Is Super Mario RPG overrated?

[Zarkanthesmasher]

Well it's easy to say that if you're all leveled up, but try fighting Culex at level 16 like I did.  Without the trueform pin.  In Japanese.

True, but most people don't even do that on any game unless they want to challenge themselves. That said, making a game more challenging is always a good idea if the game is really easy when played normally. :)

If you want the item, you'll play the game. RPGs generally have an element of repetition followed by a reward. Except Paper Mario, that is.
Also I have to say I found Paper Mario not one bit epic. The bosses are mostly small and use a total of two attacks on you.
I have to say though, the best part of Paper Mario is the ice castle, whatever it's called. That area is actually somewhat large and interesting.

Yes, but it depends on what the repitition is. If that means fighting a ton of enemies, that's one thing - but winning 100 rounds of a boring minigame takes it to a whole new level.

Also, I'd rather have a boss that uses a few attacks that make since than bosses that have all these crazy attacks that don't fit with their character. I don't get what the designers of SMRPG were thinking when they gave the Czar Dragon WATER BLAST, of all things. A fire creature using a water attack has to be one of the most nonsensical things I've ever seen in a popular RPG.

[Glitchy]

Also, Yoshi's Story isn't bad, either.

If you think about it, Yoshi's Story is basically a N64 with less levels, characters, and story.

I striked out characters because I realized there are more than the ones in SPM.

[Fawful Fan]

Another thing I really liked about SMRPG was how your teammates had a reason to travel with you.  When Mallow joins the team he's out to...well, I probably shouldn't go into detail seeing how there's some people here who haven't played the game yet.  In general terms, he's out on a journey with a specific goal in mind.  That was missing in Paper Mario.  Remember Watt's reason for joining Mario?  She says something like, "You're going on an adventure?  Sounds like fun!  Me wanna join too!"  The Paper Mario teammates just didn't seem very motivated or developed.
But really, in these debates of SMRPG vs. PM, I guess it really all comes down to your personal tastes.

[Reading]

But really, in these debates of SMRPG vs. PM, I guess it really all comes down to your personal tastes.

Exactly. Just about everything comes down to personal tastes, which is why people shouldn't try to make it look like a fact that one game is better.

Here's a new picture.



Is it easier to get now?

Also, on a side note, about the damage/HP scale on PM vs SMRPG, I was thinking and I have a hypothetical situation. Let's say there was a Mario RPG that started with the standard PM attack power of 2 (with Action Command), but Attack was an actual statistic instead of being upgraded 2 points throughout the game. Let's say it was upgraded by an average of 2 for every level you gained. If Mario leveled up 30 times in a period of 8 Chapters (about the established "maximum" in the two PM RPGs, though you can go higher in TTYD), his attack power would be around 60 at the end of 8 Chapters. If the game was longer than that, let's say the power would be 120 after 16 Chapters, 180 after 24 Chapters and 240 after 32 chapters, or whatever would be equivalent to chapters. Just a hypothetical thought device. What would you guys think of this?

[penguinwizard]

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[picture not linked to because you know what it is]

. . .

Also, on a side note, about the damage/HP scale on PM vs SMRPG, I was thinking and I have a hypothetical situation. Let's say there was a Mario RPG that started with the standard PM attack power of 2 (with Action Command), but Attack was an actual statistic instead of being upgraded 2 points throughout the game. Let's say it was upgraded by an average of 2 for every level you gained. If Mario leveled up 30 times in a period of 8 Chapters (about the established "maximum" in the two PM RPGs, though you can go higher in TTYD), his attack power would be around 60 at the end of 8 Chapters. If the game was longer than that, let's say the power would be 120 after 16 Chapters, 180 after 24 Chapters and 240 after 32 chapters, or whatever would be equivalent to chapters. Just a hypothetical thought device. What would you guys think of this?

Picture is easier to understand now, thanks.

That idea might work. I have that impression that single-digit damage in the middle or late in the game is a sign that your attack is pretty worthless against that enemy. I suppose the reasoning is that enemies at that point in the game have a lot of HP, so single-digit damage barely causes a dent. Just the same, attacks during big bosses don't cause a dent when taken individually, but at least with a double or triple-digit number you get the feeling that you're doing serious damage. Even when you don't know how much HP an enemy has, certain ranges of HP damage seem to tell you how effective it might be (also, trying out different attacks and magic to see what does the most damage can give off that impression). In Super Mario RPG, since triple-digit damage soon becomes common, you start to think "I did double-digit damage? That's weak!"

You remember the Magmas or whatever those brown monsters were in the Moleville mine? Normal attacks only did 1HP damage, maybe 2, to it. That made me think this little guy was even stronger than Smithy when it came to wailing on it with normal attacks. Very strong hide to it. I think it has 50HP to it, which is a lot if you're routinely doing only 1-2HP damage to it. Plus, 1HP just has that impression of "you didn't hurt it one bit". Damage of 0HP is more rare and happens when you do something that wouldn't hurt the enemy in a million years, or when someone blocks an attack that would normally cause 1HP damage.

The other problem I see with scaling down to single-digit damage is that there's a decent range of damage that would fall under a range of 1HP. If you went up a few levels without an increase in attack power, that would seem strange (but not unheard of). I liked in Super Mario RPG that after going up one level, an attack that previously caused 30HP damage now causes maybe 31 or 32HP damage. That's really not much of an increase, but you get the feeling that you got marginally stronger anyway.

So, give me double digits early on and triple digits at least before the middle of the game. Maybe someone could hack Paper Mario to multiply all HP values by 5 or 10 or 15. Besides, attacking an enemy in Super Mario RPG only had like three possible HP damage values, all relative to whatever your current attack power was, and that's not too different from what Paper Mario had.

[jmdblazer]

But if you did that, it would still be exactly the same, but with higher multiples.

I actually prefer Paper Mario's low attack numbers.

[Toad]

I'm afraid I still don't get the picture.. It's just the order they were released in, isn't it?

[jmdblazer]

Well ya, but it means he doesn't need other people to tell him which games are best.

[ShadowBrain]

Yes, as arguably the first "serious" Mario game (made by two very great developers) and just as arguably the precursor of the modern RPG, it's a great game, but I would also say it is "somewhat overrated". However, this is primarily due to Nintendo's refusal to recogize it exists, which--as is frequent in videogame culture (i.e. Earthbound)--causes it to become elevated in people's minds to a level usually reserved for lesser deities ("they-don't-ever-talk-about-it-so-that-must-mean-its-awesome" mentality).

In addition, I'd just like to say that Paper Mario was great as well (as someone once said, SMPRG was an RPG--Final Fantasy, really--with Mario characters, but Paper Mario was a real "Mario RPG"), as was TTYD, though I found the latter somewhat derivative at times (and many of the areas were too left-to-right). As for the "third" Mario RPG series, I consider Mario & Luigi, with its refreshing creativity, unique battle system, and mirth, one of my all-time favorite games. PiT, meanwhile, was cripplingly linear and relied too heavily on Bros. Items. Super Paper Mario was flawless in almost every way. That is all.

[Reading]

But if you did that, it would still be exactly the same, but with higher multiples.

I actually prefer Paper Mario's low attack numbers.

Is that because it's easy to tell how much damage your attacks will do? Longer games demand higher statistics. They could combat that with a detailed attack description, and by using percentages instead of set numbers to increase attacks by. Say Mario's attack power was 112...

Power Jump
A powerful attack that is 50% stronger than a standard Jump. Deals all damage at once.
Current Power: 168

If you were facing an enemy with, for example, 300 HP, it would be easy to tell that you'd take out about half their HP.

Also..."Mario's burned! 10% of his HP will go down each turn!", "Danger!" when you're at less then 20% of your max HP, and the like.

PiT, meanwhile, was cripplingly linear and relied too heavily on Bros. Items.

That's my least favorite Mario RPG as well. It's not a bad game, but it was way too linear, I didn't like the Bros. Items at all (give me Bros. Attacks any day), and the plot was just the standard "ONO PEACH GOT STOLENED AGAIN" with aliens and the Colbalt Star tossed in. I don't think they should have used the Top Screen as a map-they can only fit so many areas onto one screen, and it encourages cramming tons of areas into a small space, which discourages multiple paths and hidden areas. They often use blue pipes to transport between areas, which forces the areas into a linear structure-get to the blue pipe, go into the new area, get to the blue pipe again. I don't like having the entire layout of the place spoiled as soon as I reach it, either.

[ShadowBrain]

I don't think they should have used the Top Screen as a map-they can only fit so many areas onto one screen, and it encourages cramming tons of areas into a small space, which discourages multiple paths and hidden areas. They often use blue pipes to transport between areas, which forces the areas into a linear structure-get to the blue pipe, go into the new area, get to the blue pipe again. I don't like having the entire layout of the place spoiled as soon as I reach it, either.

Yes! Exactly! It's the same with LoZ:PH--what's with games being made just so they can fit in a tiny rectangle when mapped?

I did like the Shroobs, though, even if most of the bosses were based on them.

Additionally, I think the whole "Paper Mario is lame because the attacks are small" thing is idiotic. Yeah, this has been addressed, but... c'mon, people, it's all ratios.

[NintendoExpert89]

They often use blue pipes to transport between areas, which forces the areas into a linear structure-get to the blue pipe, go into the new area, get to the blue pipe again.

My guess to why the blue pipes were used was to prevent the player from easily walking back and forth between two areas that used different maps. It might overload or something from the constant loading and re-loading of maps in the top screen.

[ShadowBrain]

Hmm... *Does weighing hands gesture* Spend a little extra dev time making a game that won't "overload" when you go back-and-forth between areas, or make a game with cramped, short "levels"? (of course, we can't say for sure exactly what the pipes were for)

Also, that game was way too formulaic (but that kind of goes hand-in-hand with the linearity). Go into a timehole, go through three or four "overworld" sections, fight a miniboss, go through three or four "dungeon" section, fight a boss, cutscene/get or lose a Cobalt Star Shard (is there any point in the game where you have every piece at once?); repeat ad nauseum.

[N64 Chick]

Yeah. You do get all the pieces, but about that... It turns out that collecting the pieces was actually a bad idea because there were actually two Princess Shroobs. Peach imprisoned one of them in the Cobalt Star, broke it pieces and scattered them on purpose. So putting them together...yeah...

[ShadowBrain]

No, I beat, the game; it's just that there was so much back-and-forth with finding and losing Star Shards that I can't completely recall.

On a somewhat related note, the whole "the sacred whatever(s) you have to bring together to restore peace will actually make something bad happen oh noes you got tricked" thing is a bit overplayed in Nintendo games (Wind Waker, Paper Mario: TTYD, Partners in Time).