Mario’s big year continues with an excellent Super Mario RPG remake

theverge.com:

By Andrew Webster, an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.

Nintendo may have a conflicted relationship with its history, but if there’s one thing the company loves, it’s selling you classic games over and over again. I’ve honestly lost count of the number of platforms on which I own games like Super Metroid and Super Mario Bros. 3. That lack of attention from Nintendo is part of what makes Super Mario RPG such a curiosity — and its new remake on the Switch such a welcome sight.

In 1996, Nintendo teamed up with Final Fantasy maker Square Enix (then known as Squaresoft) to craft a roleplaying game set in the Mushroom Kingdom. Not only was this seemingly strange combination a hit, but it also spurred two separate Mario RPG franchises. Mario RPG was both beloved and influential — and yet, there are far fewer (official) ways to play it compared to its contemporaries.

So here we are, in a year bursting with remakes and rereleases, with a long-overdue freshening up of Super Mario RPG. It doesn’t add much new, aside from adorable visuals that update the original’s pseudo-3D look for the Switch. But it doesn’t need to change things: it’s still an odd little curiosity, and still one of the most charming turn-based RPGs around.

In true Mario form, Mario RPG starts out as a damsel in distress rescue mission. Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach and, soon after, Mario heads to his castle to save her. But the story then twists: an evil, sentient sword takes control of Bowser’s keep, and the rest of the game involves Mario and friends searching out seven stars to defeat the sword’s boss and prevent an invasion of living