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Reviews Super Mario RPG | Review Thread

karmitt said:
The reviews seem solid. I just hope it sells well enough that Nintendo continues to put out these types of remasters. I can’t be alone in that I am 100x more likely to dabble with old games when they’re give a fresh coat of paint and QOL features.
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Well… it’s a remake, not a remaster

I just hope it sells well enough to get more traditional Mario RPGs
 
Mekanos said:
Well… it’s a remake, not a remaster

I just hope it sells well enough to get more traditional Mario RPGs
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Weird thing to call out, given there’s hardly an established shared definition on these terms. Remaster has been applied to games that attempt to be extremely faithful to the original titles with an updated look, and that seems to be exactly what this is.

Remake or remaster aside, as it’s something that’s really not worth discussing here, my point still stands. I hope the game is successful enough to justify approaching other SNES and N64 era games taking similar approaches.
 
EtherPenguin said:
I've been skeptical of the claims/concerns that the new mechanics really trivialize the combat to a notable extent. Admittedly, I've seen some gameplay of early copies and the splash damage looks piddly - like 20% of your base damage, in most battles it won't make a difference in the number of hits to finish the battle. Even the damage from the triple techs looks the same as any FP consuming move and they take forever to fill up.

Though swapping out party members on the fly even if they're dead/immobilized by a status does sort of get into a murky territory between QoL improvements to modernize the game vs. making things too easy. That one I can sort of understand.
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Yeah, I’ve seen comments here and there that the splash damage really doesn’t make much of a difference for difficulty (although it sounds like the Triple Moves might?).
 
karmitt said:
Weird thing to call out, given there’s hardly an established shared definition on these terms. Remaster has been applied to games that attempt to be extremely faithful to the original titles with an updated look, and that seems to be exactly what this is.

Remake or remaster aside, as it’s something that’s really not worth discussing here, my point still stands. I hope the game is successful enough to justify approaching other SNES and N64 era games taking similar approaches.
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Marketing conflates the two, but a remaster is an update/enhancement of existing code. A remake is a ground-up new game from scratch.

Metroid Prime Remastered is exactly that. It's built on the game code from 20 years ago.

Super Mario RPG 2023 is a remake. Yeah, it may use the same stat tables and such for enemies, but it's a recoding of the game from scratch.
 
Harpoon said:
Yeah, I’ve seen comments here and there that the splash damage really doesn’t make much of a difference for difficulty (although it sounds like the Triple Moves might?).
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The main thing that struck me about triple moves from the previews a couple weeks ago was this one that does 130 damage in the fight against Bowyer:


Then Mario's Super Jump in this video against the same boss with Mario seemingly one level lower going by max HP, does 110, only 20 less. Well timed normal moves are also doing ~40 damage so the triple move is worth just a bit more than about 3 basic attacks:


I'm curious how they'll scale throughout the game. But based on that comparison they don't seem too wild. Assuming enemy stats are the same, Bowyer should have 720 HP according to a quick trip to the Mario wiki. So the triple move did about 18% of his health while the FP move did 15% which seems reasonable for a limit break type move. I'm curious if the actually too-good-to-use triple moves end up being the support ones rather than the damage ones.

Without getting a feel for how it's balanced, in a vacuum, I do like the concept of having a party limit break and having something to build up to in battle. It can lead to a better sense of pacing. Battles ending a turn or two earlier than without it is fine with me if the added turns would've just drawn out a fight of attrition where the challenge is mostly finding an opportunity to pop a heal or recover FP in between dishing the same few attacks.

It's probably worth mentioning though, I only played the original once on wii's virtual console forever ago and don't remember much about the original flow of the game so my opinion might not hold much weight regarding balancing.
 
AK World said:
I read the review, and some of their criticisms were:
  • More of a remaster than a remake
  • Lack of challenge, no hard mode
  • Balancing issues from the original weren't addressed
  • Didn't implement significant quality-of-life measures
  • Platforming remains slippery and clumsy, even more so with the isometric camera
  • Lack of new content
  • Minigames aren't in a easy-to-access menu
  • No voiceovers
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These are all pretty massive issues for me, especially the platforming part. Like, I get it's in a technical sense a remake but I don't really care if you game is built from the ground up if it's suffering from depth perception platforming issues because it's based 1:1 on a game that was made 30 years ago on hardware before free roaming cameras were possible than that's a pretty big issue and this is a difficult sell for $60 in 2023. There is just too much about this game that needed significant improvements vs. something like Metroid Prime.
 
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karmitt said:
Weird thing to call out, given there’s hardly an established shared definition on these terms. Remaster has been applied to games that attempt to be extremely faithful to the original titles with an updated look, and that seems to be exactly what this is.
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Of course there is an established shared definition. The general consensus of the definitions are:

A remaster takes an existing version of the game and "ports" it, while optimizing it for the newer platforms.
A remake is built from the ground up, often (but not always) using the original as more of a guide and inspiration while often (but not always) adding reinterpretations and new content.

The term "master" comes from the music and film industry and refers to the "final product" of a song or film. It's treated as the "canonical" version of the product, and is optimized toward the platforms it's intended to be experienced with.
When a game is "remastered", the original game is tweaked for a new platform from its original code state.


Remastering a game
You will have the game source code and game art - Quora
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the process of remastering them requires their code to be updated ... almost all video game remasters are, at their core, ports ... remastering a game usually starts by porting it or its engine to the newest infrastructure available to it can run on modern devices - DX
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If the game’s source code is lost, then remastering it becomes quite a bit harder (not impossible!) and many developers may lean towards using an inferior version whose source code still exists - SapphireNation
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Remaking a game
Actual remakes of games are rare, the most notable one I can think of is the Nintendo GameCube version of the original Resident Evil, which really did re-create the entire game from the ground up. - CNET
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My point is that yes, there is a shared and agreed upon general consensus for the definitions of the words remaster and remake. And if there was some confusion, the already existing definition of remaster found in the music and film industries give us a good idea.

There are plenty of remakes on the Switch, like Links Awakening, Trials of Mana, Pokemon Lets Go and Advance Wars. Those are all built from the ground up in new engines, and very likely used the originals for direction while adding new content and reinterpreting various aspects.

There are also many remasters of games on the Switch, which include Pokemon BDSP, which evidently use the original game's code according to bugs found in the original DS version cropping up in the Switch version. Other remasters include Metroid Prime Remastered, Super Mario Sunshine (3D all stars), Xenoblade DE, and Skyward Sword HD. All of these games had the original code base updated to be able to run on a newer platform.

So if you want to be sure when you say @Mekanos is wrong, best thing you could do is prove that SMRPG on Switch is running the original game's code. Otherwise I'm going to go out on a limb and say the game is pretty obviously built from the ground up.
 
Dishwasher said:
Of course there is an established shared definition. The general consensus of the definitions are:

A remaster takes an existing version of the game and "ports" it, while optimizing it for the newer platforms.
A remake is built from the ground up, often (but not always) using the original as more of a guide and inspiration while often (but not always) adding reinterpretations and new content.

The term "master" comes from the music and film industry and refers to the "final product" of a song or film. It's treated as the "canonical" version of the product, and is optimized toward the platforms it's intended to be experienced with.
When a game is "remastered", the original game is tweaked for a new platform from its original code state.


Remastering a game





Remaking a game


My point is that yes, there is a shared and agreed upon general consensus for the definitions of the words remaster and remake. And if there was some confusion, the already existing definition of remaster found in the music and film industries give us a good idea.

There are plenty of remakes on the Switch, like Links Awakening, Trials of Mana, Pokemon Lets Go and Advance Wars. Those are all built from the ground up in new engines, and very likely used the originals for direction while adding new content and reinterpreting various aspects.

There are also many remasters of games on the Switch, which include Pokemon BDSP, which evidently use the original game's code according to bugs found in the original DS version cropping up in the Switch version. Other remasters include Metroid Prime Remastered, Super Mario Sunshine (3D all stars), Xenoblade DE, and Skyward Sword HD. All of these games had the original code base updated to be able to run on a newer platform.

So if you want to be sure when you say @Mekanos is wrong, best thing you could do is prove that SMRPG on Switch is running the original game's code. Otherwise I'm going to go out on a limb and say the game is pretty obviously built from the ground up.
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Nah I’m not doing this. Have fun. It’s literally you writing a novel to die on a hill that has no relevancy to my original post, which was - “I hope this type of effort is a success and we see more of it.”

Not everything has to turn into a debate.
 
karmitt said:
Nah I’m not doing this. Have fun. It’s literally you writing a novel to die on a hill that has no relevancy to my original post, which was - “I hope this type of effort is a success and we see more of it.”

Not everything has to turn into a debate.
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Sure, I mean it was 50% of your comment I was speaking to, and you never had to respond. Have a blest day
 
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YoboD said:
As someone who played it years after release it was pretty easy, yeah. I felt like it was more difficult than the first two Paper Mario games though.
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Mekanos said:
It was pretty much designed to be the first RPG a kid might play. Peach alone kind of breaks the game with her healing.
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so it seems like it's not "current Nintendo" fault that game is easy. It was like that from the start, 27 years ago.
 
ziggyrivers said:
Which is technically the audience Nintendo could also cater to, what with the Mario Movie being a blast and all
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I’m really really interested to see how much a new audience takes to this and if it’s not just written off as a cool nostalgia project for the existing fans.

Really feels like they’re pushing it as a modern Mario game and introduction to RPGs.
 
Phendrift said:
Really feels like they’re pushing it as a modern Mario game and introduction to RPGs.
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The fact they branded the game as Super Mario RPG, rather than SMRPG Remake, means they have interest in the game being a success.

Granted, it could also be a case of Nintendo wanting to avoid the term "remake" dragging the sales down, seeing as how it's a known fact that remakes don't perform as well as the original.
 
Phendrift said:
I’m really really interested to see how much a new audience takes to this and if it’s not just written off as a cool nostalgia project for the existing fans.

Really feels like they’re pushing it as a modern Mario game and introduction to RPGs.
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in japan there heavily marketing the game as a nostalgia trip back to 90s RPG's
 
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ziggyrivers said:
Granted, it could also be a case of Nintendo wanting to avoid the term "remake" dragging the sales down, seeing as how it's a known fact that remakes don't perform as well as the original.
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unless your link's awaking which somehow became the best-selling 2D Zelda not including digital rereleases
 
ziggyrivers said:
The fact they branded the game as Super Mario RPG, rather than SMRPG Remake, means they have interest in the game being a success.

Granted, it could also be a case of Nintendo wanting to avoid the term "remake" dragging the sales down, seeing as how it's a known fact that remakes don't perform as well as the original.
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The title doesn't really mean much. Nintendo rarely if ever calls a remake a remake in the title. (See also: Link's Awakening, Famicom Detective Club)
 
It only took 27 years, but Amazon will allegedly get me this game at launch.
 
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What do you guys think the user scores will be? I’m thinking in the 90’s
 
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Godhound said:
Was the original also too easy as some reviews suggest about remake?
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If you are interested and have time read a translated developer interview before the game release (late '95) at Shumplations:
shmuplations.com

Super Mario RPG – 1995 Developer Interviews - shmuplations.com

Super Mario RPG – 1995 Developer Interviews This October ’95 interview with Super Mario RPG director and then-Square employee Chihiro Fujioka sheds some light on the collaborative process and the division of duties between Square and Nintendo, with a particular focus on expressing the “essence...
shmuplations.com shmuplations.com

From the beginning the aim of Super Mario RPG was to be a new kind of RPG, not just a Final Fantasy reskin (even if the Sqaure flavour was still there, something that can't be said for Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi which feel Nintendo-sque).
It's the reason why I feel the game is still relevant today.
It's his own take in a way not even covered by Paper Mario/Mario & Luigi.

Soul Skater said:
These are all pretty massive issues for me, especially the platforming part.
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If it's your first time playing SMRPG don't worry about the "platforming parts".
The original devs understood the intrinsic issue with the isometric view therefore those parts are scantly used (from my experience there was just one spot while going to the sky that was troublesome).
 
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karmitt said:
The reviews seem solid. I just hope it sells well enough that Nintendo continues to put out these types of remasters. I can’t be alone in that I am 100x more likely to dabble with old games when they’re give a fresh coat of paint and QOL features.
Click to expand...

Exactly I want my Paper Mario 64 & Super Paper Mario remakes eventually

Bowser's Inside Story wouldn't hurt either
 
karmitt said:
The reviews seem solid. I just hope it sells well enough that Nintendo continues to put out these types of remasters. I can’t be alone in that I am 100x more likely to dabble with old games when they’re give a fresh coat of paint and QOL features.
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That's me with this game!
I was always aware of the original, but I never really gave it a second glance.

The minute they actually showed and presented this game in that direct for the first time, I was locked and loaded and it became one of my most anticapted games of the year. Everything about it just hit.

It's also why I like NSO giving each game their own little marketing cycle , trailers, etc. it gives each game a spotlight that gives you a reason to pay attention, even if the games have been playable in other forms the whole time.
 
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