I would disagree with this. Here is a list of some of the non first party RPGs on the Nintendo consoles N64 and beyond.
N64
Quest 64/Holy Magic Century
Ogre Battle 64
Harvest Moon 64
Aidyn Chronicles
Gamecube
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
Baten Kaitos Origins
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and...
It flat out isn't a replacement. Nintendo hoped it was on around the WiiU launch. Nintendo were flat wrong. NSMBU was not the console seller Nintendo wanted it to be. It would have been a nice later release while waiting for SM3DW or a nice 2ndary Mario release after SM3DW. But as a release...