This game is pretty good.
I played it for the first time through this remake, and it was very much worth my purchase. Before talking about the remake though, I want to talk about the game as is.
This game came to be because of the close relationship that Nintendo and Square Soft had in the late 80s and early 90s. It really shows in the final product, because it feels like Mario, early Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest and lots of wacky stuff mixed into a blender. More than any other game in the series, this is a very traditional RPG fused with the Mario IP, giving it its own flavor. This game still has an extremely unique identity because of it, one that still stands on its own (even with the many Mario RPGs that have come out after it). There really isn't anything else quite like it.
It's super interesting to me that despite it kind of feeling like a lite crossover of sorts, it doesn't overly rely on Mario or Square's franchises to form its identity. It obviously is a Mario game first and foremost, but a Mario game that doesn't rely on tropes or overly familiar scenarios. This fact is even spoofed at the very beginning of the game, where Bowser does kidnap Peach and Mario goes to save her like always. After leading us to believe that that's the story of the game, a bait and switch is enacted and the real plot of the game begins after Exor lands in Bowser's Keep. This kind of summarizes what the game is like in general. You constantly encounter the weirdest and most bizarre NPCs and enemies in this game (some of which border on being nonsensical) that don't resemble anything else seen in the Mario franchise, before or since. The scenarios that the party goes through are also extremely creative, strange and often funny. It's pretty astounding how creative of a game it is, especially keeping in mind that the Mario franchise still hadn't spread its wings that much when it came out. It easily could've relied on what Mario had already established with the NES and SNES platformers, but it went out of its way to not do that. At least for that, it's a game that I do admire.
Even with all of this, it still manages to feel enough like a Mario game. It obviously features lots of Mario characters (at least that had already been established), characteristics of Mario's world like mushrooms, stars, floating blocks and pipes, and more. Where the game evokes more of an early Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest vibe is in the game's overall design ethos. It features basic turn based combat where you juggle multiple party members, basic level up and progression systems, items that work like in those games, basic towns that feature shops and inns (that are also almost kind of themed like Medieval towns), etc. It's pretty much as basic as RPGs get in this regard, but it works. This game treads the line well between being derivative and unique.
The gameplay is fun, but I wouldn't really say that it's too great. After all, it's a late 90s RPG at heart, and it somewhat shows. The game did innovate with its battle system through the addition of action commands, which were a brilliant idea, but other than that, it's a very by the numbers RPG that is also super easy for the most part. I usually don't complain about difficulty when I play a game, because as long as a game demands enough from me to actually make me put in some effort, it can keep me engaged. That isn't really the case with this game, though. Most enemy encounters can be rushed through after like 1 or 2 turns with the most basic of attacks in your arsenal, particularly if you time action commands well. Even most bosses around the first half of the game demand very little from you, and can be defeated super easily by exploiting weaknesses and using buffs.
The remake doesn't help in this regard either, because some of its additions like triple moves, chain buffs, perfect attacks/blocks and switching party members make it even more of a breeze. The game wasn't rebalanced around these new mechanics, so it's objectively easier. I will talk more about these mechanics later, however. Still, even with how little this game demands from you, I still had fun with it because timing action commands is intrinsically very engaging. The story isn't really great either, and it times it barely even makes sense, but it also kept me engaged because of how weird, funny and charming it is.
I really don't have much more to say on the game itself, but I have more to say on the remake. ArtePiazza did about as good of a job as they could've while keeping the game as faithful as possible. I'll go out on a limb and say that it isn't quite among the best remakes that I've seen because of how faithful it is, but with the great legacy that it carries, I understand that they wanted to respect it as much as possible, with warts and all. In my ideal world, this remake would've reworked and redesigned the core game to improve on it while keeping its identity, but leaving the game as is probably was the best choice that ArtePiazza could've made. They still did really great work where they could.
The game looks gorgeous, for one. Videos and screenshots really don't do it justice, because I didnt realize how truly pretty it looks until I got my hands on it. Even though character models and environments are mostly kept very simple, texture work is really good in general. Also, the lightning engine here in particular looks stunning, and does a lot of heavy lifting to make it look as good as it does. The addition of the new battle mechanics, if a little unnecesarry, are also really cool to me. I want to give a special shoutout to the chain mechanic, because it does a good job of encouraging you to keep timing action commands and getting skilled enough to do multiple in a row. It doesn't really matter most of the time, but just seeing the chain number go higher and higher feels is intrinsically super satisfying. More than anything however, I would really like to see some of these mechanics make an appearance in a game that's actually designed around them. They all have awesome potential that could be realized if they synergized more with the battle system.
Here's also a rapidfire list of some quality of life changes and random extras that were included:
- The Scrapbook was added (essentially a journal for what happens in the game, mostly following the main story). Really cool addition that frames the events from Mallow's and Geno's perspectives, and also serves as a good refresher for the game's events if you stopped playing for a while.
- The Monster List was added. Having some form of bestiary in this game is awesome. Some monster descriptions are pretty random and don't really serve any worldbuilding purpose, but they're all really charming and funny (especially ones that blatantly break the fourth wall). Viewing all enemy stats is very convenient, too.
- A post game with super bosses was added, which has some of the most well designed encounters in the whole game. These actually do a great job encouraging you to use the new mechanics and taking advantage of all party members and their abilities.
- A music player was added, which unlocks after you beat the game. Really great feature to have in any game.
- An exclamation mark shows up to indicate the precise timing required for action commands, which is a great feature because not every timing is super well communicated without it.
- You can now fast travel anywhere from any location, which saves time from exiting and area and traversing the whole world map to get somewhere.
There's more that I didn't mention here, but these are the most notable ones to me. They all serve to make this the best version of the game by themselves. However, nothing compares to the single best thing that this remake brought to the table: the reorchestrated soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura. Oh. My. God.
It seriously left me in awe multiple times. It's the one aspect of this game that I'm extremely passionate about. Yoko Shimomura is one of, if not my very favorite game composer of all time. Her works on the Mario RPGs, especially Mario & Luigi Dream Team, are among my favorites for any game I've played. After that series fell through the wayside because of AlphaDream's bankruptcy, I didn't think she would compose for any Mario RPGs anymore. This was heartbreaking to me. However, I'm now unbelievably ecstatic to say that she came back, composing for both Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and this game across the span of two years in a row. The goddess is actually back.
The original game's ost already was great, but Jesus Christ. Yoko's work here for nearly every single song is leagues better than in the original. I could shoutout the entire soundtrack here, and I kind of want to, but for the sake of some brevity, I will instead highlight some of my absolute favorites. Fight Against Bowser, Battle Against a Somewhat Stronger Monster, Hello Happy Kingdom, Danger Aplenty on the Journey, Let's take the Midas River, Beware the Forest's Mushrooms, Nimbus Land and Battling Culex are all absolutely incredible. They're all up there among some of my favorite songs across all of the Mario RPGs, even rivaling Dream Team's songs for me. They effortlessly preserve the game's original compositions and tone while adding whimsy and gravity to it through the reorchestration.
Even better, there's two other songs that I want to give an even more special highlight to. The world map theme seriously left me speechless when I first heard it. Yoko grabbed what was previously a super simple and repetitive melody, and literally added a whole new melody on top of the preexisting song. It wordlessly conveys the spirit of adventure that the game flaunts, as well as the idea that there's a long journey ahead. All through a super whimsical and cheery tone. The trademark Shimomura flutes and violins shine super bright here. It's so beautiful.
Even better than that one though, the Marrymore theme is unbelievable. My god. What I believe to be the single best and most underrated song in this game. It was already a beautiful composition in the original version, but here it's actually hard for me to describe how beautiful it is. A theme that effortlessly conveys supreme joy and delight. The violins here elevate the song to the extent that I really don't think it could've been better rearranged. Perfectly fitting for a town fully themed around marriage, perfectly capturing that vibe. Honestly, this is now high on my list of favorite songs out of any game I have ever played. I had high hopes for what Shimomura would accomplish here, and those hopes were blown out of the water. She really never dissapoints, man.
Yeah, this review just kind of gave me an excuse to gush over the soundtrack more than anything. That's the main reason I wanted to write it. Anyway, this probably amounts to being my least favorite Mario RPG overall, but it's still good. Props to ArtePiazza for their great work on the remake. Also, I'm really glad that Nintendo and Square's relationship got rekindled during the switch era. This remake likely would have never happened otherwise.
I played it for the first time through this remake, and it was very much worth my purchase. Before talking about the remake though, I want to talk about the game as is.
This game came to be because of the close relationship that Nintendo and Square Soft had in the late 80s and early 90s. It really shows in the final product, because it feels like Mario, early Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest and lots of wacky stuff mixed into a blender. More than any other game in the series, this is a very traditional RPG fused with the Mario IP, giving it its own flavor. This game still has an extremely unique identity because of it, one that still stands on its own (even with the many Mario RPGs that have come out after it). There really isn't anything else quite like it.
It's super interesting to me that despite it kind of feeling like a lite crossover of sorts, it doesn't overly rely on Mario or Square's franchises to form its identity. It obviously is a Mario game first and foremost, but a Mario game that doesn't rely on tropes or overly familiar scenarios. This fact is even spoofed at the very beginning of the game, where Bowser does kidnap Peach and Mario goes to save her like always. After leading us to believe that that's the story of the game, a bait and switch is enacted and the real plot of the game begins after Exor lands in Bowser's Keep. This kind of summarizes what the game is like in general. You constantly encounter the weirdest and most bizarre NPCs and enemies in this game (some of which border on being nonsensical) that don't resemble anything else seen in the Mario franchise, before or since. The scenarios that the party goes through are also extremely creative, strange and often funny. It's pretty astounding how creative of a game it is, especially keeping in mind that the Mario franchise still hadn't spread its wings that much when it came out. It easily could've relied on what Mario had already established with the NES and SNES platformers, but it went out of its way to not do that. At least for that, it's a game that I do admire.
Even with all of this, it still manages to feel enough like a Mario game. It obviously features lots of Mario characters (at least that had already been established), characteristics of Mario's world like mushrooms, stars, floating blocks and pipes, and more. Where the game evokes more of an early Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest vibe is in the game's overall design ethos. It features basic turn based combat where you juggle multiple party members, basic level up and progression systems, items that work like in those games, basic towns that feature shops and inns (that are also almost kind of themed like Medieval towns), etc. It's pretty much as basic as RPGs get in this regard, but it works. This game treads the line well between being derivative and unique.
The gameplay is fun, but I wouldn't really say that it's too great. After all, it's a late 90s RPG at heart, and it somewhat shows. The game did innovate with its battle system through the addition of action commands, which were a brilliant idea, but other than that, it's a very by the numbers RPG that is also super easy for the most part. I usually don't complain about difficulty when I play a game, because as long as a game demands enough from me to actually make me put in some effort, it can keep me engaged. That isn't really the case with this game, though. Most enemy encounters can be rushed through after like 1 or 2 turns with the most basic of attacks in your arsenal, particularly if you time action commands well. Even most bosses around the first half of the game demand very little from you, and can be defeated super easily by exploiting weaknesses and using buffs.
The remake doesn't help in this regard either, because some of its additions like triple moves, chain buffs, perfect attacks/blocks and switching party members make it even more of a breeze. The game wasn't rebalanced around these new mechanics, so it's objectively easier. I will talk more about these mechanics later, however. Still, even with how little this game demands from you, I still had fun with it because timing action commands is intrinsically very engaging. The story isn't really great either, and it times it barely even makes sense, but it also kept me engaged because of how weird, funny and charming it is.
I really don't have much more to say on the game itself, but I have more to say on the remake. ArtePiazza did about as good of a job as they could've while keeping the game as faithful as possible. I'll go out on a limb and say that it isn't quite among the best remakes that I've seen because of how faithful it is, but with the great legacy that it carries, I understand that they wanted to respect it as much as possible, with warts and all. In my ideal world, this remake would've reworked and redesigned the core game to improve on it while keeping its identity, but leaving the game as is probably was the best choice that ArtePiazza could've made. They still did really great work where they could.
The game looks gorgeous, for one. Videos and screenshots really don't do it justice, because I didnt realize how truly pretty it looks until I got my hands on it. Even though character models and environments are mostly kept very simple, texture work is really good in general. Also, the lightning engine here in particular looks stunning, and does a lot of heavy lifting to make it look as good as it does. The addition of the new battle mechanics, if a little unnecesarry, are also really cool to me. I want to give a special shoutout to the chain mechanic, because it does a good job of encouraging you to keep timing action commands and getting skilled enough to do multiple in a row. It doesn't really matter most of the time, but just seeing the chain number go higher and higher feels is intrinsically super satisfying. More than anything however, I would really like to see some of these mechanics make an appearance in a game that's actually designed around them. They all have awesome potential that could be realized if they synergized more with the battle system.
Here's also a rapidfire list of some quality of life changes and random extras that were included:
- The Scrapbook was added (essentially a journal for what happens in the game, mostly following the main story). Really cool addition that frames the events from Mallow's and Geno's perspectives, and also serves as a good refresher for the game's events if you stopped playing for a while.
- The Monster List was added. Having some form of bestiary in this game is awesome. Some monster descriptions are pretty random and don't really serve any worldbuilding purpose, but they're all really charming and funny (especially ones that blatantly break the fourth wall). Viewing all enemy stats is very convenient, too.
- A post game with super bosses was added, which has some of the most well designed encounters in the whole game. These actually do a great job encouraging you to use the new mechanics and taking advantage of all party members and their abilities.
- A music player was added, which unlocks after you beat the game. Really great feature to have in any game.
- An exclamation mark shows up to indicate the precise timing required for action commands, which is a great feature because not every timing is super well communicated without it.
- You can now fast travel anywhere from any location, which saves time from exiting and area and traversing the whole world map to get somewhere.
There's more that I didn't mention here, but these are the most notable ones to me. They all serve to make this the best version of the game by themselves. However, nothing compares to the single best thing that this remake brought to the table: the reorchestrated soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura. Oh. My. God.
It seriously left me in awe multiple times. It's the one aspect of this game that I'm extremely passionate about. Yoko Shimomura is one of, if not my very favorite game composer of all time. Her works on the Mario RPGs, especially Mario & Luigi Dream Team, are among my favorites for any game I've played. After that series fell through the wayside because of AlphaDream's bankruptcy, I didn't think she would compose for any Mario RPGs anymore. This was heartbreaking to me. However, I'm now unbelievably ecstatic to say that she came back, composing for both Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and this game across the span of two years in a row. The goddess is actually back.
The original game's ost already was great, but Jesus Christ. Yoko's work here for nearly every single song is leagues better than in the original. I could shoutout the entire soundtrack here, and I kind of want to, but for the sake of some brevity, I will instead highlight some of my absolute favorites. Fight Against Bowser, Battle Against a Somewhat Stronger Monster, Hello Happy Kingdom, Danger Aplenty on the Journey, Let's take the Midas River, Beware the Forest's Mushrooms, Nimbus Land and Battling Culex are all absolutely incredible. They're all up there among some of my favorite songs across all of the Mario RPGs, even rivaling Dream Team's songs for me. They effortlessly preserve the game's original compositions and tone while adding whimsy and gravity to it through the reorchestration.
Even better, there's two other songs that I want to give an even more special highlight to. The world map theme seriously left me speechless when I first heard it. Yoko grabbed what was previously a super simple and repetitive melody, and literally added a whole new melody on top of the preexisting song. It wordlessly conveys the spirit of adventure that the game flaunts, as well as the idea that there's a long journey ahead. All through a super whimsical and cheery tone. The trademark Shimomura flutes and violins shine super bright here. It's so beautiful.
Even better than that one though, the Marrymore theme is unbelievable. My god. What I believe to be the single best and most underrated song in this game. It was already a beautiful composition in the original version, but here it's actually hard for me to describe how beautiful it is. A theme that effortlessly conveys supreme joy and delight. The violins here elevate the song to the extent that I really don't think it could've been better rearranged. Perfectly fitting for a town fully themed around marriage, perfectly capturing that vibe. Honestly, this is now high on my list of favorite songs out of any game I have ever played. I had high hopes for what Shimomura would accomplish here, and those hopes were blown out of the water. She really never dissapoints, man.
Yeah, this review just kind of gave me an excuse to gush over the soundtrack more than anything. That's the main reason I wanted to write it. Anyway, this probably amounts to being my least favorite Mario RPG overall, but it's still good. Props to ArtePiazza for their great work on the remake. Also, I'm really glad that Nintendo and Square's relationship got rekindled during the switch era. This remake likely would have never happened otherwise.