THE CRAVE GAMING CHANNEL
V'lanna
 

Super Mario RPG - Review

By: MrSorcerer


Review Breakdown
   Battle System 9
   Interface 7
   Music/Sound 3
   Originality 7
   Plot 8<
   Replay Value 6
   Visuals 8
   Difficulty Very easy (except Culex, he was HARD!)
   Time to Complete

15-20 hours

 
Overall
7
Criteria

Title Screen
 

   Super Mario RPG was released in 1996, a joint effort by Squaresoft and Nintendo, for the Super Nintendo. It begins with the routine Mario saving the princess from Bowser but then, out of nowhere, a large sword descends upon Bowsers castle, lodging itself inside Bowsers Castle and scattering Mario, Peach and Bowser to the four corners of the earth, beginning the game.

   To begin, I must say that though it was realatively easy, Super Mario RPG was a lot of fun to play. As I played through it, I enjoyed the simple storyline and the simple characters. When you start the real game, you are the bringer of bad news as you must unfortunately notify the chancellor of Mushroom Kingdom that the Princess has gone missing. Since you are Mario, hero of Mushroom Kingdom, you must go try to save her, setting up a series of events that pairs Mario with unlikely companions such as a tadpole, a possessed puppet and even Bowser himself, marking the first Mario/Bowser alliance ever. Now I will break the game into different aspects to be explored.


I call the big one bitey  

   The battle system in Super Mario RPG had 2 different parts to it but it is quite easy once you get the hang of it. The first part of it is just the normal turn based combat system, but the second part is quite similar to Squall's gunblade in Final Fantasy 8, where if you press the A button at the correct time, there will be an additional second attack making the total attack do more damage. I thought this added a bit more depth to the battle system. There were also special abilities the characters could use, which used up flower points but did large amounts of damage and some even included pressing A to do extra damage. When using Marios jump ability, you could make many consecutive jumps by pressing A. Overall, the battle system is a normal Turn based system with some added elemtents, but in the end it still feels a little stale and reused.

   The sound in this game was, in my opinion, horrible. I was used to some great Final Fantasy music when I played this game, and I was horrified when, to my disbelief, the music sucked!! I thought it was horrible, especially for a squaresoft game. I found myself turning the mute button on so I wouldn't have to listen to the battle music, which was the worst of it all. Actually, I bought Super Mario RPG expecting some Nobuo Uematsu tunes, but I was sadly mistaken. I suppose I was young and stupid then :)


Water  

   Originality? Um. Depends. The entire first part of the game was saving the princess form the clutches of someone named Booster, a plot which has been done far too many times. But after that, I was pleasently surprised to see the Princess actually JOINING you in your fighting! I mean, she was slapping people but it was still a step in the right direction for sexism in Mario games. And finding the princess, you find out, was not even close to as important as finding the stars stolen by Smithy so you can repair Star Road. The plot was quite good and a bit original, though there were some things that seemed recycled from other games.

   Now, one thing this game didn't have much of was replay value. The only thing I ever did after I finished the game was go to beat the secret character Culex (which was actually extremely difficult, given the fact that the highest level was 30!) but there were very little secrets and after you finished the game you really don't feel like playing it again, as it wouldn't be half as enjoyable as the first time.


They're shy  

   Now, I have to admit this game had very good graphics for a Super Nintendo game. It was in a full 3D environment and there was much you could explore in places. The characters looked good in 3D and the game looked good as whole for the time it was released. Well, thats it.

This game was pretty easy, so you should be able to have it finished in 20 hours your first time through. This game was very enjoyable, and if you still use your Super Nintendo (I do), try and pick it up. You should be able to find it relatively easily and cheaply, too (I saw one on Ebay for 11$). That does it for this review, Peace out.


Cutesy or Realistic Name  




© 1998-2017 RPGamer All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy