We'll need to see more before a full assessment of course, but so far Super Mario RPG seems to be getting something close to the Link's Awakening Switch remake treatment. Less so, because it was already a TV console game so there is less to extrapolate (no addition of a depth of field effect, in particular), but similar principles: keep the original gameplay, story, and mechanics, down to the original camera framing, but upgrade everything that can be within that framework. Including adding proper cutscenes (the latter element having been applied to great effect on the Bowser's Inside Story remake).
Here is what I could tell from a closer view of the announcement trailer:
- Everything is dynamically 3D-rendered. Now that's a big subject for discussion, if not controversy, so for now I'll just mention the era of prerendered 3D sprites was quite short in the grand scheme of things.
- Movement appears to be still based on the 8 directions allowed by the control pad: N, NW, W, SW, S, SE, E, NE. This is in contrast to the 3DS remakes, which took advantage of that console's directional stick to allow more free-form walking around. I believe this is for the best in the case of Super Mario RPG: some of the platforming require precisely hitting one of these 8 directions.
- Perspective is not orthographic as in the original: this is clearest towards the end of the trailer, where the top of the underground pillars can be seen "moving" compared to the floor behind them.
All in all, interesting to see how, using a modern 3D engine, they can keep an experience – here, that implied by isometric "perspective" – that was dictated in the original by the technical constraints of the era.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to resume a game of Landstalker I just so happened to have started recently, and after that I have a Solstice cart I've been neglecting, which should tide me over until November. Can't be too prepared…
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