Several inaccurate details just in the first couple of paragraphs: conflating remakes with preservation, citing a localization change as an "original" subtitle, and crediting Nintendo for third-party productions. I realize video game press is not known for its rigor but the more I read Polygon the less I can take it seriously.
Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic
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Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic
#12I was both excited and forlorn about this release. AlphaDream, the team behind the Mario & Luigi series, went bankrupt a few years ago. And Paper Mario has jettisoned itself further from the JRPG genre with each release.
So this could very well be the last official Mario RPG, a remake of the very first.
Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic
#13Mario RPG might possibly be my favorite video game of all time. I grew up pretty poor and really wanted an N64 for Christmas. We couldn’t afford it at the time so I found an alternative - I remember being sad about it, but I found a used copy of Mario RPG for something like $30, this was at the end of 1996. When I sat down with it it’s like something clicked. I didn’t get the N64 for another year but it didn’t matter…
The SMRPG cartridge comes with a processor that is faster than the SNES one.
Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic
#14Easily my favorite single player game of all time. I would love to see a true sequel on Switch 2 with new characters and new lore - give Mario some new friends once every 25 years! Would be an innovative way for new characters/IP/stories to build out over time/generations.
The Paper Mario series is commonly considered to be the successors of SMRPG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Mario
That said, I'd love to see a sequel to SMRPG in a 3D style, rather than always using the "paper" style for RPGs.
Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic
#15The fact that it was developed by square was such a great decision. Square dominated the RPG space for 90s consoles for good reasons and they just crushed it. The addition of timing mechanics to attacks was such a great idea to keep young kids (the target demo) engaged in a genre that they've likely never played before.
The fact that we've had probably nearing 10 Mario RPGs since then says a lot about this game.
Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic
#16I somehow feel guilty for never even remembering the original game. My first console game was Mario Bros on the NES. And I was big into RPGs back in the late 90s (eg. FFVII). How am I just hearing of this now, and this remake?!
Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic
#17I somehow feel guilty for never even remembering the original game. My first console game was Mario Bros on the NES. And I was big into RPGs back in the late 90s (eg. FFVII). How am I just hearing of this now, and this remake?!
TBF it came out really late in the SNES' lifetime, May 1996 in North America. I'm sure more eyes were on the upcoming Mario 64 and Nintendo 64 release than an RPG on a soon to be replaced console.
It was also never released in Europe.
Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic
#18I was both excited and forlorn about this release. AlphaDream, the team behind the Mario & Luigi series, went bankrupt a few years ago. And Paper Mario has jettisoned itself further from the JRPG genre with each release. So this could very well be the last official Mario RPG, a remake of the very first.
There is at least going to be a Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door remake coming out sometime in 2024. I'm hoping it's a sign of more traditional Mario RPGs to come, but who knows. The TTYD remake is something that most of the fanbase thought would never happen, so I guess anything is possible.
Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic
#19SMRPG is great. It's absolutely "baby's first JRPG" (but with actual stats, not the low stats of Paper Mario) and it wears that badge with pride. I don't think there's a JRPG more accessible than this one if you're not familiar with the genre - the UI of the original is very much geared around "make it understandable to people who've only ever played the Mario platformers" and it just... works. From what I've seen, that's an element the remake has mostly left intact, which is good to see.
I can't find myself saying that Geno and Mallow "don't fit the Mario canon" - we've seen characters in the RPGs who have full arcs or "emissary" style personalities (Paper Mario 64 and Super Paper Mario jump to mind immediately) and the baddies almost certainly are just as fitting as the random cadre of bosses you get in the platformers.
I don't think it aged that badly either. There's a sort of oddball humor to the game because it was originally translated by Ted Woolsey who didn't have a series bible for the Mario games. (Especially since a lot of the games humor in some places was derived from Japanese anime and stand-up comedy, so he had to invent certain things from whole cloth since the references are otherwise incomprehensible to a non-90s Japanese audience).
That said the game is definitely from a time before corporate brand management forced these characters to be stripped down to just their most basic personality traits. I'd say that's a good thing though.
It's just a really good game overall and it's easy to see how Paper Mario ended up evolving on these concepts and what's the good old "Square weirdness" that's only present here. Makes you wonder where things could've gone, had Square not moved FF7 development from the N64 to the PlayStation.
Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic
#20Easily my favorite single player game of all time. I would love to see a true sequel on Switch 2 with new characters and new lore - give Mario some new friends once every 25 years! Would be an innovative way for new characters/IP/stories to build out over time/generations.
The Paper Mario series is commonly considered to be the successors of SMRPG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Mario That said, I'd love to see a sequel to SMRPG in a 3D style, rather than always using the "paper" style for RPGs.
Not even considered, in Japan, Paper Mario is iirc called Mario Story and we have early development screenshots calling it Super Mario RPG2, denoting it as a successor to the SNES game.
It's very explicitly the successor of this game (also seen in how it kinda mimics some of the basic plot beats), it just got renamed during development.