Super Mario RPG preview – a charming and accessible RPG delight
Super Mario RPG is a remake of the SNES classic that never reached Europe until years later. I’ve played the opening hours of the Nintendo Switch remake and this new coat of paint brings the original Mario RPG’s character to life more than ever before.
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars was first released back in 1996, and was unprecedented at the time, letting Final Fantasy creator Squaresoft (now Square Enix) take Nintendo’s golden boy for a spin. However, due to the imminent launch of the Nintendo 64, it never made its way to Europe officially until the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console over a decade later (and subsequently on the SNES Mini around a decade after that).
Fast forward to 2023 and we’ve now got a remake that’s both faithful to the original and brought up to modern standards. If you’ve played any of Super Mario RPGs in the past (such as the Paper Mario or Mario and Luigi series) you’ll know the drill here, as Super Mario RPG started it all.
The game plays like a typical turn-based RPG, you’ll walk around an overworld, bump into an enemy and engage in combat. However, Mario RPG isn’t your classic ‘select from a menu and watch an animation’ RPG, this game introduces you to timing-based hits. If you’re Mario and you head over to punch a Goomba on the head, hitting the attack button just before it lands will make it that much more effective, this also extends to defence where you can nullify an enemy attack with a well-timed block. This is a great way to keep players engaged in what can be a hit-or-miss genre for some.
This brings us to the remake’s battle system. It’s largely the same as before, except now, getting the timing perfect is even more powerful. If you time attacks and blocks perfectly your chain counter will go up, which will in turn buff Mario and friends’ combat capabilities. Plus if your timing is perfect, you’ll send a shockwave which can do damage to other enemies on the field. Finally, there's the new gauge which powers up throughout battle and lets you unleash a devastating Triple Move, with each possible party lineup getting a super move complete with a gorgeous animation.
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As with any remake this faithful to the original game design, the real meat on the bone is in the visual and audio upgrades. Visually, the game has faithfully adapted the original game's stocky art style to the Nintendo Switch. Mario is a far stubbier character compared to the way you’ll see him in Super Mario Bros. Wonder for example.
Super Mario RPG doesn’t have voice acting, so a lot of the story is conveyed through text boxes. However, there are many scenes in which the characters pantomime events to get them across, in a manner not dissimilar to the earlier Lego games, which makes for some of the funniest parts of the game. Plus the pre-rendered animations look lovely, although a few grunts and noises from the characters would have made some of these parts feel a little less awkward.
Yoko Shimomura composed the music for the original game, which should be enough to tell you that the music is great. For the 2023 version, Shimomura has returned to create new orchestral arrangements of the SNES tunes. Like any game with a re-arranged soundtrack, there are bound to be some tunes where you prefer the original and vice versa, but for the most part, the new arrangements are winners so far. Although thankfully, there’s a toggle in the options to let you have the original soundtrack play the whole time if you so please.
So far, Super Mario RPG seems like a great remake of the SNES game. Plus it’s a solid RPG that’s fairly beginner-friendly and could be a perfect introduction to the genre for newcomers. While there will be some that undoubtedly still prefer the original when all is said and done, Super Mario RPG is well worth a return to the Mushroom Kingdom from the few hours I've played.
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