The History of Super Mario RPG

 

As time pass by and with the release of the Mario RPG remake for the Switch, it made me wonder about preserving the history on how this game was made and the legacy that generated over the last 28 years.

To think of Mario RPG is to see a legacy within the Mario IP, the influence goes with the Paper Mario and the Luigi & Mario games that spawned several sequels over the last 30 years on different Nintendo consoles.

 History

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When the game was released in Japan, it sold 1.47 million copies; the release in the United States surpassed the sales expectations of Nintendo of a target of 500,000 units making it the sixth best selling game of 1996 in the United States and also the last game to be released for the Super Nintendo by Square in North America.

The game was released in Europe and Australia much later, on August 22 of 2008 with the port of the game for the Virtual Console of the Wii and subsequent the port was released on September the 1st of 2008 in North America.

The conception of the game came from the idea of Shigeru Miyamoto to create an RPG using Mario and the joint effort of Square to create an RPG property that could make it in the international grounds outside the Final Fantasy and Secrets of Mana series. The collaboration and development began as early in 1994 after a business meeting between Square and Nintendo.

The process of choosing the mechanics and how the game was going to look i.e. the isometric 2.5 view that is present, was chosen to make it more vibrant with the 3D scanned models of the characters and environment, similar as the Donkey Kong Country games for the Super Nintendo which used 3D rendered model for character creation and scenarios.

Super Mario RPG was unveiled at the V-Jump Festival of 1995, which by October of the same year Square cited that the game was over a quarter complete.

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References

1. The Magic Box (The Webmaster) (October 31, 2006). "The Magic Box: Platinum Game Chart, Japanese Console Games Sold Over One Million". The Magic Box: International Videogame News. The Magic Box. p. 1. Archived from the original on December 13, 2007. Retrieved February 20, 2007.
2. "Japanese Virtual Console list - June 2008". nintendo.co.jp. Nintendo Japan. May 30, 2008. Archived from the original on July 22, 2008. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
3. "Super Mario RPG – 1995 Developer Interviews". Shmuplations. Archived from the original on January 14, 2023. Retrieved April 30, 2021.