First Released: 1996 (SNES)
Now Available On: Virtual Console
Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars for the Super Nintendo was a pleasant surprise in every respect.
Nintendo's mascot was an unlikely candidate to feature in a fully fledged role-playing adventure, and who would have guessed that the 16-bit SNES had this technological tour de force in it at the end of its life cycle?
Developed by Square and published by Nintendo in 1996 in Japan and North America, the game combined the turn-based combat mechanics of the Final Fantasy series with 3D platforming and Super Mario lore.
Role-playing games have always been Square's specialty, and with some of the most memorable gaming characters ever created at its disposal, the studio crafted something truly special with Super Mario RPG.
If nothing else, it was refreshing to see a Super Mario game with a storyline that involved more than our moustached hero rescuing Princess Toadstool from Bowser's clutches for the umpteenth time.
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While Super Mario RPG began with this exact premise, it revealed its dramatic twist early on when a new antagonist named Smithy arrived on the scene, kicked Bowser from his keep and assumed control of his Koopa army.
The plot took plenty of turns from there, with Mario and Bowser teaming up to take down their mutual enemy, and the portly plumber and his companions embarking on a quest to restore magic to the world by repairing the shattered Star Road.
Players encountered characters old and new during the adventure, including a cloud-like being named Mallow, and Geno, a toy possessed by a Star Spirit.
Ultimately, players would have a five-strong party at their disposal, but only three characters could feature in battle at any given time.
Square's pedigree in role-playing shone through during combat situations, with battles governed by the same robust systems as the early Final Fantasy titles.
This was complemented by platform-adventure segments that took place in real-time against the colourful 3D backdrops of a diverse world that brought locations from previous Mario games to life.
The team journeyed through the Mushroom Kingdom and Yoshi's Island, now fully-realised locations populated by non-playable characters, and encountered new zones such as Nimbus Land and Monstro Town, inhabited by reformed monsters.
Super Mario RPG could be somewhat twee at times, giving it more of a kid-friendly feel than the likes of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, but there was enough magic in there to strike a chord with role-playing enthusiasts and Mario fans alike.
The game was critically acclaimed for its graphical achievements, boasting stunning 3D visuals made possible by the Nintendo SA-1 chip built into its cartridge.
This component, only used by seven games released outside of Japan, enabled the development team to harness higher clock speeds, faster access RAM, greater memory mapping capabilities, data storage, and compression.
Although Super Mario RPG pushed the SNES to its limits, from a visual standpoint it was overshadowed by the arrival of the N64 title Super Mario 64 a few months later.
Despite the SNES coming to the end of its life, Super Mario RPG was phenomenally popular in Nintendo's native Japan, where it was the third top-selling game of 1996.
Unfortunately for fans in Europe, it was never given an official release in PAL territories, with players on the continent only able to get their hands on it legitimately when it launched on Virtual Console in 2008.
To date, the game has never received an official sequel, but it has spawned spiritual and thematic successors in the Paper Mario series and the Mario & Luigi titles.
These games borrow many elements from Super Mario RPG, including the use of Flower Points and some of the turn-based combat mechanics.
Super Mario RPG was Nintendo's final collaboration with Square for a while, as the Final Fantasy studio would not collaborate with the Big N again until 2002 when it brought Chocobo Land: A Game of Dice to Game Boy Advance.
It was also an appropriate swan song for the SNES, helping one of the greatest consoles of all time go out on a high note.
