Background
In 1994, during a business meeting between Nintendo and Squaresoft, discussion began over the idea of Nintendo combining their "Super Mario" series with Squaresoft's expertise in
Role-playing Games. At the time, the Mario series had never explored the RPG genre, so it was completely unknown what that end product would be, but the excitement of that unknown & the relationship
the two companies had at that point was enough to begin the development of a "Super Mario" RPG that Summer.
As mentioned before, nothing like this existed in the Mario series, so there wasn't a blueprint for developing an RPG with Mario in it. As such, Squaresoft decided that their best option was to
basically apply what they had known from previous titles over the Mario world. At this point, Squaresoft equaled RPGs to their weapons, and as such decked Mario out in full suit of armor, and a sword
and shield in hand! The artwork found here was drawn by jam_filter, the game's Battle Background designer. While images & information is limited, what can be seen in these three images tell all!
A vastly different "Super Mario RPG!"
This pitch would, however, go nowhere. Many of the developers on the team were uncomfortable with this proposal. Some felt it wasn't Mario-like at all, some people didn't like the idea of the game
being a reskin of their "Final Fantasy" series with Mario characters, and a young Jiro Mifune was so uncomfortable with the idea of Mario in full sword & armor that he would end up making his own
Proposal shortly afterwards.
Story Proposal
Unfortunately, since there hasn't been much shared of this original pitch, there isn't much known about the story. However, it seems to have been focused around translating the Mario
world & characters into a traditional fantasy world, as seen in the concept art. Page 4 of the proposal also seems to have dialouge, but the photo is taken in such a weird angle that I don't even
want to try translating it!
Artwork + Notes
Please click on images to enlarge them.
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