Trivia / Super Mario RPG

Original

• Colbert Bump: For some players, fighting Culex was their first exposure to the Final Fantasy series.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: American television commercials, Nintendo Power's first walkthrough article and the magazine ads for the game referred to the sword that embedded itself in Bowser's Keep as "Smithy the Sword." The sword's name is Exor, while Smithy is a completely different character. Granted, even in-game, the heroes think that the sword is Smithy and it may have been done to avoid spoilers. In addition, the magazine ads hinted at a subplot involving Geno becoming a "real boy".
• Creator-Driven Successor: The Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series are this for this game. The first game of the former series was initially conceived as a sequel to this game before becoming its own thing and was even known as Super Mario RPG 2 early in development, while the latter was developed by a company founded by former Square employees that worked on Super Mario RPG (including both directors, who worked in said series as well) and shares its composer with this game. Perhaps deliberately, the Nintendo Switch 3D remake came out the same day as the 20th anniversary of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga's original release.
• Dummied Out:
  • A number of enemies exist in the coding that never actually spawn in-game. Many of them have equally unused Psychopath thoughts, and a few even utilize unused attacks. The majority of them are Palette Swaps of already existing enemies. The most interesting of these is probably the Drill Bit, a red variant of the Jabit enemy that appears in Smithy's factory. This enemy technically does appear in game, but only in the overworld during a cutscene. In addition, the Machine Made version of Yaridovich has an attack called "Multiply!", where he splits into four Machine Made versions of this enemy, though the remake refers to them as Jabits instead. It is also mentioned in both the Japanese and English strategy guides with the Japanese one placing it in between the fake Yaridovich and the second Belome Boss Battle while the English one has it in world 5. The real Drill Bit, however, remains unfought.
  • Monsters encountered before Mallow joins the adventure have Psychopath thoughts, but you can't see them except by hacking. The remake automatically registers these in the Monster List upon talking to the informant in Booster Pass.
• Executive Veto: Ted Woosley wanted to name Punchinello "James Bomb", but that name was rejected. A fragment of this idea remains in the final SNES release, however, as Punchinello says "The names's Nello... Punchinello!" when he introduces himself.
• Exiled from Continuity: The reason why Geno, Mallow, Smithy and many others aren't even namedropped in most other Mario games is because Square Enix owns the rights to the characters who debuted in this game, not Nintendo. It took 7 years for Geno to make another appearance (showing up as a cameo in the Star 'Stache Smash minigame in the original GBA version of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga), and 11 years from that for him to get referenced as a Mii Gunner costume in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate does a bit of legwork on this, having Mallow as a spirit and Geno as a spirit, profile icon, and a Mii costume which returned in a later DLC wave.
• He Also Did:
  • This game was developed by Squaresoft, whose works include Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and the earth-shatteringly popular Final Fantasy series.
  • Prior to this game, Yoko Shimomura had worked on the soundtracks for Street Fighter II and Breath of Fire under Capcom, with her first Squaresoft soundtrack being Live A Live. She would later go on to work on the Kingdom Hearts series, the Mario & Luigi series, Xenoblade Chronicles 1, and Final Fantasy XV. She also loans her talents in the Super Smash Bros. series.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: By the time The Remake was revealed in June 2023, Super Mario RPG is currently the one of the few significant Super Nintendo Entertainment System games to be available on the Wii U Virtual Console and long out-of-print SNES Classic Edition, but not the Nintendo Switch Online catalog. With the announcement of the remake for the Switch, it is now unlikely that the original game will show up on the catalog at all.^note Though it's not completely out of the question, as there is precedent with the Game Boy Color version of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening being released to the NSO library after its own remake on the Switch.
• Late Export for You: Similarly to other Squaresoft games at the time like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG didn't get released in Europe or Australia on the actual SNES. It would take twelve years for a European and Australian release to hit the Virtual Console thanks to the Hanabi Festival.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Peach's "???" found behind her fireplace is said to be "Peach's XXX" in the original Japanese, leading international players to believe that in the original, it was more explicit in Japanese that Peach had a hidden porn stash. As this video explains, this isn't really the case. In the United States, "XXX" has prior history of being used as a rating for pornographic material, the association persisting into the modern day despite the X rating having been long retired in favor of the more general NC-17. In Japan, "XXX" is is the local equivalent to "???" in English, meaning it's not clear what it is.
• Referenced by...: In Ready Player Two, Wade Watts is looking for the Seven Shards. He thinks that he'll find clues about them in works that have something to do with the number seven, this game being one of them.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: For years, rumors persisted that there's an Action Command to time item freebies by pressing the X button at the right time. This is false: your chance of getting a free item is a random chance, which is 26% for most items and 13% for powerful items like Red Essence and Pure Water. Whether or not you get a freebie is also determined before you even use the item. ^note You CAN manipulate freebie chance by manipulating the Random Number Generator, but that process is way more complicated than hitting one button.
• The Walrus Was Paul: For some reason, Exor's mouth is named "Neosquid" in English. Is it a joke? Is it a mistranslation? Just how that name came to be has never been explained. The official player's guide even points out the oddity of the name.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Character designer Kazuyuki Kurashima has shared concept art for multiple SMRPG characters and creatures, including concepts for Geno focusing on him wielding a sword rather than projectile weapons, early designs for several of the enemies, bosses, and other characters both affiliated and unaffiliated with the Smithy Gang, and concepts for Belome and Punchinello alongside some unused creatures. There was a priest responsible for brainwashing Bowser's troops like the Magikoopa. Smithy was originally designed as a genie, whose design was likely reused for the Fautso (Jinnie in the remake) enemy.
  • Pre-release images shown in magazines evidence a number of differences from the final product. Most of these concern changes in enemy placement or overworld structure, but a particularly interesting image◊ shows that Luigi was meant to have at least one small physical appearance during the main story, at a banquet in Nimbus Land. In the final game, Luigi is only briefly alluded to at Star Hill, where you may read his wish to be "a great plumber like [his] brother Mario". Otherwise, he only has a small cameo while leading the parade in the end credits, and hosts the manual.
  • Paper Mario was originally envisioned to be Super Mario RPG 2. Nintendo had approached Square to make it, but Square ultimately passed it on, so the mantle was given to Intelligent Systems instead.
  • Ted Woolsey mentioned that Punchinello's name was originally planned to be James Bomb, but the executives vetoed it.

Remake Exclusive

• Content Leak: The ROM of the remake managed to leak its way onto the Internet a week before the official release. This led to many YouTubers Let's Playing and reviewing it, as well as Culex's 3D form getting revealed.
• He Also Did: ArtePiazza, the studio who developed the remake, have also worked on other Square Enix properties such as Dragon Quest and Romancing Saga.
• Prop Recycling: The sprites for Culex and the elemental crystals are pulled straight from the original without any alternations. However, this is an artistic choice, as it further cements the Art-Style Clash between him and the three-dimensional characters.
• Remade for the Export:
  • Some Asian countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong never saw a release of the SNES version or a re-release on the Virtual Console. The remake is the first time it's ever seen a release in these countries, with new translations to boot.
  • The game's soundtrack also counts in a sense. The original SNES version of the soundtrack was released in disc format, but only in Japan. Both the remixed and original versions of the tracks can be played on an in-game music player accessible post-game, making it the first time the official album was released in other countries.
• Self-Remake: Yoko Shimomura returns to compose the soundtrack for the remake, just like she did for the remakes in the Mario & Luigi series.
• Studio Hop: The 1996 game was originally developed by Square, the precursor to Square Enix. For the remake, development was handled by ArtePiazza.
• Teasing Creator:
  • When the remake was announced, fans had wondered what Culex would look like in the remake. During the September 2023 Nintendo Direct, there's a brief moment of Mario using the Shiny Stone to unlock Culex's door, but Culex himself isn't seen. That said, he was shown in some promotional material about a month later.
  • When revealing Culex, the producers hinted that there would be a second secret boss fight. It turns out they meant a rematch with a 3D Culex.
• Translation Correction: The English version of the remake fixes numerous translation issues from the original.
  • Exor's mouth was, for some reason, called "Neosquid" in the original. The remake properly labels it as his mouth.
  • A number of other enemies, standard to the Mario series, were also corrected from the Woolseyisms present from the original: Cheep Cheep, Boo, Beezo, Paratroopa, and the upgraded Blaster, Big Blaster (formerly Big Bertha; this last one has to do with differentiating it from the Big Cheep Cheeps, also called Big Bertha).
  • Croco's and the Lakitu's "Chomp" attack from the original game was a Non-Indicative Name: it wasn't a biting attack, and instead involved them throwing a random item/mook at the player. The remake changes it to the much more sensible "Monster Toss".
  • The "Drain" skill from the original game had a Non-Indicative Name as it didn't actually drain anything. The skill is known as "Fire Orb" in Japanese, so just where "Drain" even came from is a mystery. The remake changes its name to "Hot Shot". Likewise, Mega Drain made no sense since it didn't drain anything and it looked more like a laser beam, but it was called something akin to "lightsaber" in the Japanese version. The remake would rename it to "Flame Saber".
  • After completing the Midas River in the original, Mario would receive a "NokNok Shell" as a prize. That name is derived from "Nokonoko", the Japanese name for Koopa Troopas. The remake changes its name to the Koopa Shell.
  • The Heal Shell is now properly translated as the Heel Shell.

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