All Super Mario RPG Characters RANKED!
With Super Mario RPG having five fun and distinct characters who have vastly different skill sets, it is essential to know which characters you should have in your party. While every character is viable enough, some are certainly better than others. Now, without further ado, RPG Ranked presents... All Super Mario RPG Characters RANKED!
5. Bowser - C Tier
With the addition of all-hitting Action Commands and Triple Moves, Bowser is slightly more viable in the remake. However, he's still mediocre. While he has very high strength and HP, his skill set is minimal, and all of his abilities are extremely weak due to his poor magic attack stat! While his HP makes him helpful as a meat shield for the harder superbosses and his Triple Moves deal tons of damage, that's about it. FP is very easy to restore in this game, so why waste your time with Bowser and his really basic attacks? I recommend pulling Bowser in to tank damage, and that's about it.
4. Mario - B Tier
The eponymous protagonist is a required party member, which is frustrating because he's one of the weaker characters! Mario has the best stats in the game across the board, but he has very little variety in his abilities. While he isn't a one-trick pony like Bowser, he only has three tricks: attacking, jumping, and tossing fireballs. While a veteran player may be able to hit extremely high damage counts with frame-perfect jumps, the single-frame Action Commands will get overwhelmingly tricky for the majority of players, rendering Jump and its stronger iterations nothing more than a pretty mediocre skill. Fireball is fantastic for enemies weak to fire, but otherwise, it's also a pretty average ability. Ultimately, Mario is a very solid character, but his lack of versatility is a massive knock on his character.
3. Mallow - A Tier
If I could replace Mario with Mallow, I'd certainly do it. Mallow has the most versatile moves in the game! With mighty thunder and ice attacks, an enemy stat-revealing ability, a single-target heal, and perhaps the most consistently powerful multi-target attack in the game, Mallow always has something handy to do. While my third-party slot is often filled by Peach, in moments where I don't need constant healing with Peach, I'm definitely going to be using Mallow. He's so powerful and versatile, and he's a tad overhated by some members of the community.
2. Peach - A Tier
When the most versatile character in Super Mario RPG only ranks in third place, you know this game has some busted party members. Peach is the party's token healer, and she's absolutely incredible at being a heal bot. Her Group Hug ability basically full-heals the party and all their ailments, and her Come Back ability revives a party member's HP to full. And these two spells only cost 4 and 2 HP, respectively. It's as overpowered and unbalanced as it sounds. She also has Psych Bomb, a respectable screen-clearer, even if it can't quite compare to Star Rain or Geno Flash. Put the Lazy Shell on Peach, and you'll basically be unkillable! The biggest problem with Peach is she is unnecessary until the endgame and postgame. Until Level 18, she contributes very little to the damage output of the party, making her a weaker pick in the early game. She's either by far the best character in the party or the most unnecessary character in the party, so I couldn't put her in first. However, I couldn't argue with someone who said she was the best character in the game. Yet, there's still one more character I found more useful in my experience with this game.
1. Geno - S Tier
With the best damage output in the game, the only buffing ability in the game, and two potent innate boosts that come through Action Command chains, Geno's the character I found myself never taking out of my active party. His damage output with Geno Flash is massive and unblockable, Geno Whirl can instantly kill any regular enemy in the game, Geno Boost can buff a character's attack and defense by a whopping 50%, and he's the only character who buffs two stats with Action Command chains—Attack, which is always lovely to buff, and (even better) Speed, the hardest stat to buff in the entire game, as it isn't an option to increase upon leveling up. In the end, Geno was the character that I found always valuable, no matter what. While Mario had to be in my party, and I often switched Mallow and Peach in my third slot, Geno always took up my second slot—he's truly that powerful.