Over the years there have been many Mario RPGs. Both the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series have around a half dozen games to their name, but we mustn’t forget about the original. Despite so many games following in its footsteps Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars remains one of the best. Developed by Square at the peak of their ability and released in 1996 it was one of the very last games from the company to be released on a Nintendo console for years to come.
Using an art style similar to that debuted in Donkey Kong Country consisting of sprites rendered from 3D polygonal models the game looks really good. We see more life and depth from Mario's animations than we ever had before. It's low res by today's standards, but at the time it was very impressive, and I still like how it looks. Your party members also have unique animations for most of the different weapons they use which lends variety to the combat.
Mario RPG brings new life to the Mario world in more ways than just animation quality, however, the biggest change Square brings to the table is an actual story and characters. For the first time it feels like Mario is on an epic quest in a living world, rather than just progressing through an arbitrary number of disconnected levels. The story itself is completely fresh for the Mario series. As the first game to include a story with any sort of depth or detail it would have been understandable or even obvious to simply make it a telling of the already standard Mario Vs. Bowser conflict, Square rejects this concept and instead aims for something more ambitious. Instead of the expected big battle with King Koopa taking place at the end of the game, it's the introduction, as if to say "yes, yes, we know how this goes already." The stakes are then raised past damsels in distress as a new threat appears that requires that Mario and Bowser eventually join forces to defeat it. This is great especially because of the personality that Square gives Bowser. He's not just your standard evil maniac bent on capturing princesses and conquering the world, but he has a softer side too. We see that he cares about his minions, and has his own insecurities that he hides behind bluster and a fierce exterior. Bowser is easily the standout of Mario's companions this time around, but all of them are fun and interesting in their own right. Mallow has the most complete character arc, growing from a species confused crybaby to the competent prince of a race of cloud people. Geno is mysterious and cool, a wooden action figure that apparently fires rockets hard enough to knock Mario unconscious (before it is brought to life by magic, mind you) possessed by some sort of extra-dimensional cop. What's not to like? Princess Toadstool is the last to join the party and gets the least time to shine, but it's nice to see her kicking butt herself for a change instead of only ever being rescued. Even Mario, despite being a mute, shines as his own character. It's always fun watching him pantomime out a scene, only for someone to completely misunderstand the meaning of his charade. The game generally has fun with both Mario and JRPG tropes.
The minor NPCs that fill out the world have enough dialogue that they each feel individual, and it's updated enough that the world feels like it's alive and reacting to changes within it. It's not quite to the level of Mother 3, but it's enough. There's a part of the game where you can read a bunch of unattributed wishes made by the people of the world, and it's fairly easy to guess as to which specific NPC made which wish in a decent number of cases even though most of them don't have names. In general the dialogue is charmingly written and genuinely funny at times, and is definitely a highpoint of the game. The game is packed full of fun villains, from bomb throwing maniacs to evil power rangers. Booster and his Sniffits are a blast whenever they are on screen. Booster's Tower and Marrymore are definitely my favorite part of the game.
Combat has two major advantages when compared to most traditional JRPGs, and even Square's own Final Fantasy. First is that there are no random encounters. Every enemy you fight is visible on the overworld and many are avoidable with good movement. Grinding is also unnecessary, since the game isn't especially difficult. I've beaten the game at level 15 fighting only necessary enemies without too much difficulty. The second advantage is what the game calls 'timed hits.' When attacking or defending you can press a button with good timing to either do a little more damage or improve your defense. It's not a lot, but it goes a long way to making turn based combat more engaging. It just feels right to push the button when the attack lands, it's like if pressing the button as the pokeball bounces was an actual mechanic and not just wishful thinking. Many of the bosses also have unique mechanics that keep combat fresh, like Bowyer who will alternately prevent you from choosing commands from the X, Y, and A button, or Blooper who will periodically steal away one of your party members to do god knows what for a few turns before they are returned trembling.
Mario RPG is a game that is always ready to add variety to spice up the experience. There are plenty of minigames sprinkled throughout to break up the action, from riding minecarts or barrels down waterfalls, to catching beetles you never know what Mario is going to be doing next. I know not everybody likes minigames, but I think it's a fun way to break up the action, and Mario RPG's minigames are mostly well done and don't overstay their welcome.
While the game world is small by modern standards, I've always felt that quality is more important than quantity and this game is jam packed with things to find. There are a surprising number of secrets, side quests, and easter eggs, some rather difficult to find. Not just hidden chests, but entire areas, minigames, and bosses require exploration off the beaten path to uncover. There are also a fair number of cameos by characters from other Nintendo properties and even and optional fight against a generic Final Fantasy villain, complete with crystals. It's difficult to describe, but I really enjoy the way things are hidden in this game. Even playing the game as many times as I have, I still feel like there could be something I haven't found yet. This definitely isn't the case with later games.
I always find it difficult to discuss music very much beyond simply saying "it's good," but it's good. Beware the Forest's Mushroom is one of my favorite songs from a video game ever.
The game isn't perfect, however, Smithy himself does not get much screen time or development and ends up not particularly interesting and is overshadowed by a lot of his minions. This is forgivable, however, because the journey to reach him is so much fun, and the credits cinematic is pretty great too. No standard black screen with scrolling names for this game. No, instead all the characters and villains in the game put on a parade to celebrate your victory. That is emblematic of the game in general, it goes above and beyond the call of duty in every respect ending with a game packed with joy, humour, and passion, setting the high standard that future Mario RPGs would uphold for a number of years.
Now I would like to spend a little time and look at how Mario RPG compares with a few of its successors, namely Paper Mario, The Thousand Year Door, and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. And Super Paper Mario too, I guess, a little.
Paper Mario:
This game is so heavily inspired by Mario RPG it may as well be called a re-boot. The wish granting Star Rod is stolen, rather than the wish granting Star Road being broken. Mario must again collect seven stars for a star spirit. There are towns consisting of friendly versions of standard Mario enemies. There's even another end credit parade sequence. Bowser retains the personality established in Mario RPG, but we've taken a step backwards to cast him once more as the main villain. Of all the games to come, I think Paper Mario is the greatest contender to challenge Mario RPG for top spot. I love Paper Mario, TTYD, and Mario RPG all dearly, and choosing between them is difficult. Paper Mario has creative areas full of colorful characters. Dialogue updates for almost everybody in the game chapter to chapter. The new paper aesthetic is great. Music is great. It's almost a perfect game. There are a few aspects that are inferior to Mario RPG, However. There are not as many secrets in the game and most of them are limited to star pieces or badges. They are simply not as well hidden or as meaningful as previously. There are more partners in the game, but they have less of a role in the plot. Starting here, partners begin to be more like tools than characters. They get decent introductions, but after that their involvement is limited to the odd sentence here and there. There are fewer minigames and the few that are there are less fleshed out, or as fun. Lastly, and debatably the combat is simplified. You may call it streamlined, and the badge system is pretty good, but the way action commands work compared to timed hits shifts the game away from strategy and traditional JRPG combat to be more action focused. Your party members don't even have health. It's not necessarily worse, and I do like both systems. In fact I can't really decide which I like more so I'm not really sure why I brought it up other than to make note of the change.
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is a great game. I love it and it's really good, but after playing these games as many times as I have, I can't in good conscience call it the best of the three. The basic plot is better than Paper Mario, more on the level of Mario RPG, using Bowser in a new, creative way. Combat is a pure upgrade from Paper Mario. The game looks better, has more and better minigames, and better secrets. Party member are more interesting and have a few more chances to talk (though still lack the direct involvement that they had in Mario RPG). Goombella in particular is much more interesting that Goombario, putting a sassy slant on all her tattle dialogue rather than just giving us a textbook reading. Some of the areas are the most fun and inventive we've ever seen from a Mario RPG. So how could this game possibly come out lower than its predecessors when I'm praising it on every level? Unfortunately TTYD has two major flaws. The game world is much more linear than previous games and you will find yourself running back and forth across entire levels dodging/battling the same enemies over and over an obnoxious number of times. You need to cross Keelhaul Key no less than 5 times and the less said about the quest to find General White the better. The other problem is that the dialogue doesn't update between chapters as much as it did in the previous game. Nearly everybody in Toad Town had new dialogue every single chapter, and most of the characters in the other towns would change a couple times too. However in Rogueport it felt like the characters that updated their dialogue between chapters were the exception and often the new dialogue is the same as the old, with a very slight variation. Like the guy who blows all his money at the casino and every chapter the amount is 100 coins higher, or the guy who's hiding in a dump and always accuses you of horning in on his hiding spot and comments on a different aspect of its decrepitude. In the first Paper Mario the random NPC dialogue wasn't quite enough to establish everybody as their own interesting character, but it was close, but here they feel more static than ever, which is a disappointment.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is a good game, but that's as far as I'll go on it. It's really good for the GBA but simply doesn't compare to the other 3 that I've talked about thus far. It's nice to see Mario and Luigi working together for a change, and their combat animations are a joy to watch. There's a reason that SMBZ was created. However, the writing just isn't on the level previously seen. The game is so obsessed with its bean theme that it ends up feeling a little infantile. (Reinforced in the sequel where you play as literal infants.) The dialogue simply isn't as witty either and some of it is a little cringey. The combat is even more reliant on hitting the action commands than ever before and if you miss, you just simply aren't doing damage. It's not a bad system though. It's been a lot of years since I've replayed it, but I think NPC dialogue updates even more rarely than TTYD, if at all. It's a fun enough game, but no masterpiece. Honestly, I just learned when writing this up that Superstar Saga had the same director as Super Mario RPG, which really surprised me.
Super Paper Mario
Super Paper Mario is on a level similar to Superstar Saga. The writing is a little better at times, but the game looks awful. This is mostly a result of the aesthetic choice to create almost all the new art by jamming together random shapes. It looks so low effort I never found it stopped being distracting. Mario's partners are just straight up tools in this game. They have an introduction and then never speak again. The game isn't even an RPG. Honestly, there are things to enjoy about the game, but this is clearly the start of the downfall of the Paper Mario series.
And that's it! I could talk about Sticker Star and Partner's in Time and Bowser's Inside Story, but ehh... What's the point? Those games are pretty underwhelming and I've only played them once. I haven't played any of the later ones either. So that's it. All this is to say that Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is still a great game and anyone who hasn't played it needs to rectify this immediately. (Also played Paper Mario and TTYD while you're at it.)
Using an art style similar to that debuted in Donkey Kong Country consisting of sprites rendered from 3D polygonal models the game looks really good. We see more life and depth from Mario's animations than we ever had before. It's low res by today's standards, but at the time it was very impressive, and I still like how it looks. Your party members also have unique animations for most of the different weapons they use which lends variety to the combat.
Mario RPG brings new life to the Mario world in more ways than just animation quality, however, the biggest change Square brings to the table is an actual story and characters. For the first time it feels like Mario is on an epic quest in a living world, rather than just progressing through an arbitrary number of disconnected levels. The story itself is completely fresh for the Mario series. As the first game to include a story with any sort of depth or detail it would have been understandable or even obvious to simply make it a telling of the already standard Mario Vs. Bowser conflict, Square rejects this concept and instead aims for something more ambitious. Instead of the expected big battle with King Koopa taking place at the end of the game, it's the introduction, as if to say "yes, yes, we know how this goes already." The stakes are then raised past damsels in distress as a new threat appears that requires that Mario and Bowser eventually join forces to defeat it. This is great especially because of the personality that Square gives Bowser. He's not just your standard evil maniac bent on capturing princesses and conquering the world, but he has a softer side too. We see that he cares about his minions, and has his own insecurities that he hides behind bluster and a fierce exterior. Bowser is easily the standout of Mario's companions this time around, but all of them are fun and interesting in their own right. Mallow has the most complete character arc, growing from a species confused crybaby to the competent prince of a race of cloud people. Geno is mysterious and cool, a wooden action figure that apparently fires rockets hard enough to knock Mario unconscious (before it is brought to life by magic, mind you) possessed by some sort of extra-dimensional cop. What's not to like? Princess Toadstool is the last to join the party and gets the least time to shine, but it's nice to see her kicking butt herself for a change instead of only ever being rescued. Even Mario, despite being a mute, shines as his own character. It's always fun watching him pantomime out a scene, only for someone to completely misunderstand the meaning of his charade. The game generally has fun with both Mario and JRPG tropes.
The minor NPCs that fill out the world have enough dialogue that they each feel individual, and it's updated enough that the world feels like it's alive and reacting to changes within it. It's not quite to the level of Mother 3, but it's enough. There's a part of the game where you can read a bunch of unattributed wishes made by the people of the world, and it's fairly easy to guess as to which specific NPC made which wish in a decent number of cases even though most of them don't have names. In general the dialogue is charmingly written and genuinely funny at times, and is definitely a highpoint of the game. The game is packed full of fun villains, from bomb throwing maniacs to evil power rangers. Booster and his Sniffits are a blast whenever they are on screen. Booster's Tower and Marrymore are definitely my favorite part of the game.
Combat has two major advantages when compared to most traditional JRPGs, and even Square's own Final Fantasy. First is that there are no random encounters. Every enemy you fight is visible on the overworld and many are avoidable with good movement. Grinding is also unnecessary, since the game isn't especially difficult. I've beaten the game at level 15 fighting only necessary enemies without too much difficulty. The second advantage is what the game calls 'timed hits.' When attacking or defending you can press a button with good timing to either do a little more damage or improve your defense. It's not a lot, but it goes a long way to making turn based combat more engaging. It just feels right to push the button when the attack lands, it's like if pressing the button as the pokeball bounces was an actual mechanic and not just wishful thinking. Many of the bosses also have unique mechanics that keep combat fresh, like Bowyer who will alternately prevent you from choosing commands from the X, Y, and A button, or Blooper who will periodically steal away one of your party members to do god knows what for a few turns before they are returned trembling.
Mario RPG is a game that is always ready to add variety to spice up the experience. There are plenty of minigames sprinkled throughout to break up the action, from riding minecarts or barrels down waterfalls, to catching beetles you never know what Mario is going to be doing next. I know not everybody likes minigames, but I think it's a fun way to break up the action, and Mario RPG's minigames are mostly well done and don't overstay their welcome.
While the game world is small by modern standards, I've always felt that quality is more important than quantity and this game is jam packed with things to find. There are a surprising number of secrets, side quests, and easter eggs, some rather difficult to find. Not just hidden chests, but entire areas, minigames, and bosses require exploration off the beaten path to uncover. There are also a fair number of cameos by characters from other Nintendo properties and even and optional fight against a generic Final Fantasy villain, complete with crystals. It's difficult to describe, but I really enjoy the way things are hidden in this game. Even playing the game as many times as I have, I still feel like there could be something I haven't found yet. This definitely isn't the case with later games.
I always find it difficult to discuss music very much beyond simply saying "it's good," but it's good. Beware the Forest's Mushroom is one of my favorite songs from a video game ever.
The game isn't perfect, however, Smithy himself does not get much screen time or development and ends up not particularly interesting and is overshadowed by a lot of his minions. This is forgivable, however, because the journey to reach him is so much fun, and the credits cinematic is pretty great too. No standard black screen with scrolling names for this game. No, instead all the characters and villains in the game put on a parade to celebrate your victory. That is emblematic of the game in general, it goes above and beyond the call of duty in every respect ending with a game packed with joy, humour, and passion, setting the high standard that future Mario RPGs would uphold for a number of years.
Now I would like to spend a little time and look at how Mario RPG compares with a few of its successors, namely Paper Mario, The Thousand Year Door, and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. And Super Paper Mario too, I guess, a little.
Paper Mario:
This game is so heavily inspired by Mario RPG it may as well be called a re-boot. The wish granting Star Rod is stolen, rather than the wish granting Star Road being broken. Mario must again collect seven stars for a star spirit. There are towns consisting of friendly versions of standard Mario enemies. There's even another end credit parade sequence. Bowser retains the personality established in Mario RPG, but we've taken a step backwards to cast him once more as the main villain. Of all the games to come, I think Paper Mario is the greatest contender to challenge Mario RPG for top spot. I love Paper Mario, TTYD, and Mario RPG all dearly, and choosing between them is difficult. Paper Mario has creative areas full of colorful characters. Dialogue updates for almost everybody in the game chapter to chapter. The new paper aesthetic is great. Music is great. It's almost a perfect game. There are a few aspects that are inferior to Mario RPG, However. There are not as many secrets in the game and most of them are limited to star pieces or badges. They are simply not as well hidden or as meaningful as previously. There are more partners in the game, but they have less of a role in the plot. Starting here, partners begin to be more like tools than characters. They get decent introductions, but after that their involvement is limited to the odd sentence here and there. There are fewer minigames and the few that are there are less fleshed out, or as fun. Lastly, and debatably the combat is simplified. You may call it streamlined, and the badge system is pretty good, but the way action commands work compared to timed hits shifts the game away from strategy and traditional JRPG combat to be more action focused. Your party members don't even have health. It's not necessarily worse, and I do like both systems. In fact I can't really decide which I like more so I'm not really sure why I brought it up other than to make note of the change.
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is a great game. I love it and it's really good, but after playing these games as many times as I have, I can't in good conscience call it the best of the three. The basic plot is better than Paper Mario, more on the level of Mario RPG, using Bowser in a new, creative way. Combat is a pure upgrade from Paper Mario. The game looks better, has more and better minigames, and better secrets. Party member are more interesting and have a few more chances to talk (though still lack the direct involvement that they had in Mario RPG). Goombella in particular is much more interesting that Goombario, putting a sassy slant on all her tattle dialogue rather than just giving us a textbook reading. Some of the areas are the most fun and inventive we've ever seen from a Mario RPG. So how could this game possibly come out lower than its predecessors when I'm praising it on every level? Unfortunately TTYD has two major flaws. The game world is much more linear than previous games and you will find yourself running back and forth across entire levels dodging/battling the same enemies over and over an obnoxious number of times. You need to cross Keelhaul Key no less than 5 times and the less said about the quest to find General White the better. The other problem is that the dialogue doesn't update between chapters as much as it did in the previous game. Nearly everybody in Toad Town had new dialogue every single chapter, and most of the characters in the other towns would change a couple times too. However in Rogueport it felt like the characters that updated their dialogue between chapters were the exception and often the new dialogue is the same as the old, with a very slight variation. Like the guy who blows all his money at the casino and every chapter the amount is 100 coins higher, or the guy who's hiding in a dump and always accuses you of horning in on his hiding spot and comments on a different aspect of its decrepitude. In the first Paper Mario the random NPC dialogue wasn't quite enough to establish everybody as their own interesting character, but it was close, but here they feel more static than ever, which is a disappointment.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is a good game, but that's as far as I'll go on it. It's really good for the GBA but simply doesn't compare to the other 3 that I've talked about thus far. It's nice to see Mario and Luigi working together for a change, and their combat animations are a joy to watch. There's a reason that SMBZ was created. However, the writing just isn't on the level previously seen. The game is so obsessed with its bean theme that it ends up feeling a little infantile. (Reinforced in the sequel where you play as literal infants.) The dialogue simply isn't as witty either and some of it is a little cringey. The combat is even more reliant on hitting the action commands than ever before and if you miss, you just simply aren't doing damage. It's not a bad system though. It's been a lot of years since I've replayed it, but I think NPC dialogue updates even more rarely than TTYD, if at all. It's a fun enough game, but no masterpiece. Honestly, I just learned when writing this up that Superstar Saga had the same director as Super Mario RPG, which really surprised me.
Super Paper Mario
Super Paper Mario is on a level similar to Superstar Saga. The writing is a little better at times, but the game looks awful. This is mostly a result of the aesthetic choice to create almost all the new art by jamming together random shapes. It looks so low effort I never found it stopped being distracting. Mario's partners are just straight up tools in this game. They have an introduction and then never speak again. The game isn't even an RPG. Honestly, there are things to enjoy about the game, but this is clearly the start of the downfall of the Paper Mario series.
And that's it! I could talk about Sticker Star and Partner's in Time and Bowser's Inside Story, but ehh... What's the point? Those games are pretty underwhelming and I've only played them once. I haven't played any of the later ones either. So that's it. All this is to say that Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is still a great game and anyone who hasn't played it needs to rectify this immediately. (Also played Paper Mario and TTYD while you're at it.)
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