Mario Monday - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

This week Mario Monday take s a look at the final classic game from the series to be played on the Super Nintendo. Thought to be a bit of a high risk-high reward title, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars successfully blended the terrific RPG game play that only a company like Squaresoft, known today as Square Enix and the lovable characters form the Mario universe.

Japanese commercial for Super Mario RPG

Super Mario RPG is perhaps one of the best role playing games to be played on the Super Nintendo, a system that had a healthy share of awesome games in the genre. The game featured an action-command battle system, which helped make the game more fun. In older RPGs the player typically just chose a command and hoped for the best result. But Super Mario RPG added animations for each move in a battle. As great as the game was it enjoyed limited success as the release of the Nintendo 64 followed just four months later. With the release of the next home console a blockbuster (Super Mario 64) stole the show.

But do not look past Super Mario RPG.



The storyline is somewhat familiar but with a twist. Captured once again is Princess Peach by none other than Bowser, King of the Koopas. After Mario chases down his nemesis and seemingly rescues the captured damsel in distress, a giant sword plows into Bowser's castle and sends Mario, the princess, and Bowser in separate directions. After making his way back to Bowser's castle Mario is told that the stomping grounds have been taken over by the Smithy Gang.

In the journey to save the day Mario must team up with Bowser as well as two new allies. Mallow is a fluffy looking side-kick. Mallow learns that he is actually a prince during the quest as he was raised by a character who found him stranded as a baby. Geno is a little bit more mysterious and very powerful. He possess a great knowledge of many things along the way. Mallow joins Mario's party first and Geno is the second side-kick picked up along the way before Bowser joins the party.

Though the game does not have a true sequel it did set the ground work for future Mario RPG styled games, such as Paper Mario and the recent Mario & Luigi series.

I will be honest in telling you that I have never played this game, but since it is available for download on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console, perhaps I should check it out some day. If you have played the game before please feel free to add your thoughts on the game below to fill in the many missing pieces I may have above.