The Mario & Luigi games are some of the finest examples that Nintendo has to offer of it's flagship series. They offer an amazing blend of off the wall humor, great gameplay and chemistry and really dark tones to always offset the overall light hearted themes the Mario Bros. normally have. I've been hooked on this series ever since the first one and in honor of that game being remade for the 3DS, I felt I should have a shout out to it... by... have the villain of Dream Team and not Superstar Saga... ok, so the fact that Superstar Saga got remade was a pure coincidence I didn't know about until a few days ago and turned into more of an after thought, but hey it works! Though admittedly I kind of wish I had known because I'd have probably put Cackletta and Fawful in here instead but Antasma is just as applicable to Halloween, if not more.
While Bowser's Inside Story remains my favorite of the Mario & Luigi series, Dream Team still ranks high mainly for it's setting and all the insane "Luiginary" attacks but I think because I love seeing Nintendo bust out really dark stuff in Mario because it's so unexpected and a being of pure nightmares is definitely up there though admittedly I feel Antasma could have been a lot scarier. Still, he's one of my favorite villains of the series and proves that they can make a lot of great villains aside from just recycling Bowser constantly... even though Antasma sadly takes second place to Bowser in the end. They're kinda good at that which is a shame as a lot of those one-shot villains for the Mario universe stand well enough on their own.
I suppose I've just always liked the concept of playing off of dreams and nightmares because the possibilities are endless, which is probably why I also like the Nightmare on Elm Street series, though granted I feel in both cases here and there, the full potential of the dream world is not realized. Man, I really keep give counter arguments to this don't I? I don't really mean to, but I guess it supports my placing of Antasma at only 18. Still, all in all it was a great game and a great villain if anything for that kickass music of his! Though I do have to admit... given that we now had another Mario game based in a dream setting, I'm really sad we didn't have any shout outs to Mario Bros 2, yeah I know Wart's an idiotic villain but hey it would have been funny to see him. Also, sorry to add in Luigi yet again into a countdown but it was sort of necessary for the picture, just ignore him, which should be easy to do as it's Luigi after all!
