by pierrot Sun Jan 27, 2019 11:20 pm
I finished Super Mario RPG, and to my surprise, it was actually pretty good. It's kind of an interesting game, in that it sort of feels like Square just fanfic-ing the Mario universe, but I've never been particularly drawn to the Mario-verse (outside of Yoshi), so that doesn't really bother me. I could see fans of Mario being a little put off by that, but it doesn't seem like there's actually anyone who minds. I also had this weird thought, about the "Extra Special Thanks To" Nomura, that maybe he was sitting on these crossover ideas for a while, and something he suggested ended up turning into this project, and maybe Kingdom Hearts later on, as well. I'm sure glad he wasn't involved with SMRPGs development, even though it's not like the story is important to the experience at all, so what could he have really done to mess it up, other than put zippers all over Geno, or Peach, or something. It's also kind of impressive how much the Intelligent Designs group just straight jacked from Super Mario RPG for Paper Mario, while forgetting to actually make a playable game.
It's tough for me to put a finger on why I enjoyed Super Mario RPG, though. I didn't necessarily care for a lot of the little mini games thrown in all over the place; I feel the graphical style is a little ugly, personally; There really isn't any character in the game who isn't a complete imbecile, aside from Geno, maybe; Mario's pantomiming was one of my least favorite things about the game; I also don't prefer the isometric view. In a lot of ways, the dialogue, and interactions have the feeling of a gag manga, which probably limited my investment in the story enough that I didn't really care about it being pretty meaningless, and irreverently stupid.
Ultimately it doesn't do anything terribly wrong, though, and is very playable throughout the game. Things move and progress at a nearly perfect pace (if slightly too quickly at times), partly because the combat is actually pretty good here. Paper Mario is mired by god awful pacing in the battles, and story progression, so I was somewhat anticipating that to be the case in Super Mario RPG, too. I also probably ended up liking the "Square" elements of the game the most, with characters like Booky, and his tower, as well as Crystaler, and his envy of the third dimension.
It was a game worth playing, and considerably better than the RPGs that consistently get ranked at the top of the consoles library, but it's certainly not the best RPG on the console, or anything like that. If you haven't played Super Mario RPG, go for it; Then, I don't know, play Dragon Quest V, probably.
After finishing the game, I started watching a bit of the AGDQ 2019 run of it, and was kind of confused about this line from one of the kinopio, about not having his bazooka. In the Japanese script, he basically says he didn't apprehend Croco because he's a 'watch-person.' So, I don't really understand why they went so far out into left field in the translation, but that seems to be a bit of a common thing in the localization. Puns are practically the currency of the Super Mario RPG world, though, so I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be in charge of the localization.
Also, before I forget, the music was pretty good. I generally don't enjoy the music in most Mario games, but Shimomura Youko did a really nice job. I especially liked the Rose Town theme. I also saw a couple things that I never before realized that I needed in my life: King Koopa swinging around a BowWow like a flail, and Fatty/Obese Patas.
So, now I'm playing Front Mission Gun Hazard in earnest, and yeah, it's pretty legit. I am kind of annoyed by the map screen, and how it seems to be almost impossible to select the place I want to go next, sometimes, as well as all the minor damage taken from enemies exploding, and from dashing into walls, but it's going well so far, anyway. I am a little concerned that the gameplay seems very wash-rinse-repeat, and I'm not sure if that will start to feel stale before too long. I'm on the second area after becoming a mercenary, and judging from the other save files on my cartridge, there seems to be four or five more areas after that.
