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Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

polygon.com

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Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

#21

Post by chrisco255 »

noirscape wrote: post #19

SMRPG 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, t…

Yeah I wonder if Square could have taken the series in a more Kingdom Hearts-like direction if it had had the runway to do so.

Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

#22

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

It was good. The story and gameplay were good, and the art was excellent.

But you know what game will really mess with your head? I mean, the art isn't as good, but it doesn't matter:

Earthbound.

(Also its predecessor, Mother. You can find translated ROMs.)

Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

#23

Post by swozey »

This is one of my favorite JRPGs. I played it as a kid and it was right up there with the greats for me. If you liked Chrono Trigger, etc, play this.

With that said, I am so sick of remakes. When I first heard a 2023 Super Mario RPG was coming out I was so excited that we'd get an actual 2023 SMRPG. Not a remake. Everything is a remake nowadays. I have zero, absolutely zero desire to replay a game I beat when I was 12.

It's like the FF7 remake.. my god. I put like 80 hours into that game, probably an entire school year. Play it AGAIN? Are you kidding me. For the exact same story?

These JRPGs aren't exactly fun to replay. There's usually no fast travel, no ng+, nothing. It's the exact same game over and over. How many times do you think I want to get the Masamune?

Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

#24

Post by swozey »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #22

It was good. The story and gameplay were good, and the art was excellent. But you know what game will really mess with your head? I mean, the art isn't as good, but it doesn't matter: Earthbound . (Also its predecessor, Mother . You can find translated ROMs.)

I loved SMRPG and I have tried to play Earthbound probably 50+ times in my 39 years of existence and I have never, ever found it fun or interesting. I don't think I've ever gotten past that opening where the village/city/whatever is under attack by aliens and you're running around trying to find people or something.

Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

#25

Post by toast0 »

29athrowaway wrote: post #13
cdelsolar wrote: post #4

Mario 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.

Sure, but the snes game came with a second processor, you might not have counted that. (But it probably doesn't matter)

Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

#26

Post by noirscape »

chrisco255 wrote: post #21
noirscape wrote: post #19

SMRPG 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, t…

Yeah I wonder if Square could have taken the series in a more Kingdom Hearts-like direction if it had had the runway to do so.

I wouldn't consider that to be the "Square weirdness" from the Square of the 90s... For today, maybe.

What I mean moreso by that is that FF games up until 9 more or less had this shared tone of "stories with gravity interspliced with extremely goofy moments and oneliners".

SMRPG fits that tightrope almost as well as the more well known games it shares a platform with (Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6); there's multiple gags but the game also still treats this idea of "Bowser just got upstaged by this army of metal guys" with a completely straight face. The stuff surrounding the core story of the Seven Stars isn't undercut by anything but it's still followed up by the running gags of Mario doing impressions of the various NPCs he's met because he's a silent protagonist and they wanted to animate an explanation.

Later Mario RPGs would largely ditch that gravity in favor of just going all-in on the goofiness as the RPGs went on (Mario & Luigi got a really bad case of that). Square on the other hand bled creatives during the merger with Enix until Nomura was the only one left and he got super up in his own ass about storytelling... which led to Kingdom Hearts becoming what it is.

Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

#27

Post by vecter »

What was so fun about Super Mario RPG for me was the sheer amount of Easter eggs. From Geno's Whirl's 9999 damage (only to normal enemies, not bosses, EXCEPT for Exor), to fighting Culex, to all the steps you need to do to unlock the lazy shell, and hundreds of others I forgot or never knew about, it felt like a truly endless adventure.

Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

#28

Post by airstrike »

throw4847285 wrote: post #3
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #2

I know it's anathema to say this, but I played Super Mario RPG when it was first released and didn't think much of it.

I tried playing through multiple times throughout my childhood and could never finish it. Finished Final Fantasy III/VI. Beat Chrono Trigger multiple times. SMRPG never did it for me.

Funny, I actually also started it many times, always liked it quite a bit, but never played to completion. I think I was just not drawn to it in the same way I was to, say, Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI (or Super Metroid, which is not an RPG but is contemporary...) all of which I've replayed to oblivion, even on my mobile, even to this day.

Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

#29

Post by Lammy »

vecter wrote: post #27

What was so fun about Super Mario RPG for me was the sheer amount of Easter eggs. From Geno's Whirl's 9999 damage (only to normal enemies, not bosses, EXCEPT for Exor), to fighting Culex, to all the steps you need to do to unlock the lazy shell, and hundreds of others I forgot or never knew about, it felt like a truly endless adventure.

Relevant Cybershell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKdkWTbUkIQ

I was surprised how much of this was new to me.

Re: Super Mario RPG is an endearing, perplexing relic

#30

Post by dota_fanatic »

swozey wrote: post #23

This is one of my favorite JRPGs. I played it as a kid and it was right up there with the greats for me. If you liked Chrono Trigger, etc, play this. With that said, I am so sick of remakes. When I first heard a 2023 Super Mario RPG was coming out I was so excited that we'd get an actual 2023 SMRPG. Not a remake. Everything is a remake nowadays. I have zero, absolutely zero desire to replay a game I beat when I was 1…

Fwiw, FF7 Remake is something different, to both acclaim and great upset. It occurs after the original timeline but in the original timeline—Aeris and Sephiroth both know what happened in the OG timeline and S is trying to remake it better according to his aims. Also there’s a bit of a Kingdom Hearts-ification to some of the main story beats, which is my main complaint.

Many people are so upset because they didnt get what youre saying would be so bad, an actual remake or remaster.

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