Worst Mario RPG?
- Thread starter Milo Thatch
- Start date
Striker Mario said:
It's kind of a complicated nuance with this game. It's a very particular combination of trying too hard while also not being willing to commit to the attempt. Like, think someone who makes big claims of their work being deep and meaningful, but is unwilling to put in any actual effort to realize that depth.
From playing SPM, it is very apparent that the game's story takes itself very seriously. Very, very seriously. You have all these elements, like a long-standing clan of sage-like characters, prophecies of the apocalypse, a tragic love story, ancient conspiracies. The game is constantly beating you over the head with how oh-so-high the stakes are and how epic and grand this plot is.
The problem is that, in trying to make it this "spectacular" and "amazing" thing, they just looked at other acclaimed fictional works and lifted elements from those. They made those things great, so logically they'd make SPM great, ignoring that you can't just copy-paste story bits together like that. And just like that, in the process of gathering acclaimed story fragments, they neglected to put their own spin on them.
So instead of getting a game that plays with these narrative tropes in an interesting way, you get a bunch of uninspired retreads. Count Bleck's backstory that gets so much praise? It's Romeo and Juliet, sans any unexpected subversions that would make it able to stand on its own. The prophecy of the Light Prognosticus? It's a carbon copy of the plot of Final Fantasy 1, which itself has already been repeated by other works so many times it can be considered a joke at this point.
And then there's Mario himself. Mario has zero agency in this game. From the moment you arrive in Flipside, the game puts you into a chokehold by means of "the prophecy". Mario must save the worlds because of "the prophecy". Everything that happens in the game happens because it was written in "the prophecy". Mario isn't even really involved, he's like a piece moving across a game board because "the prophecy" demands it. It makes him this weird expendable bystander entity; like anyone could have done what he does in this game if THEY were in the prophecy instead of him.
This approach is so wrong for a Mario game, it hurts. Mario may not have much personality to his name, but there are SOME definite traits we know him to have: He is brave, he is heroic, and he saves people if they cry out for help. You don't need a prophecy to get him to do his thing. Just give him something to save. Make the characters more sympathetic and show the negative effects Bleck's bullshit is having on them. Make the player feel good about helping them. Have Merlon or whatever ASK Mario for help instead of demanding it because a prophecy says so. That's all the motivation Mario needs to kick ass.
If that is the case, then I don't understand what your beef is with the other RPGs. Mario does have agency in those (the ones I played anyway).
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I've known Mcmadness's opinions, the only thing that's deserves criticism of what he said is that the Mario RPG stories aren't anything special and people shouldn't like them when they're stock or whatever. He's never claimed story is a bad thing in Mario games, but he did say they're nothing special, which could be true, but won't stop fans from liking the stories in those games as it's special to them.
Well its not like mario rpgs are bad in general in the grand scheme of things anyway, theres some stinkers for sure but along with some stories and the games themselves, they do mostly well.
Problem with some of them though is that some arent either there or just take themselves a bit too seriously, but i dont see this as a common occurance and fans are welcome to enjoy them, i myself have played tons of rpgs and have seen far worse storylines, so if people hate or like them then they do but i dont think anyone here really needs to pressure others to dislike or like storylines.
I just think spm just didnt do what mario needed and that was to be goofy and lighthearted, which spm did not do in the slightest and it really takes the quality away from the mario universe because of it. Although i think spm has way more issues then just story though.
Problem with some of them though is that some arent either there or just take themselves a bit too seriously, but i dont see this as a common occurance and fans are welcome to enjoy them, i myself have played tons of rpgs and have seen far worse storylines, so if people hate or like them then they do but i dont think anyone here really needs to pressure others to dislike or like storylines.
I just think spm just didnt do what mario needed and that was to be goofy and lighthearted, which spm did not do in the slightest and it really takes the quality away from the mario universe because of it. Although i think spm has way more issues then just story though.
Time Turner
You are filled with determination. (R/GD/TT)
We like the things that we like.
Xandalf said:
I read that as "omg your meme"Nova said:
Time Turner
You are filled with determination. (R/GD/TT)
TTYD definitely has its share of flaws (Glitz Pit's janky battles, Fahr Outpost's tedious quest, Riverside Station's emptiness...), but no matter how cynically I think about the game, I couldn't put it below all of the rest.Xandalf said:
TheFarmboy
Bullet Bill
Time Turner said:
You left out Chapter 4's constant trips between Twilight Town and Creepy Steeple. Otherwise, it's one of the better RPGs.
@Samus: The revelation that the treasure box after beating the Shadow Queen only had a dried shroom?
Xandalf said:
savage
also according to this poll the best mario rpgs are paper jam and paper mario 64 with 0 votes each
if fawfulthegreat64 was still here he would probably be raging at everyone here