Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga was the third Mario RPG released after Legend of the Seven Stars and Paper Mario. But what made it stand out? What was missing from the first two? ReallyFreakinClever’s opinion is that it was none other than Luigi.
The video argues that Superstar Saga is like a perfect storm of good design decisions and high production value — a game featuring a nostalgic world filled with nostalgic characters, with a well-remixed soundtrack. And there’s also the two-button control scheme, which not only uses the Game Boy Advance to its full potential, but perfectly marries turn-based combat with kinetic Mario platforming.
Having played Seven Stars and Bowser’s Inside Story, one of the sequels to Superstar Saga, I can see where RFC’s coming from, even though I, being fairly terrible at platformers, personally prefer Seven Stars. But I could certainly see myself liking the series more if I loved platformers as much as I do turn-based RPGs.
Really Freakin’ Clever – Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga [RFC@YouTube]
Comments
4 responses to “Why Superstar Saga Was The Best Mario RPG Of Its Time”
Superstar Saga was a great game no doubt, but Paper Mario was just incredible as a kid. Although now I’d say my favourite MarioRPG is The Thousand Year Door.
No way in hell that Superstar Saga is as good or better than Legend of the Seven Stars. LotSS was a Chrono Trigger-calibre RPG in story and gameplay, and had some of the best graphics of the SNES games. Superstar Saga was an alright, fun action-RPG with lots of humour, but that was it.
M&L Superstar Saga is one of the best RPG’s, period.
The Mario and Luigi series is awesome.