Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 90: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

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Todays game is Super Mario RPG. How would you rate the story on a scale from 1-10?

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Previous Results:
Planescape: Torment - 9.83 (12 votes)
Omori - 9.67 (6 votes)
Outer Wilds - 9.6 (21 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 9.18 (34 votes)
The House in Fata Morgana - 9.14 (7 votes)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - 9.1 (14 votes)
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 9 (8 votes)
Grim Fandango - 8.96 (12 votes)
Steins;Gate - 8.94 (9 votes)
Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward - 8.89 (19 votes)
Persona 3 - 8.82 (20 votes)
Return of the Obra Dinn - 8.85 (10 votes)
Silent Hill 4: The Room - 8.83 (6 votes)
Umineko When They Cry - 8.82 (11 votes)
Xenogears - 8.71 (23 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.67 (31 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.67 (27 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics - 8.65 (23 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask - 8.56 (27 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.56 (16 votes)
Undertale - 8.45 (42 votes)
Chrono Trigger - 8.41 (39 votes)
What Remains of Edith Finch - 8.41 (19 votes)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - 8.4 (5 votes)
Mass Effect 2 - 8.38 (28 votes)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 8.37 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.35 (55 votes)
Final Fantasy VII - 8.28 (37 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 8.17 (18 votes)
The Walking Dead Season 1 - 8.17 (21 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.15 (40 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.13 (35 votes)
Horizon: Zero Dawn - 8.06 (18 votes)
The Wolf Among Us - 8.04 (14 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles - 7.94 (27 votes)
Spec Ops: The Line - 7.9 (17 votes)
Bloodborne - 7.88 (20 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.85 (31 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.81 (25 votes)
Bioshock - 7.64 (23 votes)
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - 7.7 (30 votes)
The Sexy Brutale - 7.7 (5 votes)
Celeste - 7.62 (25 votes)
Skies of Arcadia - 7.62 (13 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.47 (29 votes)
Mortal Kombat (2011) - 7.46 (13 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.35 (28 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.26 (29 votes)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - 7.25 (12 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.24 (28 votes)
Red Dead Redemption - 7.23 (11 votes)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (24 votes)
Mass Effect 3 - 7.16 (21 votes)
To the Moon - 7.07 (7 votes)
Super Paper Mario - 7.05 (22 votes)
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - 7 (5 votes)
Hollow Knight - 6.98 (21 votes)
INSIDE - 6.93 (15 votes)
Gone Home - 6.91 (17 votes)
Bioshock Infinite - 6.87 (19 votes)
Death Stranding - 6.73 (13 votes)
Chrono Cross - 6.69 (16 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All - 6.67 (31 votes)
Firewatch - 6.65 (10 votes)
Dark Souls - 6.62 (20 votes)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - 6.61 (28 votes)
Valkyria Chronicles - 6.5 (16 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - 6.5 (13 votes)
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard - 6.38 (12 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 6.31 (35 votes)
DOOM (2016) - 6.15 (13 votes)
Professor Layton and the Curious Village - 6.16 (14 votes)
Star Fox 64 - 5.8 (25 votes)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - 5.72 (9 votes)
Final Fantasy IV - 5.78 (30 votes)
Metroid Prime - 5.67 (24 votes)
Kingdom Hearts - 5.59 (30 votes)
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - 5.26 (28 votes)
Final Fantasy XIII - 4.79 (29 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright - 4.83 (12 votes)
Fallout 3 - 4.76 (17 votes)
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty - 4.72 (9 votes)
Fallout 4 - 4.43 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy - 4.24 (19 votes)
Resident Evil 6 - 3.74 (17 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - 3.69 (13 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - 3.46 (15 votes)
Starcraft II (overall) - 3.4 (5 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates (overall) - 3.32 (11 votes)
Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void - 2.83 (6 votes)
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) - 2.66 (16 votes)
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm - 2.57 (7 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation - 2.33 (9 votes)
Tales of Zestiria - 2.14 (7 votes)

You can still rate previous days games if you missed them, just write <game name><rating>. If you want to change your rating you can just specify that you are changing your rating. Nominations for future days are also welcome, nominate as many games as you like and I will get to all of them.

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8.5/10

The birth of RPG Bowser (Nintendo's greatest character) and perhaps the best silent protagonist in any video game.

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It's such an adventure! The pacing is great, Bowser as an ally for the first time was monumental, the original characters like Mallow and Geno are still among my favorite mario characters. Peach getting a starring role instead of a damsel. Love how it starts off with the veneer of a normal Mario adventure. This really set the tone for what the rest of the RPG series would become.

I think Thousand Year Door is still the strongest written game, but SMRPG strikes a different blend of epic seriousness that I think really works. The Factory is a dark final dungeon! It doesn't lean on comedy as hard as the Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi series, though it's still got some great gags like Mallow and the frog reveal (or how naive their whole species is in general), and the Axem Rangers. Shit Booster and Valentina, like every minor original character is amazing I can't even.

9

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Which reminds me

Nominate The Thousand Year Door

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8

4

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6.5/10

It is a very basic story buoyed by great versions of classic characters...and Mallow.

Stupid puffball.

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Mallow is the best original character in the game.

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7

The storyline itself is kind of lacking, but it does have great characters and dialogue. Booster and the Snifits ftw!


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9/10

some slow stretches, but mostly an absolutely wild ride. bonus points for being the first laugh out loud funny game I ever played.

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9

Super fun characters and dialogue all the way through. Mario rules here. Pretty much everyone does, other than Mallow.
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6

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7.5

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7.5

Grim Fandango - 8

7/10

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7/10

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8/10. Great cast of characters, and Mallow.

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7

6 was my initial reaction. It's very flimsy, and not even close to being the thing the developers focused on the most. They knew Mario and the familiar trappings of the Mushroom Kingdom were all they really needed to sell the game. I'd venture to say it deserves and even lower score than that, because what story is there just wouldn't hold up if the game was a totally original IP.

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6

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5

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6
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5.

Genuinely shocked by the higher ratings here. Like the rest of the game the story and writing do not hold up relative to the Paper Mario and Mario&Luigi series.

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7, nothing special but does the job.

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7

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Lightning Strikes posted...

5.

Genuinely shocked by the higher ratings here. Like the rest of the game the story and writing do not hold up relative to the Paper Mario and Mario&Luigi series.

Super Mario RPG is still at worst the third best Mario RPG, so I can't agree with this take.

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Only played Superstar Saga, but the story was the weaker aspect. Very funny but it was 98% humor. I like my mario rpgs taking themselves a little more seriously.

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Its the Symphony of the Night problem. A revolutionary game is less impressive when you come to it after all the others that built on that start. In this case it was enforced by the game not releasing in Europe until 2008.

Also - Paper Mario, The Thousand Year Door, Superstar Saga, Bowsers Inside Story are all absolute bangers that should be above SMRPG. I would personally argue for Super Paper Mario but I will not win that argument, regardless its a different type of game!

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Superstar Saga is the most overrated Mario RPG.

I'll accept TTYD and Bowser's Inside Story being better, but that's it.

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7/10

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Lightning Strikes posted...

are all absolute bangers that should be above SMRPG.

Different question depending on if you're isolating story. I think SMRPG's battle system is a bit generic compared to the others, but that's about it. Paper Mario 1 is also fantastic >_>

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Paper Mario is good. It feels like a spiritual sequel to SMRPG in a way none of the others do. I still prefer Mario RPG though.

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7/10

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8.5

SMRPG is a hybrid of 90s Nintendo and 90s Square in a great way. The Mario world has a lot of charm and, with great dialogue, can finally express that charm. Mario, the NPC Toads, the end-of-chapter bosses and Bowser are all very lovable and are strong building blocks for the Paper Mario series to build up on.

Its greatest weakness is the fact that its a hybrid. It doesnt have the deep characters or stories of the Square games. It also doesnt quite have the consistent Nintendo brand and can sometimes feel tonally off. Still, I give it props for how well it handled some of those core archetypes of the Mario RPGs.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Superstar Saga is the most overrated Mario RPG.

I'll accept TTYD and Bowser's Inside Story being better, but that's it.

I'd say only TTYD honestly. The alphadream mario and luigi's are fun, but the pacing is all over the place. BiS is the best of them, and after the immediate introduction (which is good) it takes a looooooong time to get going.

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6/10

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colliding posted...

I'd say only TTYD honestly. The alphadream mario and luigi's are fun, but the pacing is all over the place. BiS is the best of them, and after the immediate introduction (which is good) it takes a looooooong time to get going.

I'd rank SMRPG over BIS, but the latter is good enough that I wouldn't argue with someone who put BIS ahead of it.

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9

Also before I forget: Nominate Deadly Premonition.

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I can see why people would enjoy the story, especially if they have fond memories of it, but the 9s are reeeeally pushing it

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KamikazePotato posted...

I can see why people would enjoy the story, especially if they have fond memories of it, but the 9s are reeeeally pushing it

Nah, it depends on what you value in a story. It has a boatload of charm and some of the best versions of Mario, Bowser, and Peach. It might be THE best version of Mario, actually.

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7.5

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KamikazePotato posted...

I can see why people would enjoy the story, especially if they have fond memories of it, but the 9s are reeeeally pushing it

More complex stories aren't always better! I had more fun with SMRPG's story than Fata Morgana's.
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5. I played it for the first time recently. Wasn't that impressed. Writing wasn't near as strong as the early Paper Marios.

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