gamesandtings

Listen, new year new me – not only will I complete the games I buy, I’ll also write about them (even if no-one but my mum pretends to read them).

My History

RIGHT, onto Super Mario RPG. My history with the game goes all the way back to 1996, a young Efe pouring over the Official Nintendo Magazine’s coverage of the game. I mean you could play as fugging Bowser in all his fisting glory alongside Princess Peach. But then came the heartbreaking news; it was only available for release in Japan and US. It always stuck out as a game that I needed to play at some point, along with the real Super Mario Bros 2. And that’s what precisely happened once they appeared on the Virtual Console on Wii – immediately bought and played some dozen years later, trying to relive a time that I wasn’t allowed to access. Having already played Paper Mario by then, you could clearly see the lineage flowing from Super Mario RPG. Not only were the fights similar, be it actively attacking and defending, but the game was just funny, full of personality which you didn’t really get in the mainline Mario games.

But I never finished it.

I was close, I think at the last castle but found the constant battling to be a bit tiresome. I put it down fully expecting to come back to it once I had the patience.

That never happened.

So, it was remade for Switch. An opportunity to return and conquer a game I had left to collect digital dust. And in typical fashion, I started the game and then decided to leave it for another year until I finally beat it. All motivated by the fact I wanted to purchase the Paper Mario Thousand Year Door remake – but much like a busy night club, I’m working on a “one out one in” policy i.e. complete a game to be able to purchase another.

Does Mario look like No Neck Ed? Yes. Yes he does. I get that Mario is meant to be the non-Super version of himself but he looks like he’s mid squish by a thwomp.

The REMAKE

But we’re not here to re-litigate whether we’d kiss Mario on his hot mouth, because the answer will always be yes. We’re here to see if the game is worth playing or not. So my verdict, after finally completing it, beating an optional boss and dabbling in post-credit boss fighting – the game is still brilliant.

It’s a short adventure, one that can be down in 12 hours or less EASILY. The pacing allows you plod along without exhausting the areas you’re in. It’s still funny, it’s still silly, it’s still endearing. There are some laughs to be had as well as inventive character design along with varied “levels” throughout. It’s a parallel Mario world literally designed by Final Fantasy developers which feels like a familiar stranger. It’s probably the best paced game I’ve ever played.

Battle system

I am a self-confessed battle system sloot; if the fighting itself is fun enough, I can grind a game like my teeth during an argument with the missus. The battle system in this version has a notable addition – your team of three can launch a massive “attack” which is dependent on your team composition. So, it can go from a huge attack to a protecting health replenishing move based on the members that are currently out. I, however, went through the game barely using any of magic moves or this triple threat mega attack, happy enough to time my button press in order to attack a bit harder or mitigate incoming damage. You do need to get a bit more handy with team composition as well as their magic moves but this was only really tested right at the end of the game (as well as post-game content).

Verdict

I would thoroughly recommend playing Super Mario RPG – a change of pace from the games that I usually play but very much welcomed one.

9 Frog Coins out 10.