In Partners in Time, I completed Prince Bowser's Castle. As you might be able to tell from the name, it takes place in the past. There's a reference to Yoshi's Island and the attempt to kidnap the babies, too. It's a starter dungeon, but it was pretty good.
The controls get a little convoluted sometimes, with Mario, Luigi, Baby Mario, and Baby Luigi each getting their own button (A,B,X,Y) for jumping outside of combat and for timed button presses in combat. There's this one attack where you have to hit A to kick a shell as Mario, hit X when it makes contact with the enemy to do extra damage, hit B when it reaches Luigi to kick it back at the enemy again, and repeat faster and faster. It gets ahead of me pretty quickly.
A lot of times for puzzles, you have to switch back and forth between controlling the babies and controlling the adults to hit various switches and to get into places the other group can't access for some reason. When everyone's together, you're more powerful in combat, though.
I found a Crystal Star... I mean COBALT SHARD, and went back to the present time, where a new time portal to the past opened up. This one leads to a spooky forest where another shard awaits. The idea is that for some reason, the aliens that invaded the past might have a weakness to the shards. Also, the shards power a time machine and make the time portals. It's a little complicated.
"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done."












