This review contains spoilers
I know everyone is saying this, but genuinely I cannot believe this remake exists. With the sheer reliance on Square Enix for legal rights, Nintendo's utter disinterest in reusing the characters or locations from this game, and the relative lack of rereleases...it felt like a pipe dream. The day this remake was revealed in the 2023 June Direct, I nearly cried tears of joy. I'm kind of a sensitive guy, but that's not something I can say for a lot of games; that them just existing made me so unbelievably happy. When I look back at my review of the SNES game from last year, which started with essentially a plea for Nintendo and Square Enix to do anything with these characters (specifically Geno) and personal speculation that, in a perfect world, now would be the perfect time to do a remake, I feel so happy to say that that wish was fulfilled. Something about everything regarding this remake just feels like it was made with a palpable love for the original, even though I know nothing about this development team. All the animated cutscenes that bring big moments to life were so beautiful to see, especially those last few at the game's ending...lemme tell you, seeing Mallow still holding onto Geno's doll even after the star spirit possessing the doll had long left wounded me. Its so cute and also so sad at the same time, like Geno is still there at the party the ending takes place in in spirit but not in person.
That being said, as glad as I am that this remake exists, I've already reviewed the original Super Mario RPG. This Switch remake admittedly doesn't change much, so I will try not to repeat myself by recapping the story or going too in-depth on gameplay. Instead, this review will focus more on how this is as a remake, and comparing my old review to my thoughts now. Does this deserve a five star? If I'm trying my best to be "objective" (although that's pretty much impossible with something as subjective as a game review), probably not. Frankly, this remake brought me so much joy that I feel like I'd be lying to myself not to rate it five stars. It's also my Game of the Year for the same reason.
One thing I can say I absolutely overlooked in my original review is just how much I've always really loved this game. When I reread through it, I never realized how much it looked like I didn't have much passion for the game. This isn't intended, nor is it true. Super Mario RPG has a ton of charm, from the characters to the witty writing. This remake faithfully preserves all of it, and even adds to in some cases. Seeing moments like Mallow getting his frog coin stolen by Croco or the star spirit possessing Geno as fully animated cutscenes nearly brought a tear to my eye, it was so amazing to see and I can't help but wish there were more of 'em. Every change this remake has made, as small as they are, are all benefits: excellent quality of life features like ! icons to help with timing, actually giving you a way to see an enemy's elemental weaknesses (tbh I don't get why that wasn't a thing in the original), an autosave, a map to essentially fast travel (although since you can't go to places you haven't been to before I didn't get a TON of use out of it), the option to switch a dead party member out on the fly, immediately telling you when an attack can or can't be defended against with timed defense (another thing sorely lacking in the original)...the game is the same at its core, but these features do add a lot. There's also some neat little side stuff for extra flavor, like an actual post-game (although admittedly its just fighting hard versions of the bosses you already beat), a Scrapbook that has unique comments from the characters in the party for every event that happens in the story, as well as some really amusing or genuinely kinda interesting biographies for each enemy through the Bestiary menu. Did you know the reason Dodo is so loyal to Valentina is because he imprinted on her as a hatchling, making him think she's his mother? Well, that lore bit wasn't anywhere else before, but now we know, and its a pretty neat detail.
If I had to complain about anything, I do have some nitpicks. To get the most insignificant one out of the way: I wish there was more to do with coins. They pile up very easily and, by the end of the game, you're left with several thousand coins and nothing to spend it on. As for a much more significant complaint, I think the game was already easy enough and the active push to make it even easier is just odd to me. Granted, the bosses do have rematches that are souped-up versions of the original fights, and I'm sure I'll enjoy doing those. Also, I'm not referring to any of the great quality of life changes I mentioned in the earlier paragraph when I say they made it easier. Stuff like having a much easier to notice indicator of whether your timed hits were perfect or when exactly to time them don't make the game much easier, they just help you play the game right. The ! icons to help with timing go away when you get it right enough times and reappear if you keep fudging the timing. When I complain about unnecessary attempts to make the game easier, I am referring more to stuff like the team supers that melt the HP of bosses like a marshmallow or the splash damage whenever you get a perfect timed hit. Yes, you can just not use them, but its crazy to me just how much these two things break the game in half. I was at least somewhat at risk of dying in the SNES game and bosses took longer than 5 seconds to beat, lmao. Smithy and Jinx were the only bosses I had any sort of a hard time with because Smithy's second form has ridiculously high HP and I did the third Jinx fight without the team supers. I do also think making frog coins so easy to get was pretty unnecessary. There's an OP accessory you can get with Frog Coins that halves the FP cost of one party member's spells, it's crazy good. Again, I could just not use it, but why wouldn't I? Another annoying issue is the long loading times. I'm not sure why this happens and its ultimately not a big deal but you can be waiting for quite a while just for the game to load in the area you're at.
Brief shoutout to the glow-up the visuals and soundtrack got. One of the big things everyone worried about with this is that they'd take a modern Paper Mario approach and try too hard to modernize or sanitize the utterly bizarre character designs in this game, but they didn't do that at all (outside of a few enemies based on Mario series foes that got hit with the modern stick) and its just so awesome to see all of that in high quality. Some of the songs took a little getting used to for me because I'm so accustomed to the SNES soundtrack. This Switch remake has an all-new sound while still preserving the original idea, but overall the remixes are amazing. "And My Name's Booster", "Rose Town", "Slope", "Hello, Happy Kingdom"...lots of really great songs imo that now sound so clear. The visuals are also just so damn cool to see, they preserve the original intent so well while also upgrading the areas to look very nice. One of the strangest (and not the fun quirky kind of strange) visual quirks the original Super Mario RPG had was that every area was bordered by a blue or black void of nothingness, but this remake does away with that entirely and I never realized just how much cleaner the game looks without 'em. I also never thought I would be able to see places like Nimbus Land or Weapons Factory ever again, much less see them look as amazing as they look here.
That being said, as glad as I am that this remake exists, I've already reviewed the original Super Mario RPG. This Switch remake admittedly doesn't change much, so I will try not to repeat myself by recapping the story or going too in-depth on gameplay. Instead, this review will focus more on how this is as a remake, and comparing my old review to my thoughts now. Does this deserve a five star? If I'm trying my best to be "objective" (although that's pretty much impossible with something as subjective as a game review), probably not. Frankly, this remake brought me so much joy that I feel like I'd be lying to myself not to rate it five stars. It's also my Game of the Year for the same reason.
One thing I can say I absolutely overlooked in my original review is just how much I've always really loved this game. When I reread through it, I never realized how much it looked like I didn't have much passion for the game. This isn't intended, nor is it true. Super Mario RPG has a ton of charm, from the characters to the witty writing. This remake faithfully preserves all of it, and even adds to in some cases. Seeing moments like Mallow getting his frog coin stolen by Croco or the star spirit possessing Geno as fully animated cutscenes nearly brought a tear to my eye, it was so amazing to see and I can't help but wish there were more of 'em. Every change this remake has made, as small as they are, are all benefits: excellent quality of life features like ! icons to help with timing, actually giving you a way to see an enemy's elemental weaknesses (tbh I don't get why that wasn't a thing in the original), an autosave, a map to essentially fast travel (although since you can't go to places you haven't been to before I didn't get a TON of use out of it), the option to switch a dead party member out on the fly, immediately telling you when an attack can or can't be defended against with timed defense (another thing sorely lacking in the original)...the game is the same at its core, but these features do add a lot. There's also some neat little side stuff for extra flavor, like an actual post-game (although admittedly its just fighting hard versions of the bosses you already beat), a Scrapbook that has unique comments from the characters in the party for every event that happens in the story, as well as some really amusing or genuinely kinda interesting biographies for each enemy through the Bestiary menu. Did you know the reason Dodo is so loyal to Valentina is because he imprinted on her as a hatchling, making him think she's his mother? Well, that lore bit wasn't anywhere else before, but now we know, and its a pretty neat detail.
If I had to complain about anything, I do have some nitpicks. To get the most insignificant one out of the way: I wish there was more to do with coins. They pile up very easily and, by the end of the game, you're left with several thousand coins and nothing to spend it on. As for a much more significant complaint, I think the game was already easy enough and the active push to make it even easier is just odd to me. Granted, the bosses do have rematches that are souped-up versions of the original fights, and I'm sure I'll enjoy doing those. Also, I'm not referring to any of the great quality of life changes I mentioned in the earlier paragraph when I say they made it easier. Stuff like having a much easier to notice indicator of whether your timed hits were perfect or when exactly to time them don't make the game much easier, they just help you play the game right. The ! icons to help with timing go away when you get it right enough times and reappear if you keep fudging the timing. When I complain about unnecessary attempts to make the game easier, I am referring more to stuff like the team supers that melt the HP of bosses like a marshmallow or the splash damage whenever you get a perfect timed hit. Yes, you can just not use them, but its crazy to me just how much these two things break the game in half. I was at least somewhat at risk of dying in the SNES game and bosses took longer than 5 seconds to beat, lmao. Smithy and Jinx were the only bosses I had any sort of a hard time with because Smithy's second form has ridiculously high HP and I did the third Jinx fight without the team supers. I do also think making frog coins so easy to get was pretty unnecessary. There's an OP accessory you can get with Frog Coins that halves the FP cost of one party member's spells, it's crazy good. Again, I could just not use it, but why wouldn't I? Another annoying issue is the long loading times. I'm not sure why this happens and its ultimately not a big deal but you can be waiting for quite a while just for the game to load in the area you're at.
Brief shoutout to the glow-up the visuals and soundtrack got. One of the big things everyone worried about with this is that they'd take a modern Paper Mario approach and try too hard to modernize or sanitize the utterly bizarre character designs in this game, but they didn't do that at all (outside of a few enemies based on Mario series foes that got hit with the modern stick) and its just so awesome to see all of that in high quality. Some of the songs took a little getting used to for me because I'm so accustomed to the SNES soundtrack. This Switch remake has an all-new sound while still preserving the original idea, but overall the remixes are amazing. "And My Name's Booster", "Rose Town", "Slope", "Hello, Happy Kingdom"...lots of really great songs imo that now sound so clear. The visuals are also just so damn cool to see, they preserve the original intent so well while also upgrading the areas to look very nice. One of the strangest (and not the fun quirky kind of strange) visual quirks the original Super Mario RPG had was that every area was bordered by a blue or black void of nothingness, but this remake does away with that entirely and I never realized just how much cleaner the game looks without 'em. I also never thought I would be able to see places like Nimbus Land or Weapons Factory ever again, much less see them look as amazing as they look here.