SUPER MARIO RPG: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN STARS
Come on, Paul. Deep breaths. You can do this. They're only RPGs. Sure they come with a butt-ton of content that is way too complex to try to make any sense of, but you can do this. Now get out there and EAT THAT HORSE, VEGETA!
Alright, here we go. Super Mario RPG was the first major RPG created for the Super Mario franchise as part of a collaboration between Nintendo and the kings of the RPG, Square Enix. The game told a brand-new story set in the Mushroom Kingdom, wherein Mario and Princess Peach have to team up with Bowser, a star spirit inhabiting a doll, and a lost cloud prince who thinks he's a frog, in order to defeat an army of machines called the Smithy Gang.
Our main characters consist of Mario, Bowser, Princess Peach, and two new characters Mallow and Geno, one of which you may recognize as a ridiculously beloved and demanded character for Smash (because he's awesome). These five work together as an RPG party, each with their own unique moves and abilities, generally having six~ special moves and a number of more standard moves.
Mario is pretty basic Mario, with his special moves all being three increasing degrees of jumping on the enemy or throwing fireballs. The strongest fireball move is reportedly supposed to be the inspiration behind his current Final Smash. Outside of the special moves, he will punch, use his hammer, or kick a Koopa shell at his enemies. Outside of battle, he has pretty basic running and jumping capabilities.
Mallow is a young cloud boy raised by frogs who turns out to be the lost prince of a cloud kingdom. Most of his special moves are weather-based, but he also acts as your information character. His moves are Thunderbolt, wherein he strikes with lightning; HP Rain that heals his allies; Psychopath, which tells you what his enemies are thinking; Shocker, which strikes with a bigger lightning bolt; Snowy, which summons a blizzard before dropping a giant snowman on the enemy; and Star Rain, that calls down a meteor shower on the enemy. He also wields a "froggie stick" and a pair of cymbals as his weapons.
Geno is a star spirit that came to Earth and inhabited a child's doll in order to fix the Star Road broken by the Smithy gang. Most of his abilities are either based on the technology of the doll itself or on his star-based magic. His special moves include the Geno Beam, a basic laser he shoots from his arm; Geno Boost, a self-healing move; Geno Whirl, in which he throws a spinning disk at the enemy; Geno Blast, wherein he calls down beams of rainbow energy from the sky; and Geno Flash, where he transforms into a cannon and blasts a literal sun at his enemies. His basic attacks tend to be shooting pellets or shooting stars from his doll fingers, or firing off his fists altogether.
Princess Peach is your healer, with most of her moves boosting your health, stamina, or various stats. Therapy and Group Hug both do this, just to a larger scale; Sleepy Time puts your enemies to sleep; Come Back brings an ally back to life; Mute cancels out an enemy attack; and Psych Bomb attacks the opponents mentally. Her standard weapons include simply slapping an enemy or smacking them with a parasol, fan, or frying pan.
Last but not least, we have Bowser, who acts mostly as your tank. He only has four special moves for some reason, those being Terrorize, which scares opponents with a giant Boo; Poison Gas, which poisons the enemy; Crusher, which smashes the enemy with a rock; and Bowser Crush, wherein the enemy is stomped on by a giant Mechakoopa. His other abilities include throwing a Chain Chomp like a ball and chain, picking up Mario and literally throwing him at the enemy (nice), and using a glove with drill tips.
There are an assortment of ally characters floating around in the game, like cloud people, Toads, and frogs, including Mallow's adopted grandfather Frogfucius, but most of them don't really offer much to work with. Yoshi is an ally that is sort of playable in that you can ride him during a race with other Yoshis. Boshi is an arrogant blue Yoshi with shades that seems to be really popular, but as he is just a Yoshi, I don't see much point to him even being an echo (Maybe a color swap).
Now, let's deal with our bosses. First up, we have the main villains of the game, the Smithy Gang, a group of machines from another dimension. They are led by their boss, Smithy, their king who creates all the others in his forge. There are many different layers to his fight, but his first form's moves consist of using his sledgehammer, summoning a meteor shower, and draining his opponents. His second form can switch out its heads, including a tank head that fires projectiles; a magic head that can summon down rains of spears, swords, and arrows; a treasure head that can summon forth random item-based attacks, and the mask head that can recover and remove stat boosts from other characters.
The rest of the Smithy gang includes Exor, a giant sword that stabs itself into Bowser's castle. His moves are pretty limited, being a sword and all, and mostly consists of shooting lightning from his eyes and summoning meteors. The Axem Rangers are a gang of five, parodying the Power Rangers, and all have their own moves and abilities, though all use axes. Axem Red is pretty basic, Axem Black uses bombs on you, Axem Pink is the healer though she also has a petal blast, Axem Green uses spells to freeze, electrify, or cancel out special moves, and Axem Yellow is the heavy who body slams you. All five control their ship, the Blade, which fires a breaker beam at you.
The Smithy Gang also consists of three major generals, all with a weapon theme. Mack is a sword/jackhammer character, Bowyer is a bow and arrow, and Yaridovich is a spear/halberd-looking character with a number of moves across the board. Mack is basic with only two fire moves; Bowyer has some lightning attacks, but he also mainly shoots arrows. Yaridovich is a bit more complex, stabbing with his spear, but also using a number of elemental moves like Fire Stone, Water Blast, Willy Wisp, and Bolt. If I were to make a moveset for these general guys, I would probably combine them all into one. I'll get back to that.
There are a few other bosses throughout the game, each with their own varying levels of difficulty and importance. Some will probably make it. Others will probably not. Croco is probably one of the most recurring, a crocodilian thief and predecessor to characters like Popple in later RPGs. He's mostly cowardly and tries to run away at the first opportunity, but on the offchance he does fight you, his moves involve tossing items like bombs and "weird mushrooms" from his bag or biting you. He's also good at stealing stuff. He might just make the cut, but he's teetering on the edge.
Booster is an idiotic manchild who drives around a toy train and runs really fast. That's about it for him. Punchinello is a bomb-themed character who seems like a member of the Smithy gang but isn't really. Belome is a giant dog-thing that guards a temple, and tends to use status-changing attacks, like putting you to sleep and turning you into a scarecrow. Birdo basically hatches from an egg and shoots eggs at you.
And now we come to the main three that I'm almost certain will get in, if any. Jonathan Jones is an awesome pirate captain who is also a shark, and ends up helping you out against the Smithy Gang. He himself mainly uses his trident to spear you, and boosts his own hp by 400, while also using the diamond saw spell and the draining spell. He's also surrounded by other minions in his pirate crew who fight him with spears and tridents, and enemies like spinning starfish, living treasure chests, and a giant squid named King Calamari. All these things together lend to a strong moveset. (Hmm, now that I think about it, Booster had a bunch of toy-themed minions, I think. Maybe I should revisit him).
After him, we have Valentina and Dodo, a money-grubbing pair seeking to overthrow Mallow's parents by passing Dodo off as their long-lost son and Valentina as his blushing bride-to-be. Dodo's attacks tend to include multiple pecks, flying, and muting attacks, while Valentina can make use of a number of common spells like Petal Blast, Diamond Saw, Blizzard, Water Blast, Aurora Flash, Light Beam, and Solidify, all weather-themed moves much like Mallow himself. I would make the two a tag team if anything.
And then we come to Culex, a secret optional boss in the game, presented as a mighty warrior from another dimension looking for a worthy challenger, who is widely considered to be one of the most notoriously difficult bosses in gaming. Culex can fight on his own, but he also has four gems surrounding him, each tied to a specific element. His fire crystal uses mainly fire attacks, obviously; his water crystal uses water and ice; his earth crystal uses moves like sandstorm and boulder; and his wind crystal uses a lot of lightning attacks. He himself can also use Shredder to negate stat buffs, Flame Stone, Dark Star, and Meteor Blast. All in all, plenty to work with, which gives me no end of pleasure saying.
Now for our enemies. We have: Terrapins, which are basically Koopas; Klinklinks, little dangling chains; Goombas and Goombettes; Sky Troopas, basically Paratroopas; Spikeys, which are similar to Spinies; Lakitus; Hammer Bros; K-9s and Chows, basically dogs; Frogogs, frogs that spit bubbles; Shysters, Shy Guys on pogo sticks; Rat Funks and Alley Rats, rats with poison attacks; Gobies, basically Cheep Cheeps; The Big Boo; Hobgoblins and Strawheads who claw at you; Shadows that float around and shoot dark bubbles at you; Pandorites, Box Boys, and Hidons, living treasure chests; Starslaps and Zeostars, basically starfish; Snapdragons that whip you with vines; Arachne and Spinthra, giant spiders; regular Shy Guys; Crooks and Sackits who steal things; Amanitas, living mushrooms; Buzzers and Stingers, basically bees; Octolots and Octovaders who shoot lightning; Wigglers; Guerillas, chained up apes that throw rocks; Piranha Plants; Hotheads; Bob-Ombs; Magmites that burrow; Crystal Clusters and Pulsars; Enigmas and Gorgons that split into clones; Snifits; Orb Users and Orbisons, basically living magic wands; Remo-Cons that dance an eerie jig; Jesters that attack with cards; Chain Chomps; Knife Guy and Grate Guy, a pair of minions working for Booster who toss knives and ride on a ball respectively (putting a pin here to remind myself for Booster); Chef Torte and a living Bundt Cake also made for Booster; Geckos and Geckits; Mastadooms, giant skeletal pachyderms; Mukumukus, basically prairie dogs; Greapers who attack with scythes; Reachers who guard treasure chests; Dry Bones; Bloobers, which are Bloopers; Bandana Reds and Blues who work for Johnny; Shoguns who slash you; Shy Aways, Shy Guys with spears; Jinx, a tiny cricket who challenges you; Fautsos, weird genie things; Smilax, a giant piranha plant; Birdies carrying spears; Jawfuls who stab you with a fork; Pinwheels that spin; Muckles, little jellyfish things; Shamans who cast spells; Stumpets and Corkpedites, enemies made of wood; Czar Dragon, a fiery dragon that becomes Zombone, a zombie dragon; Star Crusters, basically crabs; Magikoopas; Countdowns, living clock hands; Cloaker, Domino, and Mad Mallet, all creations of Smithy; and characters working in Smithy's factory like the Clerk, Manager, Director, and Factory Chief. There's probably a bunch more, hopefully most of them just the million recolors of various enemies, but I got lost a bit on the way.
As for our stages, we have a number of areas, mostly divided out into specific regions. We have the Mushroom Kingdom, which includes Mario's house, Peach's Castle and the surrounding town, and a few roads; Pond to Pipes, a sewer and swamp area that includes Tadpole Pond and Forest Maze, where you meet Mallow and Geno respectively; Yo'ster Island, which is basically Yoshi's Island; Mole Mountains, which includes Booster Tower; Sea Side, which includes Star Hill and Johnny's sunken ship; Land's End, a cliff leading up to Nimbus Land; Nimbus Land, where Mallow truly comes from; Barrel Volcano; Bowser's Keep, which happens to have Exor through it; and Smithy's Factory.
As for items, well, this is an RPG, so there's a ton of them. A lot of mushrooms, flowers, various types of armor and accessories, drinks, cookies, candies, syrups, elixirs, eggs, a few attacks like Sheep Attack to put enemies to sleep, and the ever so mysterious "Princess Toadstool's ???" Well that's fun. Am I done yet?
I guess not. Here's what we've got so far:
Characters:
Mario: jumping, fireballs, punch, hammer, koopa shells
Mallow: Thunderbolt, HP Rain, Psychopath, Shocker, Snowy, Star Rain, cymbals, froggie stick
Geno: Geno Beam, Geno Boost, Geno Whirl, Geno Flash, Geno Blast, pellets, shooting stars, rocket fists
Princess Peach: therapy, group hug, sleepy time, mute, come back, psych bomb, slap, parasol, fan, frying pan
Bowser: Terrorize, Crusher, Bowser Crush, Poison Gas, throw Chain Chomp, drill glove, throw Mario
Yoshi: race
Toad
Smithy: sledgehammer, meteor shower, drain, smelter, Tank Head, Magic Head, Treasure Head, Mask Head, build machines
Axem Rangers: axes, bombs, petal blast, heal, freeze, electrify, mute, body slam, The Blade, breaker beam
Smithy Gang: Mack (fire), Bowyer (arrows, electricity), Yaridovich (spear, spells), Punchinello? (bombs)
Croco: steal, run away, bite, bombs, weird mushrooms
Booster: toy train, toy minions, card tricks, throwing knives, bouncing on a ball, killer Bundt cake
Birdo: shoot eggs
Johnny: trident, boost HP, drain, minions with spears, starfish, crabs, treasure chest, springs to get out of water, King Calamari
Valentina and Dodo: fly, peck, cancel moves, Petal Blast, Diamond Saw, Blizzard, Water Blast, Aurora Flash, Light Beam, Solidify
Culex: Shredder, Dark Star, Flame Stone, Meteor Blast, fire crystal, water crystal, earth crystal, wind crystal
Koopa
Goomba
Spiny
Lakitu
Hammer Bro
Shy Guy
Cheep Cheep
Boo
Piranha Plant
Bob-Omb
Chain Chomp
Dry Bones
Blooper
Bosses:
Belome
Exor
Smithy
Mega Smilax
Czar Dragon
Etc.
Stages:
Mushroom Kingdom
Tadpole Pond
Forest Maze
Yo'ster Island
Mole Mountains
Booster Tower
Sea Side
Star Hill
Sunken Ship
Land's End
Nimbus Land
Barrel Volcano
Bowser's Keep
Smithy's Factory
Items:
Too many to list
Thanks for reading! Next up, we'll start in on Paper Mario! Whoo, only ten more to go . . . or eleven. Dang it, Nintendo!
