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1996 · SNES · Super Famicom
| Region | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | 9 Mar 1996 | Nintendo |
| North America | 13 May 1996 | Nintendo |
Mario rescues Peach from Bowser's castle in the first few minutes, and then a giant sword falls from the sky, lands in the keep and ruins everyone's plans. That is the joke Super Mario RPG opens on, and the tone holds: a Mario adventure told as a role-playing game, with the mushroom kingdom, a cloud boy who thinks he's a tadpole, and a wooden doll possessed by a star spirit.
The party grows to five, Mario plus Mallow, Geno, Bowser and Peach, with three in any fight. Battles are turn-based, but each attack, spell or block rewards a well-timed button press with extra damage or less harm taken. Outside battles the game plays like an isometric platformer. Mario jumps, hits floating blocks and hunts hidden chests, and enemies wander the map in plain sight, so you can often avoid a fight you don't want.
It came from two wishes meeting. Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to make a role-playing game with Mario, and Square wanted one that would sell outside Japan. Work began in early 1994, with Miyamoto producing, Chihiro Fujioka and Yoshihiko Maekawa directing and Yoko Shimomura writing a score that also arranges Koji Kondo's Mario themes and a few Final Fantasy IV tracks by Nobuo Uematsu. The team dropped weapons from the design because they didn't suit Mario, keeping only the hammer at Miyamoto's insistence. It runs on the SA-1 enhancement chip, one of only seven SNES games outside Japan to do so.
Released in Japan on 9 March 1996 and North America that May, it sold 1.47 million copies in Japan and was America's most-rented game for 14 weeks straight. Europe and Australia first got it on the Wii Virtual Console in 2008. Its timed hits and shared flower points carried into Paper Mario and the Mario & Luigi series, and ArtePiazza remade it for Nintendo Switch in 2023.
It is a light, funny, generous game. The timed hits keep every fight from turning into menu work, the writing has real wit, and the pre-rendered 3D look was striking for the SNES and still has a lot of charm. The platforming asides and minigames break up the adventure nicely.
It is also easy, especially for anyone who has played a role-playing game before, and fairly short. The isometric view makes a few jumps harder to judge than they should be. Neither matters much; it is meant as a friendly way in, and it does that job better than most.
Mario rescues Peach in the first few minutes, and then a giant sword lands in the castle and ruins everything. Super Mario RPG opens by breaking its own oldest story, as if to say: the usual plot is over, so let's play.
Bernard Suits defined playing a game as "the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles". Super Mario RPG's timed hits turn that line into a button press. Every fight would resolve without them. Pressing at the right moment adds nothing the story needs, and it's the most fun thing in the game. Johan Huizinga described play as a magic circle, set apart from ordinary life with its own order, and this circle is unusually welcoming. Bowser joins your party, a cloud boy thinks he's a tadpole, and enemies wander in plain sight so you can walk around a fight you'd rather skip. It's a gentle reminder that nobody makes us do any of this. We choose the obstacle, then grin when we time the jump.
Read: The magic circle: the world that rules make →
Verdict · 9/10
A warm, witty role-playing game that works for beginners and still delights veterans. Short and easy, and all the better for it.
