In the early 1990s, Square and Nintendo had a good working relationship. Most of Square's games were on Nintendo consoles, from the Rad Racer series to Square's bread and butter, the Final Fantasy series of turn-based role-playing games.
It's the latter that served as the inspiration for one of the most surprising team-ups at the time of its release. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars plays like a Final Fantasy game. It is played in a turn-based style with a party of three selectable from a total of five characters. The character's traits can be leveled up in a manner that should be familiar to Final Fantasy players. HP, or heart points, are represented by a bar that displays the number of hits that a character can take before they pass out. S stands for star and represents the amount of energy any character has to do a skill or perform magic, similar to the MP magic points or mana points in Final Fantasy games. POW, represented by a hammer, is the amount of total power a character is capable of using against enemies. These statistics can also be influenced by weapons and armor that can be purchased from shops in the game's towns. The Final Fantasy series similarities don't stop at the gameplay style, as there is an optional boss fight with remixed music straight from those games as well as a design inspired by them as well.
The story is about an evil force in the guise of a sentient sword named Exor who crashes into Star Road and then takes over the castle of Bowser, King of the Koopa. Star Road is the place where wishes turn into wish stars to grant the wishes of the people of the world. When Exor crashed down, Star Road was shattered into seven pieces.
Smithy's minions stole all of the star pieces so Mario teams up with Princess Peach, Mallow, a fluffy being that was raised by frogs, and a sentient doll named Geno. He also reluctantly teams up with his arch-enemy, Bowser, King of the Koopa, because he wants to get his castle back from Exor.
As this was released on the Super NES, the characters only speak through text, with one exception. Mario doesn't speak at all, instead communicating via pantomime. However, it works surprisingly well. This is helped by some spectacular character animation.
The game is presented in an isometric world with pre-rendered three-dimensional graphics converted into sprites. The process and appearance of the sprites are reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country. Super Mario RPG was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1996, the same year the Nintendo 64 was released, so the choice of art style made sense since gaming was well into the three-dimensional era by that point.
The backgrounds are beautiful and fit in perfectly with the pre-rendered sprites. They also match the cheerful aesthetic of Super Mario games. The worlds Mario visits with his team really do feel right at home in Mario's universe. The new characters also fit in perfectly as well, as they have over-the-top personalities. The enemies range from characters that are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mixed with the Power Rangers, to the delightfully insane Booster. I really hope that Nintendo and Square work out a deal to bring Booster back into the world of Super Mario someday.
Super Mario RPG is an excellent game that merges Super Mario with Final Fantasy-style turn-based role-playing games surprisingly well. The music is spectacular and really memorable and the art is as cheerful as Super Mario games should be. The characters, both old and new, are really entertaining. On top of all of this, the game, from the tone to the storyline, sets up two different series of Super Mario RPGs and does it remarkably well. This is a game that should be played by all fans of Super Mario and role-playing games.
Final Verdict:5 out of 5
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