I think one of my favorite things about SMRPG was that it didn't follow the Mario mold. Mallow, Geno, Smithy, Culex... it had a lot of new characters, and rocking a team of Mario, Peach, and Bowser was just unreal to me as a kid.
That the game actually had side secrets and a boss harder than the last boss really sold me. This would be a formula that I would look for in most rpgs after this (this was my first non-pokemon rpg)
I actually quite liked Nintendo's first party games in the SNES era. I think this is when they had perfected their formula's, but before they started to milk the crap out of their best franchises.
I would not even compare the later mario rpgs to SMRPG. Those games do nothing to set themsevles apart from the rest of the mario franchise, and instead cash in on a gimmick.
SMRPG is not perfect, but it did a lot right. So many weapons for each character (including ultimate weapons for each), and a nice difficulty curve. The game isn't too long either, which isn't a bad thing. the music was pretty sweet, the graphics were very nice at the time.
I guess I can put myself in the shoes of another and see why some might not like this game, but it really is a fun, well-rounded game.
On a side note, I may be biased, as I quite enjoyed the original SMB games, SMW, SMW2, Mario Kart, Galaxy, etc.
I don't love the character, but I love the games he is in.
Oh, and I still need to get started on that IV playthrough. It was probably my least favorite in the series (which I count from 4-10) aside maybe 8, but seeing the love it gets here, I really want to give it another shot. Nothing wrong with loving yet another game
