Super Mario RPG’s Switch remake remains charmingly off-brand

Nearly three decades after it was first released on Super Nintendo — and despite a handsome remake for Switch, with completely redone visuals and rerecorded music — there’s still something strangely, but not unpleasantly, offYou can find out more about this by clicking here. Super Mario RPG.

Mario is squat, and his eyes are crossed. The entire Mushroom Kingdom, and its inhabitants, have an almost funhouse mirror-like appearance, as though they were folded into a perspective that was in isometric. Early in the game, Bowser’s castle gets run through by a giant, skyscraper-sized talking sword; when did you ever see a sword in a Mario game? A Toad jokes about leaving his bazooka behind. He’s How to Get There? Mario’s house is a wobbly, clapboard shack. Mario Has a home. It’s all kinds of wrong.

First released in 1996, this is a sequel to the adventure that was first released. Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars, was a collaboration between Nintendo and Square (now Square Enix) when both were in their mid-’90s pomp. Nintendo had decided to end the SNES, after its unbeatable series of classic in-house games. Super Mario World You can also find out more about the following: Yoshi’s IslandSquare released its first game in a few months. Final Fantasy 7 The world is yours. It was a meeting of near equals, and while the characters were Nintendo’s, the turf — turn-based role-playing games — was very much Square’s. Square had confidence in its ability to express itself and make it stand out. Mario RPG, in much the same way it later would with the Disney-crossover Kingdom Hearts games, and in a way few external developers working with Mario ever would again (with the recent exception of Ubisoft’s zany-but-cunning Mario + Rabbids games).

Image: Nintendo

The same applies to the other way around. Mario RPGMany elements in the game feel foreign, even as they are set within the world of hallucination and anything goes that is the Mushroom Kingdom. Square was allowed to create its own characters for the game — including Mallow, Mario’s first companion on his quest, who claims to be a frog but looks like a cross between a cloud and a cauliflower with stripy pants and a purple quiff. There’s a lovely score by the legendary Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts, Street Fighter 2) that has a lush, nostalgic quality that’s subtly but profoundly different from original Mario composer Koji Kondo’s folksy melodic playfulness.

All of this adds up into a curious game: one that feels like it should belong in another dimension. Released just months before the Nintendo 64’s debut, original SNES copies of Super Mario RPG command high prices on the used market, and it has had only basic and sparing reissues from Nintendo since (it didn’t come to Europe at all until the Wii Virtual Console version in 2008). But it was also influential, laying the foundations for Nintendo’s later (and more tonally controlled) Mario RPG series, Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi. The game has similar RPG system, rhythmic inputs, which adds immediacy to turn-based battles, as well as a mildly meta sense humor.

Image: Nintendo

For whatever reason — perhaps a hunger for any and all Mario content in the wake of the Super Mario Bros. Movie phenomenon, perhaps a newfound willingness to take risks with its mascot — Nintendo is now finally ready to give Super Mario RPGThis full Switch remake will give it its due, and properly integrate it with the Mario catalogue. It’s strange to encounter this game (for the first time, in my case) in 2023 on Switch, and it’s great that Nintendo, Square Enix, and whoever developed the remake (which remains unclear, but I’ve asked Nintendo for clarification) have so carefully kept its wayward spirit alive.

The full 3D graphical overhaul retains the original’s bizarre rendered look, wisely refusing to homogenize or standardize the designs, and retaining its off-kilter character even as it smooths out the animations. Shimomura re-orchestrated the score but it is possible to switch back to chiptune originals. The game has some creature comforts like an autosave that is frequently used, but the majority of it remains classic. Mario RPG’s archaic, 27-year-old design quirks remain intact. That said, on early evidence, Square’s expert simplification of traditional RPG mechanics seems bulletproof — and the game plays very swiftly, considering its age.

The new version of the game has a lot to offer, including a smarter interface and improved gameplay. Super Mario RPG feels like a portal to another time — or another timeline, perhaps. Mario living in a shack. I’m still not over it.

Super Mario RPG The movie will be released Nov. 17,