VideoGame Best Thing About my Youth.
I remember when I got this game. I was four, and I had just broken the habit of sucking my thumb, and my reward was a brand new video game. And so I picked this, and it was AWESOME! Now on to the review itself.
Everything about this game has stuck with me. Granted, this is because I played it to death, but I wouldn't have played it so much were it not so wonderful. However, the thing that has stuck with me most is the music. The very first piece of music I learned to play by ear was "Beware the Forest's Mushrooms." There's never a dull moment in the soundtrack, and if you look, there are some very cool combinations/Shout Outs. For example, Super Pipe House is obviously based on the original mario theme, but the accordion/organ track is playing a slowed down World 1 map theme from SMB3. Cool, no?
Characters. I can say without a shadow of a doubt I can remember every character's name given their role (even the bit characters!), or vice versa. They're all fleshed out, all the major ones get some development, and at the risk of sounding redundant, they stick with you. I still vividly remember Geno chewing out Bowser for not being level headed once Exor is defeated, or King Nimbus asking for everyone's autograph (except poor Geno). I was genuinely sad after defeating Smithy because I was so attached to Geno. There's a remix from OCR floating around somewhere that still brings me to tears.
Art Direction. The colors are bright, it's all very big and playful and there's never too much seriousness (except during the very last battle). Since Square wasn't working with its own characters, for the most part, their design only really got a chance to shine in two places: boss characters and environments. The environments all have their own identity, and this mixes well with the music. I liked Tadpole Pond best, because of the music, Toadofsky, and the tadpoles. And now to the bosses. Just like the characters, they're all fleshed out. Granted, they don't get much of a chance to develop (even though they sneak in some with Johnny Jones), but they're all visually unique and I could still describe them all at the drop of a hat.
Overall, 9.5 out of 10. The half point is for no reason in particular, I just know that if the brains were to come together again, they'd go one step further and make even better.
VideoGame Reaches outside its genre to become the only RPG I really like
I hate RPGs. I really hate turn-based ones in particular. I don't like level grinding, I don't like the lack of variety in the gameplay, and I don't like long, drawn-out battles.
Super Mario RPG addresses all of those complaints, becoming the first RPG I ever really liked. You level up very quickly, the fights - including boss fights - go by fast, and there's a lot of non-RPG gameplay elements. There's tons of hidden items to search for, hidden areas, a lot of platforming, a bunch of sidequests, and a lot of variety in the world design.
The game is incredibly easy, but that doesn't really matter, because as I see it, this isn't one of those games you play for the challenge. Instead, you play for the experience.
And it's the variety that drives the experience. Not just the mini-games like collecting coins on the waterfall or riding the mine cart, but also the world design. Booster's Tower plays very differently from, say, Beanstalk Valley, or the castle in Nimbus Land. Unique gimmicks keep showing up throughout the game, keeping things fresh.
Beyond that, there's tons of little bonuses and secrets. For example, one part of the game has a fan-shaped enemy. Another area, a town full of friendly monsters, has a friendly version of this fan enemy that can be turned to different speeds just like a real fan. If you change the speed of the fan, you influence the behavior of every version of the fan-shaped enemy in the other parts of the game, which in turn may allow you to reach secret items, or not. Another town has an incredibly expensive "shiny stone", which if purchased, allows you to visit and fight a secret boss from the Final Fantasy games in another town later on.
There are also bonus tasks, like finding invisible flags placed by several friendly ghosts who talk to you in your sleep. And cool little details, like being able to see Mario's dreams if you sleep in a special bed in one particular whimsical town.
The game is just fun. The low difficultly doesn't hurt it at all, but if anything, makes it more accessible. The real star is the fast pace, diversity of locales and gameplay, and the sheer amount of content. And that can be appreciated by a very wide audience.
VideoGame Fun game, even if some parts haven't aged well
Back when it was first released on the Super NES, the idea of an RPG starring Mario was so novel that the genre was included as part of the title. Thee game is fun more than 20 years later, especially for RPG novices, even if some aspects seem dated.
The plot is relatively thin for an RPG, and mainly revolves around Mario and his companions trying to find the seven stars to repair the wish-granting Star Road, as well as defeat the evil Smithy and his gang of minions. That said, it does have some twists that were novel for the time, such as a new villain upstaging Bowser, Bowser being forced to join Mario and Princess Toadstool being rescued early on in the game.
SMRPG, like Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi alternates between you exploring the various areas and combat. The game is in an isometric perspective, so while the controls are mostly responsive, it can be a bit awkward moving or jumping diagonally. While there are no Random Encounters, and you instead get into battles by touching enemy avatars, there is no way to gain(or lose) the advantage in battle, unlike subsequent Mario RPGs.
Minigames provide a fun change of pace, such as grabbing coins while floating down a river or riding a mine cart. Doing well in these minigames can net you some nice rewards, but none that you can't complete the game without.
Combat is turn-based, but by timing button presses properly, you can cause your attacks to do more damage or reduce the damage of enemy attacks. It's a fun and novel mechanic, but unfortunately, it can sometimes be hard to tell the proper timing of an attack or how much the timing affects the damage. Compare Paper Mario, where if you hit A at the right time for a jump, Mario will bounce off the enemy and hit a second time, but if not, he will only hit once.
As an RPG, SMRPG's relatively simple, likely to appeal to novices. There are only a handful of weapons and pieces of armor, which, with a few exceptions, only affect your primary offense and defense stats. You will sometimes have to consider enemies' elemental resistances and weaknesses, but it's not as critical as in other series.
That said, while most random encounters are rather easy, the boss battles can be challenging. Most bosses have at least one unique mechanic, such as summoning allies, giving the boss battles a good amount of variety.
SMRPG is rather short for an RPG, and I finished my most recent playthrough in 14 hours. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as you can complete the game without Level Grinding as long as you don't avoid enemy encounters, so the game has good pacing. There are a few sidequests and Bonus Bosses, which can be fun diversions.
SMRPG is not just a novelty as the first Mario RPG, but is one of the most fun and accessible RPGs on the SNES. While later Mario RPGs have refined some of the concepts this game introduced, it's still well worth your time, especially if you're new to the genre.