A Look Back At: Super Mario RPG

Let’s take a little walk back through time shall we? The year is 1996. I was a happy friendly child who has not yet had his soul ripped apart by customer service jobs. 9-11 hasn’t happened, Gluten-free products aren’t taking up space in our grocery stores, and the biggest evil I had to worry about was first grade homework. So it was to my surprise when I’m playing Super Mario RPG, a game where Mario isn’t just battling a new enemy, but actually has the Koopa King himself join his ranks to aid in his battle. I would mention spoilers but seeing this game is over 20 years old I didn’t think it really needed to be said unless you’ve been living in the Amazon Rainforest this whole time.

The game begins as it usually does with Princess Peach being abducted by Bowser and Mario runs off to save her. Only to find that after beating Bowser once again and saving the Princess a giant sword drops from the sky, belonging to the Smithy Gang, crashing into Bowser's castle. During its descent the sword shattered the wishing star in the heavens into seven pieces and it’s Mario’s job find all the pieces and defeat the Smithy Gang. Along the way he encounters new allies to aid in his quest along with unique enemies to oppose him.

The game itself from the start was incredibly unique. Being a child at the time I was unfamiliar what “RPG” actually meant. So when I jumped on a koopa for the first time I was surprised to see myself go into a Turn-based combat sequence. It was thrilling and exciting to see a new style in a favorite franchise. I did not think that back then mind you, being a six year old I simply said “WOOOAH NEAT!”

There are even cross franchise Easter Eggs hidden around. You can find Samus Aran and Link sleeping in beds somewhere in the world. To a six year old lover of the Legend of Zelda and Metroid games this was a huge deal. It took me a long time to find them and in fact I had already played Metroid Prime on the GameCube by the time I found Samus. Not to mention Super Mario RPG delivers a few side Final Fantasy style side quests.

Speaking of Final Fantasy, Super Mario RPG while you’re playing it, kind of feels like a Final Fantasy in many aspects and it’s easy to see why since the game itself was developed by Square (presently known as Square Enix). They’re the developers of the Final Fantasy games, as most of you may know.

Traversing through Mushroom Kingdom in the newly developed 3D environments was tough. Mario’s movements can only be one of eight different directions which made platforming difficult in a 3D world. Especially when the platforms themselves had no real sense of depth. Sure some of the floating platforms had shadows beneath them. But when you’re high above ground with no shadows in sight it is difficult to tell if you were leaping to a block in front of you, or onto a block that was actually in front of, or below you.

The combat is what you would expect from RPG's. You click what attack to use on which enemy then press “A” at the right time to do more damage and press “A” again when you’re being attacked to take less damage. As you progress through the game you can outfit Mario and his quirky cast and crew with new weapons and armour with various effects and buffs... BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! we all know how RPG’s work.

To this day I still enjoy the wide array of different gameplay mechanics Nintendo threw in there with little to no warning. Such as hiding from enemies in curtains, solving simple-to-complex text based puzzles, to riding barrels in many different ways. There’s even a section that plays off of the Donkey Kong games riding a minecart around. That section even flops back and forth between 2D and 3D formats. It kept you on your toes, excitingly wondering what was going to come next.

However the real gem of this game came not from the platforming and combat, but in the characters interactions and the writing style. The Mario RPG constantly makes fun of itself and provides numerous text and visual gags that seem to only get funnier over time. In preparation for this review I played it on the Wii U and I was roaring with laughter before I even finished World One. Between Mario trying to communicate without speaking and the side characters making both wildly cheesy and wildly clever jokes at every turn. I found myself looking forward more to the text dialogue over the gameplay itself. This is what you want out of an RPG. 

I will say Super Mario RPG employs a neat element to the combat, That current RPG’s could learn from, where if you die you actually keep all the experience points you’ve earned up to that point. Making that annoying boss you always have to go back to easily beatable after a number of tries. An RPG needs to be engaging enough in other aspects so that the combat is simply a time killer between the game's story and character events.

The game was followed by two the Paper Mario RPG’s. The first was Paper Mario 64. Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door for the GameCube is by far the strongest of the three titles, employing everything you would expect from its two predecessors plus much more. However Super Mario RPG, despite its difficult navigation, poor platforming and lengthy hard-to-get-through combat sequences will always have a special place in my library. The game is simple, and charming with wonderfully witty storytelling. A single player game that was released on the Virtual Console this year for $7.99 CAN, and worth the price.