I could never get into the og when I was a kid, it looked kinda ugly and I remember thinking it was a bootleg game (lol) because Mario wasn't an RPG franchise.
I'll give the remake a try as it looks miles better and has QoL improvements.
Started my playthrough, got two stars so far.
It's a neat little game, very charming and giggly. The visuals really work for what it is.
I feel like it's maybe faithful to a fault, I think some dialogues and cutscenes (the non prerendered ones) could have been expanded because they're very short and straightforward and while that worked in the SNES where the graphics were more simple and you often had to put things together using your imagination, it looks a little jarring in a modern game when they could have easily used animations to fill the gaps. Also, watching some cutscenes of the original on YouTube, I think the spritework of the original was surprisingly more expressive, featuring that classic feel of FFVI and CT's animations. The remake is alright, but in comparison, it really shows how talented the Square devs were at the time.
I also really dislike the feel of the action commands, there's 0 tact to it, no response at all when you hit the right timing. I don't know if it was like that in the original, but in a modern game this is inexcusable, it feels really cheap.
Still, I think this is the Mario RPG I've been enjoying the most gameplay wise. M&L is wackier and funnier but it's too limited by only having Mario and Luigi as party members, and the overworld platforming is honestly exhausting. Paper Mario has a lot of charm but is also very limited mechanically because you don't have a party per se and the level cap makes the game feel stale. So far, I like SMRPG's style the best. It's also an interesting Mario x FF crossover, with that classic RPG feel non of the others have.
