System Played: Super Nintendo
Year Released: 1996
Year Reviewed: 2020
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars from Square and Nintendo is a late SNES game and the first to place Mario in a RPG setting.
Princess Toadstool (not yet Peach) is kidnapped by Bowser.
Mario promptly turns up at his castle for a showdown, when things get interrupted by a giant talking sword which descends from the sky, piercing through the castle in a dramatic fashion.
This heralds the coming of Smithy, and his gang of baddies, who promptly start making trouble throughout the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond.
Mario, Princess Toadstool and Bowser are joined by new party members Mallow and Geno, in a quest to find the “Seven Stars” and save the day.
(Note: Smithy is a weird name for the main baddie to have, and it isn’t obvious until you get to him at the end that he’s actually a blacksmith ...then it makes a bit more sense)
The games structure is pretty traditional, and progress is quite linear.
You travel between locations using a world map similar to Super Mario World. Some areas are towns, where you talk to folk, buy items, etc., others are high-enemy areas you need to fight through to progress.
Enemies visible rather than “random encounters”, to be avoided if needed.
Battles are turn-based, and the mechanics of combat are pretty basic.
With your three party members, take turns choosing your actions (Attack, Items, Special abilities, Defend or Run), smacking each other until one side wins.
Combat is super repetitive and there is an awful lot of it.
Success in 99.99% of battles is all but guaranteed just by having two characters attacking, with the third doing the same, and occasionally healing. Toadstool’s ‘Group Hug’ heals a big chunk of health to the whole party, and enemies don’t typically take more than a couple of hits to kill the whole way through.
“Timed hits” score critical damage by pressing the button again just before attacks connect. Same for increased defense just before an enemy attack hits you, which at least helps keeps your attention.
Get EX.points and coins for defeating enemies.
Stats increase as you Level, plus you’re given a bonus each time, choosing to further increase one of either ‘physical attack & defense’, ‘magic attack & defense’, or HP. I just picked physical every time, and felt pretty overpowered the whole way through.
Each character learns unique special abilities as they Level. These are themed attacks, like Mario jumping on enemies, or tossing out fireballs, mixed with some traditional RPG “magics” like healing and lightning bolts. Each costs so many Flower Points (FP) to cast.
You’re also periodically tossed bonus items in battle, like attack and defense buffs, HP refills, or a “Lucky” item which gives you a chance to double (or lose) your coin or experience haul, by correctly guessing which of three eggs contains a Yoshi.
None of the buffs have much impact on the outcome of the battle. You were going to win anyway.
The fancy SA-1 chip allows the game to have lots of pre-rendered graphics (reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country) and the whole things uses an isometric view.
I’m not sure I like it.
The game looks ugly at times, with this “kind-of” 3D where everyone looks squat and hunched. Bright colours mix with dark shadows in a garish, ToeJam & Earl-ish soup.
Being a Mario game, there is a bit of platforming thrown in, but the isometric view makes it more difficult than it should be to jump between surfaces, especially small moving ones.
There’s also more than a few minigames along the way, but I didn’t find any of them very enjoyable. Some are frustrating even.
Where the game shines a bit brighter is, like in most subsequent Mario RPG’s, in the character dialogue.
This game establishes the (goofy) personalities for characters we’re familiar with, like Toad and Bowser, but who never had any dialogue in previous games.
The first Super Mario RPG is a lot like the ‘Paper Mario’ and ‘Mario & Luigi’ games which followed. Not overly difficult to get through, with some amusing encounters along the way. Combat is repetitive and super frequent but not much of a challenge.
6/10
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