Alright, the actual series that this one falls into is a bit complicated, but not too much. When playing it you'll notice a striking similarity to the Paper Mario series. As you've seen, the Paper Mario series isn't actually a coherent series. Everything is touted as a "sequel in spirit" to the last one, so that is what it is. When in comes down to it, this game is a sequel to Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and technically those are the only two games in this particular series.

At any rate, this one is great. I finished it at just over 16.5 in-game hours, with about 1.5 lost hours due to the epically poor end game design. Without spoiling it too much for anyone, after you rescue Princess Peach, for the love of God, don't listen to those lying toads. Save your game before you go to the back room to see the Professor. And a fair warning, the last "boss" battle took me an hour and fifteen minutes, and that was my second play through. Being my second play through, I was skipping straight through the dialogue and I didn't have to waste time finding the method for defeating the boss. Although I didn't time it the first time, I'm willing to venture that it took over two hours. So buckle down and button up when you're going for the final push (you'll know when that is, they make it painfully obvious).

I guess I should probably think about playing Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for GBC now. I remember putting about an hour into sometime in 2003 so maybe I'll have to wrap it up. For now I think it's time for some God of War: Chains of Olympus.