There have been a lot of off-shoots of the Mario franchise, ranging from sports to parties and dancing too, for some reason. Among all these variations of our main man Mario are a couple of RPGs which are Pretty Dang Good, and stand out from the crowd as real pleasant experiences! Aside from being especially unique, there’s also quite a few of these games out there at the moment.
Mario role-playing games kicked off with the SNES title Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, and have branched out into two different series from there. The Paper Mario series is what most people are likely familiar with. It’s kept a charming arts and crafts oriented style since it’s inception, but it’s been shaken up rather drastically in other departments ever since Super Paper Mario’s announcement. On the other hand we have the Mario & Luigi games, which have been going steady since the release of Superstar Saga.
Now that that’s all out of the way, here are some talking points:
Which game is your favourite?
Who’s your favourite partner/NPC?
Do you have a favourite boss or special encounter?
Were there any special moments that stuck with you?
Who would win in a fight, 1000 Baby Marios or one adult Mario?
For the sake of argument, we can assume that this is a pure and empty space with no outside interference. So no Baby Mario’s would have any power-ups or animal friends to call in, but they also wouldn’t be vulnerable to their natural predator, the Magikoopa.
So ultimately it’s a question of whether a colony consisting of large-nosed children would emerge victorious, or if Mario Mario at the peak of his life could overcome the many crawling, crying shadows of his past(s).
favorite is definitely RPG, I remember falling in love fully once I got to the Forest Maze. The music is just so good, and the gimmicks of the level and the boss fight are the perfect balance of challenging but not obnoxious.
I’m in the minority in liking Paper Mario 64 the best.
I know a huge amount of that is nostalgia making everything really enjoyable, but I love the worlds and characters far more than Thousand Year Door (even though the gameplay is vastly improved.)
I’ve also never finished Mario RPG though. I really should.
I’m in the same boat. I can appreciate TTYD for what it is but PM64 is just more fun to play in my opinion though my favorite in the series is Super Mario RPG if only because of the fact that one of Bowser’s weapons is just chucking Mario at the enemy.
Super Mario RPG is a pretty solid SNES RPG with some cool characters, from what I played of SuperStar Saga I enjoyed very much, but most of all I simply adore Paper Mario 64.
However, every time I’m reminded of Paper Mario I immediately think that I should play The Thousand-Year Door one of these days, so I head over to eBay, and realize that PAL copies of TTYD are not cheap to come by, and I get saaad.
I really liked Paper Jam, the most recent of the Mario & Luigi series, and I’m willing to bet it’s a better Paper Mario game than Sticker Star or Color Splash. I don’t know if it’d hold up on a replay, though.
The M&L series in general seems to be working on an inverse Star Trek rule: the even-numbered entries are mediocre to bad (Partners in Time, Dream Team) and the odd-numbered ones are really great (Superstar Saga [though that’s aged poorly], Bowser’s Inside Story, and Paper Jam).
I really should pull out TTYD and finish it some day. I really like it and think it’s a great game but I remember getting skeeved out by the computer that falls in love with Peach.
How about discussing the implications of the Paper Mario series existing as a book within the “real” Mario world, unless the Mario & Luigi world is actually another world-within-a-world that’s stuck somewhere in the Mushroom Kingdom, which is stuck within our video games, which is stuck within–
Super Mario RPG is an incredible game that I just replayed a month ago and it still holds up after all these years. Nintendo should call Square in to make another Mario RPG. It certainly couldn’t be worse than the current state of Paper Mario.
I’d be down to see square take another crack at a SMRPG, one of things I dug about it was just how weird and otherworldly square’s vision was and it’s a thing a few of the earlier Mario RPGs bask in too.
But there’s so much in SMRPG that’s like, kind of conceptually bizarre in an interesting way, like Exxor skewering Bowser’s castle, or Booster Tower, or Forest Maze are all things that are very distinct to me in ways that like Pi’llo Island and Prisma Island aren’t.
There’s also fun stuff like Woolsey apparently not getting the memo that “nokonoko” is Japanese for “koopa troopa” and making weapons like the Noknok Shell, which I didn’t get until a decade had passed and I was like “ohhhh, it’s not like ‘knock knock’ it’s just a goofy translation” (ditto for Kerokero Cola)
Also as far as I can remember, SMRPG is the first instance of Mario using punches to take enemies out, as well as the first time since Donkey Kong that he fought using a hammer?
I don’t know if it’d hold up on a replay, though.