Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

What happens when two studios that otherwise defined mutually competing console worlds join forces? In 1996, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars was born — a rare and, at the time, almost unthinkable work sprung from the collaboration between Square, king of Japanese RPGs, and Nintendo, father of Mario. The result was the first Mario RPG game and, at the same time, a harbinger of two great series still to come.

Super Mario RPG took the familiar Mushroom Kingdom universe and smuggled full-fledged role-playing mechanics into it. The key novelty is timing-based combat actions: at the right moment you press a button and your attack grows stronger, or you soften a blow the enemy is preparing to land on you. What would otherwise be turn-based combat thus becomes a lively game of reflexes that fundamentally shaped every later Mario RPG.

Visually the game caught the eye with isometric, pre-rendered graphics in the spirit of the trend set at the time by Donkey Kong Country, which made it feel sculpted and fresh. Added to this is witty, warm-hearted writing and a gallery of fresh characters — including brand-new faces that players instantly took to. Here Mario stepped for the first time outside the box of the pure platformer, and it turned out role-playing suits him well.

The influence of this game is enormous. Without it, the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series would probably never have existed — both draw directly on the ideas that Legend of the Seven Stars first tried out. In a way, it laid the foundations for an entire branch of Mario's world.

Because of the later rift between Square and Nintendo, which arose after Square defected to a different console, the game remained hard to find for many years and a somewhat forgotten treasure. Fortunately that changed — in 2023 it received a full-fledged remake that introduced it to an entirely new generation of players.

Why play it: For the magical collaboration between Square and Nintendo, the witty writing, and the timing-based combat actions that kicked off the whole Mario RPG tradition.