Super Mario RPG is a wonderful little game that brings a few new improvements to the 1996 original. First and foremost, of course, the audio-visual design. The game appears in the Unity Engine in a wonderfully cute 3D style that remains true to the original. The characters are small, charming and cuddly. You can't even really be angry with Bowser in this game. The entire locations also have a great miniature cut-out charm, which would only have been missing a tilt-shift effect. Small huts and houses adorn the villages. Dungeons and forests are wonderfully designed and invite you to explore. I always found the water pools in particular very nice to look at because of the cross-section. However, I would like to know what Nintendo was thinking with the character design of the Smithy Gang. From boss fight to boss fight they get more and more random and jumbled up. Yet they start with enemies such as swords or bows with an interesting premise. Mario, Peach and Bowser are joined by two newcomers, Geno and Mallow, who are in no way inferior to the original trio. Each of the five has their own cute attack animations which also differ from weapon to weapon. Sometimes Mario kicks a Koopa shell towards his enemies, sometimes he strikes with his newly acquired gloves. And that also brings us to the fight.
These are rarely challenging and don't require any real tactics. In most cases, it is enough to use the standard attacks of our fighters. To maximise the damage you should make sure you press the A button a second time at the right moment during the attack. We can also use this feature to block enemy attacks to avoid damage completely. However, this time window is often so short that you are usually hit by the first attack, but have often internalised the pattern or attack animation by the second time. In addition to the regular attacks, there are also abilities that consume flower points (mana, so to speak). I mostly used these for healing or when there were a lot of enemies to deal damage simultaneously. The special attacks rarely do more damage, which is why I mostly attacked individual enemies standard stuff. The newly introduced triple moves, which could perhaps be compared to the summons of the Final Fantasy series (after all, Super Mario RPG was originally developed by Square), do all the more damage. With every attack and block, a gauge fills up and at 100% it starts. These attacks get initiated by awesome-looking cutscenes including your active trio. The damage, effect or, affected enemies vary from your current line-up. For example with Bowser, Geno and Mario, our favourite King Koopa throws the two up in the air, there Mario forces Geno forward and the latter starts bombarding the battlefields with shooting stars. When selected, Mario, Mallow and Peach, the mushroom kingdom citizens send energy to Mallow which casts a healing rainbow.
Then of course there are the items, but I mostly used healing objects and resurrection. There is also a small selection of items which affect enemies or cause damage. In addition, there are equipable accessories, clothes and, as already mentioned, weapons. Where the accessories usually bring an effect in addition to stat improvements, such as protection against transformations, clothes only bring improvements in defence and unfortunately do not offer any visual changes to the characters.
Unfortunately, the game is not without its problems. The hidden chests are just a nuisance and instead of looking for them you eventually start jumping wildly across the map. The music has also been given a fantastic overhaul, but in about 90% of all battles, the same silly music plays, which at some point got on my nerves. It wasn't particularly frequent, but often enough to be noticeable.
And just between you and me, the shallow story doesn't necessarily win any awards, but you know what that's okay. Super Mario RPG is a Mario game that lives by its atmosphere. The music tempts you to whistle along, every new map is a cute little diorama. The characters you meet are funny, cute and whacky. And that's exactly how you tumble through the game play by play without much hindrance and a huge grin on your face most of the time.
These are rarely challenging and don't require any real tactics. In most cases, it is enough to use the standard attacks of our fighters. To maximise the damage you should make sure you press the A button a second time at the right moment during the attack. We can also use this feature to block enemy attacks to avoid damage completely. However, this time window is often so short that you are usually hit by the first attack, but have often internalised the pattern or attack animation by the second time. In addition to the regular attacks, there are also abilities that consume flower points (mana, so to speak). I mostly used these for healing or when there were a lot of enemies to deal damage simultaneously. The special attacks rarely do more damage, which is why I mostly attacked individual enemies standard stuff. The newly introduced triple moves, which could perhaps be compared to the summons of the Final Fantasy series (after all, Super Mario RPG was originally developed by Square), do all the more damage. With every attack and block, a gauge fills up and at 100% it starts. These attacks get initiated by awesome-looking cutscenes including your active trio. The damage, effect or, affected enemies vary from your current line-up. For example with Bowser, Geno and Mario, our favourite King Koopa throws the two up in the air, there Mario forces Geno forward and the latter starts bombarding the battlefields with shooting stars. When selected, Mario, Mallow and Peach, the mushroom kingdom citizens send energy to Mallow which casts a healing rainbow.
Then of course there are the items, but I mostly used healing objects and resurrection. There is also a small selection of items which affect enemies or cause damage. In addition, there are equipable accessories, clothes and, as already mentioned, weapons. Where the accessories usually bring an effect in addition to stat improvements, such as protection against transformations, clothes only bring improvements in defence and unfortunately do not offer any visual changes to the characters.
Unfortunately, the game is not without its problems. The hidden chests are just a nuisance and instead of looking for them you eventually start jumping wildly across the map. The music has also been given a fantastic overhaul, but in about 90% of all battles, the same silly music plays, which at some point got on my nerves. It wasn't particularly frequent, but often enough to be noticeable.
And just between you and me, the shallow story doesn't necessarily win any awards, but you know what that's okay. Super Mario RPG is a Mario game that lives by its atmosphere. The music tempts you to whistle along, every new map is a cute little diorama. The characters you meet are funny, cute and whacky. And that's exactly how you tumble through the game play by play without much hindrance and a huge grin on your face most of the time.