I would like to preface this review with a disclaimer: Yes, I did assist with this hack, but it was only to a minimal degree. CoolCatBomberMan consulted with me on a few lines, and I gave explanations, but I did not directly translate anything nor did I see the full script of this hack before it was released.

So, without further ado…

I consider this the definitive way to play Super Mario RPG, and I look forward to the next update with even more improvements. Although the author isn’t a translator, he absolutely used all of the tools at his disposal very well, and produced a script that is enjoyable, high-quality, and fixes inconsistencies, non sequitur issues, typos, and grammatical problems with the official translation. Thought went into every change that was made, and having compared the official and new script directly as I played, I can say that all of the changes are genuine improvements.

We now have characters such as the Minister of the Mushroom Kingdom who have a lot more personality, characters with more apparent speaking quirks, scenes with emotion that is conveyed more clearly than before, better flow of dialogue, and overall a presentation that is more tight and cohesive with the lore of the game world as well as connections to other Mario games.

And all of this was achieved just by being true to the original Japanese script. I could list numerous examples of how well the author’s script elevates the game experience, but the easiest example is something as simple as using the familiar Mario names for common enemies, as well as more closely translated names for the weapon-themed bosses: Swordor instead of Mack and Spearovich instead of Yaridovich. The direction Woolsey took with these translations quite frankly did not make sense, so I’m glad to see these characters have their names restored.

I wouldn’t be able to go back to playing the officially translated script after seeing all of the improvements that this hack has to offer, and knowing that there will be updates coming to further polish what is already a great script just makes me excited to be able to play through it once again.