Super Mario RPG Switch Remake - Low Level Part 1: Hammer Bros

Channel:

MoogleBoss

Subscribers:

6,660

Published on November 21, 2023 3:56:17 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5B7V9PdNw

Game:

Super Mario RPG (1996)

Duration: 1:24

517 views

31

Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c1MMIPTlZnOvI4eiDzyABR_

Levels:
Mario - lv. 1

Anticipating the remake of one of my old favourites of the golden era of JRPGs (one of the golden eras of JRPGs?), I didn't plan to fire up this challenge but shortly started a second file to my main, maintaining the low level setting. Why not? This channel became known, among other things, for hosting low level runs in FF6 and Chrono Trigger about 15 many years ago and still produces related content, like a low level game in the Pixel Remaster of the original Final Fantasy game and many more runs of the sort.

I never did start a challenge in the original, for no reason I can think of right now, but the remake on the Switch sure makes the prospect interesting. On the one hand, you have new features like Triple Techs (Chrono Trigger worship? idk) and Toad Assist making your life easier than before, but then there's all the postgame content you can tackle that you couldn't previously. Some enemies also act differently from how they would in the original game.

Low Level
The only rule governing the run. We earn experience in mandatory battles only, later relying on Lucky Jewel and Lucky Hammer items to prevent experience gain with some luck manipulation (patience instead of save states). Mario is documented to emerge at lv. 3 at the end of the game, which may not be accurate in this version, as the very first encounter nets you no exp in vanilla, yet happens to give us 2 exp here, which may well be a trend.

Mario enters his very first battle solo and completely naked - no weapon, armour or accessory. For whatever reason, I was holding out on using my FP increasing items at this point and therefore limited to 11 FP but quickly realised there probably wouldn't come a point when I'd want to recover FP in-between battles while gimping my earlygame, so the sooner I used them the better (who knows though, time will tell).

Prior to the first boss battle against the Hammer Bros, I time my blocks to get the action gauge to 100%. Before Mallow and Geno join, triple techs are locked, but we do get the random roulette benefits of Toad Assist. You never know what you will get (not sure if it's riggable), but it can boost attack on the character during whose turn the assist was used, restore your entire FP and grant other bonuses. Soft resetting lets you get the exact boost you're looking for if you care enough to restart. Here, I get Star Gust, which is actually pretty good - a single well-timed Jump can then finish off each Hammer Bro. However, I am not that great at timing the Jump right, which might get better later in the challenge? We'll see.

In the original Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, using Jump over and over made it incrementally stronger, letting Mario dish out obscene amounts of damage with his basic technique. The player could deliberately grind it to max 255 power early on to trivialise the earlygame. I'm not sure if this is still applicable to Jump mechanics in the remake, but I'll try and strategise disregarding the potential of Jump abuse, if it's even there.

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