#oneaday Day 192: The defeat of Culex 3D

I finished Super Mario RPG's postgame this evening, culminating with a rematch against the most difficult boss from the original game: Culex, who, in the postgame, finally gets his wish and becomes full 3D instead of being a piece of pixel art. To go along with his new look, he also gets a considerable buff in power, putting him into full-on "superboss" territory — though in keeping with the rest of Super Mario RPG, he's not overly difficult, he just needs you to pay attention and stay on top of things.

I really enjoyed Super Mario RPG, and I appreciate that "doing everything" in it took less than 20 hours. I have absolutely nothing against super-long RPGs — over the years, my favourite games have all been pretty lengthy affairs — but sometimes it's nice to play something breezy that knows when to stop. I'm sure Super Mario RPG could have dragged itself out to twice the length if it had really wanted to, but it didn't; the fact it didn't is testament to its good design. Nothing in the game feels like filler, and, outside of the Switch-exclusive postgame (i.e. it didn't exist in the original SNES version) there's really no need to grind at any point, either.

There are elements of the game where you can tell it has 16-bit roots, most notably in its overall storytelling; the narrative of the game is very lightweight, and you don't spend a lot of time getting to know the characters. I was particularly surprised to finally spend some time with Geno, a character that I've been hearing Super Smash Bros. fans bang on about for years, and find that, in terms of actual writing and characterisation, there's not really much to him.

But then this is a Mario game, not anything with pretensions of being high art or literature. To have Geno give overblown monologues at every opportunity would have almost certainly felt very out of place with the overall breezy feel of Super Mario RPG, and I suspect that during development, Nintendo probably had to rein in Squaresoft a bit in order to ensure that the whole thing didn't go too Final Fantasy. The inclusion of Culex may well have been some sort of "if you don't overdo the melodrama in the main story, we'll let you get super-ridiculous with the secret boss" deal.

Anyway, it's not that I feel Geno is a "bad" character as such, I was just a little surprised that he is so beloved when you don't really spend all that much time getting to know him beyond his basic concept. He does have some cool special moves, though, and in terms of power level he's one of the strongest characters in the party, so I suspect it's a bit more of an "all-round" thing as to why people like him, rather than him having a particularly strong story attached to him.

So yeah. That's that. Now to decide what I should play next! I still have Yakuza 5 on the go, and will get back to that some time soon, but I'm also still in a bit of a Nintendo mood. I have a few Nintendo titles on my shelf that I haven't gotten around to yet, so it's a matter of choosing between them — or maybe nabbing something from my wishlist that (I hope) no-one has grabbed me a copy of for Christmas yet. Do I move on to Paper Mario now I'm fresh from Super Mario RPG? Or do I finally bite the bullet and jump into the sprawling Fire Emblem: Three Houses… bearing in mind that I will definitely be wanting to revisit Xenoblade Chronicles X when it gets a Switch release in March?

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 185: 'Tis the season for Nintendo

As I alluded to the other day, I've been spending my time playing Super Mario RPG on Switch for the past few days. I rolled credits on it this evening and am very happy I took the time to play this. (There's a surprisingly extensive postgame that has been added to the Switch version, but I will be waiting until tomorrow to check that out, as it's getting late.)

One of the reasons I decided to start playing this is that the holiday season, for me, will always be associated with Nintendo. I'm not exactly sure why, as there was only one Christmas where I actually received something Nintendo-related under the tree — a Super NES with Super Mario World — but I've continued to make that association ever since. I think it goes along with how I associate Disney movies (the good ones) and Star Wars (ditto) with the holidays, too; fond memories of times gone by spent with family.

And Nintendo, it can be argued, has a fair amount in common with the House of Mouse. They're both gigantic corporations that absolutely dominate a particular industry. They both do business in a way that the particularly anti-capitalist people really don't like. And they have both, over the years, put out some absolutely magical pieces of work for people to enjoy: pieces of work that don't necessarily require you to engage your brain too heavily, but which are nonetheless extremely memorable and enjoyable.

Take Super Mario RPG. By console RPG standards, it's short, simple and very easy. You can roll credits on it within 12 hours. But every bit of the game feels like it's there for a good reason. There's no filler, no grinding, nothing that feels unnecessary; sure, there are some minigames you can engage with to a frankly obsessive degree that reward you with some optional items that aren't at all necessary to beat the game, but if you're just playing the game through to enjoy it, nothing feels out of place, nothing feels like it's actively getting in the way of your enjoyment.

And the presentation is wonderful, too. Sure, the Switch may be creaking a bit in its old age, but after a few minutes with something like Super Mario RPG it just doesn't matter. The music, in particular, is astounding. I hadn't realised it was the work of Yoko Shimomura, but in retrospect it makes a lot of sense — particularly with the newly orchestrated arrangements found in the Switch remake. The ending theme, in particular, was beautiful; it was like a full-on orchestral finale to something you'd watched in the theatre — with a touch of honouring the original by starting with the SNES mix of the music, then bursting into full orchestra by the conclusion.

(Don't ask why the creator of that video felt the need to brag about it being "4K" when the Switch only outputs 1080p, and a significant proportion of that end sequence is deliberately heavily pixelated.)

Anyway, I had a lovely time with Super Mario RPG, and I will be taking a look at the postgame stuff tomorrow. I'm happy I've finally played this — even if it wasn't in its original form, which, let's not forget, never came out in Europe back in the day — and now I feel suitably equipped to take on the Paper Mario games without feeling like I haven't played "the original". (I know Paper Mario is a distinct series from Super Mario RPG, but both it and the Mario and Luigi games count it as a common ancestor, so I've always wanted to give it a go.)

So that's that. If you're in a holiday funk, fire up a Nintendo game. I can guarantee it'll put a smile on your face remarkably quickly.

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#oneaday Day 183: Plague day with Mario

Felt particularly rough this morning when I woke up with a raging headache and a cough that could wake the dead. I was hoping to get some The Dagger of Amon Ra recorded this weekend, but I rather wisely decided against doing any today; we'll have to see how I feel tomorrow.

Instead, I spent a significant chunk of today playing the Super Mario RPG remake for Switch. I've never played Super Mario RPG in any form, so I've been curious to try this for a long time, and something in my head makes an inextricable association between the holiday season and Nintendo games, so I thought I'd start it up and see how I got on with it. After all, what was originally a collaboration between Squaresoft and Nintendo was sure to be fun, right? And people always seem to be making references to both the game and some of its unique characters.

I've been very impressed so far. It's a lot of fun, and it moves at a brisk old pace, as RPGs that originated in the 16-bit era tend to, but that doesn't mean it feels like it's rushing things. Rather, it's paced well so that you're constantly moving forwards, exploring new areas, meeting new allies and discovering new items. And, pleasingly, the game is a lot more than just running from story trigger to story trigger; there are some actual puzzles along the way to solve, too, along with some light platforming. The only thing I'm not a super fan of is the Hidden Treasure system, where equipping a particular accessory just tells you that there is a Hidden Treasure somewhere in the room you're in, and then you just have to flail around hoping you headbutt it by chance.

As one would expect for a modern Nintendo title, the soundtrack is fantastic. I don't know the original Super Mario RPG soundtrack all that well — aside from a couple of MIDIs I downloaded in the late '90s to use in Klik and Play projects — but we have a fully reorchestrated version of the full soundtrack to go along with the updated visuals and the re-translated script. No speech, of course — it still doesn't feel quite right to have a talkie Nintendo game — but the writing so far has been concise and pretty witty. Perhaps not to the same degree as Paper Mario, which is a series that essentially built off the back of Super Mario RPG, but I wanted to play this one first before I jumped into the Paper Mario titles for the first time. Yes, believe it or not I've never played one; my wife Andie has played most of them, however.

Anyway, Super Mario RPG helped make an otherwise fairly unpleasant day — the weather has been awful here today, too — fairly tolerable. And I even made some time to get all my Christmas shopping done earlier, too. So that's good. But now it's probably a good idea for me to go back to bed, and here's hoping I feel a tad better in the morning. Not only do I want to record that The Dagger of Amon Ra playthrough, but I have the work Christmas do in the week, and I'd rather not still be coughing my guts up and feeling like a roasted dog turd by the time that rolls around.

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