Mario & Luigi -- Partners in Time -- Make Up Your Mind Nintendo.

I have spent seventeen or so hours with Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and I can say that they have indeed removed the Zelda like overworld structure from the game. You are relegated to traveling from point A to point B within the levels that make up the game.  There isn't anything really wrong with this as the game seems more concentrated in its puzzle design to suit the new level structure. The puzzle element is mild as you use acquired moves from the two sets of brothers to get by whatever obstacles are in your way.  The game allows you to control both sets of brothers independently of each other or you can control the four as a whole. This results in a lot of switching between the pairs to do this action or that action so you can move the other set of brothers forward in the level. The puzzles work well in the game. The combat is slightly hampered by the fact that there are four controllable characters in battle at once. Each character assigned his specific button out of the A, B, X, and Y buttons. There is a strange redundancy to some of the battle commands that is slightly annoying when there are four brothers in play. The hammer attack for instance, you'll select an enemy, and then hit A. That doesn't start the attack. You have to then hit X to actually begin the attack. Then time hitting A correctly so that it'll go to the dual attack stage of the move where you'll hit X again at the correct time to properly finish the move. There is no reason to have that first X stage. I understand their logic, it has to be that you have to hit X so that you're reminded of the dual brother potential aspect of the move, but it just comes off as not needed and annoying. I don't understand why they chose to streamline so much of the game, then artificially inflate the boss battle aspect. The battles go on and on forever. Even the early boss battles are long and arduous events. Unnecessarily so in my opinion. It's not like the challenge of what has to be done is the issue. It's just that you have to do it for far too long. It's coming to the point where I'm actually starting to dread the boss battles. The battles are starting to average in the thirty to forty-five minute range. It fills me with trepidation for the final boss battle if it follows the trend. It'll take forever. It's the attacks of the boss that are supposed to trip you up. Their actions are supposed to be designed to make you stumble in the timing of your responses. That is all in place. So then your failing should bring about the end of the boss battle quickly. On the other hand, once you learn the attacks and are successful in the timing to avoid or counter the boss attacks the battle should end relatively soon. I don't see why once you've demonstrated you have the timing down to defeat the attacks of the boss that you must do it over and over again for thirty some rounds. It just strikes me as unbalanced and sort of counterproductive to the concept behind the battle system.