Super Mario RPG: The Seven Sages

Game Title: Super Mario RPG - The Seven Sages
Engine: RPG Maker 2K3
Status at review: Completed

Background:
In the spirit of the latest iteration of the one-to-many review challenge, I was looking for games to review. I was looking at the database for completed games that had a lot of downloads that didn't have a review yet, and came across this ditty.

Getting this game in it's most updated form was somewhat annoying. For one thing, the download wasn't even on RMN, but someplace else. That page had me download version 1.50, and had an extensive list of patches. There was a patch to upgrade directly from version 1.50 to the latest version, 1.61. I would personally prefer, at the very least, a direct download for version 1.60, then have the option to patch to version 1.61. Granted, this is probably not a huge hoop to go through for some, and has no real effect on the review. However, I wanted future players to be aware of what the goings-on there are of this game.

I did not play to the finale of this game. For full disclosure, I went as far as I had the patience for (Chapter 3). On observing that there's chapter transition graphics for 16 chapters, I must assume to have missed about three-quarters of the game. Read the "Overall entertainment" section (or the end of the "Gameplay" section) to understand the reasoning why I quit.


Graphics:
I don't think I saw a single RTP tile, but I could be horribly mistaken. Then again, perhaps the use of the term "tile" is not correct, as there's more than a few maps that seem to use panorama as their maps. Regardless of their origin, the graphics fit well with the subject matter at hand.


Audio:
Considering the title, I was half-expecting to hear tunes from Super Mario RPG (the SNES title) in some kind of form. Or, at the very least, have some kind of reference to the Nintendo mascot's SNES/NES platforming exploits. The Music directory has three hundred some-odd files, mostly MIDIs, and some of them are tunes I recognize from Mario games. I also heard the odd Final Fantasy tune thrown in for good measure, if one wishes to call it thus.

The voice-overs that the game uses are really annoying to me. They occurs mostly when Mario or Luigi are "talking" (only Luigi has speaking lines. Mario is our classic Heroic Mute.), but there are other offenders. Then again, as I haven't touched a Mario game since the SNES (or the emulation thereof), I might be a tad behind the times on this front.


Story:
For a Mario game, most players would be happy with "Uh-oh! Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach for the billionth time! Go and save her, Mario!" To say that I was expecting this, or something along those lines, is, perhaps, somewhat understandable. However, the story seems more focused on stopping Wario and Waluigui's latest scheme. I guess I don't really mind the switch, in the end. Anyway, I don't really want to say much, but their scheme involves Mario not locking his house's door (how one locks a pipe in the Mario universe has always evaded my reasoning, but I sometimes think too much for my own good), and really stupid things happening.

The game constantly pokes fun at Luigi. Everybody who's anybody knows Mario, but the number of people who recognize that Luigi ever existed can probably be counted on a hand. Initially, I thought it was a cute reference to Luigi's position as "Player 2" in the NES/SNES platformers. By the time Chapter 1 ended, where the narration poked fun at Luigi, I was no longer amused.


Gameplay:
Perhaps this is just a feeling I'm getting, (or maybe it's just the game's title) but the game's core gameplay mechanics desperately want to emulate Super Mario RPG for the SNES. However, the game also wants to have an identity of it's own while doing so. It certainly attempts it's own fusion of platforming elements and RPG elements that the SNES title pulled off. However, with this game, Mario can only jump at certain locations: underneath a hidden block, or a underneath a visible block. Considering that "jump" is handled by the search/talk button, I suppose this is understandable, in it's own way.

I suppose the execution of the hammer's "clear rocks" ability (once obtained) also counts as gameplay. It also requires the use of the search/talk button. The idea is that the player holds the button to "charge" the hammer, then releases it to smack the offending rock into pieces so tiny, they aren't on the map.

As far as combat is concerned, it has the necessary heads-up display to pull of the flavor of a Mario game. Saying this, I'm mostly sure it's more or less still mostly the default engine for 2K3. As I've little experience as far as 2k3 is concerned, I could be dead wrong with this assessment.

The game seems to have it's fair share of mini-games. There was an arcade in the Mushroom Kingdom, but I didn't make use of any of the machines to see what manner of mechanics they held as far as variety of gameplay is concerned.

The plot-based mini-game that annoyed me the most was one that involved crushing Goombas with the hammer. The mini-game seems to require absolute precise timing (maybe that's just me, though), and the game asks you to press the cancel button rather than the usual talk/accept button. I have no idea how many times I retried that mini-game, or how often I was hit below 0 health (as it doesn't stop after reaching that threshold, which is nonsensical to me), but I simply could not get the timing down on the third, or maybe it was the fourth wave (out of six) of approaching Goombas. Maybe I would get better with practice, but I already wasted about a half-hour attempting to get past whatever wave I was having problems with. No, I'm not joking about that approximation of time wasted on that mini-game, though it would certainly be easy to suggest that I was.


Overall entertainment:
It's hard to place the exact moment where I first began thinking to myself that I wasn't having a lot of fun with this game. Was it the fact that there was no "run" option where some of the maps could have really used one (I'm looking at you, Mushroom Kingdom!)? Was it the voices? Was it the non-skip-able chapter transitions that seemed to last too long for their own good? Was I not really into this game to begin with? All definite possibilities. What put the nail in the coffin, so to speak, was the Goomba-crushing mini-game in Chapter 3. I just could not get the timing down to save my life. In a certain literal sense too!


Summary:
I cannot honestly recommend this game. I suppose it must have an audience that it succeeds to hit, considering the number of downloads it has. Or, perhaps, the game had some kind of influx of downloads because of it's images (they do look really nice). That being said, it takes more than pretty pictures to make a game. Then again, I don't really know the situation of how or when it got it's downloads, so I'm not really qualified to make such comments.


BOTTOM LINE: 2/5


Side note on ratings (since there is/was/will be somewhat of a spate on what rating means what between each user):
1/5 -> Terrible. Forget about hitting an audience. The game is so bug-ridden, or otherwise unplayable, that what entertainment can be found in the game has a hard time coming to the surface.

2/5 -> Bad but playable. I had a poor experience with the game. When played by a player the game actually caters to, it would serve it's purpose.

3/5 -> Average. A solid experience, but snags somewhere along the line cause it to be held back from being "good".

4/5 -> Good. I enjoyed the experience, and have no qualms supporting it if was considered for a featured game (if it wasn't featured already).

5/5 -> Excellent. Among the paragons of gaming experiences, and instant feature material in my humble opinion (if it wasn't featured already).