As someone who's also playing through the game for the first time now, I can both see the ways in which it holds up, and the ways it doesn't. Personally I don't

As someone who's also playing through the game for the first time now, I can both see the ways in which it holds up, and the ways it doesn't. Personally I don't think the characters feel out of place in the Mario universe, since the RPGs in general tend to take a very different approach to their cast and universe than the platformers do. The Smithy Gang feel as Mario like as the Shroobs, X-Nauts, Super Paper Mario cast in general, Legion of Stationary, etc. They're not traditional Mario esque species, but they work very well for the story they're needed in. Where it feels a bit archaic is in the gameplay side of things, simply because its successors have built on its ideas so much. The action commands and being able to block enemy attacks in battle were a novel concept back then and still work well, but the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series have taken those ideas so much further than it can feel a tad quaint by comparison. When your successors let you block/counter everything and have attacks that sometimes play out like entire mini games, having moves that require pressing a single button with seemingly arbitrary timing can feel a tad basic. And the overworld exploration feels a bit similar sometimes, just because of how future games go full on Zelda style exploration dungeon with your abilities and how you can navigate the world with them, while this one mostly plays out more like a traditional RPG overworld map. But it's definitely very approachable for a new player, and someone who hadn't played this in the 90s is going to get a very enjoyable experience trying the remake for the first time in the 2020s.