Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 90

90: Super Mario RPG (SNES)
Developer: Squaresoft
Year: 1996

Leah, don’t kill me.

Super Mario RPG is a fine game, made from pure imagination and the result is pure fun. Before Kingdom Hearts, Squaresoft had made an interest in taking charge of another set of characters, and Nintendo – who was a great partner and platform for Square to release games at the time (but, since Nintendo denied the advent of the disc-based game…) – was more than happy to allow one of the greatest game development companies ever to make a singular experience.

Your basic RPG-style adventure is simply applied to standard Mario formula; Bowser kidnaps Princess, Mario attempts to rescue her. But there is a slight change in protocol when a new enemy shows up and even King Koopa is at a loss for what to do next. Giant swords, a mushroom man named Mallow, and Geno (the single coolest character ever created for a Mario game. Period.) are introduced, as well as Smithy, the game’s primary antagonist. Joining forces with the evil King Koopa, Mario and friends of course find a way to save the day, giving us all a pleasing gaming experience in the process.

Of course, if the gameplay wasn’t stellar, this game wouldn’t even matter. As I stated, the game utilizes Square’s at-the-time standard “turn based” fighting system, allowing for on-the-fly party management during the game’s fantastic battles. Pick a move and take a turn.  Item collection, shops, and experience points/leveling up all feature prominently in this game, just like any Final Fantasy title, but they all take on a more humorous and far less serious tone due to Nintendo’s “Everyone, even kids, need to be able to play this game!”-approach to both storytelling and gameplay.

And the nice part is that you’ll be playing for hours and hours; there’s tons to do and see in the game aside from the battles. Amusing side-quests, fantastic side characters (that stupid Croco!), and great boss fights and dungeon crawls, just like in your typical Final Fantasy game. If you think I’m comparing this to an FF title too often, think again, you silly ass! It’s simply because the game stands up there with the greats from said series. And there is no better compliment.

All in all, the game has it all, really; great main quest, hours of additional things to complete, and stars a franchise character in one of his best games. While difficult to find for its original system, the game is now featured on the Wii’s virtual console, meaning that you too can now play the game at your leisure, so long as you’re willing to drop a few bucks to do so. There is – however – no excuse for you to not drop a few bucks to do so.

Classic Moment:
I always bring this up: at a point in the game, depending on how quickly you pick up some of the Princess’ items, you can get a kiss from Booster. But the really amusing part is, change the variables in this portion just a touch and you can get some much better results. For example: you can get a kiss from Peach, but play your cards right and you can get a kiss from Bowser! The phrase about keeping “your enemies closer” comes to mind, immediately…

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Added September 29, 2016
Is there any reason that we never got a sequel? Paper Mario is great and all, but still…