All the things that made Super Mario RPG special back in 1996 still hold up today in this beautiful 1:1 recreation of a classic. An enjoyable turn-based battle system with an element of skill, an eccentric and colorful cast of characters that are still fondly remembered to this day, and a solid RPG adventure that continues to exist in its own unique niche despite the two sub-franchises that spawned from it, Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario. You can feel the Squaresoft influence from head to toe but I'm still impressed they were able to meld so much of Nintendo's franchise into their style of RPG without it feeling too foreign to either company.

Sure, the platforming is a little wonky (largely due to the game's choice of perspective) and I wish they had included a dedicated hard mode for the difficulty options (as the quality-of-life features serve to make an already easy affair a total cakewalk) but overall I still had a lot of fun finally seeing this game through to the end. I watched a friend play through it back in the day, but never got around to it myself. I'm glad I can say I've now knocked it off the old backlog with this remake. Worth the wait.