It’s honestly crazy that the SMRPG remake exists in the first place! The very thought of it has always been squarely in my “Nintendo would never allow this in a million years, don’t even bother speculating about it” category. And the remake is crazy faithful to the original in so many ways!

But the modern Mario RPGs have also been getting better lately! I quite enjoyed Color Splash, and Origami King was way better than it had any right to be, even with its weird puzzle-battles. And yeah, they’re a far call from the classic Mario RPG or Paper Mario format that absolutely everyone wants more of, but at least they’re able to stand as good games on their own. The charm and creativity really shines through, even in spite of the whole “only use official Mario characters/creatures, and only use their official designs” thang that has plagued spinoff Mario games for so many years. Origami King even includes some not-so-subtle complaints against that whole stupid restriction.

I’m really hoping that Mario Wonder is a sign that they’re loosening their grip on the whole design restrictions, so hopefully that’ll apply to the RPG devs as well?