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I, like almost everyone else in Australia, did not play Super Mario RPG on the SNES as a child. I didn\u2019t even play it on the Wii Virtual Console when that was released. Instead, my first exposure to Mario\u2019s first ever RPG game was on the SNES Mini, all those years ago in\u2026 2017. I mostly enjoyed it at the time, but was frustrated by how outdated it felt, how unforgiving it was, and how slow it was to get around and battle enemies. Now, it\u2019s been remade for the Nintendo Switch, and so many of my initial frustrations have been sidestepped\u2026 but not all of them.\u00a0<\/p>\nFirst, a little background. Super Mario RPG \u2013 subtitled Legend of the Seven Stars on SNES but left bare on Switch \u2013 was Nintendo\u2019s first foray into making Mario into an RPG. It was developed by Square (no Enix at the time) and headed up by Chihiro Fujioka, who\u2019d previously worked on SaGa 3 and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest \u2014 effectively an approachable version of Final Fantasy made for the West. Super Mario RPG was only released in North America and Japan, with Europe and Australia missing out until its Wii Virtual Console release.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The story is fairly straightforward, although a little bit on the weird side. After Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach (again), Mario went to the Koopa King\u2019s castle to throw down. After a brief battle on the top of some chandeliers, a gigantic, living sword smashes into Bowser\u2019s castle, expelling the characters and somehow(?) disrupting the ability for wishes to come true. Other living weapons were scattered throughout the lands, too, wreaking havoc on towns and villages across the world.\u00a0<\/p>\nWhat follows is Mario\u2019s quest to recover seven star pieces, restore wishes to the world, and free the land of these terrifying weapon beasts. To do so, he\u2019ll team up with a couple familiar faces \u2013 Peach and Bowser \u2013 as well as Mallow, a \u201cfrog\u201d that looks a lot like a cloud, and Geno, a fan-favourite character that\u2019s essentially the spirit of a god inside a puppet toy. As I said, it\u2019s all deeply weird, but it\u2019s a delightful story that doesn\u2019t take itself too seriously \u2014 an approach that would continue with much success in subsequent Mario (and Luigi) RPGs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re wondering if the story\u2019s changed at all in the remake, the answer is no. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, very little has changed across the whole game. The lands you visit are the same, the level layout is pretty much identical, and the script is 95% identical to its SNES counterpart. This is by far one of the most faithful remakes we\u2019ve ever seen from Nintendo, and that\u2019s both a good and a bad thing.\u00a0<\/p>\nIt\u2019s good because the original was good. As much as it frustrated me when I played it, I did think the core experience was solid, the story was fun, and the characters were filled with a lot of charm. It\u2019s also bad because it means some of those frustrations are still there. You\u2019re often left a little directionless, knowing vaguely where to go but having no idea how to get there. Some areas are very maze-like, and navigating them absolutely sucks \u2014 that was true in the original, and it\u2019s true here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the upside, there\u2019s almost 30 years of guides out there on the internet for Super Mario RPG, and pretty much all of them are still relevant. Every time I got stuck, annoyed, or otherwise frustrated with the game, I just looked up a guide, compared its crusty SNES screenshots to my glistening HD version, and I was quickly back on track. With extremely few exceptions, this pretty much always got me out of a bind.\u00a0<\/p>\nThat\u2019s not to say there haven\u2019t been any<\/em> changes, though, just that most of the changes have been implemented in the area that arguably needed it the most: the game\u2019s combat. Combat, on the surface level, acts pretty similarly to the original \u2014 faster characters go first, you can choose to attack or use a skill or item, or defend, and you can time button presses to do more damage or take less damage as attacks hit. Dig a little deeper, though, and you find some key changes that completely change the flow of battle.\u00a0<\/p>\nFor example, now, when you land a timed attack, extra damage will be dealt to all other enemies on the field, not just the one you targeted. It\u2019ll also build up a gauge that, when full, will allow you to unleash a devastating move to deal massive damage. How that move works depends on which three party members are active, with certain team compositions doing big damage to just one enemy, others doing damage to all enemies on the field, and one healing up and buffing the team.\u00a0<\/p>\nThere\u2019s also a new difficulty setting, called Breezy mode, that significantly widens the window for landing timed attacks and blocks, makes you deal a little bit more damage, and helps you take less damage. It absolutely does not make the game a walk in the park, you can\u2019t just wander on through with your brain turned off, but it does give you much more breathing room and helps avoid unfair situations where you\u2019re trapped in an unwinnable battle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These changes add a surprising amount of depth to the combat, effectively allowing you to play however you want to play while still encouraging you to switch up your party and think about strategy. It doesn\u2019t reinvent the wheel \u2013 it\u2019s still the same combat system at its very core \u2013 but it does make key refinements and adjustments to make the experience much more pleasant. It\u2019s almost like what you\u2019d see from a sequel, in that way \u2014 a few improvements on an already solid system without alienating players who liked what was there before.\u00a0<\/p>\nAn interesting result of these changes is that the game is faster than it was on the SNES. Where the original took maybe 15-20 hours to complete, I was rolling the credits at 12 hours \u2014 and that was after spending a lot of time doing side content and aimlessly wandering the halls of various dungeons before giving up and looking up a guide. Being able to quickly fast travel to any area helped too, as did the inclusion of sub-areas that can be directly traveled to \u2014 I don\u2019t remember either of these things in the original, but if they were there I definitely didn\u2019t use them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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