As a child, I was a pretty casual gamer. Since the beginning, the NES days, I was drawn to platformers, especially Mario ones. I eventually got upgraded to a SNES, where I got hooked on even more platformers, with Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, and Donkey Kong Country being some of my favorites.

One day I went to the video rental store, saw Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars on the shelf, and knew I had to get it. It had Mario on the cover, so it had to be a platformer, right? I used some of my saved-up allowance money to rent it, went straight home, plugged the game in, and quickly realized this game was unlike anything I had played before. I was immediately impressed by the graphics, but the turn-based combat took me a fair while to get acclimated to. After a few hours I began to understand how it all worked, eventually getting absorbed into the game's world and the adventure at hand.

Sadly, despite eventually getting used to the workings of the combat, I never was able to finish this game, even after two separate rental periods. On both playthroughs I made it to the same spot, the battle with the Axem Rangers, but could not get passed them. This is a game I have always wanted to go back and finish, but I never got around to it. Upon hearing about the remake's release, I figured it was finally time for me to see this adventure through to completion.

Nintendo and ArtePiazza did a fantastic job with Super Mario RPG's presentation. The bump to modern-day visuals was a great choice as they breathed new life into the characters and the world. The inclusion of some fully animated cutscenes was a nice touch too, though I am confused as to why to no voiceover was added to them. I did not mind reading the subtitles, but some voiceover of some sort would have made them that much better. The game's soundtrack was also redone and was as catchy as ever. The option to switch back to the original SNES soundtrack is there too, which I felt was a nice touch.

I found the story in Super Mario RPG to be interesting enough, and I liked that it equated to more than just saving Princess Peach from Bowser. That being said, I was pretty disappointed by the game's villain. He was underrepresented throughout the game, with you not even seeing him until the final battle. The story leading up to that scene was quite entertaining, with Mario and his party finding themselves in some pretty strange situations. Overall, the game's writing was good, with dialogue that was pretty darn funny at times. Sadly, the game was over surprisingly quickly, with the credits rolling for me at just over 12 hours.

When I first played Super Mario RPG on the SNES, I loved it, despite not being very good at it. However, while essentially unchanged all these years later, I couldn't shake the feeling that the combat felt dated. This makes sense, being that the original game came out in the 90's, but with all the improvements that have been made to the genre since the original game's release I figured the developers would have added a few tweaks into this rerelease. ArtePiazza kept things faithful to the original, which I respect, but I feel I would have enjoyed the rerelease more had they made it feel more like a modern-day release.

Lastly, and probably my biggest gripe with the game, is its low level of difficulty. I know, the Mario RPG's have always been seen as beginner-friendly introductions to the genre, but this lacked any challenge of any sort. I am generally drawn to easier RPGs, but this was just too easy. I played through the game on Normal difficulty, and I only needed to use a small handful of items throughout the adventure, and I never once came remotely close to having my team wipe. I suppose that a few of the later bosses required a very slight bit of strategy, but most battles were usually resolved with nothing more than a few well-timed regular attacks.

Despite these complaints, I had a genuinely good time playing through Super Mario RPG, and I am so glad to finally see this adventure through to its conclusion. I loved the updated graphics and the remade audio, and the handful of QOL improvements that were added. I appreciated how faithful this game was to the original too, but I cannot deny that I would have preferred something with a few more modern-day improvements. And, lastly, I feel this game should have been released at a lower price point. I was able to borrow this from the library, so my playthrough cost me nothing, but if I had paid full price for it, I would be feeling very disappointed. Unless you are a diehard Super Mario RPG fan, I would recommend waiting for a price drop or for a sale.