SMRPG: Have the ROM somewhere, and I never got passed the third area (where Mellow find out he's not a toad.
PM: Played it, beat, still awesome after 5 years of not playing it.
M&L: SS: I beat it, laughed, but grow bored whenever I start it.
PM2: Played it. Nearly have it 100% completed. Beat Bonetail and the Shadow Queen.
SPM: Never played it yet.
You also forgot M&L: Partners in Time.
I had roms of Superstar Saga and Super Mario RPG before my hard drive got cleaned out. I didn't get very far in Super Mario RPG, and I had a corrupted rom for Superstar Saga: It always froze on a particular section, so I was unable to get past the university. Also, it had a very odd buzzing/crackling sound that went away for a few minutes and then came back again.
SMRPG: Probably the game that really made me respect the RPG genre (at the time, I didn't know Pokemon was considered an RPG...). Love playing it.
Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga: Another one of my favorites... Though there can be some slow parts, it was humorous (in its own way) and was very addictive.
Haven't played any in the Paper Mario series (though I hear it's good), nor Partners in Time.
I've only played the Paper Mario Series
Super Paper Mario was my favorite just because of the 2-D to 3-D
yay!
ALL OF THEM are sweetness. In my opinion, the RPG series of Mario is better than the platformer series. Super Mario RPG is definitely the best out of them (I mean, how could it not be, with one of the greatest RPG developers, Square Enix(Then just Squaresoft) having made it?), and it set the mood for future Mario RPG titles.
I own and have beaten the first five. I have yet to buy SPM and beat it, but I have rented it and played it. I do plan to buy it. Since it's the newest one, I'll share my opinions on it. The game has some good ideas, but at the moment, they just don't feel like they're ready. The whole 2d-3d thing feels like a great idea, but when I use it in game, it feels kind of rushed and as if it were implemented wrong. They already said they will not be going back to the regular turn based Paper Mario style, so hopefully in the next game, they can take the ideas that SPM had and IMPROVE THEM. SPM is still a great game. Just not as great as the previous two PM games.
In my opinion, the order of the games in terms of greatness are as follows:
SMRPG > PM:TTYD > M&L: PiT > PM > SPM > M&L:SS
Hopefully when I do buy SPM and beat it, I'll change my opinions. I did not get far, I only beat the first two worlds/chapters. And I've been told it gets better later. But for now, this is how I place it.
These are all GREAT games, some of the best, and I'd recommend them to anyone. If you don't live in the US or Japan, get a rom for SMRPG or wait for it to HOPEFULLY come out to VC(since the game was never released in other countries, sadly...). PM is on VC at the moment for certain countries, if it's not at yours, you can easily find it at flea markets. The rest are all in stores, so you can easily find them. If you haven't played them, do yourself a favor and play them. They're great.
