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One of the funniest games. Bar none. The last game in the first era between Nintendo and Squaresoft in 1996 came up with Super Mario RPG, which took Mario into the role-playing world and made everything a free-for-all from there, making Mario the center of a new universe and a bigger world that we had never seen before and letting him loose from there. Mario RPG was well-received in 1996 and, seven years later, that reception has only gotten stronger, with some gamers calling it the best non-Final Fantasy game ever. That may be quite a statement when you compare the game to Chrono Trigger, but there is some decent reason to see why this game would be that highly regarded.
The story starts off like it usually would. The Princess has been kidnapped blah blah blah... you know how it goes. Just as Mario is about to set the Princess free for the 9,000,000th time, a huge earthquake throws Mario out of Bowser's Castle and a gigantic sword takes control of the castle. Mario still believes that the castle is under Bowser's castle, and as he formulates a plan to get the Princess back, Mario's World starts to slowly unravel.
The genius of the game is in how well the story is told and how much fun the developers and the writers have with it. Several pop culture references are made, the new characters brought to the game, Mallow and Geno, are very well written and have their highs and lows, and there are some hysterical one-liners and some wildly unconventional characters, like a giant birthday cake come to life. The whole bit with Booster all the way to the birthday cake is one of the most wild, over-the-top things I have ever seen in a video game, and it is all handled very nicely so the story isn't taken out of the game. Seeing Bowser go to the side of light for a change also adds a new dimension and makes the game even more unpredictable.
The graphics are a little odd and tough to get used to at first, but once you are in the comfort zone the game is actually very well designed and the bosses have a lot of imagination, especially people like Yaridovich, Bowyer, and Booster. The whole thing has a wide palette of colors to boot.
Controls are standard-fare for an RPG. The magic system is extremely easy to use since this game was designed for younger people. The accessories are simple, but they do have some strategy to them. Moving around is no big challenge. Jumping around might be kind of hard, but you will grow used to it. The RPG lets you pick and choose your battles by running into enemies that are on the screen, which is a nice touch. The only problem is you might not touch an enemy but it will register anyways.
The game design for the game is well done. There is nothing special to this, but it is all good, so you shouldn't have any problems. The maps are simple to utilize and the game doesn't make anything too difficult.
The music is very catchy and it was designed for younger gamers, so even the music for when things are dark has a humorous note. The sound effects, especially for Mario, are well placed and it has a lot of fun playing around as the emotions for Mario, since Mario doesn't speak in this game. I am sure it was a challenge for the writer, but using body language reduces a few nuances and it allows for more light humor.
The gameplay is a lot of fun. This is not a very challenging game by any means, which is the only drawback. Even for a game that was designed for the younger crowd in mind, they could have made it harder. It does get hard by the very end, but by then you already know how to manipulate the system well enough.
Still, for the last project of the first era, it did end on a very high note as Nintendo and Square put aside their differences to make a brilliant game that stands as one of the best RPG's ever assembled, retro, last-gen, or today. -- Chris Vavra, PGNx Media
---- Dec 28, 2003
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