YMMV / Super Mario RPG

Original

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • The elder of Seaside Town (who is actually Yaridovich/Speardovich) says he got his position by "pleasing my superiors, which is something I do well."
  • King Calamari's tentacles will often take a party member and move them offscreen. When they return, they're inflicted with the "Fear" status... The remake changes this to show the party member being flung into the air before falling to the ground.
• Arc Fatigue: The amount of time spent between getting the fifth and sixth Star Pieces is gruelingly long. The Seaside Town mayor instructs you to go to Monstro Town for the next Star Piece, but to get there, you have to go through Land's End, one of the longest levels in the game, on top of having an unexpected rematch with Belome. Then, this turns out to be a Red Herring, leading you instead to Bean Valley to look for the Star Piece further. The pace does start to pick back up upon reaching Nimbus Land, but even once Valentina is dealt with, you still have to trek through Barrel Volcano in order to find the sixth Star Piece.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Mallow. Some love him as much as other common fan-favorite Geno for his unique appearance, cool abilities, and significant character arc. Others dislike him for being a cutesy crybaby, relatively irrelevant to the main plot, and overshadowed ability-wise by the other characters.
  • As time has gone on, Geno himself has increasingly gained this status. Fans who like Geno have a genuine fondness for the character due to his significant role in this game. Common points for why he's so popular with these fans include a rather unique design, cool-looking abilities (including a One-Hit Kill move when timed right), and the aura of mystery that surrounds him. Those who don't like Geno say the character's immense popularity as an Ensemble Dark Horse is unwarranted. Even his in-battle performance is controversial: while Geno Boost's utility is undeniable and his magic attacks are both strong and easy to use, to the point of near-omnipresence in parties, his detractors argue that his kit is costly and comparatively bland, and his frailty means that he'll need more healing and revival items/spells than other party members.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • Sure it's just a tutorial boss that you have to try to lose, but the opening fight with Bowser is epic in concept. Mario gets to the throne room and finds it empty, then looks up and sees Bowser laughing at him from atop one of two chandeliers hanging in the room, Toadstool strung up between them. Mario hops on to the other chandelier as they rise up and the two duel high above the throne room, culminating with Mario attacking the chain holding Bowser's chandelier and making it release him to a Disney Villain Death. Which Bowser then reverses by throwing a hammer up to weaken Mario's chain and bring him down with him.
  • Johnny Jones. After exploring the very long Sunken Ship level to get to his throne room, he engages you with a quartet of pirates. Unlike other bosses, Johnny doesn't call more minions if you dispose of them... only because when you do so, he laughs at how good of a fight you're giving him, and challenges Mario to a one-on-one brawl. The fight then becomes a Duel Boss as Mario and Johnny brawl with Mario's allies and Johnny's pirates cheering them on.
  • The Axem Rangers, a parody of Power Rangers / Super Sentai where each of them have a unique fighting style, and when you beat them all they channel their power into their airship to fire a Wave-Motion Gun. The fight itself is epic, made even moreso by FINALLY getting the sixth Star Piece that you've by this point been put through hell to find.
  • Exor. Mario and his allies ascend to the highest turrets of Bowser's Keep and engage a giant sword so huge its handle is bigger than your three party members combined. The sight of Exor sticking out of Bowser's Keep is the game's Signature Scene that all the marketing featured prominently, so it's arguable that the entire game has been building to this battle.
  • Culex, the superboss. Mario and friends go toe-to-toe with a Greater-Scope Villain refugee from the Final Fantasy series, and prevail.
• Better Off Sold:
  • Pure Waters can instantly kill undead enemies and said item is frequently dropped by them. However, undead enemies aren't fought that frequently, and by the time you leave the dungeon they're found in, your inventory might be filled with Pure Water and have to be sold off to make room. Pure Water sells for 75 coins each, which can be a very easy money grind if you need it.
  • Goodie Bag, a secret item in Booster Tower. Although it is an unlimited source of free coins, the fact that you only get one per use and you can only use it during battle makes it an exceedingly slow method of getting money. Selling it nets you a few hundred coins instantly, which is probably more than you're ever going to use it in battle as it is.
  • The Signal Ring's purpose is to detect hidden treasure chests. It is found very late in the game, with only one such chest remaining anywhere yet unexplored, does not provide any benefits in battle, and if you're using the player's guide or a walkthrough to find them or otherwise already know where they all are, you might as well pawn it off. Averted in the remake, where it's given to you after the Hidden Treasure tutorial, early in the game.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • While climbing Booster Tower, Mario goes behind a curtain and... inexplicably emerges transformed into his 8-bit sprite from the original Super Mario Bros., complete with the old chiptune music playing. And when he tries to leave the room, he seems to realize his condition, and the "low time" music plays as he reverts to small Mario, hurries back to the curtains, and emerges from them as his RPG self again. Even he seems confused by the incident, shaking his head as if to snap himself out of it.
  • Bundt. It makes perfect sense for the chefs at the chapel to be angry that Booster's wedding is called off after they worked so hard on the cake, and they attack the party. However, during the fight the cake inexplicably comes to life, the chefs are surprised and horrified and flee, and the cake is the boss of Marrymore, with no explanation of how it came alive and no foreshadowing of such either.
  • The entire sequence with Boomer in the return trip to Bowser's Keep. Boomer is some kind of robot samurai that duels the party in a recreation of the Bowser fight at the start of the game, and the game treats him like some major rival despite the fact that he was introduced about fifteen seconds before the boss battle against him begins. Following his defeat, the Shy Guy holding up your chandelier lugs you up to the top of the Keep while jaunty music plays and your party members dance a jig. The whole sequence comes completely out of nowhere and is never explained or mentioned again.
• Breather Level: Star Hill. It's a pretty short area where you find a Star without any interference from the Smithy Gang or any boss fight. The original player's guide even calls the star you find here a reward, after all the trouble you went through in Booster's Tower and Marrymore. Made up for by the hell you're gonna be going through to get the next two stars.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: The fact that Mallow, a white cloud with arms and legs, is not a tadpole. Upon recruiting him, the game even immediately points out that he doesn't look at all like a tadpole, but he's still shocked when Frogfucius points it out to him.
• Character Perception Evolution: Thanks to his fanbase and as-of-yet exclusivity to this game, Geno has undergone this. For more than two decades after the game's release, Geno would be lionized as a forgotten yet standout relic of Super Mario RPG, with an increasingly vocal fanbase adoring his unique design, powerful and flashy combat abilities, bigger stake in the game's ultimate goal than Mario himself, and association with nostalgia for Mario RPG. However, due to increasing demands for Geno to appear in other games, particularly the vaunted Super Smash Bros. series, he would come to attract a backlash of annoyed detractors towards the middle and end of The New '10s, with many pointing out that he didn't have much presence in the game's story other than being Mr. Exposition and feeling that he didn't deserve to be so acclaimed for how he is a One-Shot Character in a spin-off. This would lead to Geno going from one of the premier darkhorses of the Mario franchise to being a highly divisive character. Geno's popularity would see an uptick again following the remake's release, ironically in response to newer fans seeing the dorkier side of him beneath the badass qualities older fans always praised him for.
• Common Knowledge: A minor one, but unlike a lot other RPG games with Action Commands (including future Mario RPGs), you can still block enemy attacks when under the mushroom or sleep status (if they are blockable). This is a bit less relevant in late game where enemies who can turn you into mushrooms or put you to sleep can and will use more unblockable attacks, but this can still be interesting to find out.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • While the game encourages you to experiment with your party, expect experienced players to always use a Mario/Toadstool/Geno party. Toadstool's healing is powerful and cheap, while Geno has some of the best attacks in the game, and Mario cannot be removed from the party. Bowser suffers from terrible magic defense (which will be exploited by many late game bosses), and Mallow's spell list is useful early on but made redundant when Geno and Toadstool join. The remake tries to move away from this; while Mario/Peach/Geno is still the best default party setup, their Triple Move is one of the worst in the game, party members can be freely switched during battle, and the superboss rematches can't just be cheesed with a Lazy Shell-equipped Peach, encouraging use of Mallow and Bowser in certain situations.
  • In terms of armor, Work Pants are heavily favored due to their well-rounded buff to all stats and that any party member can use them. The ability to guard hits helps to offset the low defense, especially in the remake where you can guard against more magic attacks and negate all damage with a perfect block. Players building attack-focused parties or speedrunning tend to keep them on the entire game. The exceptions are the Super Suit which is the strongest armor with even better attack and speed boosts or putting the Lazy Shell on Peach to keep her from dying while she heals the party.
• Cult Classic: Regarded as such, especially in North America. The SNES game did receive critical acclaim, but its success was limited because the Nintendo 64 was released four months later with a far more commercially successful and famous game, Super Mario 64, and the game was released against an increasingly-successful and robust PS1 library, to boot.
• Demographically Inappropriate Humour: In the Japanese version, the thought of the Goombette (Mamekuribō) enemy that can be read with Mallow's Psychopath ability is "omame kurikuri... kuri! jowa~" which roughly translates to "Rub the bean, rub the bean, rub, rub… rub! Splosh~", mimicking female masturbation.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Mastadooms on Star Hill have high HP and defense, cast strong party-hitting spells, and use a bone-throwing physical attack that can one-shot anyone besides Bowser if it isn't blocked. Star Hill may be short, but it's still common to pick a fight with much weaker enemies like Sackits only for a Mastadoom to be in the formation as well. The remake makes them even worse because they can spawn as Special Enemies, giving them boss-level health so they have plenty of time to use their enhanced attacks.
  • Dry Bones and their variant Vomers in Barrel Volcano and the battle gauntlets in Bowser's Keep. They're immune to physical attacks, and can only be killed by special attacks or an item called Pure Water. Woe betide you if you fight them in Bowser's Keep and have neither Pure Waters nor Flower Points. And just like how they worked in the platformer games, defeating them without the use of an Invincibility Star only temporarily collapses them into a pile of bones on the overworld, which reassembles itself after a few seconds which means you may have to fight them again.
• Difficulty Spike: Seaside Town is the point the game stops pulling its punches. Enemies start appearing in larger groups and hit harder, bosses are much more powerful and have more HP than before (and most of the That One Boss entries below come post-Seaside Town), and the increasingly high casting costs of special attacks will drain your party's FP and force you to fight more strategically.
• Ending Fatigue: After maintaining a brisk pace through the first two thirds, some find the game slows a bit after you beat Yaridovich and get the fifth Star Piece. The trek for the sixth star takes you through Land's End, Bean Valley, Nimbus Land, and then Barrel Volcano. All of these areas are rather long, have at least one boss in them (Nimbus Land has two, as well as skippable miniboss fights, and Barrel Volcano has three) and Nimbus Land also has a lot of cutscenes to sit through. Then it's on to Bowser's Castle which is even longer than the previous areas and at one point forces you to fight your way through four of six random hallways, which variably pit you against difficult platformer segments, logic problems, or just a gauntlet of enemies. You then get to the final dungeon which has six bosses. This can make the last parts of the game drag for some players, though others don’t mind due the great memorability of most of the late game areas (especially Land’s End and the Factory) and the bosses (The Axem Rangers being an especially big highlight).
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Boshi, due to him having a very unique design from all other Yoshis who generally look the same aside from different coloration and for being a mean bully in an otherwise Always Lawful Good species of dinosaurs. Note that he is otherwise completely irrelevant to the main plot.
  • Booster is widely considered to be one of the funniest characters in the game thanks to his status as a Manchild looking to have fun with his Snifits and bride-to-be, along with his weirdly endearing sense of No Social Skills. That he's an Expy of Wario makes him stick out all the more to fans.
  • The Axem Rangers are the most popular among the villains thanks to their memorable parody of Super Sentai/Power Rangers.
  • Culex is very popular for being a Shout-Out to Final Fantasy, an epic superboss and Affably Evil Noble Demon.
• Evil Is Cool: More like jerkasses are cool, but whoever on the development team thought "let's give a Yoshi a spiked collar and sunglasses" deserves major props for coming up with Boshi.
• Fan Nickname: Exor's mouth is inexplicably named Neosquid in the original SNES English localization. The sheer absurdity of the name has led some to use it to refer to Exor himself.
• First Installment Wins: Many consider this game to be the best of Mario's RPGs, partly due to its uniquely surreal take on Mario’s world and never being followed up with a true sequel unlike the others.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Toadstool/Peach. With a Timed Hit, her Group Hug spell will heal enough HP to likely restore everyone to full and also cures status ailments, for a measly 4 FP. She also learns Come Back, which revives a party member at full HP with a Timed Hit, also just for 4 FP. And her ultimate weapon is one of the best in the game and allows her to hit just as hard as Geno or Bowser. Having her in the party makes you pretty much invincible unless a group of enemies concentrates their fire on her, or a really powerful group attack kills everyone at once.
  • Geno's Geno Whirl deals 9999 on a timed hit. It doesn't work on bosses, but in the late game areas like Nimbus Land, Barrel Volcano, and Bowser's Castle, he can quickly wipe out beefy normal enemies.
  • The Lazy Shell armor gives a massive defensive boost and immunity to elemental and status attacks. The trade-off is that their offensive stats are crippled, but if you equip Peach with it, it just means her healing spells are a bit less powerful (though still powerful enough to keep the party alive), but your healer is now nigh-indestructible, even making Culex easy to beat.
  • The Quartz Charm and the Jinx Belt. They require beating some brutal Superbosses to get (Culex and Jinx, respectively), but both give ridiculously high stat boosts to whomever equips them, and they also prevent instant death.
  • The Safety Badge and Safety Ring prevent all status attacks, and the Safety Ring also guards against elemental and instant death attacks. Before you get the Lazy Shell, they're almost as good for protecting characters from a lot of things thrown at them.
  • The Ghost Medal doubles a character's defense and magic defense. And it's ridiculously easy to get, if you know how — it's the reward for completing the scavenger hunt with the Three Musty Fears, which requires you to visit three early game areas and inspect specific spots in the area. You don't even have to fight a single enemy.
  • The Super Suit is extremely difficult to get, requiring you do 100 Super Jumps with Mario, something that requires a ton of patience and skill. But in exchange you get the best armor in the game that gives +50 to all stats and +30 to Speed, turning any character into a Lightning Bruiser.
    • In the process of doing this, you'll earn the Attack Scarf for Mario by doing 30 Super Jumps. The Attack Scarf boosts all stats, including Speed, by 30, and it's an accessory while the Super Suit is an armor piece, so they can stack.
  • Once you get to Marrymore, you can buy Kerokero Colas by staying in the luxury suite. Kerokero Colas restore the party's HP and FP to full, so there's no reason to ever use any other healing items. The only drawback is the cost — staying in the luxury suite costs 200 coins and each cola costs 150 coins, but there's no shortage of ways to farm coins in this game. Once you get to Monstro Town, you can complete the Tadpole Pond music sidequest and buy Kerokero Colas there for 200 coins each, making them even more accessible. In the remake on the other hand, you can only carry three Croaka Colas at a time.
  • In Land's End, you can play the cliff-climbing minigame with Sergeant Flutter endlessly, and if you can complete it in under 12 seconds, he gives you 5 Frog Coins. With only a few minutes of work, you can get enough coins to buy out all the great items from the frog in Seaside Town (including an item to instantly flee from battle, an accessory to double obtained experience, and an accessory that cuts FP costs in half) and can also stock up on items from Tadpole Pond that boost the party's stats. In the remake on the other hand, the times have been reduced by one second to make it harder.
• Genius Bonus: Smilax and Megasmilax are named after an actual plant genus that bears red berries.
• Goddamn Bats:
  • The Boo enemies in Kero Sewers can be very annoying early-game enemies to deal with despite being frail. They have high evasion and pack annoying lightning attacks to boot. Additionally they will inflict fear on you to make your party members frail as well. Fortunately they're not really deadly and if they're hit with a Physical attack, they should be done in quickly.
  • The Shy Guys in the following area (Rose Way) are pesky due to either forcing your characters to sleep or silencing them to prevent the usage of skills. Neither of these status effects are annoying, but good luck if you're facing a "Special" variant of them.
• Good Bad Bugs: There's a way to glitch the level-up system in a way that characters learn each other's spells instead. The best way to take advantage of this is to have Toadstool (with the highest magic attack) "steal" Geno and Mallow's spell lists.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The Ship Tease at Marrymore between Peach and Mario when Peach mentions wanting to get married someday isn't quite as funny when Super Mario Odyssey not only revolved around Bowser trying to force Peach to marry him, but ended with Peach turning down Mario's marriage proposal due to getting caught up one-upping Bowser's instead of being able to properly propose to Peach. Sure, It Makes Sense in Context and left it open for a future Relationship Upgrade, but still!
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Punchinello was a one-shot boss in the original game who is never seen after his defeat and his sole wish was to become famous. In the remake, he appears in the ending standing on stage with the rest of the cast and his handiwork with enhancing Bowser's Chain Chomp impresses the latter enough to offer him a job fixing up his castle, giving Punchinello the shot at fame he always wanted.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Princess Toadstool wears pink, has golden hair, and uses a frying pan for a weapon.
    • She also uses bombs for her ultimate attack, which makes her choice of weapon against Francis' dating sim in Super Paper Mario even funnier. She really must've hated that part.
  • Luigi's wish is to be as heroic as his brother, something that sort of comes true in Luigi's Mansion.
  • The end credits and the design of the Mushroom Kingdom's castle are a reference to the Disney theme parks' electric parade, guess what other RPG Square would end up creating two console generations later and with the same music composer no less?
    • Also, the Shadow enemy is a slightly-amorphous being that's all black save for its two yellow dots for eyes, just like the Kingdom Hearts enemy of the same name (though KH's is much less menacing; the Neoshadow might be a better fit).
  • During the boss fight against Count Down, he'll announce what time it currently is and follow it up with a corresponding attack. When it's 12:00, he'll say "It's high noon" and unleash a powerful spell that attacks your entire team.
  • "Dark Star" is the name of a spell many late-game enemies use, but it would also be used for the villainous character from Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.
  • Shortly before the final boss, Bowser gets angry at being ignored by Smithy's minions. He recites a haiku about his lot in life, and then turns away and sulks, as Mario pats him on the back to comfort him. The game's Japanese commercial also had Mario wandering around in a realistic city and a Piranha Plant wearing his hat and mustache.
  • At Seaside Town, there's a frog at the inn who drinks tea and remarks, "it's probably none of my concern" regarding the strange goings-on in town. It's like it predicted the Kermit meme 20 years early.
  • During the Marrymore Wedding, it is possible to have Bowser kiss Mario ... which gets really hilarious several years later in light of the Bowsette memes, which partially originated as a parody of Mario and Bowser getting over their rejected wedding advances at the end of Super Mario Odyssey and dating each other afterwards.
  • In Monstro Town, you get an item called the Super Suit from a Chow after jumping on an enemy 100 times in a row using the Super Jump attack. So, that's where Frozone's wife hid it!
  • Geno's design resembles Pinocchio, especially the Disney version. Super Mario Galaxy would eventually introduce Rosalina, whose design makes her somewhat resemble the Blue Fairy.
  • Speaking of Galaxy, that game would also feature a cephalopod boss named King Kaliente.
• Ho Yay: In Marrymore, when you interrupt Booster's attempt to marry Toadstool, it's possible to end up with Bowser kissing Booster, either of them kissing Mario, or both of them kissing Mario.
• Hype Backlash: While Geno is still a massive Ensemble Dark Horse in the franchise, several people consider him overrated, believing the character's fandom love to be overblown considering his lack of appearances beyond RPG and a cameo in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Booster, considering the fact that he did kidnap Princess Toadstool, just like Bowser, but really he's just lonely and wants to have friends.
  • Bowser, courtesy of being an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain. All he wants is his castle back, but his efforts to take it back result in his troops abandoning him until he's alone. When you find him crying outside Booster Tower, jealous of the fact that Booster has such a nice home, you just want to give the big guy a hug.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Mallow's certainly a likeable character, but his battle prowess is less than adequate compared to other characters once you finish Marrymore. Princess Toadstool is a much better dedicated healer than Mallow (most of her healing moves being able to restore everyone to full health and remove status effects) and her Frying Pan allows her to hit as hard as Bowser, and Geno is by far the best offensive character when he gets Geno Blast around the same time Mallow learns Snowy. While he does eventually learn Star Rain, potentially the strongest crowd control attack in the party, and it costs less than the similar Geno Blast, it's harder to time. Fortunately, the remake's revamped battle system was kind to him: it's easier to scout the elemental weaknesses that Mallow's attacks prey on, you can switch him into battle at any time if you find them, and his passive Magic Attack boost makes him and Geno (when boosted by him) the best magic attackers in the party. His healing has improved as well, being able to fully heal a targeted character with a fairly easily timed Action Command, and his Triple Move with Mario and Peach, Healing Rainbow, is an impressive full-party heal, even for the inactive party members.
  • Bowser is often considered the worst party member, and for good reason: he suffers from Crippling Overspecialization, having awesome physical stats but terrible Magic Defense. Even when given all the level-up bonuses you can muster, he's still not great at taking the magic attacks that many bosses frequently use, especially starting around the mid-game. His weapons and armor don't help his case, as they provide the lowest stat increases by far (his best purchasable weapon is as powerful as Toadstool's worst weapon and all but his last piece of armor is outclassed by the Work Pants). While he's still not on par with the other characters in the remake, he's another beneficiary of the revamped battle system: parties with Bowser receive a passive Defense buff, perfect timed hits let his strong attacks inflict splash damage, he has good Triple Move options, and he can be switched into battle at any time against physically-inclined enemies. Like Geno and Mallow, he also gets a much better Post-End Game Content weapon that lets him catch up a little.
• Magnificent Bastard: Johnathan "Johnny" Jones is the affable captain of the Sunken Ship crew guarding the fifth star piece. Having his ship sunk by King Calamari, he quarantines the squid in a password protected room before his quarters and sets up several puzzle rooms to prevent anyone from taking his star. Should Mario defeat all his minions, Johnny challenges him to a duel. When Mario proves his mettle, Johnny decides to relinquish the star to him, only for it to be taken by Yaridovich. Fortunately, Johnny predicted this, and stops the Blade from taking Yaridovich away, allowing Mario to defeat him and get back the star, showing an indisputable Noble Demon side.
• Memetic Badass:
  • The Axem Rangers, due to their attacks and such, but also because of their rather, um... morphinomenal traits.
  • Geno. His stats, his weapons, his attack methods, his appearance... you'd be hard-pressed to find anything about him that isn't awesome. Ironically, newer fans of the game brought in by the remake often claim to love him because he isn't the stoic badass that older fans claim that he is.
• Memetic Loser: Conversely, Geno also tends to get this due to the extremely fervent group of people convinced that he will be in the next Smash game (and being proven wrong at just about every turn), a faction that has been extant since Brawl and kind of never went away, despite Geno's popularity lowering due to Hype Backlash.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The EYE is protecting Exor!!
  • Sledge ^ExplanationSmithy's most iconic attack, where he summons a giant wooden sledgehammer from the ceiling to squash Mario and his party. It's always the first move he does when you fight him and is one of the most visually impactful special attacks in the game.
  • Geno better be in this game.^ExplanationA more serious example. Due to Geno's status as an Ensemble Dark Horse, fans have been hoping for years that he appears in a later game. Even though it's highly impossible for him to appear in a later game due to copyrights by Square Enix.
  • Rawest Forest^ExplanationSeveral web artists made vocal rap remixes of the Mushroom Forest theme. One of them, Rawest Forest, became popular enough to not only persist on YouTube and Newgrounds, but to also become incorporated into Nico Nico Douga musical medleys. Exiting the forest is super simple, all you do is follow these path turns... for the rest of your gaming life...
  • VIP Teacher^ExplanationOne of the most popular lyric covers of the forest themes after Rawest Forest. Originally known as "Mariotropolis", this one gained its name when one of its lines, "peeps insane" was misheard as "VIP sensei/teacher", and became popular in Japan.
  • What if the Forest Maze had lyrics? Here's NintendoCapriSun with a remix you never knew you needed. (Animated version.)
    I am in the forest walking around
    But my friend Geno cannot be found
    I've been looking up, and I've been looking down
    And there's no sign of that blue assclown
    He was once a doll, but now he lives
    Life out of nowhere, so hey, what gives?
    I have heard the monsters in here can be hell
    Will Mr. Blue Sky be fine by himself?
    • There's also the JayEazy version of the song.
  • Video remixes of "Fight Against an Armed Boss" (a.k.a. the Smithy Gang's boss theme) are quite popular on Nico Nico Douga. One video based on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future is particularly well-known among western audiences.
  • After Supper Mario Broth posted a full artwork of Fat Yoshi◊ (though his actual name, according to Nintendo's Strategy Guide and the Nintendo Magazine System UK is Baby Fat), he became prime shitposting material due to his goofy appearance alone.
  • In Japanese, the Guerrilla enemy is named "Dosoki Yung", which is "Donkey Kong" with two of the katakana changed to lookalikes. His Psychopath/Thought Peek quote is a This Is a Work of Fiction disclaimer (which was retained in the English Switch remake), which leads to mentions of that trope being jokingly replied with pictures of Guerrilla by Japanese fans.
  • "Why did monke in chains? What crime doth he commit?"^ExplanationA line from Charriii5's Everything Wrong With video on the game pertaining to the Guerrilla enemy ended up catching on as a cheeky means of asking why a big name person is undergoing controversy.
  • "Claymation Mario" ^ExplanationEarly 3D had a distinct look to it - with some people comparing the pre-rendered sprites to Claymation, much like in the game series ClayFighter
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • That wooshing sound a boss makes as it disappears upon being defeated, which is often followed by the jingle of coins.
  • The "Irrepressible Star" music, more than usual — you get exp for all the enemies you kill with it, so grabbing a star is usually a sure level up or two for the entire party.
  • The sound of using an item and getting a freebie.
• Narm Charm: The revelation that Mallow is not a tadpole is so obvious that it's a Captain Obvious Reveal (even the game pokes fun at it), but when Frogfucius follows up by revealing how he found Mallow when he was a baby, it's so sad and well-done that the scene ends up being a Tear Jerker instead.
• Nightmare Fuel: More details on the series page.
• Older Than They Think: This game marks the first appearance of Peach's Castle and not Super Mario 64, although here the castle looks very different from the design that would be standardized in 64, and it is called Mushroom Castle in this game. Interestingly, the remake differentiates the castle further from Peach's Castle by making the roof blue, like the world map in this game, rather than bringing it in line with modern Mario games.
• Once Original, Now Common: This game was groundbreaking in ways that are easily taken for granted years later. It introduced Action Commands, which became a staple of all future Mario RPGs, had Peach as a fully developed playable character instead of a pure Damsel in Distress, and greatly fleshed-out Bowser's personality while having him Promoted to Playable. Beyond the Mario series, the game was an RPG with a heavy focus on comedy at a time when most took themselves very seriously. However, these features and concepts became far less revolutionary over time, with RPGs that don't take themselves all too seriously becoming much more common in later decades. Peach and Bowser's characterization would also become the standard for most future Mario RPGs, with Action Commands also becoming very popular in both Mario and non-Mario RPGs. This has caused many to deem the game dated in comparison to later Mario RPGs, many citing the shared FP mechanic, relatively linear progression, poor character balance, and lack of first strikes.
• Retroactive Recognition: The game's composer is none other than Yoko Shimomura, who would later become the beloved composer of the Kingdom Hearts series, Final Fantasy XV, and of course, the Mario & Luigi series.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The Flower Points system. Flower Points (FP) are the game's MP system for special attacks, but unlike most RPGs where characters have their own individual MP pools, FP is shared by the party. Most special attacks worth using in the late-game cost at least 10 FP, probably more, FP caps at a maximum of 99, and Maple Syrup to restore FP only restores 40 points (the Royal Syrup restores 99 but is very rare). The first two Paper Mario games use the same system, but at least there you have more ways of recovering it, as well as badges which allow you to buff up your non-Flower Point damage output and star powers which use a different meter entirely.
  • Following Geno through the Forest Maze, you hit two points where Geno stops appearing and you have to get past five screens until you can just follow Geno like normal again. Even then it's still a pain with all the random battles trying to distract you and forget where you're supposed to go. The arrows help direct you, but of course the game doesn't hint at that, and it's still difficult even if you do know.
  • The inventory system. Not only does it have a paltry amount of space (around 20 slots), but unlike traditional RPGs where multiple copies of consumable items are put in the same slot, consumables you get in this game go into individual slots. You also can't expand your inventory. What exacerbates the problem further are several items that are unique and are categorized as regular items instead of key items (such as the membership card to Grate Guy's Casino). This means that you're stuck with rare items you don't want to throw away, which makes your limited inventory space even smaller. The remake did away with inventory problems, both offering ample space and allowing items to stack.
  • Unlike in later Mario RPGs with an Action Commands system, attacks that inflict status effects will inflict them even if they're blocked perfectly (this still applies in the remake, where many magic status attacks are now blockable). Combine this with a status effect's duration being reset if it's inflicted again, and it's easy for a party member to get locked into a status for an entire battle or until they're manually cured. A lot of later bosses have a habit of outright stunlocking the whole party with sleep or mushroom, meaning they can't even be healed from it unless someone (hopefully Toadstool) is equipped with status immunity and can cure everyone else.
• Self-Fanservice: While Valentina is already attractive, fan artists have a tendency of making her face more humanlike and making her skinny torso more anatomically accurate.
• Serial Numbers Filed Off: Change around the character and location names and you'd swear you were playing a Final Fantasy game based on the story and gameplay. A definite case of Tropes Are Tools though, because it's still a great game worthy of being in either franchise.
• Signature Scene:
  • The shot of Mario gazing at Exor embedded in Bowser's Castle from Vista Hill.
  • The battle against Exor itself later on from atop Bowser's Castle. Rule of Cool is in full effect here.
  • The battle against Culex, for being unlike anything else ever seen in a Mario game before or since.
• Signature Song: "Beware of Forest Mushrooms" is far and away the most iconic song in the game, both for its impact on the YouTube and Nico Nico Douga remixing communities, as well as it becoming Geno's de facto Bootstrapped Theme as of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
• Squick: Would eating rotten mushrooms in the middle of a fight induce vomiting or healing? And how gross do you think the inside of Belome's mouth is, especially after having recently eaten your teammates?
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • "This Is Booster Tower" sounds a bit like the song "Comanche" by The Revels, most notable for being part of the soundtrack of Pulp Fiction.
  • "Beware of Forest Mushrooms" sounds similar to "Castle on a Cloud" from Les Misérables.
• That One Achievement: "Where's My Super Suit" requires getting 100 Super Jumps, one of the most challenging things to do in the game.
• That One Attack:
  • Sand Storm, a powerful group attack that not only deals considerable damage to your entire party but also induces the Fear status, which cuts offense and defense in half.
  • Yaridovich's Water Blast is multi-target and hits like a truck even if your party is decently-levelled when you face him. It's not uncommon for the battle to be going swimmingly until Yari pulls this and causes a Total Party Kill. And despite its name, it's Non-Elemental, so the Safety Ring won't protect you from it.
  • Dark Star is the most powerful special an enemy can have and easily scores triple-digit damage even on a high-leveled, fully-armored player. At least unlike the move it's based on (Mallow's Star Rain), it only targets one character. It's easier to deal with in the remake where single-target magic can be blocked, as Dark Star's slow and readable animation makes it simple to perfect guard, though it's still very dangerous if the timing is missed.
  • Petal Blast, which inflicts the entire party with the Mushroom status, preventing the character from taking any action for three turns until it wears off. And numerous end game bosses use it. If the party all gets transformed into Mushrooms, it's pretty much a game over unless you get very lucky, and unlike petrification in other RPGs, it's not an instant game over; you have to sit and watch as the enemy beats you senseless with no way to fight back. And to add insult to injury, the Mushroom effect gives a slight HP regen, dragging your demise out even longer. The remake thankfully rectifies this by allowing your two affected party members to switch out (assuming they haven't turned into mushrooms either).
  • Shredder is a rare ability that nullifies any stat boosts you gave yourself during the battle (not that the game tells you this). Did you know it also applies to stat-boosting equipment? Fortunately, only the Final Boss and the superboss can use this move.
  • Smithy brings those Those Two Attacks, Meteor Swarm and Magnum. Meteor Storm is an extremely powerful multi-hit move (the strongest in the game, in fact, as everything stronger is single-target), and Magnum is a One-Hit Kill move almost impossible to time against to prevent the KO. Worse, the form that can use Meteor Swarm can get two turns in a row.
  • Aurora Beam and Light Bubble. Both spells can put the entire party to sleep and woe to you if the enemy decides to keep wailing on you with magic attacks, which won't wake sleeping characters up.
  • Culex's normal physical attack. Unlike every other enemy in the game, his physical attack has no animation and hits instantly, dealing a lot of damage and likely knocking out one of your party members if they barely survived the onslaught of attacks from the Crystals. While you can guard against it with a timed button press, you have to be practically guessing at whether or not Culex will hit you with this or a magic spell instead. In the remake, he now flashes before using physical attacks, much like in the games he references, which makes it a little easier.
• That One Boss: Easy Levels, Hard Bosses is on the main page for a good reason, but even then, some bosses are just brutal.
  • Croco's rematch in Moleville. He's proportionately as strong as the first time relative to the point of the game you're in, but when his HP gets low, he'll steal your party's items and start spamming Chomp, an extremely powerful physical attack with some wonky timing to defend against. Without items, your only source of healing is Mallow's HP Rain, but if you were careless with special attacks up until then then you're probably low on FP for it and have no way to recover FP now. For that matter if Mallow or anyone else dies, you have no way to revive them.
  • Bundt, a living cake. Its gimmick is that when you have to blow out its candles by hitting it with physical attacks, but the cake gets two turns for each round of attacks your party gets, and Bundt will relight one of the candles on each of its turns. Its attacks include Sand Storm, a powerful group magic attack that inflicts Fear, cutting the party's attack and defense in half, making blowing out the candles that much more difficult. While Fear can be blocked with Fearless Pins from Rose Town, Sand Storm still deals a lot of damage you need to heal, and turns spent healing are turns you aren't blowing out Bundt's candles, dragging the fight on longer. As a mercy, once Bundt is dead the remaining Raspberry is no threat alone, relying only on its comparatively wimpy physical attack.
  • Yaridovich, primarily due to Water Blast, an extremely powerful non-elemental attack. Toadstool is practically required to survive the fight, and even with her help Yaridovich is a pain, since the princess is a Squishy Wizard who can be downed by Yaridovich's normal attacks easily.
  • Barrel Volcano has Czar Dragon and Zombone back to back. Czar Dragon has Iron Maiden to inflict Fear, Water Blast, and continually summons Helios which will ram themselves into party members on the next turn to blow up and deal heavy damage. Then immediately when you kill it, it rises again as Zombone, trading in one set of dangerous spells for another, with Boulder (a group attack even worse than Water Blast), Blast and Storm (powerful single attacks) and Scream (Fear).
  • Immediately after Czar Dragon and Zombone are The Axem Rangers, a Wolfpack Boss. Pink will turn the party into mushrooms and heal her allies, Green can spam powerful magic attacks that hit the party, Black and Yellow can use powerful physical attacks and Black gets two attacks each turn, and Red has more HP than the others and if you save him for later in the fight he'll use Vigor Up to increase his attack power. The numbers are simply not on your side as you try to take them down while keeping the party alive. When you finally beat them all though, they activate their ship's main weapon, which becomes a new enemy with 999 HP. Its only attack is Breaker Beam, one of the most powerful attacks in the game, which deals massive damage to the entire party. You will almost certainly see someone drop from it, if not the entire party since you probably didn't expect to be hit so greatly by a new opponent as you beat up the last of the Rangers and thus your party wasn't fully healed. The Rangers can only fire the Breaker Beam every other turn and spend the spare turn recharging, and you need that leeway to heal the party up to survive the next blast while doing what damage you can back.
• That One Puzzle: The Forest Maze has lived on in infamy for the puzzle right before the fight against Bowyer, where Mario has to follow Geno's route to the boss. For starters, there are multiple enemies in every room of the maze, which means that battles can occur that distract the player from remembering where Geno is headed. Combine that with the cramped space of each room, and it's easy for Mario to be repeatedly ambushed by enemies before continuing to track Geno down, especially by Buzzers and their erratic flight patterns. However, what makes the search for Geno truly annoying is that in the third-to-last room before Bowyer, Geno is nowhere to be found, so the player has to blindly guess which direction he headed in, and should they guess wrong, it's back to the start of the puzzle.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Speak to a particular Chow in Monstro Town, and it will tell you how many Super Jumps you've managed to make in a single use of the technique. What some players never realize is that you can go back and receive an extremely handsome reward if your record hits 30 Super Jumps, and a much, much better one at 100. This requires perfect timing, rock-solid concentration, and lots and lots and lots of practice.
  • The Mushroom Derby is also known to be very frustrating to some players, since while the game tells you that you need to hit A and B in time with the rhythm in order to move Yoshi forward, it's very difficult to get the timing down, and if you can't manage that, you won't stand a chance.
  • Getting to Grate Guy's Casino is more a Guide Dang It!, but getting his Star Egg — a rare item that always does 100 points of damage to ALL enemies onscreen which can be used infinite times — is this. You have to win his "Look the Other Way" game 100 times, which is pure luck. There's no strategy or planning involved — it's literally just choosing right or left and hoping for the best.
  • The Surprise Boxes. Any players who literally haven't consulted a guide beforehand would be guaranteed to have one measly Surprise Box hidden in the world even after poking everything. Where is it? Princess Toadstool's Castle. Only at the beginning of the game. Basically it involves the specific Toad you've been talking to on the way there. Before he runs off to the Throne Room in the main hall, you have to jump on his head and then jump on the archway where the Surprise Box is. No, you can't simply come back for it later with a different Toad who periodically walks in front of that archway, as the first Toad somehow makes you jump higher when using him as a springboard. Even worse, you'll later meet a Chester who tells you how many Surprise Boxes you haven't found and there's a detection item which makes a noise when a Surprise Box is present, pretty much making it permanent in that room by the time you get it. The remake fortunately solves this by placing a Toad walking around that you can jump on, even after subsequent visits to the castle.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Yoshi gets top billing alongside the main cast on the Japanese Super Famicom box art^note The Switch version's box art, which is based off said Japanese one, has him omitted entirely despite not being a playable character or having any major involvement in the story. His appearance in this game is pretty underwhelming, and he definitely would have made an interesting party member.
• Tough Act to Follow: At first. As the series' first RPG, and one handled by Squaresoft (one of the genre's reigning kings in 1996), it set high expectations for later role-playing Mario titles. Paper Mario, which was first announced as a direct sequel to Super Mario RPG, was initially met coldly by fans despite critical praise as a result of its radical differences from its predecessor, requiring it to be Vindicated by History in the latter half of the 2000s. Nowadays, the different Mario RPG subseries occupy their own niches among fans, so stacking up to this game is much less of an issue.
• Values Dissonance: A mild example of it caused Bowser's victory pose to be changed. In the Japanese version, his pose was a Bicep-Polishing Gesture. That gesture isn't used in North America, and it looks very similar to slap-the-crook-of-your-elbow, which means roughly the same thing as the middle finger. Bowser's victory pose was thus changed into a double fist clench in the English version.
• Viewer Name Confusion: The giant sword is not Smithy. His name is actually Exor. Smithy is his boss. Even the North American marketing team fell victim to this confusion, as promotional material refers to Exor as "Smithy the Sword". It's understandable, though: although the antagonists openly state they act in the name of the "Smithy Gang", it's never clearly stated who Smithy is, and Smithy himself does not make an appearance until the very last fight of the game. Many people just assumed that the large, threatening sword distinctively impaled in Bowser's Keep was meant to be the Big Bad.
• Vindicated by History: While it wasn't an outright failure at release, Mario RPG was overshadowed both by the wildly successful PlayStation and the impending release of Nintendo's own Nintendo 64, with its own Mario title of some renown. Many SNES players were moving on to bigger things, with Mario RPG being a comparative blip on the gaming radar. By the end of the millennium, however, it went on to become a much beloved title, and many consider it to be one of the greatest games in the Super Nintendo library.
• The Woobie: Many characters count for this, but Mallow really stands out in this area. It rains when he cries. Which he does. A lot.
• Woolseyism: Although the terminology is questionable, the man himself led the localization, so you can expect quite a bit of this.
  • When Croco steals Mallow's coin and runs off, Mallow yells at the Toad lookout and asks why he didn't step in. In the Japanese version, the Toad says that he's only a lookout. In the English version, he sarcastically quips that he "forgot his bazooka at home". The mental image of a Toad with a firearm is so funny, many Western gamers prefer the translation over the original and were very pleased to find the remake didn't remove it amidst other tweaks to the localized script.
  • Bowser's haiku in the Japanese version is him sounding forlorn about the attention Mario gets. In the English version, this is changed to him complaining that he's Surrounded by Idiots, which better suits his characterization as not wanting to seem wimpy around the other characters.
  • The living clock boss is simply named "Moebius" in Japanese. In the English version, however, his name was changed to "Count Down".

Remake Exclusive

• Alternative Character Interpretation: The Geno Clone's Thought Peek in the Belome rematch seems wildly Out of Character at first glance: is it just a simple mistake in the cloning process, like the Bowser Clone's odd speech pattern, or insight into the real Geno's Character Development? By this point, the party and many other characters have made countless wishes on Star Hill come true, as evidenced by the ending, through their own personal efforts... all while the Star Road is still in complete tatters, despite his repeated claims that it must be repaired to have a world where wishes come true. Perhaps he has come to see the Star Road in a new light, not as a magical artifact that grants wishes to people all by itself, but as a motivational symbol - if not Motivational Lie outright - that merely inspires and enables the people to make their wishes reality through their own hard work and dedication.
  Geno Clone: Truth is, I don't care one bit about Star Pieces.
• Awesome Music: Accompanying the descent of the ultimate Superboss, Culex 3D, Yoko Shimomura gets her turn at rearranging the iconic "Battle 2" from Final Fantasy IV. The result is a mind-blowing Orchestral Bombing arrangement that sounds like it would feel right at home in Kingdom Hearts III.
• Breather Boss: Of all of the post-game rematches, Jinx is the easiest of the bunch. While a lot of the other bosses have potential for wiping out your entire party, you just fight Jinx himself and the worst he can do is knock out one party member at a time if you're unlucky (which compared to Punchinello, Booster, and Bundt, is saying something, and he can already do this during the third fight against him anyways), which can be mitigated with Peach. He now also uses Silver Bullet if you fail an action command, but this can be ignored if you have accessories that protect against instant kill moves. In fact, the "goal" is just to hit him with a Triple Move, which he does reset at the beginning of the fight. This is also considering that if you're following the Frog Sage's advice, is set right after Jonathan Jones' fight and right before 3D Culex.
• Demonic Spiders: While some of the Special Enemies are just really bulky and not too difficult to deal with, some of them are outright brutal and can kill your team rather quickly. You also have no idea when a Special Enemy will appear - they'll just appear randomly in battle. To make matters worse, special enemies can't be insta-killed with Geno Whirl.
  • The Special version of the Enigmas in the Mole Mines are an early example of how brutal the mechanic can really be on the right foe. A lot of their attacks (at the time) will do a lot of damage, most likely killing Geno very easily due to his low defense. Their Echofinder move most likely crippling your magic capability doesn't help matters either.
  • Big Troopas and Grand Troopas are already bulky, but the Special versions are able to withstand a ton of punishment. Additionally, their Launch attack is pretty much guaranteed to kill a party member.
  • The Machine Mades in Smithy's Factory are able to become Special Enemies as well, and you'll be in for a really annoying battle if Bowyer (whose normal counterpart already had more health than the first Bowyer you fought) happens to become one. The fact he constantly disables particular commands will screw you over, especially if you're trying to conserve Flower Points.
• Franchise Original Sin: The remake's international box art was widely criticized for being too plain when the original game's North American box looked a lot cooler, but this isn't the first time that the international art was just an adaption of the Japanese art. That happened first with the Mario & Luigi series starting with its third game, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, but the minimalism in that series is widely more accepted because the covers still display the character dynamics of everyone involved, such as Luigi getting scared by Bowser or Paper Mario jumping onto the cover art from a peeling-back corner. The Super Mario RPG remake, by contrast, is nothing but the party characters standing in neutral positions in a white void with the logo below them.
• Game-Breaker: Because of the revamped inventory system, many items that were balanced around the original inventory system are now much more useful, because you can carry large quantities of them without drawback.
  • Pure Water is dropped by undead enemies like it's going out of style and sells for 75 coins, letting you easily rack up lots of money as soon as you get to Kero Sewers and start meeting Boos and Shadows.
  • You can now carry 10 Fire Bombs and 10 Ice Bombs, which deal fixed damage to all enemies, but get a 50% damage boost if the user is under an attack-boosting effect, and the damage is doubled if it hits a weakness. With the increased cap of coins to four digits and the streamlined interface, you can easily amass points at the Moleville shop to trade in for these items, and they'll let any character deal hundreds of damage to all enemies every turn with no drawback.
  • You can carry up to 20 Yoshi Cookies, twice as many as most items, giving you more incentive than ever to use them. Yoshi Cookies let you farm rare items easily, including Energizers, Bracers, Max Mushrooms, Royal Syrups, Fire Bombs, Ice Bombs, and more. Further, the game's auto-save makes it easy to cheese the Mushroom Derby; bet 10 cookies and if you lose, just quit to the Switch home menu and re-open the game and try again. You can carry a full stock of Yoshi Cookies throughout the game and pick up a lot of good items with them. Once you complete Marrymore, you can return to Yo'ster Isle and feed the baby/fat Yoshi all the cookies he can eat to get powerful items, including Red Essences.
  • It’s pretty clear the Triple Moves were intended for the post-game boss rematches, as using them against most bosses in the main campaign will usually either result in you one shotting the boss in question, or leaving the boss close to being one shotted by a basic attack. The only real notable exceptions to this are Culex and Smithy. Once you get into the post game, the Triple Moves, while still useful, are no longer as overpowered as they are in the main story as the post-game rematches are designed with them in mind.
• Goddamned Boss: The rematch with Belome is the first one most players will fight and, while not the hardest, is certainly the most annoying. The gimmick given to Belome makes it so that, now when he summons his clones, they will shield him from any damage. Killing the clones isn't too hard, but Belome will summon them fairly often (and this can't be blocked with Mute, either) and both of his magic attacks can put your party to sleep, forcing players to waste time waking them up, on top of the fact that the Peach clone can heal him, making for an annoying slog to get through.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: The remake has been criticized for its overall lack of difficulty compared to the original, as several party members' attacks have been buffed, new triple moves have been added, and more enemy attacks are blockable compared to the original. On top of that, the game now autosaves whenever you enter a room, making the consequences of dying minimal. The boss rematches have been praised for their higher difficulty, though.
• Jerkass Woobie: The new lore in the Monster List turned Dodo into this for many. Sure, he's still a Fat Bastard assisting Valentina in her plot to take the Nimbus Land throne. But now the remake tells us Dodo imprinted on Valentina when he hatched and saw her as his mother, which makes a lot of the abuse he suffers from her harder to stomach. Even worse is how despite her horrible treatment of him, he can't leave her because he feels indebted to her for raising him, and it could be argued that Dodo's nastier traits are a direct result of Valentina's Abusive Parenting. You just wanna give the poor guy a hug and get him away from her!
• Low-Tier Letdown: Mario, Geno, and Peach's Triple Move, "Spare-Us-All", does have the potential to come in clutch in certain situations, as it allows each active party member to tank one attack without taking any damage. However, this requires a lot more forethought on the player's part for them to be able to guess when an enemy is about to use their strongest attack, which is a lot harder than it sounds, as most enemies and bosses work on an A.I. Roulette instead of having set attack patterns you can follow. Compared to either hitting a field or a single enemy hard with an attack, buffing the entire party, or healing everyone, it often ends up being a lot more situational in comparison. This may have been done to encourage use of the other two party members in tandem with the new battle mechanics such as passive buffs and free switching, as the original game was infamous for the Complacent Gaming Syndrome of a Mario/Geno/Toadstool party outclassing all other party setups by a longshot. The one place where this move does shine is the Culex rematch, where the fact that his HP to One attack is on a countdown makes it easy to predict when to use Spare-Us-All.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Finally! Geno fans will be able to play Super Mario RPG for the first time!^ExplanationWhile memes poking fun at the reputation of Geno fans as being a case of Praising Shows You Don't Watch (however true or not) have existed for decades, this particular variant of it exploded upon the announcement of the Switch remake.
  • Please say it's a placeholder!^ExplanationWhen the game's box art was revealed, people started complaining about it being too plain and looking like a placeholder. This caused fan forums and Twitter pages to be filled with people joking about it. Come the final release, and it turned out to not be a placeholder. Eventually, an alternate reversible cover, using the original SNES boxart would be made available for My Nintendo users.
  • Do the Mario!^ExplanationWhen fans learned about the player characters' dances in the new level-up screens, many took note that Mario's dance looks almost one-to-one with "The Mario" from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'s credits, leading to fans syncing up the dance with the music.
    • The level-up screen dances as a whole have on multiple occasions been synced to various different songs.
  • Peak "Fat Little German Boy" Vibes^ExplanationA Tumblr user posted a doodle sheet of Mallow that describes him this way at one point. Numerous fans on Tumblr have since agreed with this sentiment and repeated it verbatium when posting their own Mallow artwork or even just talking about him.
• Moe: The models for the remake are absolutely adorable due to their stumpy chibi-esque designs. In particular, Peach looks incredibly huggable when she's sitting in the flower field near Mario's house in the intro. The September 14, 2023 direct even has a cute moment of her swinging her parasol back and forth with Mario and Geno following her movements.
• Older Than They Think:
  • This isn't the first instance of a remake changing Mario's peace/victory sign pose, which was actually a response from Miyamoto himself. In Super Mario 64 DS, Mario's pose was completely replaced as well — however. it was more subtle — just holding his fist up instead.
  • It's not the first time the Blue Snifits^note Who represent the "normal" Snifits fought in the game got a modern design upgrade. Paper Mario: Color Splash was the first game that finally gave all colored Snifits^note Green and Pink from Super Mario Bros. 2, in addition to the aforementioned Blue, which first appeared in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! before making their game debut in the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. 2 their current designs, with new Yellow Snifits being introduced as well.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Valentina's treatment of Dodo is abusive, and despite this Dodo cannot defy her and has been shaped into a lazy, ill-tempered glutton as a result. The remake gives us more insight into this via his monster list profile — Dodo imprinted on Valentina when he hatched, thus seeing her as an Abusive Parent and more importantly is resentfully loyal because he's unable to repay the debt of being raised by her. This is similar to how some abusive parents in real life control their children, who suffer emotionally and mentally as a result.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: While more of a Base-Breaker than an outright Scrappy (see the "Original" folder above), Mallow in the original was hated by many for being a crybaby and having little to no reason to be kept around once Peach joins the party. The remake, however, gives him more expressive animations, repainting him as a joyful little guy who, in spite of how easily he cries, is always ready to do his best. And on the gameplay side, the ability to swap allies on the fly has given Mallow a unique niche to fill as a scout, in addition to being a low-cost crowd control character who can serve as a backup healer in a pinch, bolstered further by Thought Peek now revealing enemies' elemental and status weaknesses. While players of the original were known to quickly replace Mallow with Toadstool and forget about him, many players of the remake both new and returning have proclaimed Mallow to be their most used party member.
• Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic: In the original game, the Signal Ring was introduced way too late into the game to be considered useful, and, as such, was considered Better Off Sold. Now it's given out at the start of the game by a Toad in the Mushroom Kingdom item shop who teaches Mario about hidden treasure chests, making its usefulness more practical. Meanwhile, the part where you would've gotten the Signal Ring in the original game now gives you the Echo Signal Ring, which is an enhanced version of the Signal Ring that beeps as you get closer to hidden treasures.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The announcement of a full 3D remake of this title for the Nintendo Switch was seen as a long shot for various reasons. The original game was made by Square Enix instead of Nintendo. Various staff members who made this game (including both directors) moved to and founded AlphaDream, which filed for bankruptcy in 2019 due to the financial failure of Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey, leaving that RPG series in limbo. While Super Mario RPG was added to the Wii/Wii U Virtual Console service and the SNES Mini, Square Enix hadn't re-released this game (or any of their other collaboration games with Nintendo) on the Nintendo Switch Online via ports or remakes. All of this made a rerelease or remake of Super Mario RPG seem very unlikely, and thus all the more surprising when it was announced.
  • The developer of the remake was not announced in the months leading up to launch, leading to a great deal of speculation on who would be behind it. Various ideas were thrown around, like an internal team within Square Enix (due to the game's models seemingly being based directly on the ones used to create the original sprites, as numerous ambiguous objects were cleared up immensely in the remake), NDCube (due to the UI resembling the ones from their modern Mario Party games), and Grezzo (given their usual focus on remakes). Few predicted ArtePiazza would be the team behind the remake, despite their track record of faithful, expertly updated remakes for Square Enix; for some, their involvement only increased their excitement for the remake.
  • While players were expecting Culex to return, there was uncertainty over whether he'd remain a 2D sprite in line with his character in the Japanese version, or if he would be fully modeled. But few could've guessed the actual approach they went with: not only does he appear in his original 16-bit 2D sprite glory for his main fight alongside the original SNES music used, his rematch Superboss form is a full 3D model which looks awesome and appropriately has a tough battle showing his mastery over the third dimension, on top of all songs associated with him getting full arrangements.
  • Many speculated that due to the more off-kilter renamings and Nintendo's more strict brand consistency since the original release, that the game would get fully retranslated. However, while some names were swapped around and one or two pop culture references removed, the English translation is almost entirely intact — Woolseyisms and all — which pleasantly shocked everyone.
• Tainted by the Preview: While reception to the remake's announcement overall has been positive, some people are worried about how perfectly timed hits from normal attacks now hit all enemies in battle (albeit not as heavily as the one you attacked directly), making some worry it might make the game too easy, especially when it comes to Wolfpack Boss fights such as the Axem Rangers. Though it was later revealed that new harder "Special Enemies", randomly encountered during battle have been added to compensate, many fans are still worrying if it's enough. Not helping was that later promotional material would reveal that an Easy Mode (called Breezy Mode) would be added to the game that makes it even easier, with no Hard Mode seemingly existing. That being said though, the boss rematches that were added into the remake are brutal in comparison to the rest of the game's difficulty, to the point where the Culex rematch, despite being optional, is essentially a nightmare of a superboss that will decimate any novice player in a matter of turns.
• That One Attack: Bolt is a single-target electrical move that deals pitiful damage. What pushes it to this trope is that its animation is extremely fast, making it very difficult to block it because it'll hit as soon as you read the text box, and failing to block it can break your hit chain, rob your party of their buffs, and totally ruin your team's momentum.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The box art has gotten some small flack from a couple of communities. It's a shot of the five main characters with a white background — a Call-Back to the Super Famicom one without Yoshi. For a number of people who preferred the North American box art (with Mario, Peach, Bowser, and Bowser's Keep with Exor on top), they consider it a bit too minimalist. The fact it drops the "Legend of the Seven Stars" Market-Based Title that some western players are fond of doesn't help matters either.
  • Some people have expressed disappointment that various Woolseyisms have been changed to be more accurate to the original Japanese script, like Frogfucius becoming the Frog Sage and the Magikoopa fought at Bowser's Castle (who was strongly implied to be Kamek) becoming Wizakoopa. This subsided somewhat after more footage revealed many other Woolseyisms were left intact, like the infamous Toad bazooka line.
  • Bowser goes from calling his underlings "the Koopa Troop" to "Bowser's Minions". Aside from the original name just sounding better due to the alliteration (and being an established name for his underlings already), it doesn't fit Bowser's Benevolent Boss portrayal in this game to have him refer to his followers as "minions". The game also tends to capitalize both words and/or put them in quotation marks, and in tandem with some of Woolsey's dialogue that includes the words not being changed otherwise, "Bowser's Minions" is treated like it's the proper official term for them, which is a bit silly. It should be noted however, that Paper Jam refers to Bowser's troops as his "minions", the 3DS remake of Mario And Luigi Super Star Saga is Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga & Bowser's Minions and Bowser Jr.'s Journey uses "Koopa Troop" after Extra Spice but Bowser (Melee)'s description uses "Minions", indicating that "Bowser's Minions", aside from a line here and there, is the official term.
  • Going off a bit from the above, the removal of the Bruce Lee reference (when Mario charges into Bowyer, Mallow questions him, asking if he thinks he's Bruce Lee) has gotten some disappointment from the fanbase, along with some okay that the line was edited to remove the reference. Some have felt like it took away spirit/charm of the original scene, while some feel like it's perfectly justified, as mentioning Bruce Lee would possibly feel out of place in the Mario world — and possibly legal issues involving the Bruce Lee estate even if they wanted to keep the line as is.
  • There's even some minor flack over Mario's new victory pose, which has him waving his hat instead of doing the peace sign (which he had done in older several older mainline games as well, including Super Mario 64). This was supposedly a response from Miyamoto himself since 1999, which he didn't want Mario to be the "guy who does peace signs all the time"^note It was also replaced in Super Mario 64 DS as seen in Older Than They Think, but it was present in Super Mario Odyssey in 2017 and wanted to get rid of a "kiddie image" from him.
  • Some were not pleased over the change made to the blackjack minigame in Grate Guy's Casino where it got replaced by a memory matching game. Both it and the slots minigame also no longer have you wagering a Frog Coin, effectively making the games free to play. The changes was made due to several countries having adopted very strict regulations regarding gambling between 1996 and 2023, while the market for the remake includes countries who missed out on the SNES version having even stricter gambling regulations in place.
  • Though very few would likely be confused as to why, many were upset that Exor's mouth's name was changed from "Neosquid" to an understandably more accurate "mouth". Though "Neosquid" never made sense, it certainly stood out. The first of Smithy's gang being changed from "Mack" to "Claymorton" is less of an issue, but the third going from "Yaridovich" to "Speardovich" is regarded as more of a dud^note This change for Yaridovich is likely because yari (槍) means spear in Japanese and the change was to make the spear reference more obvious.
  • The removal of the card symbols (except Geno who has a star) for each character when using a special move received some criticism from players. In the original version, a spade would appear for Mario, club for Mallow, star for Geno, diamond for Bowser and a heart for Peach if any of them were to use a special move. In the remake, this aesthetic feature was removed for unknown reasons.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: For a gameplay feature, anyway. The remake adds a "Scrapbook" to the menu that recaps important plot points, and in-universe is written by the party. However, all the entries are by either Mallow or Geno. Peach and Bowser get no chance to add their own entries and express their thoughts on events, even in circumstances where it would be more appropriate for one of them to write the entry than Mallow or Geno (like when rescuing Peach from Booster or meeting Bowser's former minions). The scrapbook could also have had Mario write an entry or two, to let players see his personal thoughts without breaking his Heroic Mime status.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Fans praise the game's art style from the previews for looking almost exactly like the original pre-rendered sprites but in full HD and the additional touch-ups such as overworld locations no longer floating above a blue void. (The Mushroom Kingdom for example shows that it's on a nice verdant hill) A fan favorite scene is the Midas Waterfall cave, which looks outright magical. One of the biggest examples is Culex 3D, who found out how to become a 3D model and is one of the most visually-striking characters in the game on top of his outdated but awesome-looking 2D sprite.
• Woolseyism:
  • In the original version, Kero Kero Cola is a pun based on the Japanese onomatopoeia for a frog noise and Chero-cola. The English version of the remake changes the name to a more appropriate-sounding Croaka-Cola, a play on the soda brand Coca-Cola.
  • The Chest Monster enemy line had Japanese names that were puns on the phrase nan darō (roughly "I wonder what it is", i.e. something someone would say before opening a treasure chest), which the original English localization replaced with box-related Theme Naming (Pandorite, Hidon, Box Boy, and Chester). The English version of the remake preserves the spirit of the pun with the new names: Huhwhat, Whuhoh, Pleaseno, and Comeon, phrases that express surprise and exasperation at being repeatedly pranked by fake treasure boxes.
  • Cloaker & Domino's snake mechs are named "Earth Link" and "Mercury Link" respectively in the Japanese script. In the original English SNES translation, only the latter's name was changed, becoming Mad Adder. In the remake's English translation, Earth Link's name was changed to Bad Adder to solidify the link between them.
  • Count Down's name was changed in several languages to preserve the English version's pun. In Dutch, he's called Majestijd, a portmanteau of "Majesteit", meaning "Majesty", and "Tijd", meaning "Time". In French, he's called Chronomaître, which comes from "chronomètre", meaning "stopwatch", and "maître", meaning "Master".

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