Mario and Bowser join forces!? It's Super Mario RPG
Written: Nov 11 '04 (Updated Nov 21 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Flawless blend of action and RPG elements, colorful atmosphere, great sense of humor.
Cons: Tough to control jumping at times, "too easy"
The Bottom Line: I'd play Super Mario RPG for the rest of my life if I could.
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| flamepillar's Full Review: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars for Sup... |
"Here come the RPG's," I once remember reading on the cover of a magazine. It only made sense that, eventually, the collective minds of Nintendo HQ in conjunction with SquareSoft, were going to doubly capitalize on the popularity of RPG's and the already-ubiquitous Mario franchise. Super Mario RPG was born, and my friends, what a game.
Super Mario RPG (RPG = "Role Playing Game") utilizes a colorful blend of classic Mario elements (and gameplay) and a simple RPG engine on the old Super NES console, still one of my favorite gaming systems of all time. As the player, you'll find yourself alternating between hopping Mario-style, hitting question-mark blocks and climbing beanstalks in a 3-D realm. And of course, fighting monsters, but never simultaneously with the others.
For Those Not Familiar With RPG's (all 20 of you)
Forgive me for treating the rest of you like total idiots, but I would assume there are people out there who are big fans of the Super Mario Brothers, but Have never played an RPG before. If you are one, you're probably asking yourself, "How does this RPG thing work, anyway?" Simple.
Instead of the standard precision jumping on heads and tossing shells, all you do is simply run right into the monster to engage in battle (or avoid them if you feel like it). This will take you momentarily out of the world and into a set battle screen. If you win the battle, you are placed back where you left off in the world; if you lose, you are taken back to the last time you Saved your game at one of the Save Points.
The battles work almost like a board game -- you take turns with the monsters. On your turn, you can either attack the monster (A), defend yourself (B), cast a spell (Y), or use an item (X). Most of the time, you'll just be attacking. Each attack is followed by a number that tells how many Hit Points (HP) you or the monster lost as the result of getting hit. Yes, the number is random, but it doesn't vary by much. You'll probably start out receiving 1-4 points of damage per hit, and shelling out 15-20. You're not going to avoid getting hit per se; however, it will now take a lot more than two hits to take down Mario.
As is the case in any standard RPG, you are rewarded with experience points every time you win a battle. As you accumulate these experience points, you gain levels, and each time you do, the game stops to give you a choice where to allocate a small portion of the power you gain. You can add it to your attack power to do more damage, your HP rating so you can take more hits without dying, or you can put it into your magic power to make your spells more powerful. Some characters like Mario are more likely to benefit from the attack power, while characters like Princess Toadstool would benefit more from the extra magical power. Usually, though, there'll be one power that increases more than the others (or more than usual) when you pick it, so check out each possible increase before you make the final decision.
What a world, what a world!
In addition to the Mushroom Kingdom and Bowser's Castle, Mario and his friends will go to all kinds of other places.
In the game's opening act, we are treated to the classic Super Mario Bros. story -- Bowser kidnaps the Princess, Mario runs off to the Castle to save her. But this time, something completely different happens. Just as Mario is saving the Princess from certain doom, a mysterious sword comes spinning out of the sky, crashing into Bowser's Castle. Mario, Bowser, and the Princess are all thrown out to different spots in the world. Now, even Bowser himself can't get back to his Castle.
Along the way, Mario discovers that the sword is a weapon made by a new enemy known as the Smithy Gang, and they have dismantled the Star Road. Big whoop, huh? Well as it turns out, the Star Road is what makes people's wishes come true, and Seven Magical Pieces are scattered around the world. Until those seven pieces are reunited, people's wishes will never come true, not even Bowser's.
So it is up to Mario and his friends (including Bowser!) to get those Star Pieces back. Along the way, Mario meets a couple of new friends previously alien to the Mario Bros' world. The first is Mallow, a clumsy but cool little chump who looks like a piece of chewed-up bubblegum wearing pants. The other is an entity from above who takes on the form of a doll named Geno. He's kind of an egomaniacal stickass whose attacks are all named after him, but he is also the only character who can deliver 9,999 worth of damage in one attack. Consider that a major fluke, though, because otherwise, you're not likely to do any higher than 500-600 per attack by the time you get to the end of the game. And that's against the low-defense enemies.
In addition to building power by gaining experience, you will get the opportunity to use coins (also won in battle) to buy armor or weapons to increase your defense and attack power. Early in the game you'll fight a pair of Hammer Bros. and when defeated, they leave behind (gasp!) a hammer. Once you pick it up, press X to go to the subscreen, go to "Equip" and equip Mario with the Hammer. Watch the lower-left corner of the screen, and you can see how much Mario's attack power increases (or decreases) by doing that. This should bring it up by 10. Now, whenever you go into a battle and attack a Monster, Mario will give it a whack with the hammer. Beautimus!
Some stores also sell items such as Mushrooms and Pick-Me-Ups which will restore HP that you've lost during battle or revive characters who have run out of HP. You can tell right away that Super Mario RPG is geared toward novice RPG'ers, because if one of your characters falls during battle but you still win, that character is brought back to life with 1HP, and given experience for the battle. Most RPG's don't give you the luxury, and because of a lot of things like that, this game is considered "too easy" by many.
What makes this game so much fun, though, is that there is a constant action element to it. There are mini-games that involve riding on a mine trolley, jumping on a series of Troopa shells to breach a high cliff, writing music, catching beetles, or navigating several difficult jumps in a row. The jumping is the one part where it might get to be frustrating; since it's all in a 3-D world, you're constantly having to point the controller diagonally to walk a "straight" line in the context of the game.
One really nice thing, though, is that every place you explore is merely a level within a much larger world, and once you've completed that level, you never have to do it again unless you want to. It's very easy to get around to where you've been already; in fact, a complete trip around the world (once you've explored everything) only takes about 30 seconds.
A few other neat things here that most RPG's don't have:
Stars! Sometimes you'll hit a question block and a star pops out, making you momentarily invincible. At this time, you can barrel and careen your way through groups of monsters, accumulating all the experience that you would have gotten for facing a minute-long battle with each individual one. This enables you to amass a relatively huge amount of experience in a short time. Stars only appear once whenever they do, so you can't sit there and do that over and over again, although it is a widely known secret that if you allow yourself to be killed by the next group of monsters after your star runs out, it'll take you back to your last Save Point WITH the accumulated experience and you can do it again. The only problem is, the more you level up, the harder it is to let yourself get killed.
Timed Hits! If you press A just as your character is about to deliver the blow, you'll hear a chiming sound effect and you'll deal 120-150% of your usual damage. In some cases, I think it even doubles, but I can't be sure. Since each weapon has a different animation, it takes a bit of trial and error to work out exactly when to push the button.
Funky Battle Flowers! Sometimes if you're fighting multiple enemies and you defeat one, a flower will fly across to the character who dealt the death blow and a message will appear. Some of them refill your HP ("HP MAX!") and some give your attack/defense a boost for the remainder of the battle ("ATTACK UP!"). There is one that gives you a chance to play a mini-game and double your experience after the battle is over ("LUCKY!") and my personal favorite, one that lets you take another turn after the one you just took ("ONCE AGAIN!").
Spells are unique in that they always require you to execute certain controller moves to maximize their effect. Mallow's Snow spell (which sounds so much like my Mom's cell phone it scares me) requires you to rotate the control pad, others like the Princess' Psych Bomb require you to press Y as fast as you can. Mario's Ultra Jump requires you to press Y in rhythm with Mario's repeated jumps on the enemy. The more N*Sync you stay, the longer he keeps jumping on their heads. Supposedly, you can get a prize in Monstro Town if you manage to execute 30 jumps in a row, but I'll be damned if I can get past 20. I hear that the timing pattern changes around the 16th jump and again on the 22nd. Incase anyone was wondering.
All spells, by any character, consume your Flower Points, which is why it's essential any time you pick up a Flower Tab, Flower Jar or Flower Box that you go into the subscreen and use that item as soon as you get it. Not only will it increase the max number of Flower Points you can have, but it saves room in your item box.
Speaking of which, there's another thing that might annoy more hardcore RPG'ers. You are allowed to carry two screens' worth of items (about 30), but if you have two or more of the same thing, they take up that many separate spaces in your list.
Scenes of a Graphic Nature
The graphics in Super Mario RPG are nothing to marvel at, especially these days (yeah yeah, of course), but some of the spells look pretty neat. Fans of the old SMB trilogy should love all the vibrant colors and paradise-like atmospheres to be found. It all looks, feels and plays very much like a Super Mario game, battles notwithstanding.
Sounds are very Marioesque, as is the music. The sounds of you attacking a monster are sundry and quite enjoyable. Some of the boss battle themes come out swinging with clobbering beats, and old themes from the classic trilogy resurface in various forms. The music in Bowser's Castle is a remix of the music that played when you fought Bowser in Super Mario Bros. 3, now that was some cool music right there, boy, baby, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what. (You can't imagine how many times I've said that in my journals..heh)
The coolest part of this entire game is Culex. He is a hidden monster that originally appeared in a Japanese Final Fantasy game, but you can find him right here in Monstro Land. The battle, which takes about a half hour to win, is set to the raddest music in any RPG to date, the Boss theme from Final Fantasy II (that's FF4 in Japan).
Another thing to like about this game is that it doesn't take very long to beat -- probably 20-30 hours on the average. Definitely closer to 30 or possibly 35 if you hope to uncover all the secrets.
Super Mario RPG continues to bridge the gap between action and RPG to this day. I only wonder why they haven't attempted to give Samus Aran, Link, or Mad Dog and Scorpion the same treatment. Or better yet, throw them all together and make an All-Stars RPG sort of like Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Of course, for all the attention I've paid to the gaming world as of late, they could've done this a year ago and I wouldn't even know it.
So anyway, here's a story.
When Super Mario RPG came out, I still had not gotten my driver's license. But the fact that the mall was over 10 miles away didn't deter me. I'd walk there if I had to, just to get my hands on this game. And believe you me, that's exactly what I did! And this was on a day that I had to be at work at 3PM.
Of course it turns out that I was so popular, I was spotted both on the way there and on the way home by people I knew, so I ended up only having to walk about eight miles out of the 20-mile round trip.
Well, time for me to work on that 30 jumps.
Thanks for stopping by!
Recommended:
Yes
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flamepillar
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Member: Timothy Bishop
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