An extremely talented Super Mario RPG fan is creating a modern remake of a groundbreaking classic. Last year marked the 25th anniversary of Super Mario RPG, but it was still noticeably absent from the Nintendo Switch Online service, despite its many fans and despite previous ports on Wii and Wii U.
Role-playing games have occupied an interesting place in the history of the Mario franchise. The original game with the subtitle “The Legend of the Seven Stars” was very different from the standard formula created by earlier platformers. For example, it was one of the first 3D Mario games, released just a few months before Super Mario 64, in which Bowser was a band member. The success of the game had a huge impact on the later Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi sub-series. Chihiro Fujioka, the game’s director, even founded AlphaDream himself, the developer of Mario & Luigi, but despite the success of Mario & Luigi games, AlphaDream declared bankruptcy in 2019.
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Although an official remake or port for Super Mario RPG has not yet appeared, this has not stopped one fan from working on making this dream come true. Twitter user huckori has been posting messages about his upgraded remake of Super Mario RPG for some time. Its latest update demonstrates the initial implementation of meeting with enemies and fighting with them. In the video, you can see a clearly outlined 3D model of Mario accompanied by the alleged “tadpole” Mallow. Mario jumps to make contact with the Red Dome Parachutist, and a short battle quickly begins. Although it is clear that currently the game is not as perfect as it could be, the combat system is shown very effectively. This new fan-created demo of the Mario game includes updated versions of all the original basic combat graphics, including a menu and a star effect indicating damage.
The first pass in the collision/combat system.. sorry, I had to re-upload, haha pic.twitter.com/aU6RkZ9DYT
— Finn (@huckori) July 1, 2022
The quality of both graphics and gameplay would be extremely promising for an official remake, and therefore, for one fan, it’s even more impressive. Of course, there is nothing new in fan games, especially for such a long-lived and popular franchise as Super Mario. Fans with technical know-how have been creating their own Mario games for years. Nintendo even took advantage of this creative side by releasing Super Mario Maker games. In the past, this has led to the creation of a paper version of Super Mario Bros. among many other reinterpretations of the adventures of the famous plumber.
Although the Super Mario RPG version of Hukori is obviously under development, what he has managed to do so far is very impressive. Both Mario and the world around him are drawn with excellent detail, and the style is still clearly consistent with the original game, despite the improvement in quality. Fans will undoubtedly want to play the game once it reaches game state, but we hope that regular development updates will satisfy the desire for more. It’s also worth remembering that another Super Mario role-playing game may appear on the horizon; Director Fujioka has previously said that he would like to make a sequel to end his career, albeit without Luigi as a party member.
