Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Introduction
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars was developed by Square and published by Nintendo, released for the SNES in Japan in March 1996 as the first role-playing game to star Mario, born from a collaboration between the two companies shortly before their business relationship temporarily soured over Square’s move to Sony’s PlayStation. The game blended traditional turn-based RPG combat with an action element: timing a button press correctly during an attack or a block could increase damage dealt or reduce damage taken, giving otherwise standard menu-based battles a layer of real-time skill absent from most RPGs of the era. Its story follows Mario and a cast of original characters, including the wooden puppet Geno and the living cloud Mallow, as they work to repair the Star Road and stop the sword-wielding villain Smithy from conquering the Mushroom Kingdom, told through pre-rendered isometric 3D visuals produced with the same technology behind Donkey Kong Country. Its clever writing, genre-blending combat, and Square’s technical polish made it an instant critical favorite, and despite its long absence from re-release due to the Nintendo-Square rift, Super Mario RPG remains widely regarded as one of the finest RPGs on the SNES.
