The game that paved the way for Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi, and I felt their lifeblood in every second of this experience. This game was better than I could ever have imagined. I'm not in a position to say if it ruined anything from the original game, but it seems pretty faithful to me, whilst also being its own thing in many ways, and I love it for that. This was an absolute joy to play through.
My favourite part, naturally given that I'm not big on RPGs, is the overworld. The story, the exploration, even the minigames were fun other than a handful like the Yoshi one. I would've enjoyed it even more if it wasn't for my Joycon Drift absolutely fucking me six ways to Sunday.
I will say that my biggest frustration with the game was the perfect press system in combat, both with attacks and blocks. There is a disturbing amount of inconsistency with how attacks are telegraphed, to the point where it felt like a guessing game of whether I'd actually get a perfect hit or not, especially given the brutally-thin (at times) window, though it was certainly satisfying when I did get one, at least as satisfying as overcoming artificial challenges can be.
Nevertheless, minor grievances aside, playing this game was a massive surprise and a joy. I wasn't expecting to get it for a good year or so, given that it only just came out and I used up pretty much all of my money on three games that I was far more emotionally-invested in, but my mother managed to pull through for what was an otherwise-very-shitty Christmas, and I'm so happy that she did.
This game is genuinely a 9/10. I don't care if there's recency bias or if my score lowers later down the line, Super Mario RPG was an absolute pleasure to play through and I will not retract my appreciation for it in the final days of 2023, especially given that my 2024 kicked off by finally finishing it. Side note, the length of this game was SHOCKING. I mean, I always knew Mario games were longer than people made them out to be, especially the RPGs, but DAMN, this one is PACKED with content and I loved it. The fact that anything even similar to this was ever on the SNES is just mythical to me. Fair play, Nintendo. Fair fucking play.
P.S. I totally get the Geno appeal now. What a guy.
My favourite part, naturally given that I'm not big on RPGs, is the overworld. The story, the exploration, even the minigames were fun other than a handful like the Yoshi one. I would've enjoyed it even more if it wasn't for my Joycon Drift absolutely fucking me six ways to Sunday.
I will say that my biggest frustration with the game was the perfect press system in combat, both with attacks and blocks. There is a disturbing amount of inconsistency with how attacks are telegraphed, to the point where it felt like a guessing game of whether I'd actually get a perfect hit or not, especially given the brutally-thin (at times) window, though it was certainly satisfying when I did get one, at least as satisfying as overcoming artificial challenges can be.
Nevertheless, minor grievances aside, playing this game was a massive surprise and a joy. I wasn't expecting to get it for a good year or so, given that it only just came out and I used up pretty much all of my money on three games that I was far more emotionally-invested in, but my mother managed to pull through for what was an otherwise-very-shitty Christmas, and I'm so happy that she did.
This game is genuinely a 9/10. I don't care if there's recency bias or if my score lowers later down the line, Super Mario RPG was an absolute pleasure to play through and I will not retract my appreciation for it in the final days of 2023, especially given that my 2024 kicked off by finally finishing it. Side note, the length of this game was SHOCKING. I mean, I always knew Mario games were longer than people made them out to be, especially the RPGs, but DAMN, this one is PACKED with content and I loved it. The fact that anything even similar to this was ever on the SNES is just mythical to me. Fair play, Nintendo. Fair fucking play.
P.S. I totally get the Geno appeal now. What a guy.