Also available on Super Nintendo, Wii, and Wii U (original version) Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is one of the almost legendary Super Nintendo games, one of the games that always commands a high price and that every Super Nintendo enthusiast worth his salt would include on a Top 10 list. It’s been released on Virtual Console on Wii and Wii U as well as being included in the Super Nintendo Classic Edition, so even if you don’t have the fairly pricey Super Nintendo cartridge, it’s been pretty readily available. Still, fans have spent twenty years clamoring for a remake, and we finally got it in late 2023 - a full from-the-ground-up and extremely faithful remake for the Switch. The premise is that Bowser kidnapped Peach (as usual), but as he was gloating his victory, a giant sword crashes into his castle. Mario, Peach, and Bowers are all ejected from the castle which is then overrun by minions of an unknown antagonist named Smithy. Mario begins to make his way through the world on his quest to find and then rescue Princess Peach. As he progresses, he assembles a team of four allies to help him - the cute and kind of pitiful Mallow, the iconic doll-possessed-by-a-star-spirit Geno, the Koopa king Bowser himself, and even Princess Peach. Over the course of Mario’s quest, the intention shifts from “rescue Peach” to “defeat Smithy and his army.” You’ll find enemies both familiar and foreign as you quest your way across the land. Being an RPG, the purpose here is to win battles to get money to buy better equipment and to gain experience points to level up and improve your stats. There is some platforming, as it’s still Mario, but the platforming really takes a back seat to the RPG action. One of the cool aspects of the game that makes it a little more engaging than “press A to win” like a lot of turn based RPGs end up being is the chance to increase the damage of your attacks or totally nullify enemy attacks. If you press A just before your attack lands or just before an enemy attack lands, you’ll boost your damage or nullify any damage to you, respectively. The timing is different for each character, each weapon, and each enemy, but once you get a feel for it, you can really turn the tides of an otherwise difficult fight. As far as RPGs go, Super Mario RPG is very short. The remake lets you choose between the normal difficulty and an easier difficulty, but even on normal, I cleared it in about 10 hours, and several of my friends have done it in 7 or 8 hours. Still, though, this game is a case of quality over quantity. It may not be the 40 to 60 hour JRPG a lot of us expect from the genre, but the hours it does last are endlessly charming and addictively fun. Another nice feature of the remake is the ability to switch on the fly between the original 16-bit music and the new modern renditions of the game’s music. I kept it on the modern music for the full remake feel, but it was definitely a nice nod to our collective nostalgia from the 1990s. Super Mario RPG isn’t necessarily a perfect game, but it is devilishly fun, and I consider it a must-play for any Switch owner. If you’re not an RPG guy, this may be your exception to that rule, and if the family-friendly nature of the Mario franchise has never been your cup of tea, this might get you to reconsider. It’s not brutally difficult but still extremely engaging, and it’s just an all around fun and charming experience that’s uniquely ‘90s now brought into the 2020s with all of the care and polish you’d expect from a modern game. My Rating - A |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
April 2024
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