Super Mario RPG

The problem with remaking video games is the design philosophy around what a remake should even try to accomplish. Video games just don't age as well as products from most other mediums. True, I love video games and they are my favorite way to pass time, but game mechanics, graphics and interactivity can resonate with older audiences that hadn't encountered them before while newer ones will often at best find them quaint and others find them cumbersome. Should a remake essentially tart up the aesthetics and keep the core gameplay the same, winning over the original audience but potentially losing the new? Or should a remake shake things up, evolving what was rusty from the ground up, risking the loss of what made the game special to begin with? Super Mario RPG is unabashedly in the first camp. It is very safe. It introduces some minor mechanics like the triple attacks that don't factor much in moment to moment gameplay at all, and adds some boss rematches and such. It sticks close to the original, remaking the graphics and music but not really shaking up the script, the general story, the turn based gameplay or the bad platforming (for a Mario game, even an RPG, that's honestly a serious flaw for a game with a lot of it). Speaking as someone who has always had a fascination with Super Mario RPG, but never played through it entirely, this remake gave me my fill. I still prefer its successors; the first two Paper Marios are simply tighter, more engaging experiences. Regardless, this game is funny, quite charming, and has lots of cute metagame moments, like a boss that literally disables your attack options (novel for 1996). I do think it loses a bit in the jump to 3D; the original 2D, chunky graphics were beautiful and strange and compelling and gave rise to many memes because of it. The remake looks good but in a bland way, not blocky and puffy like the old sprites but losing a bit of their memorability. The music is of course fantastic. Yoko rarely misses. It's a strangely unbalanced experience, in terms of pacing. Some stars are found much quicker than others, and a decent amount of the story feels like padding, albeit amusing padding. The final area(s) feel rushed and the finicky imprecise jumping controls I feel really falter here. If it sounds like my review is a little harsher than kind, it's because I hadn't grown up with this game and I'm approaching it as an N64 kid playing it for the first time being almost in my thirties. People who played and loved the original will have plenty of fun seeing what was changed, reliving iconic moments and so on. In all honesty it's a good game, and still worth playing. All Mario RPGs, and even many RPGs in general now, borrow a lot from this game and that has to be acknowledged. It's influential for a reason; the people at Square clearly loved making this game, and that rubs off on the player. I just wish that reverence could factor into bolder gestures toward making the game fresher over 25 years later, and by not charging full price for what is nearly the same amount of game content from '96. Recommended if you like Mario, easy SNES RPGs, and big Yoshis, and especially if you like all three.