Super Mario RPG/YMMV


 * Big Lipped Alligator Moment: Mario can transform into his 8-bit version in Booster Tower.
 * More a Big Lipped Alligator Moment for Mario himself than the player, shaking his head as if to snap himself out of it.
 * The entire sequence with Boomer in the return trip to Bowser's Keep. Boomer is some kind of robot samurai, who challenges your party to a duel in Bowser's throne room as though you were his sworn rival... despite the fact that he'd never even appeared in the game up to that point or even been hinted at. You battle him atop the chandeliers in an homage to the first boss fight in the game, and when you defeat him, he commits suicide by cutting the rope of his chandelier while lamenting his defeat in completely overwrought tones. Following this, the Shyguy holding up your chandelier lugs you up to the top of the Keep while jaunty music plays and your party members dance a jig. The whole sequence comes completely out of nowhere and is never explained or mentioned again.
 * A minor one: after hitting a switch in Booster's Tower, a new area opens up in Booster Pass. Here you can fight an apprentice Snifit who wants to join Booster's entourage. After you crush his dreams by beating him in a fight, he's never seen again.
 * Unless you somehow get defeated by him. Then you can see him in Booster's Tower as the 4th Snifit.
 * If you work at it, you can intentionally lose to even more apprentices in that place after you lose to the first one. You can lose to a total of five of them, and see them all waiting in Booster's Tower. Except the last one, who's discovered Booster only wants seven Snifits.
 * There's also the whole sequence with Bundt, a cake that comes to life for no reason whatsoever and you have to fight it.
 * Critical Research Failure /BlindIdiotTranslation: It seems that the translators had little knowledge of Mario games, that they gave different names to familiar enemies. These include Sky Troopa (Koopa Paratroopa), Goombette (Microgoomba), Goby (Cheep Cheep), Shy Away (Beezo), Chompweed (Nipper Plant), The Big Boo (a small Boo). Also, Wigglers are supposed to have at least eight legs, not six.
 * Also, Yoshi's Island is known in this game as Yo'ster Isle (it is known as Yoster Island in Japan for this game and Super Mario World).
 * The translations for a few of the enemy spell names are also weird, in particular the "drain" series. Drain's original name was fireball, though renaming it drain can be forgiven since the spell does have an hp-stealing effect. Mega drain and drain beam, however, do not have an hp-stealing component, and their original names were light saber and geyser respectively.
 * This even extends to some of the weapons. The NokNok Shell should have been the Koopa Shell (Koopa Troopas are called Nokonoko in the Japanese).
 * This particular (lack of) translation is justified by the precedent set in Super Mario Bros 3 with Kuribo's Shoe and Jugem's Cloud.
 * Crowning Moment of Funny: The Hurly Gloves.
 * Mario's "Exor face".
 * After growing a huge vine that leads to an island in the clouds with some nice treasure, the gardener goes into a tirade about how marvellous this occurrence is. His monologue involves magazines, the lottery, and geese.
 * Mario needing to be restrained by Mallow...from giving a small child a well-deserved beating.
 * Mario getting dizzy from jumping onto the head of and riding the hyperactive child in the Mushroom Kingdom who is constantly running around in circles.
 * The entire sub-story involving Booster and his attempt to marry Toadstool.
 * Mallow's reunion with his parents is hilarious, a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming and a Brick Joke all in one.
 * Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Some of the wishes on Star Mountain are this. Special note goes to 's wish.
 * Bowser's Pet the Dog moments in Monstro Town where he meets deserters from his army and wishes them well in their new lives after they apologize for fleeing. Who knew Bowser was a Benevolent Boss?
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: Many players have at least one favorite piece.
 * Well, frickin' duh! This IS Yoko gosh-dang Shimomura's work, people!
 * Goodbye Geno *sniff*
 * The boss tunes are particularly catchy.
 * Let's not forget the Forest Maze's music.
 * Ending Fatigue: In Bowser's Castle, you have to go through 4 long hallways, which consist of either difficult jumping puzzles, a TON of enemies, or normal puzzles. Without saving in between. And of course, it's only the next-to-last dungeon. Even Bowser is willing to call it quits afterward.
 * What's worse is 4 of the 6 doors contain the ultimate weapons for the majority of the party, so if you miss any of them, you'll be forced to finish the rest of the castle and then come back and go through the trek of getting to the 6 doors again to try again.
 * Nimbus land is also noticeable for having Ending Fatigue, as it's crammed full of enemies, difficult jumping puzzles, and gives you no real reward for completing besides plot advancement.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Tons
 * Geno.
 * Boshi, to a lesser extent, due to the amount of fan art and custom sprites.
 * The Axem Rangers.
 * Fridge Brilliance: Smithy is ruler of another world, uses a hammer as his weapon, can shapeshift, and with the four members of the gang besides Exor (counting the Axem Rangers as on entry) he leads a Five-Man Band that seek the Star Pieces...could Smithy have been intentionally designed as an Evil Counterpart to Mario?
 * Smithy is a blacksmith, Mario is a plumber. Hmm...
 * Game Breaker:
 * Toadstool. To explain, she's the only party member with both resurrect and group heal spells, and is a decent physical fighter. Once she has both spells, your party is virtually unkillable. If you don't mind losing attack power, give her the Lazy Shell Armor and the Safety Ring to make her nigh-impossible to kill. As long as you keep your FP up, nothing will ever stop you.
 * You can give her the Quartz Charm you receive for beating Culex to significantly raise her stats, as well as making her immune to pretty much every status condition in the book for true Game Breaking ability.
 * Not that she needs it. She hits like a truck with physical attacks, so she can save flower points for her support. And she's reasonably durable without the Lazy Shell. Her physicals are about as good as Mario's, and while she's fairly squishy, Group Hug is broken, so it doesn't matter anyways.
 * Consider the Princess in Super Mario Bros 2 or the like. Her awesomeness is canon.
 * Geno, plain and simple. His Geno Whirl attack timed hit does 9999 damage each time for a small amount of flower points. No, seriously it does that much damage when timed correctly, making even the final boss a joke.
 * It doesn't work on bosses,
 * Geno's magic attacks are the most powerful in the game. For a while, Bowser is more useful to the team than him, but by the end of the game the best team to use is by far Mario/Toadstool/Geno.
 * Ho Yay: In Marrymore, when you interrupt Booster's attempt to marry Toadstool, it's possible to end up with Bowser kissing Booster, either of them kissing Mario, or both of them kissing Mario.
 * Memetic Badass: The Axem Rangers. Period.
 * Geno.
 * Narm: "THE Big Boo", as this LP demonstrates.
 * Nightmare Fuel: The scene of the final battle is rather hellish looking, and this game is marketed at kids.
 * Squick: Would eating rotten mushrooms in the middle of a fight induce vomiting or healing, do you think? And how gross do you think the inside of Belome's mouth is, especially after having recently eaten your teammates?
 * That One Boss:
 * Bundt; a living cake that can debuff and possibly wipe out your whole party with one magic attack, and regenerates itself.
 * Yaridovich can also prove to be quite the challenge with Water Blast and his ability to clone himself.
 * as long as Toadstool can survive a water blast at full HP, he's pretty much a piece of cake.
 * The second time you fight him, Belome can create clones of your party members, and puts your entire party to sleep.
 * Bowyer, so much. He has the ability to temporarily shut off your actions, and will keep shutting off your attack ability until you run out of magic points, and continue attacking until your health is extremely low. Only through extreme patience could you defeat him easily.
 * The second battle against Croco. After depleting some of his HP, he takes all your items away. Hope you didn't waste all your FP!
 * At lower levels, Birdo can be quite frustrating as well, since an unguarded egg will basically KO any party member under level 13, and almost every direct attack will do single digit damage to her...
 * Queen Valentina and Dodo also count. They're formidable together, but things get even worse when Dodo takes your middle character to fight one-on-one, and if your lone character loses, the game is over. Considering the fact that Dodo has an attack called Multistrike which pecks you multiple times for huge damage, and that he can take you down with two or three of these attacks, while he has decent health and defense, this becomes a big problem really quickly.
 * Barrel Volcano has Those Three Bosses (Czar Dragon, Zombone, and the Axem Rangers) back to back - though you can at least save after the first two if you know what's coming.
 * That One Sidequest: Speak to a particular Chow in Monstro Town, and it will tell you how many Super Jumps you've managed to make in a single use of the technique. What some players never realize is that you can go back and receive an extremely handsome reward if your record hits 30 Super Jumps, and a much, much better one at 100. This requires perfect timing, rock-solid concentration, and lots and lots and lots of practice.
 * Unfortunate Implications: The town of Moleville is populated by a race of dark-skinned miners who speak in a familiar dialect...
 * Villain Decay: Bowser shows his softer side when dealing with some of his former minions.
 * Isn't that just smart? There's not much point to keeping a goomba in the army if he wants to stay with the wife and run a mushroom shop, he won't fight very well and he'll wreck everyone else's morale, too. And treating your underlings with at least some measure of respect is the mark of a good leader.
 * Bowser's troops genuinely respect and adore him. You don't get that kind of love from being a constant beast to your men.
 * Woolseyism: translated by the man himself.