Skip to main content

Super Mario RPG is getting a full Switch remake, and it’s coming this year

Summer Gaming Marathon Feature Image
This story is part of our Summer Gaming Marathon series.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is getting a full-on remake for the Nintendo Switch — and it’s  coming this year. The new remake of the game got announced during today’s Nintendo Direct, along with its November 17 release date, meaning yet another big title is joining the late 2023 launch party.

Super Mario RPG (Remake) Trailer | Nintendo Direct 2023

During the Nintendo Direct, we got a great view of the visual upgrades and gameplay of the upcoming RPG remake. Thankfully, Nintendo hasn’t messed with the core formula of the game like it did with the follow-ups to the Paper Mario series. The classic Mario RPG battle system and exploration seem to be intact. Super Mario RPG keeps the beautiful super-deformed character art style while completely upgrading the visuals into something new. The colors are bright and vibrant, and Mario still looks as goofy and cute as ever, somehow retaining that claymation-like charm the original Super Nintendo title had.

Mario, Mallow, and Bowser using lightning attacks in Mario RPG.
Nintendo

The announcement is one that caught many Nintendo fans by surprise during today’s Direct. For a long time, many thought we’d never see the return of the title due to the inclusion of Geno and Mallow, two characters owned by Square Enix (the company co-published and developed the original version back when it was just Square). Thankfully, that’s not the case.

Recommended Videos

Mario RPG Remake is coming very soon, with a release date of November 17. Preorders have already opened up on the Nintendo eShop, so you can head over there if you simply can’t wait until November to return to the SNES adventure.

DeAngelo Epps
Former Digital Trends Contributor
De'Angelo Epps is a gaming writer passionate about the culture, communities, and industry surrounding gaming. His work ranges…
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown to get new story DLC, Sands of Time coming in 2026
Sargon leaping with his blades and with blue streaks behind him.

[ESRB] Prince of Persia The Lost Crown - Story DLC Teaser Trailer | Ubisoft Forward

Ubisoft announced a number of updates to its current Prince of Persia series entries at its Ubisoft Forward showcase on Monday, including upcoming story DLC for its flagship title.

Read more
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door got the remake it deserved
Save State promotional image featuring cropped key art for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door's Nintendo Switch remake is here, and that's a big deal for fans of this Mario subseries. Paper Mario has been around since the Nintendo 64 days and has seen many iterations across most of Nintendo's platforms since then. It has gone through different shapes and forms throughout that time, some more well-liked than others. None are more beloved than The Thousand-Year Door.

Released for GameCube in 2004, The Thousand-Year Door refined the traditional turn-based RPG formula that the original Paper Mario established. It excelled in its writing and characters, as it takes a lot of creative risks, creates memorable original characters, and isn't bashful about being one of the funniest Nintendo games ever made. It's considered a high point in a series that has had a divisive run in the two decades between that original release and this remake.

Read more
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake is full of quality of life updates
Mario bumps into a Goomba in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

Next month, Nintendo will celebrate the 20th anniversary of one of its finest games. Nintendo GameCube classic Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is getting a Nintendo Switch rerelease that's somewhere between a remaster and a remake (not unlike the company's recent Super Mario RPG revisit). But a game as beloved as this presents a challenge for developers: How do you stay true to the original while still upgrading it enough to justify a full-priced double-dip rather than an HD port?

I got an answer to that question when Nintendo gave members of the press a close look at the upcoming Switch release. The good news for protective purists is that the remake doesn't seem to be changing much about the core RPG aside from a bit of dialogue translation. Instead, the new version delivers key quality of life improvements to make a cult classic a bit friendlier to newcomers. That leaves it feeling like an even lighter makeover than Super Mario RPG, but a welcome one nonetheless.
What's new?
During my hands-off demo, Nintendo would walk me through several familiar snippets of the adventure. I'd see the opening combat tutorial in Rogueport, some fights against Pale Piranhas, and Chapter 1's climactic clash with Hooktail. Naturally, the most obvious change here is the remake's newly redone visuals. The Switch version is notably more crisp than the GameCube original, thanks to the removal of messy artifacts around the edges of its paper characters. It's smoother and more vibrant overall, with some more dynamic lighting to boot.

Read more