Retro Review: Super Mario RPG

Player(s): 1
Platforms: SNES, Wii, Wii U, SNES Classic

We recently got an unlikely crossover between Mario and Rabbids, but this isn’t the first time something insane has happened. Back in 1996, Square Enix (then Squaresoft) and Nintendo entered an extremely surprising partnership. Nintendo gave Square the reigns over making a full-fledged RPG based around Nintendo’s most beloved franchise: Mario. Despite being a shocking partnership, it ended up creating one of the most interesting entries in the entire history of the franchise.

Your initial assault on Bowser's Castle.

The story for Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (henceforth SMRPG) starts off like any other Mario game: Bowser has kidnapped Peach, and Mario heads to his castle in order to rescue her. The rescue operation is going smoothly, until something crashes through the roof of the castle, sending Bowser, Peach and Mario flying in different directions. It’s at this point that you realize that the game is set to break conventions. While it’s not entirely unique in modern times, due to these types of themes thoroughly explored in the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series, it was a first back when SMRPG launched.

Mario's humble abode.

As you progress further into the story, you’ll realize that the story isn’t necessarily deep. The bad guy has no real motive beyond wanting to take over Mushroom Kingdom, and functionally is no different from Bowser. The real joy comes in the micro stories that you experience along the way, and the various revelations that happen. Each of the 5 characters who join your party (3 existing characters and 2 of them entirely original characters) has their own individual story that is explored throughout the game, and this is the best part. Each character has some sort of major individual problem that they face, and is resolved by the conclusion of the game. As an example, one of the first characters you meet is a brand-new character exclusive to this game: Mallow. His story is that he was raised by the wise frog named Frogfucius and that he’s some sort of (mutated?) tadpole. As the game progresses, not only does the crybaby Mallow grow as a character, but you get to see him meet his actual parents and gain closure to that particular thread.

Booster is quite possibly the weirdest person in the game.

To add to the enjoyable story threads within the game is some fantastic writing and localization. There are a lot of amusing interactions between characters that make interacting with every character in the game fun. To top it off, Mallow has an ability that allows you to read the minds of enemies during combat, allowing for further amusing insight into various beings in Mushroom Kingdom.

The Kong family member nobody talks about?

The combat was one of the most innovative of its time in the genre. Rather than sticking with a purely action-oriented system like Secret of Mana or a turn-based system like Final Fantasy IV, Square decided to meld these concepts together. The combat is still turn-based, but by pressing buttons at opportune times you can add effects to your abilities. You can partially dodge incoming attacks, reducing damage; you can add a secondary hit to your standard attacks, increasing damage; you can do context sensitive actions during spells, increasing effectiveness. All of this assures that, while the combat still retains the fun strategic qualities of a turn-based game, it also remains engaging and avoids being dull. To cap this off, every weapon the characters can acquire throughout the game have a different timing for increasing the attack, meaning you’ll have to constantly adapt. All of this helps to keep things fresh and interesting, and ended up being a staple of every RPG based in the Mario franchise since.

Mario and his amazing acting skills.

Exploration is fairly linear, following a similar style to the side-scrolling Mario games, but with the viewpoint being from an isometric view. It can be a little awkward at first, but the level design is made with this in mind, so it doesn’t take long to get used to it. There is some basic platforming involved, along with some basic puzzle solving. Overall, it’s mostly a linear path of getting from point A to point B while fighting enemies along the way. There is no random encounter system in place, meaning you’ll always see the enemy on screen, giving you the opportunity to avoid fights if you like. I felt like there was just enough interesting platforming and puzzle solving to prevent standard progression from feeling tiresome, but it’s a very thin line that’s drawn.

Somebody is in for some hurt.

To help alleviate the relative linearity of the game are a handful of interesting side quests that net various rewards: from being extremely useful to being extremely lame. It’s nice that there is plenty to do in the game, though at least one of the side quests is missable, with no easy way of tracking it until far too late in the game. The reward for it isn’t even that great though, so it isn’t a huge miss. There might be other missable quests, but I had no trouble doing any of them as I played. There are also a handful of fun mini-games that are nice diversions from the main quest. Long story short, there’s plenty to do in the game up until the conclusion. I will mention that the game is designed for the standard audience that Mario games target, meaning that it is a bit easier than the standard Square RPG. This isn’t a bad thing though, since there are a couple nice challenges along the way for you to tackle if you find the main game to be a bit too easy.

Mallow may be a crybaby, but he doesn't mess around in battle.

During your journey, you’ll face lots of different enemies, both new and old. The designs for the characters use a pseudo 3D design style that makes everything look really nice. There’s a level of simplicity to the design that helps make it timeless, despite the overall resolution making things look a bit blocky in comparison with modern games of similar style. The sound design is entirely on point, but the real charmer is the music. SMRPG has one of the most pleasant and well-composed soundtracks not only in the franchise, but in all of the Mario RPG games. If you can get over the slightly pixelated visual design due to the hardware limitations, you’ll be presented with one of the most aesthetically pleasing Mario games to-date.

Excuse me? Could you say your name again slowly?

As a quick side note, I’d like to mention that I’ve played the game to completion on every platform. They played great on all of them. Every version outside of the original on the SNES have some sort of save state function implemented to supplement the three regular save slots, giving you more freedom to experiment as you like. Almost every time, it takes me about 20 hours to attain 100% completion, making the game reasonably lengthy.

My favorite vista in the game.

It’s clear that a lot of love and care went into this collaboration. Square managed to meld together a bunch of different concepts from games they had made up to that point and applied this to the world of Mushroom Kingdom in the most satisfying and creative ways imaginable. Super Mario RPG is the best example of how unlikely companies can partner to create something great. Despite some of the aged graphics and the relatively linear and easy gameplay, I can easily and happily recommend this to anybody. It helps that it’s readily available on many platforms, so grab a copy and check it out!
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- Teepu

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Graphics: B
Sound: A+
Gameplay: A
Value: A+

OVERALL: A

Pros:
+ Great creative use of Nintendo assets along with Square’s expertise in RPGs.
+ Interactive battles assure player engagement.
+ Character stories are fun, exciting and contain their share of twists.

Cons:
- Art direction is great, but the limited hardware does the game a disservice, preventing it from aging as well as it could have.
- Relative linearity prevents any real sense of exploration.
- Villain is boring and generic.

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