This year marks 26 years since Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, also known as the SNES. The game never received a sequel, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Not only are there fans wanting one, but even the game’s director wants one too.
Chihiro Fujioka, the director of Super Mario RPG, was recently interviewed by MinnMax. There, they talked to Fujioka about various topics. One topic was about his interest in developing a Super Mario RPG 2. Fujioka said that, not only does he want to make one, but he wants that to be the last game he makes.
Fujioka said that “Yeah, I would absolutely love to make one…in my career I’ve been involved with a lot of games, and I would really like my final one to be another Mario RPG game if possible. I think Mario & Luigi is cool, but I would like to go back and create a Mario RPG where you’re only controlling Mario”.
That would be nice, as Nintendo has shown with their direction of both Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi that they are REALLY not interested in making RPG’s, and will divert into other genres at the earliest possible opportunity.
That’s not really true for the Mario and Luigi series, they’re still very much RPGs. They’re just in a tricky place now that Alphadream has gone bust.
I do agree on the Paper Mario series though.
I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on the series, but from the two that I played, I disagree.
They took the only component on SMRPG that was un-rpglike, the timed hits, and made that the overwhelming focus of the gameplay. To the point that your ability to perform the dexterity based minigames associated with attacking and defending are much more important than the strategic decisions about what action to perform.
If defending from the boss’ attack requires a series of carefully timed button presses, but doesn’t require you plan what you’re doing, you’re on sketchy waters calling it on rpg.
With all due respect, you seem to have a VERY narrow, and outdated, view of what makes a game an RPG.
The M&L series has turn-based battles, you defeat enemies to earn EXP to level up and improve your stats, you equip gear on your characters to increase/decrease stats and have equippable accessories with special abilities. All classic RPG elements.
Hell, the original japanese version of the game is literally called “Mario and Luigi RPG”, do you really need any more evidence than that?
Just because the game focuses more on timed hits and resolves around player skill moreso than stratergy doesn’t stop it being an RPG. It’s a very different kind of RPG to SMRPG, yes, but an RPG nonetheless.
It’s an RPG that challenged the tropes of classic RPGs like Final Fantasy and Pokémon by making it so that the player has greater control over their characters during battle, which is honestly a very refreshing change of pace.
You’re perfectly welcome to dislike the direction the Mario RPGs went in, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are objectively RPGs.
Good luck getting Square-Enix and Intelligence System (since Sticker Star) to play ball.
I’m sure if Nintendo really wanted to they could buy the rights for it.
Man… now I’m just reminded at how SMRPG isn’t even on NSO SNES app…
Well this is certainly informative, i feel “very educated”
Or you can just make a traditional Paper Mario 64 sequel from about 25 years ago that people been asking for. After all Ormigami King sucked.
OK didn’t suck, it just wasn’t what I wanted. OK is honestly the best PAPER Mario game, as in the best out of all the games starting with Sticker Star, but overall I’d say OK was just OK. Didn’t hit nearly as many highs as the original trilogy did
Origami King was still good. Surprisingly good, honestly. I’m not saying it was AMAZING or as good as the first 3 Paper Mario games… I’m just kind of impressed that IS can still develop a good Paper Mario game when Nintendo is tying their hands on making characters and using gimmicky battle systems.