Super Mario RPG Remake in November

[J1M]

Zero challenge = zero interest.

"Postgame bosses" sounds like it could be challenging.

Can I start there, or does it require a dozen hours of my life to be sacrificed?

[NEG]

Mario RPG Is getting a remake. It doesn't look like I would like it to, but I do appreciate it. Maybe one day we will get a sequel. Fuck Paper Mario and the Superstar Saga.

But will they fix the racism and lack of intersectional inclusivity? Geno is, I guess, the tranny, but where's the token black? Where's the gay romance?

Nintendo has a lot of work to do if it wants that ESG check.

[NEG]

Party wide attacks after performing a number of successful timed attacks

Oof.

[Breathe]

Infants could play this game. Metroid is the only IP still with a bit of challenge.

[Falksi]

Zero challenge = zero interest.

Games can be easy and enjoyable, Mario RPG is one of those games that have stood the test of time because it's so unobtrusive and undemanding. It's one of the few JRPGs I enjoyed because it isn't some 100 hour "epic" with a pretentious storyline about how the Church/God is evil or some teenage angst saga. There's a lot of charm and humor that so few games in the genre have.

They can, but anyone out of RPG nappies must have a serious dysfunction to find SMRPG anything other than mediocre.

I played the original around 5 months ago, and once the general charm had worn off after about 2 hours it was boring as fuck. The combat is simple & piss easy, the story is barely there...it's just a Mario tribute for people with a hard-on for Mario.

In fact I wrote a review on it for a mate at the time, so my TLDR thoughts are....



Another first-play for me here, and boy have I heard and read a lot about this game in recent years. Yes, it's another "Best RPG ever!" game, or so a fair few have claimed when I've suggested that other series such as Deus Ex, Baldur's Gate, The Witcher, Fallout, Mass Effect, Persona/SMT, Phantasy Star, Shining Force, Final Fantasy, Dragon Age, Avernum, Langrisser, Tales Of, etc. may be genuine competition for it. Can Super Mario RPG offer me a story, gameplay and an immersive world to the match my faves from those other series? Well I've been told it can, so let's find out.

Well initial impressions were great, simply because Square have done an excellent job of marrying up their trademark 90's turn-based JRPG style with the feel and look of a typical Mario game. This really is a perfect melding of both right down to the fact that there's a lot of Mario-style secrets to be found in here, and so the devs deserve a lot of credit for that. Well, I say "perfect" meld, but being picky the isometric jumping can be a bit off at times. It's not enough of a problem to affect the game overall, nowhere near.

Mario die-hards will obviously love this, but there's also a lot of charm about the game in general too even or none-fans....a bit too much at times in fact to be honest. Super Mario RPG has an excessive dose of sickeningly-sweet to it, which will either make you "wow" with joy or want to spew up. At first I "wowed" at it myself, this is a game which some would describe as a "hoot", but the more I played the more annoying the whole thing got, in fact the tone of the game really started to grate on me after a few hours; I'm just not an 8 year old kid anymore. What kept things on track somewhat for me though was the great translation and writing here. Some of the terms and language used really give this game a grounded feel and a nice soft-layer of humour too, and overall the writing itself really works well. It's a game which has a lot of plusses and, if you ignore the negatives, it's easy to see why some people bang on about it.

Unfortunately the game's simplicity is real bugbare alround for me though. Now whilst the plot is actually half-decent for such a simplistic game, that doesn't make it a great plot in itself and it's still pretty basic and frankly boring stuff, so this game hangs heavily on you just enjoying being in a Mario adventure. I mean, even as a pre-teen I was used to stuff like Phantasy Star, where issues such as climate change and job motivation were themes, and Super Mario RPG doesn't go beyond primary school level plot development. So I think of it a like 20 hour version of Granny's Garden, and that left me wanting.

The combat is very much the usual traditional turn-based fare we're used to in JRPGs of this era, but a cool little touch is the addition of a timed button-press which allows you to increase or decrease damage as appropriate, and this just adds an extra dynamic to the play, and helps keep it that bit more interesting. It's also great that Square have decided against including their signature ATB system here, as the faster-pace of turns makes Super Mario RPG flow better than some of the ATB games. But with all that said a lot of the battles really felt samey to me too regardless of these additions, so this area still wasn't enough to really hook me either. It really didn't help that is was pretty challenge-free for a lot of the play-time too, so combat is something else which starts nice but gets dull again because of how simple it is.

And, even though this is a short game, I found myself getting fed up with it after a while too. The general pacing isn't great because so much of the game feels so simplistic, and so repetition can start to set in quite quickly in some areas. A pretty limited inventory system didn't help endear the game to me either.

Around half-way through my game actually crashed and there was no way I'd been hooked anywhere near enough to retread the first half of it again just to see the second half. There's just nothing to really build around on your journey, and it didn't give me any of that "RPG satisfaction", it felt flakey. And as bit of a bizarre kicker there's slowdown here too. Slowdown in a turn-based JRPG...how's that even possible? lol. It obviously doesn't affect the gameplay with it being turn-based, and it doesn't occur often either so it's pretty forvigeable, but I had a real WTF moment when I first saw it.

Do you like Mario, fairy tales and do you enjoy watching Disney-style films? If the answer is yes then Super Mario RPG may have a lot to offer you, as going on a fairly simplistic magical journey with Mario may be enough to satisfy you. And as a simpler RPG for young kids then it's definitely got a place for sure. But it wasn't for me, nowhere near. I just found this game incredibly boring once the novelty of the charm wore off, and that didn't take long. I guess that, similar to the 2023 Mario Movie, that novelty lasts for the duration with a lot of other people, but for me it wore off soon and it's very simplistic nature just couldn't hold my attention, so when the game crashed it almost felt like a blessing.

6/10

On reflection, I was probably a bit too kind on it. It's definitely a game I would never want to touch again. And in my humble opinion the Remakes graphics look fucking shite; that rotten modern shiny-everything mobile game look.

[Bertram_Tung]

I agree with most of the complaints of it being too easy but I still loved it, and watching the end credits made me feel like I wasn't dead inside for a few minutes. So I give it a thumbs up.

[Capybara]

Is it actually worth playing then? Or is it like Chrono Trigger, a game that people played when they were kids and think it's the best thing ever because they've played like five games in the genre?

[Cipher]

Is it actually worth playing then? Or is it like Chrono Trigger, a game that people played when they were kids and think it's the best thing ever because they've played like five games in the genre?

It is really good but its just too easy. It is meant as "baby's first JRPG" so it is more about the great music and fun story.

To be fair, most JRPGs are easy, this one just goes the next step and its just practically brain dead in terms of difficulty.

[Gastrick]

Is it actually worth playing then? Or is it like Chrono Trigger, a game that people played when they were kids and think it's the best thing ever because they've played like five games in the genre?

Having to time button presses for attacks makes the combat more entertaining than usual, but it's otherwise quite dull. Adds another layer to the gameplay.

I like how good of a job they did of making a story-based game out of Mario, taking into account how simplistic and barebones the story is in the main games. When Geno is introduced is quite a good part.

It's not the best thing ever or anything, and as long as don't set your expectations too high, I'd say it's worth playing, if you don't have anything much better to play instead.

[Cedric]

I am someone that needs a game to be difficult to have fun and yet, somehow, Super Mario RPG was still good enough for me to play four or five times in my life. Gotta be pretty good to do that. The great music helps a lot, too, and the way it rewards timing.

[Xenich]

It was an interesting game, but for some reason my brain would just retract in horror with the action aspects to the turn based. It felt like going right and left at the same time. Nothing wrong with the style, but for some reason I just couldn't get into it. Either action, or turn based, the mix doesn't seem to work for me apparently.