This review contains spoilers
(I haven't played the original so this is more a review of the game itself than as a remake)
Like the Mario & Luigi games I've played, this ones biggest strength is its charm. Character movesets are very simple - Mario pretty much only learns 2 special moves, with only upgraded versions as he levels up. The classic action commands for bonus attacks and defending started here (in Mario games I mean, I don't know about RPGs in general) so that adds one extra layer to the game over many early RPGs where you just watched as your characters did what you told them to, and had to wait helplessly as the enemies attacked you. The timing of these commands seem much stricter in this game than the other ones I've played though. I do like that you get rewarded for getting a chain of good timing though, depending on who you have in your party everyone gives an increasing boost to a different stat if you can get a chain of 2, 3 and 5 and then keep it.
Admittedly the battle system did start feeling hollow at the endgame when you unlock everyone's best moves as low as level 18, with the level cap being at 30.
The battling is broken up at points by some decently fun mini-games. None of them really kept me coming back for more, but as one-off things they work great.
One thing I found didn't age badly was the world the game is set in. To say that this was a Mario game from the 90's I would have expected way more game-standard settings and locales, like generic ice world, generic fire world etc. But there's a ton of cool set pieces and places to explore. You get areas like a sunken ship and a boss battle in a wedding hall. Even the final area isn't just a Bowser's Castle (that's the penultimate area) but a giant weapons factory, complete with metallic copies of previous bosses.
I was also expecting things to be kept fairly simple in terms of secrets with the Mario branding, but Square Enix didn't hold back. There are so many optional things that require backtracking, speaking to every NPC, sometimes at different points in the story and/or doing obscure tasks to get secret items. Sometimes these can feel a bit underwhelming though, like getting access to the Casino involves backtracking to an old area, beating a specific mini-game 12 times in a row (with no indication that there's any good reward in it) and then going to another old area and jumping in a specific spot 3 times - all this to get access to a Casino with 3 pretty mini-games with rewards that are just common items.
One thing I do know is new to the remake is the post-game bosses, and these are definitely the only time the game challenged me. In particular it was the only time I had to adjust my equipment to not just focus on pure power, because unblockable, team-wide sleep moves that can be spammed are almost impossible to beat without sleep-preventing equipment. In fact most of the post-game bosses seem to have some kind of gimmick or strategy, one of them involves hitting Bob-ombs until they turn their back on the boss, so they explode on him instead of you. One is a one-on-one duel with no items allowed, so you pretty much have to keep perfect guarding to survive. It's all a level of thought beyond just "Use strong attacks and win" that clearly come from a different area. As a side note though I think even most of these post-game bosses could be easily beaten by using Peach with the red shell equipped - that's the strategy I used to beat the secret boss and didn't have the red shell equipment before then.
Another thing that doesn't really seem as big a deal anymore is the party. 2 brand new characters which is still nice to anyone who didn't play the original since Mallow and Geno have never reappeared anywhere outside small cameos. But Peach and Bowser as playable must have been a big deal in 1996, while now it's...still kind of neat, but we've had many chances to play as them. In terms of their actual characters, Bowser being a more sympathetic villain who wants his castle back is charming, but I love that he still gets moments that show him as a feared enemy of the world. Peach even has a moment where she goes out of her way to escape the castle to join the adventure, which must have been a big character moment for her after playing the series till then as damsel in distress. Mallow and Geno are fun, though it's funny how their roles feel opposite. Mallow's story has no real bearing on the overall plot, but gets a lot of attention, and has whole arcs dedicated to it. Geno's backstory involves the entire set-up of the game, with him having a personal vendetta against the main enemy, and the collectables being directly tied to his home world. But we never really get to see his world, so while Mallow is unimportant for the plot, he gets all the story attention, while Geno is just kind of an exposition guy.
I can easily see this being an extremely fun and even innovative RPG at the time, even if not a difficult one. These days if you didn't play the original Mario RPG but did play any of the Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi games it's kind of just that. You can still enjoy the story despite the battle systems simplicity, just don't go in expecting it to have been overhauled to 2023 game standards. Also the music is fantastic too.
Like the Mario & Luigi games I've played, this ones biggest strength is its charm. Character movesets are very simple - Mario pretty much only learns 2 special moves, with only upgraded versions as he levels up. The classic action commands for bonus attacks and defending started here (in Mario games I mean, I don't know about RPGs in general) so that adds one extra layer to the game over many early RPGs where you just watched as your characters did what you told them to, and had to wait helplessly as the enemies attacked you. The timing of these commands seem much stricter in this game than the other ones I've played though. I do like that you get rewarded for getting a chain of good timing though, depending on who you have in your party everyone gives an increasing boost to a different stat if you can get a chain of 2, 3 and 5 and then keep it.
Admittedly the battle system did start feeling hollow at the endgame when you unlock everyone's best moves as low as level 18, with the level cap being at 30.
The battling is broken up at points by some decently fun mini-games. None of them really kept me coming back for more, but as one-off things they work great.
One thing I found didn't age badly was the world the game is set in. To say that this was a Mario game from the 90's I would have expected way more game-standard settings and locales, like generic ice world, generic fire world etc. But there's a ton of cool set pieces and places to explore. You get areas like a sunken ship and a boss battle in a wedding hall. Even the final area isn't just a Bowser's Castle (that's the penultimate area) but a giant weapons factory, complete with metallic copies of previous bosses.
I was also expecting things to be kept fairly simple in terms of secrets with the Mario branding, but Square Enix didn't hold back. There are so many optional things that require backtracking, speaking to every NPC, sometimes at different points in the story and/or doing obscure tasks to get secret items. Sometimes these can feel a bit underwhelming though, like getting access to the Casino involves backtracking to an old area, beating a specific mini-game 12 times in a row (with no indication that there's any good reward in it) and then going to another old area and jumping in a specific spot 3 times - all this to get access to a Casino with 3 pretty mini-games with rewards that are just common items.
One thing I do know is new to the remake is the post-game bosses, and these are definitely the only time the game challenged me. In particular it was the only time I had to adjust my equipment to not just focus on pure power, because unblockable, team-wide sleep moves that can be spammed are almost impossible to beat without sleep-preventing equipment. In fact most of the post-game bosses seem to have some kind of gimmick or strategy, one of them involves hitting Bob-ombs until they turn their back on the boss, so they explode on him instead of you. One is a one-on-one duel with no items allowed, so you pretty much have to keep perfect guarding to survive. It's all a level of thought beyond just "Use strong attacks and win" that clearly come from a different area. As a side note though I think even most of these post-game bosses could be easily beaten by using Peach with the red shell equipped - that's the strategy I used to beat the secret boss and didn't have the red shell equipment before then.
Another thing that doesn't really seem as big a deal anymore is the party. 2 brand new characters which is still nice to anyone who didn't play the original since Mallow and Geno have never reappeared anywhere outside small cameos. But Peach and Bowser as playable must have been a big deal in 1996, while now it's...still kind of neat, but we've had many chances to play as them. In terms of their actual characters, Bowser being a more sympathetic villain who wants his castle back is charming, but I love that he still gets moments that show him as a feared enemy of the world. Peach even has a moment where she goes out of her way to escape the castle to join the adventure, which must have been a big character moment for her after playing the series till then as damsel in distress. Mallow and Geno are fun, though it's funny how their roles feel opposite. Mallow's story has no real bearing on the overall plot, but gets a lot of attention, and has whole arcs dedicated to it. Geno's backstory involves the entire set-up of the game, with him having a personal vendetta against the main enemy, and the collectables being directly tied to his home world. But we never really get to see his world, so while Mallow is unimportant for the plot, he gets all the story attention, while Geno is just kind of an exposition guy.
I can easily see this being an extremely fun and even innovative RPG at the time, even if not a difficult one. These days if you didn't play the original Mario RPG but did play any of the Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi games it's kind of just that. You can still enjoy the story despite the battle systems simplicity, just don't go in expecting it to have been overhauled to 2023 game standards. Also the music is fantastic too.
DeemonAndGames
5 months ago
Great review!