I honestly forgot all about the latest Nintendo Direct. I’ve been too preoccupied with other stuff lately so I haven’t been keeping up with the latest gaming news. Thankfully, YouTube was wise enough to remind me about it as the stream popped into my feed the day after. So I did watch the entire thing and, overall, I felt it was a rather lackluster showing. The majority of their upcoming games didn’t interest me. But, thankfully, there was one exception to it. There was one shining beacon of delight which shone through during the previous Nintendo Direct.

That would be the reveal that Nintendo is remaking Super Mario RPG.

Now, the weird thing is, although I did play Super Mario RPG and I loved it a whole lot, it took me a long while to appreciate its brilliance. There were more than just a couple of hurdle for me to overcome before I actually got to experience this Squaresoft RPG. The first would be, well, I didn’t have a Super Nintendo when the game was released.

As a teen growing up in a middle class family from the Philippines, we all had to stretch everything to its limit, including our budgets. This meant I didn’t always get every single toy I wanted but, while disappointing, I understood. I did have an Atari 2600 and a Famicom growing up but I had to really make the most out of them. I kept on playing that Atari 2600 far longer than normal. In fact, while most kids my age were already playing on their brand spanking new Famicoms, I was still playing good old Space Invaders on that aging system.

I did eventually get a Famicom much later, around three years after it was released. By that time, the price for the system dropped down to a point where I could justify getting one. And, like with the Atari, I kept playing on that Famicom even when it was out of style. To give you an idea how long I had my Famicom, the only reason why I stopped playing it was because we did get a Sony PlayStation! Yes, I basically skipped getting a Super Nintendo because I was still okay with my 8-bit Famicom system.

Now, it’s not like I didn’t want a Super Nintendo. I just knew it wasn’t in the cards for me. Luckily, I wasn’t exactly sorely missing the Super Nintendo experience as there were several people I knew who had the system. My cousin had one so I could go to his place and play some Royal Rumble and even Mortal Kombat II. My friend also had one and I do have a lot of fond memories spending the night and playing games like Street Fighter II, Super Castlevania and ActRaiser. Speaking of which, I really have to try out the remake. It looks good!

By the way, you may have noticed none of the games I’ve mentioned so far were RPGs. That’s because I didn’t care for RPGs then, especially JRPGs. In fact, the only real RPG I played then was a little known game called Phantasie on the PC. Other than that, I just couldn’t bring myself to play another RPG. I thought RPGs were pretty silly for the most part. I mean, the idea felt really boring to me. Managing a group of people and issuing commands to attack instead of, you know, pressing buttons to attack? It just felt lame. So, even when Super Mario RPG was making the rounds, the idea of playing as Mario and telling Mario to attack instead of jumping on the head of a Goomba came off as very uninteresting.

Anyway, years passed and, like most gamers, my love for RPGs emerged with a little game from Final Fantasy VII. You all know how groundbreaking the game was. The story and characters were actually interesting and, while you were still issuing commands, it wasn’t like everyone was waiting for their turn to attack. The Active Time Bar made waiting before you can attack much more exciting! Now that I got my RPG itch, I did look back at the other games I’ve missed, especially the ones made by SquareSoft, who made Final Fantasy VII. And, wouldn’t you know it? Super Mario RPG was also developed by SquareSoft! But, as I still didn’t have a Super Nintendo, I couldn’t play it even if I scrouged around for a cartridge. Disappointing, sure. But I did get over it with games like Final Fantasy VIII, Legend of Dragoon, Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Xenogears.

Years passed once again. I was now a full grown adult with a job and everything. I luckily got a job interviewing job applicants and checking on their conversational skills. This did leave me a lot of free time between interviews during slow days, which I would pass the time playing games on my tablet. I did download a bunch of emulated games for the Super Nintendo to play while I wait for candidates to interview. One of those games was Super Mario RPG and, despite playing in on a janky tablet, I was quickly enamored by the charming story and novel gameplay. I didn’t mind the fact that I was issuing commands to Mario because SquareSoft brilliantly put some elements of timing whenever you attack someone, allowing you to deliver more damage and the like. I will say it did take me some time to adjust to the 3D graphics as, despite living in an age when polygonial graphics are the norm, I kind of wished they used 2D sprites for Super Mario RPG because some of the model look rough. Understandable, as this was a game released on the Super Nintendo, which wasn’t really built with 3D games in mind.

I do remember being a little miffed with SquareSoft creating new characters like Mallow and Geno to join Mario in his quest. I mean, I like they had Bowser and Princess Toadstool playable but they couldn’t include Luigi? What a gyp! It’s because of this that I didn’t really care for Mallow and Geno’s overall story. It was fine but I just thought it could’ve been more Mario-centric. It is called Super Mario RPG, after all.

The weird thing is I remember finishing the game in only four days. This was with me having my game interrupted by my pesky job. I didn’t even use a strategy guide or anything! It just seemed like I breezed through the entire game without much of a problem and I can’t say that’s because Nintendo and SquareSoft made it too easy or I just over-leveled myself much earlier than necessary.

Overall, I still enjoyed Super Mario RPG and, once I got a Super Nintendo Mini, I fully expected to go though it all over again. However, life is funny sometimes as I couldn’t bring myself to play it. Even though I finished it in four days, I still feel it would be a huge time sink as it’s still an RPG. I would probably be more thorough as I might have missed some side quests, which I really didn’t think about the first time I played it. I might go through it sometime soon as I would like to see what kinds of changes Nintendo will make with the remake, if any. And, yes, that means I am planning to get the remake. At least they upgraded the 3D models now!

What was your reaction with Nintendo’s announcing a remake for Super Mario RPG? Let me know in the comments section below!