Super Mario RPG

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is a role-playing video game developed by Square and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1996. It was the final Mario game published for the SNES. The game was directed by Chihiro Fujioka and Yoshihiko Maekawa, produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, and scored by Yoko Shimomura. Super Mario RPG story focuses on Mario and his friends as they seek to defeat Smithy, who has crashed into their world and scattered the seven star pieces of Star Road. Super Mario RPG is the first RPG in the Mario franchise, drawing from major elements of Square's RPG franchises such as Final Fantasy. The main form of fighting enemies is turn-based combat with a party of up to three characters. It is also the first game in the Mario franchise to have gameplay within an isometric 3D environment, allowing for a new variety of the exploration and platforming elements reminiscent of the Super Mario series. Super Mario RPG was critically acclaimed, and particularly praised for its humor and 3D-rendered graphics. It was the inspiration for Nintendo's other role-playing series, Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi, and both are spiritual successors which retain some gameplay elements. Super Mario RPG was released on the Wii Virtual Console service in 2008, marking its debut in Europe and Australia, and later for the Wii U's Virtual Console in 2015. It was also included with the Super NES Classic Edition in 2017. A remake for Nintendo Switch is set to be released in November 2023. Super Mario RPG contains token similarities to other Square-developed video games, such as the Final Fantasy series, along with a story and gameplay based on the Super Mario Bros. series of platform games. Like most traditional JRPGs, the two main sections of the game are adventuring and turn-based battle sequences. Much of Super Mario RPGs gameplay is outside monster battles and plays like an isometric 3D platformer, in which traditional Mario elements such as punching floating question blocks from below are prominent.