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Incredible design and a lot of fun!

Important:
This game was recently hit by a DMCA from Nintendo and is no longer available. I still have a copy on my machine, but I will not post it because of the potential risk to RMN. PM me or some else with it if you want it.

Introduction

Super Mario RPG: The Starlite Worlds is a Mario game made by udivision. It uses mostly real Mario RPG mechanics: each ability has a special timing you have to get right if you want it to deal good damage, and you can also defend with timings. This makes the RPG very interactive, unlike most other RPGs.

I won't comment much on the storyline, as I don't want to spoil it, and it's not a plot-centric game for the most part. However, the dialog is funny and realistic, and is very similar to Mario dialog.

Environment

The environment feels like a real Mario game. The blocks, the enemies, the characters, they all are real Mario images, and some of the maps are very good re-creations of Bowser's Inside Story maps with special additions.


Example: Bowser's Castle

There's also plenty of unique material though; Most of the stages are unique creations, and are also very well done. The maker even added weather effects for the stages: for example, in a forest stage, there are leaves falling from the sky.

There's a high amount of interaction with the maps. You can't just jump anywhere you want as you can in other Mario games, but when you reach a ledge, you can hold A and jump. Bowser can also hit and burn switches, and other characters can fly in the air at certain points.

Gameplay

Typically in RPGs, battles are boring: you choose attacks and then wait. Not true in this game. The timing system requires you to be active during battle.

Each attack has special timings involving Z, X, and C. For example, for Punch, you hold Z until the bar fills, but if you fill too far you fail. For fire breath, you hold and release Z to keep the bowser icon in the green section of the bar.

You also time defense by pressing C before they hit to reduce damage by a significant amount.

Every timing is well explained ingame, as you can press X while using an ability to have a description of when the timing is, and there is also a visual of when to press the buttons.

This is incredibly impressive when you consider that the game was made in RPGMaker. Those skills were all individually programmed, and are not using the default battle system. They are also glitch-free.

Another feature is HUGE gameplay time. The walkthrough on youtube is 50+ hours, which is probably the longest on RPGMaker. This game is great for people who like to be able to play a game for a long time and not get bored - the game constantly introduces new material, from what I've seen so far.

Balance is generally good. Things die too fast, including your characters, but you also get lots of healing items and there are heal blocks scattered around. The only truly problematic part of the game so far has been the Desert Ruins (and other Kammy sections), in which the enemies are far too strong, but it reverts to normal difficulty after that.

Summary

This game is incredibly well made. The timing system makes battles involving, there is a fun story-line, and it's an extremely long, fun adventure. This is the closest you can get to a Mario game without going out and buying one, and I strongly recommend it.

5/5

Posts

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Thank you so much for the review. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, the Desert Part with Kammy can be pretty rough, even with 3 people. You level up kind of quickly though later which makes it easier, but I may look into weakening the enemies a little.

Beta Testing before release helped me to really fix Bowser's portion of the Castle chapter to make it manageable, so feedback definitely gets used.
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