Super Mario RPG: Remake vs. Original

 I mean, you had to know this was coming, right?

You know how I love to do my comparisons, and this was just too easy. You could see it coming from a mile away. Of course, that's something you definitely can't say about the SMRPG remake itself. It's a few months later and I already finished the game, but it still doesn't feel like a reality that it actually exists. Even with all of the remakes that we see nowadays, I am really surprised that this game got the treatment. A lot of things had to align and, allegedly, a lot of bad blood had to be sorted out for it to happen. But here we are, we have a shiny new Super Mario RPG remake for the Nintendo Switch with updated graphics, music, translation and just about everything under the sun.

Before anyone asks, I had originally planned a 10-Round Fight for this, it seemed logical at first. After playing Final Fantasy VII Remake and seeing how different it was from the original, I kind of had in my head that all remakes would be that way. Alas, that was not the case. If I am being honest, the Super Mario RPG remake is simply not different enough from the original to warrant diving that deep on comparison. There's still plenty to talk about, but aspects like the story, characters and even dungeons are just about the same between the two games. Having half of the categories end up as ties just doesn't make for a compelling comparison, at least with that level of depth. So instead, I figured I would take a quicker look, because I think it warrants doing so.

I guess starting out with similarities is the best way to tackle this. Because there are a lot, and I mean a lot, of similarities. The characters all function exactly as they did in the original, they have the same attacks, spells, weapons and roles that they did before. A few spells have different names, Mallow's Psychopath is now Thought Peek for example, but their effects are largely the same. The overworld is the same, with identical locations in the same spots. The towns have the exact same layouts and the story events take place exactly as you remember them. This isn't even like the OG Resident Evil Remake, where the occasional event is switched up to throw off the player, it's a shot for shot remake. The same is true of the dungeons, they are all identical to their original iterations, each room and set piece is exactly as it always was. I am pretty sure even the items you get out of chests are exactly the same. The mini games you remember are all here, the minecart, Midas river, booster hill, it's all here and all as you remember it. The core of the combat system is intact, though there are a few huge changes we will get to later. All of the hidden treasure boxes are in the exact same locations, which was nice because I remembered where a good 60 percent of them were. It's amazing how the human brain works isn't it? I can't remember to put pants on before I leave the house yet I always remember to jump on Toad's head to reach the hidden treasure when you first reach Mushroom Kingdom.

So that's a lot of similarities, but what, if anything, is different about this remake? A lot of it comes down to small details. As you might expect, the dialogue has been retranslated and tightened up, pretty much across the board. This isn't always super noticeable, the original was very well translated when compared to its contemporaries, but it was nice that they did it. The story isn't particularly deep or complex, so there isn't anything cleared up that was lost in translation or anything, but there are a handful of conversations here and there that were easier to understand. Some of the enemy names are different, though these are fairly small changes. It's most noticeable with the bosses, some retain their original names but others get completely new ones. I don't know if it was intentional, but it seems like it was all the Smithy Gang bosses who had their names switched. Exor is still Exor, but his mouth is no longer called Neosquid, so that's probably a positive change. Yardovich is now Speardovich, again it makes sense because he looks like a giant spear. The biggest change is the first Smithy boss, Mack, whose name has been changed to Claymorton. It's small, but it kind of takes away some of his personality. I guess it makes sense, he kind of looks like a claymore. I mean, I'm sure a reference to an almost 70-year-old Bobby Darin song would be lost on most kids today. But then again, a reference to an almost 50-year-old Bobby Darin song would have also been lost on most kids in 1996 too. Not me though, because I was really weird. Hey, did you know, Darin wasn't the first musician to record or perform "Mack the Knife?" Louis Armstrong beat him to it by about five years. But Armstrong wasn't the first either, the song was actually written for the 1928 musical "The Threepenny Opera." It's amazing the things I learn because of video games.

That feels like a natural segue to the SMRPGR's all new, completely re-arranged soundtrack. The original SMRPG had one of the all-time greatest gaming soundtracks, so I was a little concerned about what they were going to do here. While I don't think it quite has the charm of the original, the arranged music is outstanding and has a personality all its own. I do think it sounds a little overdone in some places, most notably the towns. But that Forest Maze theme just sounds like it's on a whole nother level. Now it's going to be stuck in my head for another 20 years. A lot of times when soundtracks get updated like this, developers feel the need to move different songs to different places. Fortunately, that isn't the case here. All the musical cues are exactly where you remember them, they just sound a little bit different. I like the newly arranged soundtrack, but I realize that not everyone might. I guess the developers realized that too, because they gave you the option to turn on the old soundtrack if you so choose. That's an awesome feature and with all of these remakes nowadays, something I think we should see more of. I do prefer the old soundtrack, but I left the new one on for my playthrough because it just felt like it made the experience feel unique. I feel like it fit better with the updated graphics, which were excellent in their own right. I did turn the old soundtrack on for the post game content.

Ah yes, now it's time to talk about the post-game content, an all-new addition to the remake. While there were some sidequests, the original SMRPG didn't really have any post-game content, the closest thing was probably the Culex fight. That's still here, but this time we have some real, true post-game content that unlocks after you defeat Smithy. You have seven bosses that you can fight a second time and they are much, much tougher. Belome, Punchinello, Booster, Torte, Johnny Jones and Jynx have all received serious stat boosts and new attack patterns and they are legitimately difficult to defeat. All of this leads up to a rematch with Culex, this time in his 3D form. I like the idea of these battles, but I don't think they are particularly well designed. I think this has to do with how the stats are balanced in SMRPG, the numbers you are working with are so small and you max out at level 30, so you need to find other ways to make these difficult. Unfortunately, this is done by essentially making every single one of these bosses timing skillchecks where you either block their attacks with perfect timed presses or die. It's hard, but it's incredibly frustrating. I like the idea, but honestly, I didn't really have fun with many of these boss fights and I don't think they were particularly well designed. 3D Culex was the exception, I liked that fight a lot. I really feel like there was a missed opportunity here to add some bonus areas or dungeons with new or unique bosses. Maybe even incorporate some Mario characters we haven't seen yet.

I think the biggest issue here are the changes to the combat. It's not that I think these changes are inherently bad, because they aren't. They are all well implemented, logical and fairly understandable when considering modern vs. old school game design. It's just that they didn't seem to balance the game around these changes and it makes an already easy game almost mind numbingly simple. Again, SMRPG is supposed to a beginner's RPG, but the new changes make it too easy even for that. I guess I should probably talk about what those changes are huh? Well, the primary combat mechanics are still largely the same. From the menus to the magic to the item freebies to the timed hits, it's all just as it was in the original. But there are a handful of new additions that make the game incredibly easy. First, you can swap your characters in and out at will like in Final Fantasy X. This essentially doubles the amount of characters, and thus HP pools, that you have in each fight. Enemies in this game can't do that much damage as is, so that makes your party's survivability off the charts. It also makes it easier to exploit weaknesses, which is more of an issue than you might think. One of the few places where the original did offer some challenge was in party construction, since certain characters could only hit certain elements. Mallow isn't the greatest, but he was the only way to exploit any creature that was weak to lightning. You had to plan your party construction around what you were going to fight and where. This format allows you to hit every single weakness in the game with little effort.  Second your successful timed hits result in damaging entire mobs of enemies. I can't say much about this other than it's unnecessary and again removes a lot of challenge associated with multi-target bosses. Successful timed hits will also increase your chain gauge, which will result in fairly substantial stat buffs. Again, this is unnecessary and makes your party nearly unstoppable. I like the mechanic in theory, but it should have been tied to items or sidequests or something. Lastly, you now have a group attack, which you can charge with successful chain hits. Again, great in theory but these things will just melt enemies and they don't take long to charge. You don't even have to burn multiple turns to use it, it just takes the turn of the party member who activates it.

But none of that stops Super Mario RPG from being a must play. It may not offer as much content as most modern games, but if you missed it way back when it's worth checking out today. It's a great, beginner-friendly RPG that is fun and accessible, even if it's a little too easy. The remake is probably the easiest way to play it today, the original cart is fairly expensive. The updated, modern finishes might also be preferable to newer gamers. Honestly, I'm not sure I want to even have the remake eligible for my end of year awards. I'm not sure it's different enough from the original to warrant a different score. Yet the changes to the combat and even further reduction of the difficulty kind of make we want to give it a bit of a lower score. I'm not sure what to do, but I definitely think this was an awesome remake and a great example of how to do a more one-to-one style update. Give it a shot, especially if you missed it in the 90's.