Fans of the long-running Mario RPG series of games have a lot to celebrate today, mainly thanks to the release of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario RPG remake. But there’s anꦑother reason to be excited. Today also marks 20 years since the Mario and Luigi RPGs first debuted on the Game Boy Advance with Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, the spiritual successor to Super Mario RPG.
The similarities between the two series run deeper than you might think. Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga wasn’t just inspired by Super Mario RPG, but also developed by several of the same team members, who had broken away from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Square Enix (then SquareSoft) to form their own company, AlphaDream. As a result, Mario and Luigi has a flavor both familiar and unique among Mario’s nu🌜merous RPG escapades.
Believe it or not, the Mario and Luigi series wasn’t even Nintendo’s idea. revealed that it was AlphaDream who initially pitched the game concept to Nintendo. The company, co-founded♓ by Fujioka and Super Mario RPG executive producer Tetsuo Mizuno, built the game from the ground up൲ alongside co-director Yoshihiko Maekawa. Unlike their previous work, which relegated Luigi to a small cameo during the credit sequence, AlphaDream wanted Luigi to be featured prominently in their new project. In fact, Mario’s brother would be so prominent that he’d share billing with him in the very title.
Nintendo embraced the idea, and Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga was up and running.𝓰 Fujioka would receive special thanks, Mizuno would produce, and Maekawa would once again sit in the director’s chair. With such a pedigree behind it, would these accomplished developers be able to imbue this new game with the same magic they did for Super Mario RPG seven years prior? You’d better believe it.
After an insidious witch Cackletta steals Princ❀ess Peach’s voice and replaces it with explosives (no, it di💟dn’t make sense 20 years ago either), it’s up to Mario and a reluctant Luigi to travel to the neighboring Beanbean Kingdom and chase her down. Along the way, they’ll encounter a soda-obsessed Frenchman, a prince with dazzlingly glorious hair, a hermit crab with a severe speech impediment, an incredibly quotable little henchman whose grasp of the English language is more rotten than his misdeeds, and a bevy of other zany characters who cemented Superstar Saga as the wackiest Mario RPG to date. What starts off as straightforward Mario fare soon throws in some surprising curveballs that send the story twisting in unexpected and sometimes downright bizarre directions, without sacrificing that familiar Mario feel.
One of the elements that made games like Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario stand out from others in the genre was the freedom of movement they allowed, and Superstar Saga was no different. Outside of battle, Mario and Luigi can run around and tackle a variety of platforming challenges and puzzles. A quick button press switches the lead position between Mario and Luigi, the other brother taggin🍨g faithfully behind. The leading brother determines the sort of techniques the player has access to, from slipping under gates b❀y digging underground to sailing across gaps via a tornado spin.
The ability to jump in the overworld adds to the duo’s versatility. Timing can b🧔e tricky; if you want to cross a gap, you have to jump as the lead brother♐ with the A button, followed by the other with B in quick succession. If you manage to cross over with one brother and not the other, you’ll have to fall back down and do it over again together. No brother gets left behind!
This freedom of movement carries over into the game’s battle system. What Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario established, Superstar Saga perfects. Continuing the tradition of timed hits from those titles, a timed b🦩utton press can dole out additional damage to enemies when attacking or lessen damage taken while defending. In fact, Superstar Saga takes things a step further. Jumping or using your hammer during enemy attack sequences gives you an opportunity to avoid being hit entirely or even counterattack.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sea of Stars, a standout 2023 RPG, implemented a similar ꦑtiurn-based battle system that placed heavy emphasis on timing.
This immersion makes every battle feel engaging, learning new enemy attack patterns and being involved in the action instead of enduring long stretches of inactivity where you passively watch characters attacking each other back and forth. While the 𝔉battle system in later Mario and Luigi titles tended to become increasingly ambitious, bloated, and cumbersome, Superstar Saga’s battles were elegant in their simplicity, striking a perfect balance that has yet to be replicated.
But what really makes this game feel—or should I say, sound—like a successor to Super Mario RPG was the soundtrack. Perhaps the most readily noticeable staff member returning from Super Mario RPG was the incomparable Yoko Shimomura.✨ Fresh off composing duties for the iconic first Kingdom Hearts game, she proved that she hadn’t lost a beat when crafting bouncy, energetic tunes that encapsulate the fun and wonder of Mario’s world, from the chipper xylophones that accompany to the impossible not to dance to battle theme, And somehow, her music ma꧅naged to get better with each installment.
There’s no denying that Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga was a success, leading to four sequels and two remakes before AlphaDream sadly declared bankruptcy in 2019. The developers took many of the elements that made Super Mario RPG so special and refined them into a series that kept the game’s magic alive long after other Mario RPGs lost sight of what makes role playing Mario so enjoyable. So, as we all go about landing timed hits on Goombas and rekindling frieꦗndships with our old pals Mallow and Geno in the Super Mario RPG remake, let’s also take a moment to celebrate how Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga carried on the original game’s magical legacy.
