Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES) review "Some may have never thought it would happen. Some may have thought they would never see the day. But it happened. Nintendo and Square teamed up for the first time in an effort to co-create a game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Combining Nintendo's great mascot with Square's great RPG-creating abilities, 1996 saw Mario in his first RPG, in the hit game Super Mario RPG. "

Some may have never thought it would happen. Some may have thought they would never see the day. But it happened. Nintendo and Square teamed up for the first time in an effort to co-create a game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Combining Nintendo's great mascot with Square's great RPG-creating abilities, 1996 saw Mario in his first RPG, in the hit game Super Mario RPG.

You may know the plot of most Mario games by now, which is to save the Mushroom Kingdom's princess from the evil King Bowser who has captured her. Super Mario RPG starts with this same flow, but it doesn't stay with that flow. Before Mario has a chance to rescue the princess, a giant sword comes crashing into the middle of Bowser's castle, sending Bowser, Mario, and the princess flying into the air. Mario, left in a daze, realizes that the sword is an evil villain sent by the ''Smithy Gang'' to attempt to take over the land.

Mario is now faced with a dilemma. He must try to get to Bowser's castle to defeat the sword and must also find and rescue the missing princess. After a quick lesson with Toad, guarding your home, you'll be set on your way through the Mushroom Kingdom to get to Bowser's Castle. The path you must go will not be hard to guess, as you won't have to mindlessly wonder around to find your destination of each land, but the map will instead lead you directly to each land, just as in many other Mario games.

You will see many standard Mario enemies throughout, such as goombas, that you can fight, as well as some newly introduced characters. Instead of random battles as you walk around, a battle mode will be initiated only if you touch an enemy directly. Each character in the battle mode will take turns to make a move, instead of the usual spontaneous attacks of other RPGs. Also unlike most RPGs is the way the controller corresponds to battle mode commands. In SMRPG, each button (Y,X,A,B) will either open up your normal attacks, your items, your special attacks, or your defenses, instead of the normal style where one button is to confirm a selection you make and another button is to cancel a selection you make.

The camera view of the game doesn't take a side view or a top view, but more of an isometric-3D view, where the characters are viewed slightly from above and at a diagonal angle. This angle is good to get a better perspective of characters, and also to give Mario a jumping ability. Unfortunately, this makes control a little difficult. While it is extremely tight, you have to get used to the paths being diagonal as well. In other words, the UP button may move Mario up the screen and the RIGHT button may move Mario directly to the right of the screen, but most of the paths move in a diagonal direction. So you'd have to press two buttons at the same time in order to follow a path. This can cause certain jumps to be hard to predict.

The graphics in this game are phenomenal, backgrounds and foregrounds. There is one major problem with them, though. The backgrounds are very soft, especially the jungle scenery. The characters are extremely pixilated. They can look very badly when put together. Yes, everything, separately, looks excellent. In fact, the characters and the backgrounds can really look good together at times. At other times, though, they clash. No other way of putting it.

The music excels greatly in SMRPG. The tunes were very well composed, from the Latin flavor in some of the lake scenes, to the Spooky music in the sewer and castle scenes. The battle music is also done well, keeping the Mario-style thrill in the game, as needed. Sound effects are very good, fitting the actions they accompany. Just as needed...

Obviously aimed more towards beginning RPG players, SMRPG is very simple to complete. While the game isn't necessarily short, it isn't necessarily very long either. A few of the reasons that the game is so simple is due to the fact that fights are played one character at a time and that most of the enemies are just plain easy to fight. Even so, the game is a blast for the first time, possibly the second time, and maybe even the third time. Unfortunately, the game will probably lose its replay value after the first play, in such a state that you won't play it 'till a while later. Or maybe that's just me...

Super Mario RPG very commonly esteemed as one of the greatest games of all time. While I don't hold it to it being the ''greatest'' it is still a very good work, worthy of being played. Kids would love this game, as it seems to be directed towards them, so it would make a great game for a child to play. But anyone could play it, it's fun for all ages!

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Story (8/10): Starting with the classic Mario story, the game blossoms into a cool plot.
Gameplay (8/10): While not following the usual RPG format, the changes are for the good.
Control (7/10): Tight controls, but diagonal camera angles makes tough maneuvers.
Graphics (7/10): Separately, the characters and scenery looks great. Together, they can clash.
Sound (8/10): There are many well-done tunes that fit into the game greatly.
Challenge (Easy): Simple challenge, simple pleasures :-P
Thrill (9/10): The initial thrill of the first play of this game is quite great.
Replay (6/10): SMRPG does tend to get duller after the first couple of plays.

Overall (8/10): Square and Nintendo succeeded in their venture, or so it seems.

Community review by royalranger (Date unavailable) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.