Super Mario RPG is one of the most beloved games ever made. An RPG for the Super Nintendo, it took a genre that was still fairly niche at the time and simplified it so non-RPG fans could get into the genre. With Mario on the cover, it had a much larger appeal to the common person, and with Final Fantasy developer Square Soft at the helm it had plenty of pedigree to pull from. The result? An arguably perfect gateway RPG game for newcomers while also being a fun time for veterans of the genre.
Unfortunately, Super Mario RPG did not break off into a multi-title franchise. A falling out between Square and Nintendo as business partners resulted in Intelligent Systems picking up the pieces to form the Paper Mario franchise. While Paper Mario is still fantastic, many fans still miss the style and characters of Super Mario RPG. They want an official sequel, but there have never been rumors of it and neither company has done much to remember the franchise besides the occasional easter egg or port.
This hasn’t stopped fans really wanting a sequel and among those who would love a Super Mario RPG 2 is director of the first game, Chihiro Fujioka. It’s been over 25 years since Fujioka worked on Super Mario RPG, and he would even go on to make different Mario RPGs with the Mario & Luigi series, but the lack of a sequel has left a hole in his resume. He wants to make one more before his career is over, and explained why Super Mario RPG in particular is something he would like to do, through a translator, in an interview with MinnMax’s Ben Hanson.
“Yeah, I would absolutely love to make one… in my career I’ve been involved with a lot of games, and I would really like my final one to be another Mario RPG game if possible.”
“I think Mario & Luigi is cool, but I would like to go back and create a Mario RPG where you’re only controlling Mario.”
While the immediate reaction to this would be to get excited about the idea of an official sequel to Super Mario RPG 2, we, unfortunately, have to put a damper on that excitement. While many fans would love to see more Mario RPG games, we’ve seen interest from Nintendo’s side to make them dwindle. Fujioka’s previous studio, Alpha Dream, went bankrupt in 2019 and Nintendo has unfortunately not shown too much interest since then to bring back the Mario & Luigi franchise. Paper Mario, also a Mario RPG franchise, has steadily moved further away from its traditional RPG roots with many fans considering The Thousand-Year Door to be the last time Paper Mario felt like a true RPG.
Ignoring the conversation about what makes something a “true RPG” the biggest hurdle would likely have to do with the fact that Square Enix is the current owner of anything related to the Super Mario RPG name. If we’re ever going to get a proper sequel then that would require Nintendo and Square Enix to work together on creating it. This is not an impossible idea, the two companies’ relationship is much better than it used to be, but it’s asking a lot for two companies as big as Nintendo and SquareEnix to get together and work on a sequel for a game that is over 25 years old now.
Source: https://uproxx.com/edge/super-mario-rpg-sequel-nintendo/