In today’s video game industry driven by the need for photorealism and hyper-detailed worlds, Mario RPG is a breath of fresh air, despite being 18 years old, because of its whimsical mix of the fantastical lands of the Mushroom Kingdom with a dash of 3D rendering, detailed environments, vibrant colors, and an art style blending elements of realism with the stylized look of the Mario universe. The game’s isometric perspective and highly-animated 3D character models were state-of-the-art and visually impressive in 1996, pushing SNES’s graphical capabilities to its utmost potential. Thus begins Mario’s epic RPG quest to rescue Peach not from Bowser, but from an entirely new enemy. When Mario attempts to make his way back into Bowser’s Keep, the giant sword, Exor, who exclaims that he is part of “Smithy’s Gang,” destroys the bridge allowing access into it. In the midst of Mario’s umpteenth rescue of Peach and trouncing of Bowser– not to mention an extremely creative opening sequence that puts you immediately into battle– a giant sword comes crashing downward into Bowser’s Keep, causing an earthquake that sends Mario flying all the way back to his humble home (aptly named “Pipe House”) and separates Mario and Peach yet again right before they’re reunited. Unlike previous Mario games that played as side-scrolling platformers with very little dialogue and a basic storyline, Mario RPG threw players into a rich, complex plot that starts as the Bowser-steals-Peach routine (which gets poked fun at by Toads who voice exasperation at the princess being captured “AGAIN”) but explodes into so much more. However, before the X-Nauts and Sergeant Guy, and before Koops and Fawful, there were Geno and Mallow, Frogfucius and Boomer, and there was Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars on SNES.Ī collaboration between Square and Nintendo, Mario RPG brought together the traditional turn-based, menu-driven combat system and leveling-up through earning experience points that Square helped familiarize us with in RPGs like Final Fantasy, with the extremely quirky, colorful world of the Mushroom Kingdom. They both subvert their own tropes and go in (for the time) unexpected directions with their premises, too.The Mario RPG games– Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario, respectively– are some of the most prolific and successful franchises in the Nintendo canon, responsible for many of the most memorable and well-loved characters and moments in the Mario Bros. All the bizarre one-off unique characters with unusual/absurd problems, plus the overall visual look of the world as a vaguely claymation-ish fairy tale. Kenichi Nishi's work on this game gives it a weirdly Moon vibe, too.Imagine a Square Disney RPG, but like, good. The combination of Squaretendo is so delicious that it literally breaks my heart that Kingdom Hearts ended up as weird, bad, embarrassing fanfic instead of as an equally perfect Squar.isney. It's got such a Square vibe! But it's thoroughly Nintendo, too. The whimsical fantasy world of talking animals and bizarre creatures, the Yoko Shimomura soundtrack, the prerendered sprites, the isometric perspectives. Playing it feels more like Legend of Mana or SaGa Frontier than Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi.There's an aesthetic optimism I can't really describe. That whole 1996 vibe of clay model looking prerendered graphics is really interesting to me, visually. Four months! They feel super close together despite falling across different platforms. Its release proximity to Super Mario 64 is interesting, too.It falls right in between Final Fantasies VI and VII in having this really interesting missing-link quality to it that I liked a lot. The prerendered graphics, the wider range of motion, the abundance of minigames, the button mapping, even the quality of writing and cheekiness reflect late PSX games more than late SNES games. It feels more like a PSX RPG than a SNES RPG.and also that Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi had, too! I love that the Mario RPG series.es has been a plural thing with three parallel but slightly overlapping tracks with totally different takes on the concept. I'm actually about to beat this game for the first time and I'd put it up there with Chrono Trigger and Phantasy Star IV as the absolute top tier of 16-bit JRPGs.
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