Remaking the RPG: Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario Series
In which we critique, riposte, and tentatively submit a novel thesis for the rise of console RPGs in the West
"Let's-a go!"
Super Mario is perhaps the iconic video game character, full stop. Unquestionably, the success of the flagship series featuring the portly, indomitable plumber has impacted each generation of Nintendo consoles to such an extent that it is comparable in this regard only to Shigeru Miyamoto's other most iconic creation, Link and the Legend of Zelda series. To understand the history of games in this era, then, given the importance of Nintendo and the home console market, it would not be too much to say that we have to understand Super Mario.
It might seem more surprising at first blush, though clearly it follows, to say further that as with console games, so with RPGs: for understanding the platform and for understanding the genre, we should begin with Mario. I would go so far as to argue that the fundamental dialectic in RPGs is not, as Aidan Moher has it, between Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, but between Nintendo, in its role as platform/publisher, and the rest of the field, including third-party companies such as Enix and Square, as content creators avant la lettre. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the title of this post and its playfully provocative slant thus far, while this dialectic finds its most wondrous syntheses in EarthBound and Chrono Trigger, where third-party developers and the big N are working hand-in-glove at the top of their game, some of the most interesting experiments can be found in the encounters between Nintendo's star characters, Mario and Link, and the gameplay and story mechanics of RPGs, where they are not naturally at home.
For Link's share in this output, see the sequel to the original Legend of Zelda on the NES. There, RPG elements such as gaining levels through experience points and learning and casting spells via a magic system make The Adventure of Link a substantially different experience from its predecessor, though whether it qualifies as an RPG proper is debatable. Most players seem to agree that it is more complex than, if in many respects inferior to, the classic original. Less commonly observed, I think, are the elements that nevertheless carry over into A Link to the Past and subsequent games in the Zelda series.
The building up of a more or less coherent world, with its characters and locations, but also its timeline and lore, largely conveyed through leitmotif (whether aural or visual) and text, are hallmarks of the RPG genre that begin to be legible with A Link to the Past. Indeed, a manga-style comic accompanying the game on its US release helps fill out the story with recognizable RPG tropes such as rivals and party members. Contrariwise, consider how two of the standout games in the series, Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask, are noteworthy as much for their departures from the established expectations of the series (no princess Zelda, for instance) as for their inclusion of new elements in their place (ie. novel locations and more platforming-style mechanics starting with the ability to jump or hop, to say nothing of Super Mario cameos).
In many ways, the whole tendency of the Zelda series, widely held up as the slightly more excellent of the two bequeathed to the world by Nintendo's largesse and Miyamoto's genius, has been towards a more and more all-encompassing, capacious rendering of its original vision. As much might be said for most game series, of course, but in the case of Zelda each iteration of that core vision, the "miniature garden" affording freedom of exploration and call after call to fantastic adventure, has brought onboard more and more RPG-inflected story and gameplay elements over time, albeit unencumbered by undue guidance in-game (fairy companions notwithstanding). Simultaneously, they have gone on incorporating more and more of the fluid physical movement and wonder of invention that characterize their counterparts, the Mario games.
Mario, in turn, has moved freely across all sorts of genres, generally accepted as a byword for fun and quality wherever he turns up (Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., etc.). Titles in the main platforming series, meanwhile, have tended in a complementary way to incorporate more and more of the aspects of Zelda games, taking that as a shorthand for open-ended exploration of fantastic worlds. To return to my thesis, and to fold these observations into it, though, it has only to be pointed out that both series have been marked as they have grown over time by an increasing elaborateness of storytelling and an accompanying wealth of evidence for their thematic depth--by borrowing not just from one another, but from RPGs, in short.
I say "evidence for their thematic depth" to make clear that the themes were always there, but they become more overt with the expanded inclusion of RPG elements over time. Mario raises banners over conquered castle outposts in the original Super Mario Bros. and the recent Super Mario Wonder alike; he descends to the depths in that very first game and each one after it, like Herakles, Odysseus, and countless other heroes taking part in their episodes in the underworld. In Super Mario Bros. 3 we already see the self-conscious narrative presence of the creators reflected in their handiwork, as the opening sequence involves curtains opening as for a play, and the levels literally have their backstage area, where warp whistle items from Zelda are hidden and cards hearkening back to the early days of Nintendo are dealt.
In the course of its development into a more complete avatar for and standard-bearer of video game artistry, however, Mario, like Zelda, has benefited from the threads of literature and myth which RPGs themselves have unmistakably borrowed from much older sources across media and culture. From a niche genre, thanks to Nintendo's experimental heroes, these have woven their way into video games writ large. Their prominence at this stage functions analogously to the allusions in RPGs themselves, calling players back to these sources, which are extrinsic to the game but arguably intrinsic to our psyche. They help us clinch the argument behind this argument and behind all our Video Game Academic arguments, that there is perennial value in studying games in the same way we study--and must similarly never tire to continue to insist on studying--the humanities.
Importantly in this regard (or not, I guess, if the case I've made so far is persuasive as it stands), Mario has waltzed into the RPG genre directly, too, in at least three different spin-off series: Mario RPG with its remake, Paper Mario and its sequels, and the Mario & Luigi games. Needless to say, I think these are pretty neat.
"Mama mia!"
Now let's not pretend that Mario RPG is a better game than EarthBound or Chrono Trigger. That's not the claim I'm making. It does represent a similar confluence of first-party and third-party creation in its design and realization, however, and because of the inclusion of Mario IP it might be just as significant for the development of the genre, or even more so, than the comic masterpiece of Itoi or the collective work of the dream team. With Mario RPG we see a watershed moment in the process I've been describing: the wholesale uptake of RPG mechanics and a new beginning for the Mario franchise. By the same token, the joint efforts of Nintendo and Square on this last project of a generation will reverberate through the latter's future work as well. (Looking at you, Kingdom Hearts... and FFVII: Remake, not that I've ever played you...)
What makes Mario RPG stand out is its fusion of the full Nintendo palette of characters and gameplay elements with Square's worldbuilding and storytelling. All this is accomplished, initially, in isometric 2D environments that gave a fairly convincing illusion of spatial depth for the time, particularly since they were populated by 3D-rendered objects. The combination makes for some difficult yet interesting jumping sequences, but the real innovation in the game is the dynamism of the battle mechanics. By giving the player a modicum of gameplay-oriented rather than tactical agency in the timed button presses on attacking and defending, and giving the results of these an outsized impact on battles, Square took the first steps towards the action-laced battle systems that have become its hallmark.
In my view, SMRPG marks the point at which Square also discovered the power of the mini-game. Prominently featuring in FFVII, which after all released not long after, and where they are not always so defensible, the plethora of mini-games in SMRPG are admirably integrated into the wider game, while also providing variety and fitting well with the overall lighthearted mood. Navigating the Midas River, Yoshi racing, and beating the high score in an arcade-style handheld shooter, among numerous others, help bridge genres in small ways, while the game as a whole does so in a major way. From the long-standing convention of nesting mini-worlds within the overarching world of the platformer, this development of the possibilities of mini-games within the larger game takes on increasing importance. Not only requisite at times for proceeding with the larger story, these mini-games would also provide prime hiding-places for some of the best items and accessories, such as the chocobo side quests and card games in Square's next RPG releases.
The tone of Mario RPG is resolutely upbeat, whimsical, and laid-back--a reflection on the scale of world, story, and themes, that is to say, of its protagonist. (Though for a traditional RPG silent protagonist, Mario has quite a few catchphrases). What pathos there is comes from the ensemble around him, a mixture of original and pre-existing characters. New playable characters Mallow and Geno seem designed to divide fan opinion. The one, through his encounter with Mario, sets out on a quest to recover his true identity as a prince from the skies; the other descends knowingly from the heavenly Star Road to clothe himself in the body of a doll, setting the stakes of the party's journey in its true light. Even Peach and Bowser, though, are given new and enduring twists on their personality. Peach refuses to stay safe once she is rescued, refusing to be damsel'd, and Bowser, like Mallow, proves to be a bit of a crybaby for all his tough exterior.
The plot, like the game as a whole, is a lovingly crafted mashup of RPG and Super Mario tropes. The wish-granting providence of the Star Road is shattered by the intrusion of the Smithy Gang, whose dimensional-gate-toting spacecraft impales itself in the center of Bowser's Keep at the start of the game. In the shape of a giant sword with a face on its pommel, this gateway between dimensions (or genres) is echoed in the original game's sole super-boss challenge, in which a visitor from the realms of Square's FF series, complete with elemental crystals, awaits Mario and company behind a sealed door in Monstro Town. The game's bookends, then, represent and manifest the incursion of RPG elements, quite literally, into what is set-up to be a Mario-vs-Bowser, rescuing the princess, plotline. Their typical accompanying epic solemnity is transformed, but not entirely dissipated, by the world of the game, and this transformation produces a feeling of strangeness blended with familiarity not dissimilar to the re-enchantment of the world effected by EarthBound or the ineffable purity and exhilarating beauty of Chrono Trigger. The game is also a ton of fun.
To signpost just a few of Mario RPG's more intriguing thematic resonances, there are the echoes between new and reimagined IPs, contriving with Mario to reenact portions of the story in pantomime more than once; allusions to philosophy and music in Frogfucius and Toadofsky, whose historical real-world referents, Confucius and Tchaikovsky, are either flattered or rolling over in their graves; and the motif of the living doll, whose theorists have included the authors of Genesis, Kafka and Philip Pullman. That whole scene of Mario playing with Gaz in the Rose Town Inn as arrows that turn the townspeople to statues rain from the sky, his getting KO'd by Geno and then the player watching as an angelic visitor chooses to become embodied in the doll, is haunting in its suggestiveness... I wonder, for all the excellent video essays delving into its secrets, if players and scholars have yet given SMRPG its due.
Due to the companies' parting of the ways in the N64/PlayStation era, the Paper Mario games were developed by Intelligent Systems; decades later, the SMRPG Remake would come courtesy of ArtePiazza. Square, meanwhile, went on releasing games of its own on other systems, eventually merging with its storied competitor, Enix, and partnering with the likes of Disney, among others, before finally restoring its partnership with Nintendo for remasters of past games.
Obviously, this is a lot of cosmic water under the Star Road bridge, but to touch at least briefly on the Paper Mario series, let's look at one of the recent crop of remastered games, The Thousand-Year Door. The original Mario RPG and its spiritual successors, Paper Mario and the rest, tend to be light affairs both tonally and in terms of time and energy. TTYD substantially pushes the time investment, but also shows a willingness to venture into darker thematic territory than you might expect. Playable and non-playable characters alike take a (cross-species) romantic interest in Mario, and the subplot involving Princess Peach and the X-Naut supercomputer/voyeur TEC raises the ick factor even further. From shower scenes to invisibility-veiled nudity, Mario's chaste love interest has never been less wholesomely depicted. It is almost less upsetting when she is demonically possessed by the demon behind the titular door. For no reason that is ever explained, but simply as it were to lend local color, the central plaza of the hub world of Rogueport centers on a gallows, complete with a noose. This macabre decoration, like a round O of surprise, hovers in the backdrop of Peach's initial abduction, and her letters, delivered via email to Mario's in-game DS (not playable as far as I know) thus recall not only to the letters enclosing gift items in Mario 3 but also to this scene promising the spectacle of an execution where we were expecting a vacation.
To my knowledge, TTYD is the furthest that Mario has veered tonally in any game, in any genre, and aside from that frisson of discomfort, it remains a tremendously engaging and satisfying RPG. The Nintendo that allows its most famous characters to be folded, rolled up, and crumpled in paper form across the series has come a long way from the prim custodians of my childhood years, when Mario first set out to battle evils greater and more weapon-shaped than Bowser. And these titles continue to be supported in virtual consoles and upgraded remakes. That Mario RPG itself should have gotten a remake of such fidelity to the original game, only a few years after FFVII, with its much more thoroughgoing reimagining, started the process of Square revisiting its most storied IP, speaks to the esteem that Nintendo has for its partners' work--and its willingness to continue profiting off of them decades later with a minimal investment of new content.
Speaking as I am bound to from my standpoint as a fan and a thoroughly western one, this is how it looks to me: the rise of console RPGs in the west is owing not to the intrinsic merits of the games themselves, but to their ability to capture the imagination of their audience. For whatever reason, despite Nintendo's best efforts purveying what proved to be false starts with Dragon Warrior and Mystic Quest, Japanese RPGs did indeed finally catch on, at least with a segment of the public. Ironically, they took off in a significant, epochal way with Final Fantasy VII, the first game in its series not to bear the Nintendo seal. Only on the heels of such a success, it seems likely, would such a strange title as Xenogears have been possible to release in the west, breaking all manner of rules which Nintendo could not well enforce--and thank goodness that it did, because it is, for me, the thematically-richest RPG out there. With the likes of FFVII and Xenogears, this indelibly amazing departure by Square, however, also marked the point at which the genre was already careening past its apogee as a treasure for the intellect and nourishment for the imagination. The uncoupling from Nintendo, the break with 2-D environments and sprite art, and the increasing emphasis on visuals and cinematic qualities of gameplay experience would render the output of even the greatest developers less and less interesting from my perspective.
Thank goodness, as I say, that these games were ever able to see the light of day; and as the poet Wordsworth says, "Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven." For as with poetry in its living cultural context, so with video games from this era: the limitations of the form profoundly influenced the handling of the content, such that story, gameplay, music, and art had to play their part and find their equilibrium within the constraints of the technology. Given that they were all we knew then, we could appreciate them without either the nostalgic charm or objective shoddiness 90's RPGs now inevitably display, per the priors of the viewer. With hindsight and the benefit of ever-new remakes, however, there is hope for a clearer and more comprehensive view of their place in history, and their power to move and delight is made accessible and undiminished for a new generation. Ya! Ha! Wahoo!