ok here's a more genuine review

I'll try to keep this one a bit shorter since I'm not exactly a Super Mario RPG expert, most of my knowledge is from my playthrough along with videos I watched about it on YouTube the original version has always been on my backlog but I just never got around it and I'm not sure why since the game's surprisingly short compared to most JRPGs I'm sure I probably could have completed it in a weekend or something. well eventually the remake got an announcement and I took that as a sign that "hey maybe I should actually play this game now", that and the constant shilling from a friend of mine (thank you for shilling the game btw) so I bought the remake and did everything I wanted to do. after finishing the post-game I've come to the conclusion that....I was indeed missing out.

I'm not sure why but back when I knew less about the game I was expecting SMRPG to have a bit more of a darker storyline along the likes of something like Super Paper Mario, I guess because Square was the developer for this game along with the menacing aura that the SNES boxart had, but no the game's not like that at all it's actually pretty damn goofy lol (good thing). I like how the first subversion happens right at the beginning of the game as the opening leads you to believe the game will be another "Mario V.S. Bowser" type of deal but right after you defeat Bowser (which happens about five minutes in) a giant sword falls from the sky and crashes into Bowser's castle, which blasts Mario all the way back to his house. when Mario goes back to the castle to find Peach, the sword claims the castle as property of the "Smithy Gang", who are the true antagonists of the game. the sword then destroys the bridge to the castle, leading Mario to instead venture to the Mushroom Kingdom to inform Toadsworth the Chancellor about the situation. upon getting there he meets with Mallow the Nimbus Frog who teams up with Mario to retrieve a coin that was stolen from him. once they defeat a member of the Smithy Gang attempting to take over the Mushroom Kingdom, the two travel to a few more locations before encountering a mysterious sentient doll in the Forest Maze. after defeating another Smithy Gang member, the doll introduces himself as Geno (his actual name's hard to pronounce) and reveals that the sword that crashed into Bowser's Castle also shattered Star Road in the process. without the Star Road and the Star Pieces, everyone's wishes will unable to be granted. it's here where the main objective is made clear: collect the Star Pieces to restore Star Road, and prevent the Smithy Gang from taking over Mario's world with weapons. okay the plot's actually a bit darker then the Mario games that came before but the story has a great amount of goofy moments. there's a Toad jumping on a bed who jumps at lightning speed once Mario agrees if he'll be able to jump as high as him someday, then there's another Toad who gets his wallet stolen and you can chose to sell it which will then make him pissed. in the next town Mario is knocked out by a kid playing with the Geno doll before it becomes sentient and when they return later and the kid mentions that Mario needs "all the help he can get", Mario almost goes over to punch the kid but Mallow holds him off so that doesn't happen, unhinged. of course there's Bowser, who's always entertaining whenever he gets to speak in the game. not only is this the first game where he gets to team up with Mario, but it's also the game that solidified his modern personality. nowadays Bowser acting like how he does here is pretty expected we're all used to this now, but before SMRPG he was mostly just "big bad Koopa" so I can imagine that back then this more fleshed out Bowser was a big deal. also shoutout to the fact that despite there being almost no voice acting, they still got Kenny James (Bowser's VA since Strikers/the Wii era) to perform some occasional grunts during Bowser's dialogue, love how his portrayal has become inseparable from Bowser.

I don't want to spoil everything about the story so I'll move on to how the game plays. you play as Mario who you'll be using during this adventure (yeah I'm shocked too). since this is a Mario game, you're actually able to jump in the overworld which I think is the first time you can do that in a JRPG outside of battles, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about that. the jumping is cool because you use it to not only hit floating treasure chests with items inside but it's essential to traverse through this game's 3D isometric world. on occasions you'll do have to do some platforming segments, which can range from neat to admittedly a bit annoying, thankfully there's not too many of those sections and a few of them are optional. during battle Mario by all extension all of the playable party members (Mallow, Geno, Bowser, Peach in that order) have four ways to act: A which is the traditional Attack button, Y which is the Specials which use up the magic points, or Flower Points as this game calls it, X which lets you use your items (a lot of them can be used outside of battle as well), and B which you'll mostly likely use for either defending or fleeing from battles. new to this remake, the "-" button will let you perform a Gauge or Triple Move depending on how many active party members you have, though you have to fill the Action Gauge beforehand which is done by successfully pulling off Action Commands which I'll mention a bit later. a Gauge Move has Toad appear with a treasure chest that gives you a random item to support you in battle, while Triple Moves have all three of your active party members perform a special move with its own cool looking cutscene to boot. each combination of characters (with Mario because you can't switch him out) has their own unique Triple Move which gives you six different Triple Moves you can try out in battle. I didn't really use them much outside of a few postgame battles because the game isn't really too difficult for the most part but they're there if you want the extra help.

a thing that surprised me about this game is that it has Action Commands, which I thought were only in Paper Mario and M&L before I played this. when you perform an attack, regular or magical, you can time an A press to perform either extra damage or more healing and buffs if you're using a defensive Special move. some Special moves like Mario's Fireball or Bowser's Terrorize will either have you press the A button repeatedly or rotate the Control Stick or D-pad respectively to deal maximum damage. then you have Geno where you have to hold the A button until the Star Meter is full for a maximum Geno Beam or Mario's Super Jump where you have to keep timing your A presses to perform continuous hits, and that's not even mentioning that Action Commands are used for blocking certain attacks, with a good timing halving damage and a perfect one bringing it down to 0, okay that's a lot of mechanics for a mostly easy game. alright I guess that can be a nitpick about this game, it's pretty easy. now for me this isn't much of a problem since I can just chill out and relax while playing the game, but this will probably be a turn-off for people who want more of a challenge. it doesn't help that this remake introduced splash damage that regular attacks can do (as if regular attacks weren't already powerful to begin with). the icing in the cake is that instead of a proper hard mode, they instead made an easy mode instead, thank you game journalists! but yeah for me I don't mind the difficulty and QoL changes, the "!" symbol for when you need to do an Action Command is especially helpful and I will sorely miss that whenever I get around to playing the original.

okay now I'm going to go over the graphics and music and I'll say right here that expect nothing but positivity here but HOO BOY they did not disappoint in this aspect at the slightest. this game looks incredible, it really does. the graphics aren't a "Nintendo hire this man" type of deal, but instead it's a beautiful HD recreation of the original's art style, right down to the chibi proportions of the characters, which is even kept in the high quality cutscenes. some people say that the new visuals have gotten rid of some if not all of the charm, and I can't believe that they genuinely think that. the original SNES game doesn't look bad by any means, but if you had to ask me I personally think the remake improves on what the original game sought to do. the most notable thing I can bring up is some areas here were given full-on backgrounds where in the original places like Mushroom Kingdom had a blank blue void that made the place look like a debug area, the new backgrounds introduced here really helps everything feel like a real world. although I prefer the remake's visuals, I think it's perfectly fine to prefer whichever over the other, both the original and remake have their positives over each other so I won't fault on anyone for saying the SNES version looks better, just don't go saying that the remake is some soulless cashgrab or something like that because it's not. okay nvm I just thought of a negative, there's no sound effects at all during dialogue boxes (except for Yoshis and Bowser) which is more of a nitpick since the original game did that too, but all the new pre-rendered cutscenes have no sound effects either, which is especially jarring during the boss intros, I can't even say it's intentional since one boss intro does have a sound effect and it's the final boss, honestly an odd decision.

Yoko Shimomura moment

Street Fighter II, Live A Live, Parasite Eve, Mario & Luigi, Kingdom Hearts (best thing about Kingdom Hearts), Final Fantasy XV, her résumé is STACKED, Top 10 of my personal favorite composers for sure, probably even Top 5. okay enough shilling I'll go over the tracks that stuck with me, specfically the remake versions since that's the soundtrack I used, having the option to use the original SNES is based just wanted to mention. Fun Adventure, Cheerful Adventure is an excellent introduction to what exactly you're in for when it comes to SMRPG as well as being a cool roll call for the characters you'll be playing as, I also have to appreciate it getting more dramatic at the end just in time for the dramatic title screen. Bowser's Keep immediately gave me a sense of familiarity since I remember hearing the beginning part a lot during some old Mario Flash animations back in the day, notably ones that featured Bowser's Castle in some capacity. anyway, very menacing track, got some bias for it too. I'm an absolute idiot for this, but I did not realize Battling Bowser was a remix of his SMB3 theme until a random guy in the comment section of the link pointed it out, well I guess that means I like this track even more! the beginning of The Sword that Scattered Stars is so kino my god I had to kneel in my mind, also pretty sure I heard this in the Mario Flash animations too so here's some more bias. Danger Abounds on the Journey is definitely a Mario & Luigi track, yeah yeah same composer but I still wanted to make the comparison. Battling Monsters is the same thing to the point where I've used to confuse this with Superstar Saga's battle theme, I know better nowadays. Victory! is one of the best victory themes I've heard in a JRPG. I don’t have much to say about Battling Strongish Monsters, but it’s a pretty memorable boss theme and has a more sense of urgency than the regular battle theme. however Battling a Weapon Boss is even more up my alley. the whole track has a pretty groovy vibe which’s helped by those drums in the background that really make me want to dance, and those high notes right before the song loops are awesome, very nice climax. Elegy is that sad song you hear in a lot of videos and memes, not only is this made funny by the fact that it comes from this game, but it also plays during such a goofy and obvious revelation. GENOOOOOOOOOO!!!! this track’s good. JAAAAAAAAAAZZ!!!! for most people [Let’s Race] is the catchy track you hear while taking part in the Yoshi Races, but for me, it was the “Red Essence” theme song. This is Booster Tower, and this is a really beautiful track wow. this ain’t even Mario anymore we’re now in traditional fantasy JRPG territory and I am not complaining, which is made even more surprising considering who exactly owns the place where this plays. And That Makes Him Booster! a worthy theme for peak male Booster himself. I really love all the instruments used here especially the main one right when the track starts, straight up Khonjin House type beat. anyway that’s all tracks I’ll share song, if you want to hear more search them up online or even check out the game yourself.

very nice game, glad I finally got to play it. there were times when SMRPG reminded me of the Mario & Luigi games which is very much a good thing since those games are awesome. comparisons aside SMRPG still holds out as its own thing and has some cool original characters that are the perfect blend of Nintendo and classic Square. that's not even mentioning that there's a character that's a full-on Final Fantasy reference and is one of the biggest highlights for me since I really enjoy the early FF games, but if I talk about him any further you'll see him pop up in your YouTube recommendations so I'll stop for now. alright I don’t know how to conclude this, so go play the game if you haven’t and have a great time, it’s cool.

I’m starting to think that Mallow guy isn’t actually a frog….