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Mario & Luigi: Yin and Yang

(Yes yes, I know. Alphadream went belly up, no more games, blah blah blah. Don't care. Let me have my fun.)

So it starts off like any other M&L game, but the main conflict wastes no time showing up: Mario and Luigi are mad at each other. And the more they try to talk, the worse it gets.

Until it finally escalates to where theyre so distracted by their fighting, Peach gets kidnapped right under their mustaches! And, of course, that leads to them arguing who's fault it is, until someone yells at them to act like the heroes theyre supposed to be and get back on the same page long enough to go rescue the princess!

And then they don’t, because OF COURSE they have different opinions on which path they should take, so they decide to split up and take their own paths.

The game alternates between seeing Mario and Luigi’s chosen paths, because while this does take place in the Mushroom Kingdom, it's specifically in areas weve never seen before.

The paths are also directly paralleled, down to the music played in both settings.

BUT don't go thinking they're going through the whole game alone. By some magic, they have a "spiritual" brother that accompanies them. Which is the entire games dynamic. Solve puzzles with them, fight enemies, the whole thing.

The secret is the spiritual brothers were made from how the brothers see each other, hence why the spiritual brother may be stronger at some things the real one isnt, and vice versa.

This is because while the new areas are not known to us, they ARE known to the Mario brothers, so we can see in some cases, Mario was right about which path to take, and in others, Luigi was right.

But two things:

1. They miss each other almost immediately upon setting off on their own, but just THINKING about apologizing makes them mad all over again. So the spiritual brothers are created as a compromise.

2. Close to the end, they discover neither of them actually remember what it is they're mad about. But STILL upon considering apologizing, they don't.

Giant Bosses: Bowser and Luigi had their turn, now it's Mario’s. Also the only time until the end the bros are actually working together. All ending with a moment where one of them almost cracks, but one or the other walks away saying nothing.

And then finally at the last area, we find out the Big Evil in fact made the other THINK they were mad at each other to distract them.

So of course the brothers hug and make up, go through the final area together, and in one of the craziest twists ever, are given the spiritual brothers' abilities, thus officially back on the same page.

And at the end, someone says something like, "Let that be a lesson. Nobody mess with the brothers, or watch out!"

The game case would be a play off of this, with their baby selves on the inside:

Credit: Alexander Milov