Been a while since I've played the original so I played the remake. Putting aside the fact it's a remake I just had more fun with the first Super Mario RPG. That could just be me, but I much prefer the traditional style of the latter. I was underleveled so fights in this one took a really, REALLY long time, at least way longer than generic enemies should. And it's weird I was underleveled, because I fought a lot of enemies and even grinded for around half an hour with the bonus EXP item... still ended up underleveled.

Cackletta's Soul is a weird difficulty spike and I had to rematch her on Easy to beat her because I was 5 levels under, went Stache most of the way (abandoned challenge, since it wasn't worth it) and was using the Triforce. If it wasn't for that fucking arm attack everything would've been fine. I remember when I was younger and figured out how to do that perfectly but I didn't feel like learning now, especially with the Mush Badge being nerfed; no training wheels this time bucko. It's like fighting Culex without the Lazy Shell, except I at least felt like doing that.

I honestly don't remember that many tracks from this game. Maybe they were just better in the original, I dunno. Popple and Fawful both had great themes back in the day and they're fine now, and I like the theme of the desert and the beach, but I don't remember anything else much. I know of quite a few tracks from SMRPG, though.

I'm sure many might be wondering, so I'll say it. I think this remake plays things too safe, even compared to the new remake of SMRPG. In the latter, there's rematches, and they aren't too exciting but they're there. There's added cutscenes, a chain mechanic, and of course there's also the Triple Moves. This game has some QoL, and it does look pretty nice, but looks and QoL are all it really has. Admittedly I have not played Bowser's Minions, nor do I plan to, but I haven't heard much good about it so I'll leave it out of this. It's supposed to be the other half but I'm here for Superstar Saga.

All in all this one's kind of just the original with new graphics. And that's fine, but more may have been possible on the Switch, and if this and the BiS remake were on there instead of the 3DS, maybe a particular event wouldn't have happened. Like you can already play this game on the 3DS with Virtual Console and the Ambassador Program, and for BiS it's even easier because the game is native to the DS. On Switch you can now play the original on the GBA app if you decided to get scammed. I don't even think the remakes are bad, they just do little to justify a purchase and most who played the originals were probably fine with how they looked. It kind of feels like this wasn't supposed to be the definitive version, but instead a redo of a game most probably played 10 years before at the latest.