Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Overall: 3.8

Story: 3.5

Immersion:4 

Game Mechanics:2.5 

Synopsis: Mario is accompanied by a group of unlikely heroes to find the legendary seven stars to repair the star bridge that allows wishes to come true. In their way lies a villain Smithy, who initially destroyed the star bridge because he is the antagonist. 

      As you might have noticed from the score, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is not a title I particularly enjoyed. However, I didn't hate it either. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the title, Super Mario RPG (also known as just Mario RPG) is the first RPG to feature the red hat plumber and the last Mario title to come out on the Super Nintendo. The game is considered by many to be among the 50 best RPGs ever made and is arguably the only true RPG for the Mario brand. 

   At this point you must be wondering why I disliked the game. Well starting with the story, the overall narrative was your simple Mario affair turned into the typical RPG save the world story. Mario begins the game saving the princess from Bowser, until a giant sword crashes down into Bower’s castle, expelling Bowser and the princess to distant places, while Mario helplessly watches. Eventually Mario has a run in with a fluffball looking tadpole, who later finds out he isn’t a tadpole (shocker!) and must embark with Mario to find his real parents.

Seriously, how did you mistake him for a tadpole

 Some sort of guardian of the star bridge tags along (in the form of a toy) with Bowser and the Princess joining afterwards (you heard me right, Bowser teams up with Mario). The main goal is to collect seven stars to mend the star bridge that allows wishes to come true. 

  I understand that Mario is catered to children, but Earthbound was also catered to children and managed to touch on some serious themes. Mario RPG is all fluff, all the time. But I didn’t mind that. I mean Mario has never touched on serious stuff in his games. He represents the carefree unlikely hero and I think I would have been more peeved if he started taking himself too seriously. What turned out to be the deal breaker with Mario RPG was the game mechanics or basically how they annoying they were.

   Mario RPG keeps its Mario bragging rights by incorporating platforming elements as much as it can. This means special attacks and weapons can crit only if you hit according to some logical timing mechanism. For some weapons this will be really apparent (punching with a glove can be turned into a crit when you click the a button right before hitting). But then others were a challenge to figure out (tossing a chomp chomp at an enemy). Also to get special items you will have to jump on a cascade of blocks. Remember the special items needed in Mario that were always placed in a difficult but completely optional area of the map. Well now they have only included these types of difficult areas in the game. And with the everything being in 3d, jumping is a sporadic game of where will I land?

So if I jump just right on the edge, I won't have to fight these guys. 

  Mario RPG isn’t horrible. It just isn’t one of the best RPGs ever made. There are countless other RPG titles that are better. If you’re a Mario lover go ahead and play it. But I don’t want to believe this is the best. Play Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Kotor and so on if you want to play excellence.