While classic characters like Mario, Bowser, and Toadstool are present, this game isn’t exactly reliant on Mario’s established canon.

As you work through the different enemies in a group, you can also score pickups that boost attack, defense, refill your HP, allow you to attack a second time with that character, or unlock a bonus game after the fight where you play a shell game of sorts that can double the amount of experience points or coins you get from winning the fight. The same applies for certain magic attacks if you get the timing down, you can turn Mario’s Jump attack into a long, punishing attack capable of wiping out regular enemies easy or taking a big chunk of health from bosses. It’s also a defensive measure, as you can press A just before an enemy attacks and blunt a lot of the damage you would normally receive, if not block it entirely.

Y’see, if you’re launching a physical attack, if you press A again at the right time in your attack animation, you’ll chain together a couple of hits and do far more damage than normal. It’s rather basic on the surface, but there is an interesting wrinkle to be found with the Timed Hits system. Mario and up to two other party members, have four options during a turn: a basic physical attack with A, magic attacks that use Flower Points (the equivalent here of mana/magic points) with Y, using an item with X, and defending or attempting to flee with B. Now, you may be wondering how the familiar Mario hop’n’bop action translates into an RPG style. In traditional Square fashion, however, the story evolves from a simple rescue mission to a quest to locate and obtain the seven stars that grant people’s wishes, so the story makes for an interesting combination of classic Mario, the wide-ranging and interconnecting storylines of a Square RPG, and oddly enough, the “save our dreams” theme of a Kirby game. However, Bowser finds himself in a bit of a sticky wicket this time, as he is forcibly evicted from his castle by Smithy, a giant sword that crashes his way into Bowser’s house and destroys the only road leading to the castle. Super Mario RPG starts out like you would expect any Mario game to, with Princess Toadstool being set upon by Bowser, who takes her back to his castle with Mario in pursuit. Would this union of Nintendo and Square be a case of getting rich peanut butter in your chocolate? Or would it be a case of two great tastes that don’t taste great together? That is one angry carrot.

That sounds great, doesn’t it? The titans of the RPG world making a game featuring the world’s most famous video game character, that’s gonna be huge! Well, in March of 1996, the world was treated to today’s game, Super Mario RPG on Super Nintendo. Most of these, however, have been in-house Nintendo projects, which I’m not complaining about, mind you, but in the mid-’90s, Nintendo placed the beloved character in the hands of Square, the makers of such legendary RPGs as Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy series. Platformers, fighting games, sports games, puzzle games, racing games, if you can make a game of it, the mustachioed plumber has made an appearance. As has been well-documented in the past, there is nary a game genre out there that Mario hasn’t found a spot in at some point.

Shiny stone super mario rpg