushroom Castle obliterated, so he orders a huge airship to come in, and out of the bottom comes a huge cannon!! It then destroys the castle! Everyone finds the castle in ruins, and Mario grows angry. Luigi grows afraid. Mario prepares to attack, but then, a mysterious dark fire emerges from the flames. Purple eyes open, and a head and body form from the flames. It turns into a spikey behemoth-like monster with a mouth full of serrated teeth. It smiles evilly, and screams! Everyone is afraid, including Bowser. The creature reveals himself to be Chancellor Hedron, a villain of the galaxy. Mario and Lugi try to challenge him, but he hops into his ZtarSuit, a large metallic suit designed for combat. He creates a force blast that knocks everyone far away in different directions.

The next morning, Wario and Waluigi wake up in their hut, reading a newspaper taking about the opening of the Earth's Core and connection to the Solar Kingdom. Thinking that there will be loads of Banks in that kingdom, they decide to head down there and rob it. Taking the train to the core's location, they only find Chancellor Hedron. Waluigi tries to fight him, but gets defeated by a single force blast. Wario then engages in a duel with him. In this duel, Chancellor Hedron accidentally teaches Wario how to battle. Chancellor Hedron uses an unavoidable force blast attack when he is "defeated", however, knocking Wario out. Chancellor Hedron flings Wario and Waluigi far, far away, then starts his "plan".

Mario and Luigi and everyone else wake up in Peach's Castle. Toadsworth starts freaking out about Peach, but then Professor E. Gadd appears and calms Toadsworth. He tells the Mario Bros to come to his lab. Toadsworth teaches the Mario Bros how to move and jump, before dashing off. Mario and Luigi make it to E. Gadd's lab, where he reveals an ancient prophecy made by Peach's long-time ancestor, Queen Tayora. The prophecy says that the force of darkness caused by the Night Sky would come to Mushroom Kingdom from the deep space if the ecliptic event is intervened by someone. Four heroes of the night would have to find the Six Eternal Planet Pieces laid out in the Mushroom and Solar Kingdoms. Professor E. Gadd also reveals the rest of the prophecy is contained in a book, but he doesn't know where it is.

Overworld
The gameplay acts similar to past entries in the Mario & Luigi series especially Partners in Time, as the Bros can still jump, hammer, use overworld techniques, and use Bros Attacks. The Mario Bros. and Wario Bros. adventure in the overworld separately, but when they do adventure together, they travel in a four man line preforming mixtures of their own out of battle techniques.

Similar to Bowser's Inside Story or Dream Team, the game features two separate worlds to explore in. Unlike the latter two, both worlds are open 3D areas that the heroes can adventure in. The major difference is that the Solar Kingdom takes place in the Day Time, while the Mushroom Kingdom takes place in the Night Time. There also comes points in the game where the player has to switch between the two sets of brothers, one of them being in the Solar Kingdom and the other being in the Mushroom Kingdom, in order to solve puzzles that require the use of Energy harnessed by the two sets.

Mario & Luigi
Mario and Luigi's battle system is similar to the battles from previous titles. During a battle, the two heroes have six choices when attacking, these are Jump, Hammer, Bros. Items, Items, Badges and Flee. The Bros. can defend with their jumps and hammers. The Jump makes Mario and/or Luigi jump to dodge an attack or to counter-attack.

When Mario or Luigi pull off an action command, that brother's end of the bar fills slightly. When they meet in the middle, it's possible to use a Bros. Badge move.The effect varies with the equipped badge. The normal effect is to restore 20% of both brother's HP. Badges can be bought in one of the shops in Toad Town or Peach's Castle.

Wario & Waluigi
Wario and Waluigi's battle system is almost the same as Mario and Luigi's, but with a few differences. When Wario does the Jump attack, he ground pounds in the second jump, Waluigi, however, does the same as the Mario Bros. If any of the Wario Bros. pass out, the other will be the understudy. If both pass out, the game will conduct a Game Over. Wario or Waluigi can go to battles separately like the Mario Bros. But if any of them pass out, it will be a game over, ignoring the other brother.

Their battles take place on the Top Screen while Mario and Luigi's take place on the Bottom. The Bottom Screen shows a deck of cards called Battle Cards that the two criminals can use as they cost Shine Sprites to use them in battle. Another thing is that they replenish their HP with Garlics instead of Mushrooms, and that they have different level symbols when ranking up.

Quartet
With the four heroes working together on the same battle field, some Bros. Items are enhanced to allow all four of them to work together and instead of Badges or Battle Cards. This type of battling uses an audience. Unlike the one from the first two Paper Mario games, this one consists of Planet Peeps that provide Planet Power for the brothers to use against the enemies once a specific meter called the Space Gauge is filled up, by preforming action commands correctly. Once that gauge is full, then the player will be allowed to unleash a Planet Attack on the enemies.