SNES Game of the Week 118 - Clock Tower

[spanky]

Oh man...I LOVE this game. I have the dreaded nostalgia bias at play here. It came out in a transitional time in gaming (The N64 would come out in a few months, fully ushering in the next gen), a transitional time in my gaming tastes (this was sort of an RPG gateway drug to me) and a transitional time in my life itself (going from grade school to middle school). All these things were not lost on me even at the time and I more or less dedicated the entire summer to beating the game as the sun set on this stage of my childhood. I couldn't give this an objective review if I tried!

The shiny pre-rendered graphics are generally regarding as not aging well but they put me in a very specific time and place. The remake looks very nice but it definitely loses that distinctive look this game has. The game IS easy but since it is sort of meant to be a kids game/RPG gateway drug, that's understandable. I love the breeziness of it. You can beat the game in a lazy weekend which isn't something you can say about most RPGs and the battles, while simple maintain a sort of rhythm I find addictive. Plus you can just avoid most battles.

The game rips Mario out of his usual settings, trims the cast down, with many regulars being reduced to just cameos. It makes the game feel like the "movie" version of Mario. It also feels sort of meta. Mario is a celebrity in this world and NPCs gawk in amazement and demand that you jump to prove you're Mario. It's also the first time we really see Bowser anguishing over his role in this universe. A small thing is that I love how Mario pantomines when he's trying to explain something.

I'm just sort of babbling here. It's probably my favorite of the Mario RPG titles, with only TTYD coming in close. It's an easy S!

[vnisanian2001]

It's a perfect S for me. Mario and his friends' last SNES hurrah ended with a bang.

[personman]

Besides Pokémon Blue which I wouldnt really count,this is the first jrpg I ever played. I never finished it on my own but I found it really fun to go through and like Spanky said it plays with the Mario setting and goes out of bounds a bit which is even more interesting to me these days with how strict they adhere to a rigid set of things nowadays.

Even when I first played it things seemed on the easy side but that's not entirely a bad thing. After all it was meant to be an introduction to the genre. It started the timed button press thing that the later Mario rpgs would expand upon too which is great.

I'd say it pales to the likes of Mario and Luigi or Paper Mario but it had charm to spare and is a more than the sum of its parts sort of deal and still holds up today. Great soundtrack too with Beware the mushrooms being my favorite of course.

I give it an A

I bet I'll get the remake sometime too. Maybe just wait a bit though after finishing Wonder I'm a little Mario'd out lol.

[🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀]

SMRPG is very charming, with great visuals, a memorable OST, and fun characters and story moments. But an RPG needs fun battles to really win me over, and this game is just too shallow in that regard. It's too easy, there's no real thought put into the characters/special attacks IMO, and the timed attacks thing is really the only remotely interesting thing about the gameplay here. Stupidly, the remake doesn't fix any of this AFAIK, and even adds an easy mode!

It's supposed to be a kid-friendly introduction to RPGs, but this feels like it's only for kids, and just making things real easy is not the way to go about it IMO. The Paper Mario and M&L series both are introduction-friendly RPGs, but are still deep enough for the grown-ups. A game like TTYD has all the charm and personality SMRPG has, and the accessibility of this game, but with actual balancing in the battle department.

Anyway, I can't really give it a failing grade, since it is pretty fun still somehow, and it has a lot of charm outside of the battles to make up for it, but this is definitely a bit of an overrated game in my eyes.

So a C it is.

[dsparil]

In an SNES context, it's an S. I have some nostalgia for the game, but it wasn't my first jRPG or anything like that. I honestly can't remember what my first one was since Zelda II is close enough to an RPG that it is technically it but that's a pretty weak RPG even by action standards. Final Fantasy was the only 8 or 16 bit RPG I played on an actual system, but I know that wasn't the first either. Everything else is just a jumble of emulation where I can't pick out time periods unless it was a fan translated game. For SM RPG, I originally got stuck at the Axem Rangers, but I restarted it at some point and I ended up playing it a whole lot. I even did the faux NG+ that's only feasible on an emulator.

Against all the Mario RPGs, it's morel like a B/B+. It's better than most of the Paper Marios but worse than most of the Mario & Luigis. Being the first hurts it in this case since later games improve on the gameplay and "Mario-ness".

[ommadawnyawn2]

My take is more in line with excelsior's on this one. Combat is a bit too shallow despite the timing gimmick, which frequently felt annoying as I found it hard to read the timing against most new enemies (solved in the GBA games). Some other QoL issues pop up like lacking descriptions in battle, not being able to tell what a status effect is or the limited inventory without stacking. I know it's on SNES but it's also a 1996 game. 
Visually I find most of it more dated than the DKC games, the image editor cut and paste/collage effect is more obvious here and there's somehow less of an illusion of depth at times despite the perspective. OTOH the characters are super expressive for the SNES and raises the also fitting dialogue to new levels. Going back to the perspective, it unfortunately does lead to some frustrating platforming in parts, but overall I thought it worked well. Some mini-games however have lacking controls.

I think how the story is told and the world building is where it really shines, as well as it having some neat stuff like non-random encounters, stat point allocation on level up and party members leveling up while outside of the party. The novelty factor of a Mario RPG became less interesting as time went on. 

I'll go with a B

My first JRPG was technically FF6 but that was a bad introduction to a later boss at a relative's house (before that I had seen Phantasy Star but couldn't read at the time), so really it was FF7. That's still my fave JRPG so I think I understand the power of firsts. 

[grad]

The ratings spread with this one is interesting. I lie firmly in the B camp.

That said, SMRPG is one of only three or so turn-based RPGs that I have ever completed—unless including in the genre similarly menial tasks, such as organizing a sock drawer or feeding a mountain of receipts one by one into a scanner for hours on end.

If only all RPGs could be as good as SMRPG...

[Snake]

Super Mario RPG

I enjoyed the ease and accessibility of this RPG.  At a time when there were games like Front Mission and Tactics Ogre, it was nice to play a game that required less brain power and strategy; just botton holds and rhythm hits.  It was nice to include overworld platforming segments, and an overall sense of Mario-ness for long-time fans, while adding some cool new characters; even a fan-service team-up with Bowser.  Pre-rendered graphics en vogue with the likes of Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct emparts a comforting sense of nostalgie for me, today.  Enjoyable to RPG players at least once? Absolutely.  More so for the Mario hardcore.

Grade - B+

[excelsior]

• Publisher - Data East
• Developer - MotiveTime
• Genre - Adventure
• Initial Release - 18 February 1993

From deep within Mordroc's Castle, a foul stench rose up to mix with the cold, damp midnight air; the telltale sign of the evil wizard's pet fire-breathing dragon, Singe; the beast that guarded the Princess Daphne in the deadly caves far below the surface. Dirk the Daring walked steadily toward the castle gate. He felt no fear; but then fear was for cowards. No other would dare to enter this perilous castle where Mordroc had imprisoned the helpless princess. But for Dirk there was no other possible course to take. Now was the time for heroes. Now was the time for action. Now was the time to enter the Dragon's Lair...


  

  

[excelsior]

Dragon's Lair is one of those port to everything games, but of course home hardware back in the day couldn't recreate the games faithfully. The home consoles then got a reimagining. It's something of a platform adventure where you have an overworld map, and by reaching various exits in small segmented stages you unlock a new path. I quite like the idea, and some of the sprites do a nice job at faithfully presenting Dirk at least. That's pretty much where the compliments end, because the gameplay is simply too clumsy for a platformer which makes things frustrating. Your sprite is large and unwieldly, so eats hits on the regular. Nevertheless I did manage to progress decently far through it.

Ranking - D

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention, I'm hoping to have this thread running back on a weekly schedule for New Year at the latest.

[vnisanian2001]

D. Nothing like the laserdisc marvel it was in 1983.

[dsparil]

I'd go with a C. I played it a bit after going through the Dragon's Lair laserdisc collection a few years ago, and it's an okay game. There's definitely better options, but I do find it a little fun. Not fun enough to actually finish, but it's better than DLII at least.

[grad]

No rating from me, but boy was it a disappointment graphically. The poor thing had to compete against world-class, hand-drawn animation.

[spanky]

Yeahh...the console versions of DL are sort of a mess. The NES game tries to do cinematic platformer thing but does a very poor job of it and the SNES game is just a mediocre western platformer. This is one of those games at the rental store that I passed by a hundred times but never checked out. I feel like if I gave this game a real chance I could vibe with it and kind of like it but it fails to grab me each time I play it. It's a D.

It sounds like you're on the mend, excelsior, glad to hear it!

[excelsior]

Yes, it feels that way to me thanks, spanky. I think there is some fun to be had with this game, but the flaws are too obvious for me.