Looks like Super Mario RPG is getting a hi-def remake...

[MrBeefy]

Meh I'm a Man child everyday. Ask my wife. So your in good company.

 

On second thought if I'm your company I feel very bad for you. Nevermind.

[Tempest]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I'm being a combative child?  Whatever.

Not really helping your case there.

[roots.genoa]

10 hours ago, Tanooki said:

You want muddy, go look at a N64 game made by Hudson who threw mud around like splatter art.

If it can please you, I personally don't think Super Mario RPG's graphics are muddy. Just fugly. 🙂

[Wayler]

I also think Super Mario RPG's graphics look more dated and smudgy compared to the basic pixel goodness of the SNES. Art direction doesn't help either and DKC fared better in this regard. 

 

But the main thing that weighs it down is that Mario and RPG just don't mix together well for me. Mario as a character is a blank slate with italian one-liners. You need depth and story in your RPG and I have found that Mario and the Mushroom kingdom do not have it. I have played through One Thousand Year Door on the GC and Bowser's Inside Story on the handheld and while everything was enjoyable gameplay wise, the stories just fell completely flat. 

 

I tried to get into Super Mario RPG and maybe played it quite far on an emulator many years ago but it left no impact on me. So I decided to sell my copy last year because I simply had no use for it. 

[Tanooki]

I think I get that point.  I mean I want to like Superstar Saga but I've never finished it, the story just feels like a place holder to the gameplay and eventually it gets boring.  SMRPG was a bit more intact and had reasons for things here and there more than later titles from the same more or less core grew though AlphaDream that did the M&L titles, the real successor to the franchise and not that Paper dumpster fire 64 got.  I think it's like with the RPGs and Mario ever since the SNES title it's like more like random guy goes about, bumps into random things going on and helps out whoever has a problem because it becomes his problem too or he can't continue due to some artificial barrier.  It's not like some big quest of quests (sticking to SNES) like Final Fantasy II/IV was where from the get go stuff went south and sideways and you had to have people come and go, help along the way, forge friendships and find needed things, stop this or that from happening, but it was focused.

[Tempest]

14 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

I never disliked the looks of Mario RPG, but it is far from ground breaking great. The Isometric nature of the game doesn't help. There's a lot of blank space.

Maybe that's the problem.  The pre-rendered look with the isometric perspective just don't mix well.  There are a few Saturn games that have the same problem, but the SNES's lower resolution doesn't help.  Either way, I'm looking forward to the remake unless they decide to do major changes to 'modernize' it.  I don't mind quality of life changes, but I dislike it when they overhaul entire parts of the game.  From what people are saying they may be doing that though (hard to tell from a few screenshots).

[Razzie.P]

Kinda refreshing  to see others with less than 100% love for Mario RPG and Donkey Kong on Super NES.  I LOVED rpgs back then, but just couldn't vibe with the look of this one, and I didn't like DK games' look and feel at all.  This was back in real time when everyone was telling me I was nuts.

 

I've been a fan of virtually all the other Mario/RPG type of stuff though, so pretty excited to see this one get the remake treatment.

[MrBeefy]

47 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

Kinda refreshing  to see others with less than 100% love for Mario RPG and Donkey Kong on Super NES.  I LOVED rpgs back then, but just couldn't vibe with the look of this one, and I didn't like DK games' look and feel at all.  This was back in real time when everyone was telling me I was nuts.

 

I've been a fan of virtually all the other Mario/RPG type of stuff though, so pretty excited to see this one get the remake treatment.

I need to go back and revisit DKC. I remember really enjoying it and playing a lot to get everything. Supposedly DKC2 is the nest one though. Need to play it and 3.

[Razzie.P]

37 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

I need to go back and revisit DKC. I remember really enjoying it and playing a lot to get everything. Supposedly DKC2 is the nest one though. Need to play it and 3.

1 - 3 didn't win me over, but I love Returns (Wii) and Tropical Freeze (WiiU and Switch)

 

 

[Emehr]

I never much cared for the look of DKC. Maybe it's purely psychological but if it were being rendered in real time I would've been more impressed. Using pre-rendered CGI felt like the cheap way out to avoid having an artist hand-draw each frame of animation, which would've looked a lot nicer, IMO. If DKC looked more like Metal Slug (that is, excellent animation that is hand-drawn) I'd have jumped on it right away instead of waiting years after its release. I can enjoy the games well enough now, but it always feels like I'm playing an "ok" platformer with disjointed visuals. It's hard to explain but the 3D appearance of the characters never felt like they were really inhabiting the world. More like they were just overlaid on it. I much prefer DKC Returns and Tropical Freeze. I feel like those games took what DKC was trying to be and perfected it.

 

Back on topic, I missed the boat on Super Mario RPG. Probably would've avoided it back in the day for the same reasons as above. By all accounts it's a good game that deserves better visuals so I'll probably check out the Switch release.

[newtmonkey]

I recently replayed Donkey Kong Country and found it to still look great today.  There's tons of detail in the backgrounds, the animation is silky smooth, and the artists/developers really worked some magic to get high-res, high-color renders looking great scaled down on the SNES.  It looks even better on a CRT, or through a good upscaler.

 

I also recently played through Super Mario RPG for the first time, but found it to look very inconsistent.  The sprites generally look nice, but the backgrounds when exploring are often simply a single color underneath all the detailed objects, etc., giving it an unfinished look:

The sprites, trees, etc. look great, but that ground is just ugly.  A lot of the backgrounds are like this.

 

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the remake goes; it's definitely a pleasant suprise that it's being made at all!

Edited June 23, 2023 by newtmonkey

[roots.genoa]

8 hours ago, Wayler said:

But the main thing that weighs it down is that Mario and RPG just don't mix together well for me. Mario as a character is a blank slate with italian one-liners. You need depth and story in your RPG and I have found that Mario and the Mushroom kingdom do not have it. I have played through One Thousand Year Door on the GC and Bowser's Inside Story on the handheld and while everything was enjoyable gameplay wise, the stories just fell completely flat. 

 

I tried to get into Super Mario RPG and maybe played it quite far on an emulator many years ago but it left no impact on me. So I decided to sell my copy last year because I simply had no use for it. 

I disagree, because I find that Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi games are (usually) hilarious, so I don't mind if the general story is simple (a movie screenplay is more than just the story, even though most people don't seem to get it). But I agree that Super Mario RPG was weak, mostly because it precisely tried to be a traditional RPG imho.

[SlidellMan]

I thought I would update this:

I like how it has a generous, but judicious number of new details in the backgrounds. Know when and where to use negative space, people.

[MrBeefy]

On 7/2/2023 at 9:38 AM, SlidellMan said:

I thought I would update this:

I like how it has a generous, but judicious number of new details in the backgrounds. Know when and where to use negative space, people.

It's looking good. There is a great chance I get this since it is a big gap in my SNES library/games played.

[SlidellMan]

Now, some proper gameplay footage:

 

[digdugnate]

since my first posts were me hassling someone, I preordered when it was announced and hopefully will get my copy on release day.  I'm looking forward to it!

[SlidellMan]

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