Final Mario RPG Impressions

Well, I beat Mario RPG just a couple minutes ago. This will be the last post about it here, so I'll try to address everything.

**LOTS OF SPOILERS AHEAD!**

First, I'll talk about the rest of the game I haven't already written about. So I reached Nimbus Land (which is another dumb name - it sounds like an insult from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure or something) and found out who Mallow's parents were (Surprise! He's a prince! How original - a character who doesn't know his parents at the beginning of the game who turns out to be royalty!). I fought a pretty lame boss (I can't even remember her name - it's the chick who declares herself queen of Nimbus Land) who I didn't like because it's never really explained why she came to power and how she fooled the inhabitants of Nimbus Land into thinking their King and Queen were sick.

Anyway, so after I fought her I had to go into a volcano to presumably lengthen the game. There really was no reason for it - they could've just given me the star after I beat Queen Forgettable. The guy I fought at the end of the volcano was just as forgettable anyway. After I beat him, I rode a cloud back to Bowser's lair and fought my way in.

Nothing really interesting happened until I got to the point where you have to go through six different doors to move on - two of the doors were battle doors, two were "action" doors (basically just jump your way through), and two were quiz doors (where you, duh, answer quiz questions about the game). The quizzes were fairly stupid sometimes, though - like "What was the first enemy you see in X Land?" There were some fairer questions like "What is the name of the boss in the pirate ship?" I could actually remember that one. Regardless, there was always a puzzle at the end of the quiz doors that was just ridiculously hard. One of them had me making balls jump over each other like checkers, until I only had one ball left. The best I could do was two. Oh, and if you fail? Start over!

Oh well. So after I beat that area, I had to fight a Magikoopa, who was pretty easy. After I beat him, he healed me and I was able to buy items from that crocodile guy, who apparently has reformed himself and is now selling items legit. Then, I fought the giant sword, who I thought was fairly tough.

It was at the sword that I realized Princess Peach is awesome. For four star power, she can heal your entire team for over 100 health. So, she and Bowser became my permanent team, which is sad because I really liked Geno's attacks.

So anyway, after the sword I had to fight my way through Smithy's factory. It was fairly boring, I thought, because I killed everything in my way with no problem until the final boss.

Smithy, the final boss, was kind of stupid. He was sort of a bumbling fool, which I was pretty surprised at. Knowing Square, I thought he would be a complete bad ass who knew exactly what he was doing and was extremely confident it would work. Problem is, this is a Mario game, and even in the later RPGs, the story isn't taken seriously.

Which is a double edged sword, because there were some pretty funny parts of Mario RPG. Bowser is usually pretty funny, because no one (save maybe the Toads) is really scared of him. Minor enemies always focus on Mario and Bowser gets upset and recites Haikus (not kidding - it's fucking hilarious).

Anyway, the ending was pretty sub-par. Yes, it was nice to see a short cameo of Luigi, but I didn't really like it. All the characters pretty much go their own ways without any extra context - they don't even say, "And so, Bowser rebuilt his castle," or "Geno went back to Star Road and nailed some hot Star Piece of ass," or anything. It's told with pictures, which I guess will do.

The battle system, to my surprise, remained fantastic throughout the game. I pretty much always had fun and I would only avoid battles when I knew I had to fight a really annoying enemy who only cast spells with really long animations. Otherwise, I would kill everything wherever I was at. I believe I finished the game with everyone at level 22.

Overall, the game was fantastic. I don't know where I'd put it compared to the other Mario RPG games - I still think the funniest was Superstar Saga, and Super Paper Mario and it's pseudo-RPG elements were a lot of fun as well. Hell, the battle systems in all of the games are pretty fun - I think I like Mario RPG's style just a little bit more than Thousand Year Door's and the original Paper Mario's system of only having two characters in play at a time. Either way, I will say this: the forty bucks I paid for Mario RPG was worth it, and I'll probably play through it again someday. Hopefully they release Mario RPG on Virtual Console soon, so more people can experience this fantastic game. Damn, what a long post.

(Click here for Part 1 of my Mario RPG Impressions) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Slightly Off Topic Rant) (First Mario RPG Post)