Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (played on SNES Classic for review)

This is a short RPG where Mario teams up with a cloud, a doll, Bowser going through a midlife crisis, and a princess who spends the whole journey giving group hugs (they heal the whole party and cure all status effects). Good thing it’s long on charm; everything up until getting the sixth star moves at a blistering pace, with so many enemies, jokes, and minigames being thrown out, it’s impossible for tedium to set in. The heat never turns up, unfortunately (even the Culex fight is simple), and the ending stretch drags, but it’s not too awful. Worth revisiting.

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