Super Mario RPG/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


These things about Super Mario RPG are subjective - not everyone will agree with all of them.

  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: The remake's announcement was met with a ton of excitement. Considering that rights issues seemingly kept it off the Switch's SNES online service and Square Enix's history of being stingy with allowing characters from this game to appear in spinoffs, a high-quality remake was the last thing anyone was expecting. Furthermore, Geno's large, loud fandom who has been clamoring for him to make another appearance for years (particularly in Smash Bros) were overjoyed to see him finally make his return in glorious HD after missing out on joining the cast of Smash Ultimate alongside many other long-time fan-requested characters.
    • More minor yet no-less noteworthy is the fact that, while changes to the script were made to make it more in line with the Japanese original, many witty, snappy bits of dialogue and endearing Woolseyisms (particularly Toad's infamous bazooka line) were left untouched.
  • Breather Boss:
    • The Factory Chief and Gunyolk, the second-to-last bosses, are a lot easier than the previous four boss fights, especially if you're using Peach and she has the Lazy Shell equipped (but even if you don't, it's a fairly easy fight with Gunyolk possessing only one move worth worrying about (Breaker Beam) and the Chief being a stronger, recolored Ninja). Of course, this is to be expected given that it's the last fight before the final showdown with Smithy.
    • Assuming you tackle them in the order the game recommends (as in, fight each boss that corresponds with the hints Frogfucius gives you), Bundt and Jinx are this for the remake's post-game boss rematches. While Bundt can be nightmarishly tough if you aren't aware of Chef Torte and The Apprentice's Weaksauce Weakness, having Peach put them to sleep means that you can fight Bundt normally and freely heal up the insane amount of damage he deals without having to worry about constantly making sure you can put out the candles that they're constantly lighting up. Jinx, on the other hand, is capable of instantly killing anyone who fails to get perfect timing on their Action Commands, but his lack of Total Party Kill attacks means that you can easily bring back party members that he KO's, and the fight ends once you fully charge up and use a Triple Move.
  • 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 marvelous 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 Luigi's wish. I wanna be a great plumber like my brother Mario.
    • 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.
  • 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, whose unique design, Simple Yet Awesome fighting style, and the sheer cool factor of him being a Star-possessed, gun-fighting puppet ensured that he'd be one of the most memorable characters to ever appear in a Mario spinoff, with many fans begging for him to appear in the sports games, Kart games, and even Smash Bros. Interestingly, his calm and collected nature as well as his intriguing backstory involving stars and the cosmos make him feel almost like a proto-Rosalina, who is beloved for similar reasons.
      • While it took a while for his popularity to hit its zenith, by the time the remake released, Mallow has easily become as popular as Geno thanks to his expressive animations, Adorkable personality, character development, and becoming a lot more useful in battle. While there's definitely tension between certain sects of Mallow and Geno fans, it's not uncommon for people to want them both to appear in more Mario games.
    • Boshi, to a lesser extent, as shown by the amount of fan art and custom sprites he gets. Being a mean, edgy-looking Yoshi will do that to you.
    • The Axem Rangers, the Smithy Gang's resident Quirky Miniboss Squad and a hilarious Shout Out to Super Sentai and the Power Rangers.
    • Booster, thanks to his weirdly endearing Manchild persona, hilarious dialogue, and "Wario on crack" design. He's especially beloved on 4chan thanks to many anons both jokingly and legitimately relating to him.
    • Jonathan "Johnny" Jones. Why? Because he's a Badass pirate shark-man, that's why! Him blocking off Yaridovich's escape and preventing him from stealing your hard-earned star just makes him even cooler.
    • The Guerilla and Chained Kong enemies enjoy a surprising amount of popularity thanks to the sheer absurdity of their design: literally Donkey Kong himself decked out in shackles and chains. Many fans jokingly and seriously speculate as to what their crimes are, with the most frequent answer being gorilla warfare.
    • "Big Yoshi", the baby Yoshi that turns monstrously fat once you've fed him enough cookies. He isn't a particularly important NPC and his usefulness boils down to luck, but his silly and goofy design has given him a surprisingly big following.
  • Evil Is Cool: Johnny Jones, the Badass Noble Demon shark pirate who comes in the clutch at the climax of the Monstro Town arc. The same goes for Culex, whose design is downright metal especially in his 3D form in the remake.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Valentina. If you can get past her Butter Face, she's a buxom, domineering beauty whose dress shows off her legs, and her in-battle sprite has Jiggle Physics in a Mario game (at least in the original release).
  • 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 an 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. And they've both got quite the impressive set of facial hair, with Mario sporting a well-groomed mustache while Smithy's got a crazy Santa beard. Hmm...
  • Game Breaker:
    • Peach. 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 thanks to the immense amount of health they restore and the tiny amount of FP they use up. 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 Peach in Super Mario Bros 2 or the like. Her awesomeness is canon.
      • The remake gives Peach a new Game-Breaking tool in the form of Healing Rainbow, the Triple Attack used by her, Mallow, and Mario. It's a full party heal (as in, it restores the health of your inactive party members) that will revive dead allies on top of that, making it a lifesaver in the brutal post-game boss rematches.
    • 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, Except Exor.
      • 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/Peach/Geno.
    • The Triple Attacks introduced in the remake are powerful, useful Limit Breaks, but Bowser's are definitely the best of the bunch. All of them nuke the entire field for massive damage and are damn-near guaranteed to wipe out a group of enemies, as well as put most bosses on death's door. This is the extent of what the Mario/Peach/Bowser Triple Attack, Starry Shell Spike, does, but the others pair the high damage with amazing effects. The Mario/Mallow/Bowser Triple Attack, Clown Car Barrage, is a triple elemental attack that deals super-effective damage to almost every opponent thanks to how many weaknesses it hits, and Shooting Star Shot, the one used by Mario/Geno/Bowser? It gives your entire party stat boosts!
    • The remake has Pure Water, but not for its use in battle. While its "Instant death to the undead" effect still applies to the newly introduced Special Enemies, its real use comes from selling it. They sell for a whopping 75 coins a pop, and the revamped inventory system allows you to carry 10 at a time and won't get in the way of the important HP and FP-restoring items that you need. Undead enemies frequently drop them, and they start appearing very early in the game, meaning that you can load up on Pure Waters, sell them off, and proceed to clear out every shop you visit.
  • Ho Yay: In Marrymore, when you interrupt Booster's attempt to marry Peach, it's possible to end up with Bowser kissing Booster, either of them kissing Mario, or both of them kissing Mario.
  • Hype Backlash: Overtime, Geno's been catching flack from people who don't understand the hype behind the character and instead prefer the less-useful, yet more well-rounded and less static Mallow.
  • Memetic Badass: The Axem Rangers. Period.
    • Geno, whose mysterious nature and fighting skills have led to many viewing him as Mario's equivalent to Boba Fett.
  • Narm: "THE Big Boo", as this LP demonstrates.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • The scene of the final battle is surprisingly creepy for a kid's game. It's a sprawling hellscape made entirely of oversized Smithy heads, with a particularly gigantic one leering at you from the background. The hellish lighting and intense boss music further lend to the surreal, eerie atmosphere of the fight, as do the implications of the battlefield itself.
    • For the "Three Musty Fears" sidequest, the three ghosts challenge Mario to find three flags that they've hidden at various locations in the game world. One of them (the one planted by the Dry Bones) is in Mario's house at the starting area of the game. The idea that a ghost can so easily enter his house this way is... unnerving.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: Mario can transform into his 8-bit version in Booster Tower.
    • More a Non Sequitur Scene 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 Shy Guy 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.
    • There's also the whole sequence with Bundt, a cake that comes to life for no reason whatsoever and you have to fight it.
  • 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 Peach can survive a water blast at full HP, he's pretty much a piece of cake. Though of course, this does hinge on you making sure you can keep her alive, since she's still a Squishy Wizard at this point in the game and will pretty much fold in the face of his physical attacks.
    • The second time you fight him, Belome can create clones of your party members, and can put 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. While Bowser's often considered a Tier-Induced Scrappy by many players, his great physical bulk makes him a godsend for this part.
    • 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.
    • Culex, the Final Fantasy-styled superboss hidden away in Monstro Town. No real tricks or gimmicks here, you just have to withstand the constant barrage of spells he and his Crystal helpers nuke you with and hope for the best.
    • The remake introduces a bunch of these thanks to the newly-added rematches against certain bosses in the post-game. They've got heavily buffed-up stats, gimmicks that are unlike their previous fights, and are prone to instantly killing your party members (or even pulling off a team wipe!) if you aren't careful. And said attacks ignore defensive stats, meaning that you can't just coast by on giving Peach the Lazy Shell and using her as a healbot. Here are a few specific examples...
      • Punchinello, whose insane defenses ensure that your attacks will only deal Scratch Damage against him. The idea behind his fight is that you have to turn his Bob-Omb minions against him since their explosions are the only things that will actually hurt him, but they come after you in groups of four, and you have to deal a lot of damage in order to make them target Punchinello instead. While you're trying to hit the damage threshold, you have to survive what basically amounts to a constant barrage of instant-kill attacks if you don't get the timing down for a Perfect Block. And while getting said Perfect Blocks isn't too bad once you've got the timing down, said timing can be tricky to master since the Bob-Ombs' explosions need to be guarded against sooner than you think, and Punchinello's physical attacks are often delayed to throw you off. And notice how we specify physical: many of his magic attacks can't be blocked, often hit your entire party, and deal a horrifying amount of damage. Thankfully, Lazy Shell Peach can easily tank those, so thank goodness for small favors.
      • Booster's rematch is a randomized race against time where you're trying to defeat him before he can whip out his insta-kill train and run your party over with it, before having his Snifster minions finish off the survivors that are tagged in with their powerful magic attacks. How quickly he finishes tinkering with the train varies, and it isn't helped at all by his Snifster minions encouraging him to work faster, meaning that your best course of action is often focus him down and unleash all hell on him while praying that the RNG's feeling nice today.
      • The Bundt rematch is either this, or a Breather Boss depending on how quickly you catch on to the fact that Peach's Sleepy Time ability will stop Chef Torte and the Apprentice from lighting his candles. If you don't, you'll have to make an intense juggling act out of trying to keep your party members alive and healthy while making sure you snuff out more candles than the invincible chefs can ignite, all while being bombarded with Bundt's powerful party-targeting spells, which he can cast twice per turn. Let all his candles light up, and what follows is him opening a up can of party-killing whoopass in the form of a recolored Breaker Beam.
      • Remember how killing Johnny's minions during his boss fight would lead to him and Mario duking it out in a one-on-one? Well, his rematch starts as a duel between plumber and pirate, and he throws in a new rule banning the use of items. You can't recover your health, and Johnny's attacks hit hard even if you block them, meaning that the fight is a pure test of your perfect-blocking skills against an enemy whose attacks all have very tight Perfect Block windows, and are awkward to block in general.
  • 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.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: It was inevitable that the remake's new localization would fall prey to this the second it became clear that the script was being changed. While a surprising amount of Woolseyisms were kept, the beloved "Who do you think you are, Bruce Lee?!" line wasn't one of them. Likewise, many fans refuse to call Mack and Yaridovich by their new names, Claymorton and Speardovich, on principle, and both the Heavy Troopa and Tub-o-Troopa enemies getting new names that don't poke fun at their fatness was met with eyerolls and accusations of Political Correctness Gone Mad.
  • Tier-Induced Scrappy: Mallow and Bowser, though only in the original game.
    • Mallow tries his hardest to be a powerful Glass Cannon and White Mage. He really does! But the poor guy is totally, woefully outclassed in every way possible. While Mallow's moveset only allows for single-target healing, Peach can heal up the entire party at an amazingly low cost and cure status effects. And in the late middle/endgame, she won't die the second an enemy sneezes on her, Lazy Shell or not. And as far as damage output goes, while he gets a nice array of elemental attacks that target the entire party, Geno's tend to hit harder on average and are have easier action commands to pull off. Even Mallow's unique, character exclusive niche of being able to scout out enemy weaknesses won't do him much good since more often than not, he'll reveal a weakness that your party can't capitalize on since (in the original game) you can't swap out your party members.
    • Bowser, on the other hand, suffers from his bad magic-alligned stats. While his basic attack hits hard and he's a good physical tank, his magic attacks suck and are better suited for inflicting status effects rather than dealing damage. Likewise, lots of enemies in the middle/late game start using powerful spells to nuke your party with, meaning that Bowser will often be eating a ton of damage as a result. While later RPG's would often make Bowser a force to be reckoned with as a playable character, that's sadly not the case here.
  • 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.
  • Woolseyism: Translated by the man himself.
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