If you're one of the millions who have discovered the fantastic series of RPGs based on the illustrious gaming icon Mario, then this piece really isn't for you, because you already know. But if you're one of the many unfortunate souls who haven't yet discovered them, then read on. Five games that are sure to entertain you will soon be blogged about!
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
I suppose we should begin at the beginning. It all started in 1996 with a company called Squaresoft. You may have heard of them before—the guys behind classics in the gaming world like Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy series. They decided that it would be swell if they teamed up with Nintendo to make an RPG starring Mario, and thus was born Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. And lo, it WAS swell. SMRPG begins as all Mario stories must—the princess, Bowser, and Mario. A kidnapping, an attempted rescue, a fight. You know the drill. Curiously Peach is referred to as 'Toadstool' by everyone in the game. I guess nobody at Square got the memo that it was okay to use her first name now, given that this came the same year as Mario 64, the game that introduced the US to the name Peach.
Anyway, during the rescue, Bowser's castle is attacked by a giant talking sword and Mairo, Bowser, and the Princess are scattered across the land. Luckily Mario lands in his own house, but Bowser and Peach are nowhere to be scene. Mario sets off to find that the castle has been taken over by an interstellar group of ne'erdowells called the Smithy Gang, and in the process Mario must locate seven stars to repair Star Road and beat Smithy's gang down. The trademark Mario RPG sense of humor gets its start here, as well as many staples of the series, such as timed hits during battles and visible enemies in the over world, things that help alleviate the often-tedious nature of Japanese RPGs.
Paper Mario
Originally called Super Mairo RPG II, Paper Mario began its life during the late 1990s, but didn't see the light of day until 2001. The N64 title was hurt by its late release when it came to sales, but the time in development created a game that more than made up for all its delays. Paper Mario slapped the Mario Universe wholecloth into a story book visual style that still holds up much better than most other games of that era. (Trust me, Paper Mario looks surprisingly good on a 52'' HDTV). Scaling back everything you traditionally associate with RPGs, Mario has an incredibly limited number of hit points and flower points, and everything costs and deals damage accordingly. There are no massive spells that do 9999 damage here. If your foe can hit you with a 7 damage attack, you're in trouble! But the lack of typical RPG excess is part of the game's charm.
This time around the villain is more familiar, Bowser has taken the Star Rod from the orbiting Star Haven and imprisoned its guardians the Star Spirits. There are seven of them, by the way. Mario has to travel all over the Mushroom Kingdom and defeat the guardians Bowser has put in place over the spirits, and enlists the help of some colorful characters of all races through the Mushroom World. Paper Mario is the poster child for everything Nintendo does right, and really cemented the place of Intelligent Systems as one of the best development studios in Nintendo's stable.
Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga
The line took a detour onto the Game Boy Advance after its N64 outing, with Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga hitting shelves in 2003. The game takes the timed hits of the previous games to a flawless extreme. Both Mario and Luigi team up this time, each brother controlled by one of the buttons. Mario responds to A and Luigi to B, and all of the game actions require the two to work together to accomplish their goals. The battle system was greatly expanded, adding combined “Bros” attacks to the fray, attacks that combined the brothers' abilites for—forgive me—MASSIVE DAMAGE. Defense was similarly brilliant, each brother dodging with a jump or reflecting with a hammer anything that came at them, as long as you pressed their corresponding button at the right time. This meant for the first time in the history of RPGs it's technically—if not humanly—possible to play through the entire game without taking a single hit aside from the ones the script demands the brothers to take.
On top of all this, Superstar Saga is easily the funniest game of the bunch, with an exuberant wacky sense of humor throughout. The story opens with emissaries from the Bean Bean Kingdom, one of the Mushroom Kingdom's neigbhors, revealing themselves to be none too friendly. They're secretly a witch, Cackletta and her minion Fawful. Together they steal Peach's voice and replace it with explosives! What follows is a trek that must be played to be believed, from Fawful's angry Engrish screeds to the climactic battle against the seven Koopalings and Bowletta at the end of the game—yes, Bowletta. I'll let you figure that one out. If you don't play this game, Fawful... WILL HAVE FURY!
Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door
Back to Nintendo's main console in 2004, the series next entry was a sequel to Paper Mario that pulled out all the visual stops, using the full muscle of the Gamecube to do things that weren't possible on the N64. In addition to the visual upgrade, the game play got a few tweeks, with more interactivity in the battles (as if there wasn't enough already!) in the form of a dynamic audience that reacted to the fight and determined how much your Star Gauge—the meter that powers your special attacks—would charge with each action. Otherwise, the formula was very similar to the previous game: A mysterious door will only open every 1000 years, and beyond it lies a great treasure. The only way to open is to gather the Crystal Stars (You guessed it, all seven of them. Starting to see a pattern?) and beat the villainous X-Nauts to the prize behind it. Paper Mario 2's gameplay excesses can be forgiven largely because of the writing, which is brilliant from start to finish. The characters you meet through the game are instantly likable and more varied than those of the original game, lending the game a feel that you're in a vastly different part of the Mushroom World than where Mario Normally treads. Sure, there are franchise mainstays like the Goomba (this time an archaeologist named Goombella) and the Koopa (now a hoodie-wearing ex-coward named Koops) but you get more than that. A baby Yoshi joins the party, as well as a 'Shadow Siren' and a very large and busty ghost madame with a pair of lungs even bigger than her pair of... eyes..
You even get segments where you get to play as Bowser this time around, through areas that play like classic 2D side-scrollers. It's fun stuff all around.
Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time
Nintendo certainly got a lot faster at releasing these games, but it may want to slow down a little. Probably the weakest link of the bunch, Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time for the DS takes the gameplay of the first to an illogical but nonetheless fun extreme. As the title implies, you team up with a blast from the past—Mario and Luigi as babies. Wait a minute, weren't these guys raised in Brooklyn?
Nintendo doesn't even try to make sense of it, so neither will I. The game ads the little tykes, who have scaled down versions of all their adult counterparts' abilities, and like the first game where Mario and Luigi responded to individual buttons, the babies take advantage of the DS extra two and respond to X and Y. The sense of humor isn't quite as good, but its still a worthwhile adventure for any DS owner.
This time around the enemy is the dangerous Shroob, more aliens from beyond the stars who attacked the Mushroom Kingdom more than thirty years ago, sending shockwaves into the present. (Again, don't try and make sense of it.) Mario and Luigi team up with their baby selves to collect the shards of the Cobalt Star and restore the space time continuum to order—and fight a bunch of aliens along the way.
And there you have it. Five great games, four common themes throughout: Mario, hit points, stars, and plenty of baddies to squash.
If you haven't realized it yet, I'm a huge Mario fanboy, and that has perhaps colored my opinion of these games. Use common sense. If you don't like RPGs or Mario, there's a chance you might not like these games. But there's a chance you may, because they go above and beyond the typical RPG call of duty and do something unique and fun. Just remember to watch out for stray Bob-ombs.
No comments:
Post a Comment