The newest installment in the M & L RPG series is unique, however, it'll disappoint if you've played Superstar Saga.
Aside from that, I was still disappointed. I felt that it was missing something.
Graphics: For a DS game, the graphics were amazing. No complaints about that.
Music: Every Mario game always has music that goes with the game just right.
Plot: Loved the plot. I didn't expect to be seeing Fawful from SS and for a bad guy, he played the part well. Also, Bowser was a hero for the most part, a very rare sight. For the cons, I felt that it was short... Maybe it's just me, but I felt that the plot was linear and there weren't any "twists".
Battle: A toughie... Some of the aspects of battle I did enjoy, however the special moves was the first part that I didn't like in particular... I just felt that they only made those special moves so that fans wouldn't think that they were copying SS. But I actually wanted to see special moves that were like the ones in SS. The demos were a great idea, but honestly some of the special moves aren't fun to execute and I only used about 3 of the special moves throughout the whole game because the others just weren't fun. Also, there really wasn't many of them. Furthermore, none of their special moves incorporated their special actions, like in SS.
I would of loved to have seen moves where it was Bowser actually doing it and not his minions. Thumbs up though for bowser's attacks, especially the vertical DS fights. But I do understand that the vertical DS fights aggravated some people.
Gameplay: Mario and Luigi have special actions that they can do outside of battle too. But I was really, really disappointed with them in this game. Sure, we got about 3 or 4 of the ones that we had in SS, but that's it. We didn't get any new ones and it was very minimal. In SS, we had many of them and I remember that you could even switch Mario to the back and put Luigi in the front, and they even had fire and electricity. It was just so many of them and I felt that that really expanded SS, and it made me feel like I had so many things to do with all of the special actions (sidequests, discover new places I couldn't get into before without the special action,etc). In BIS, there wasn't much of that at all... and I didn't feel the "freedom" that I had felt before in SS.
Next up, the world map. A good idea and it really did help, but I feel that there weren't enough locations... And we had to keep on running through the same ones again, that just made it feel short and kind of rushed to me. To me the world map just showed how little exploring and "extras" there was in store for us. I really wish that there had been more locations. I believe that a world map adds a good impression when there are many places that you have to go to or go through, but when there's only a few the world map, I guess, discourages you.
Side quests: Not even close to enough. I could count the amount of side quests we could do on my fingers and I feel that they were just placed in there because they knew that they had to have side quests.
Humor: Not really much humor... I feel that it was also lacking in this department.
Overall, I was expecting a lot from BIS after the perfection from SS won me over and I was disappointed, but I did enjoy and like it. I feel that the game was too linear and that there wasn't much reason to explore other than item boxes and beans, but you don't even feel like wanting to get them (at least I didn't). In SS, I wanted to find every bean so I could unlock a new bean drink and see what it gave me. Maybe I'm nostalgic for SS, but, in my opinion, this game was truly missing a lot. I would recommend this game to friends, but I would also recommend for them to buy it when the price has gone down. If, however, you haven't played any Mario & Luigi RPG's then I recommend leaving Superstar Saga for last. Save the best for last! That way you won't be disappointed if you were to play SS then play Partner's in Time and/or BIS.