Super Mario 64 (1996)

Preliminary: It's not that these are even close to being the best graphics for its time, but there's something so cozy and nice about them and the colors are so primary and pleasant. Coupled with the Sound for the intro and beginning, and it's perfect. I never had an N64 growing up so I didn't really play this. I first played this probly like 10 years ago? or so? on a laptop and finally saw what people loved about it. I 100%'d it that time. I'm not sure I will do that again for the sake of the chronology project but I hope I enjoy this as much! I will be playing this with a proper N64 controller this time too! Hopefully that doesn't detract from my enjoyment, but that's the only way to give it a proper rating in the context of the chronology project (tho I will gladly then just finish it with modern touches like a right analog stick on a PS4 controller as C camera control buttons etc as a separate thing from this project).

I think what I got grumpy about as a kid is a) the N64 controller has far too many buttons in odd places that had to be very specifically tailored by the games and b) the games completely disregarded the option to instead used d-pad (which I continued to use till I was absolutely forced not to any more in, maybe like Kingdom Hearts? I think that was the first one I had to accept it... it was tragic lol)

I'm not in love with how momentum works and the slow process of slipping/sliding/getting back up but otherwise, yes Imma love it :-p Collecting stars to unlock levels etc and the CTR style way you enter levels sort of Namco Museum too the early 3D era is so special to me

Hmmm the collision masks aren't great and makes for jumping on enemies not the fun/best way to kill them, and the way you orient what direction you climb up or go is wonky. Just give me d-paddddd. And I'll never likke platformers where you have minimal control once you've jumped. But there's still something very endearing about this.

Ok yea despite its flaws I'm already hooked and 100%'d (as much as I can at this point) the first level smh lol. And this was supposed ot be my calm night >.<

Early Game

Oh no! I lost my draft of what I wrote for the first couple levels. But yea I of course loved the water level tune, thoguht I might not do all the stars for those but have decided to do all stars except the 100 Coins stars cuz those felt tedious (and I've 100%'d it before). There was quite a lot more, as I tend to do, but so it goes!

The punching element of this is very flawed. But the discovery of liminal back areas and the expectation of you to explore the edges of spaces are pristine.

Whoa the Ghost Mansion is actually quite freaky and the Sound is creep it almost as a Resident Evil feel to the camera angles and, with a gamelan twist, the music.

Uff controlling thsi wing cap mario... (pro-tip: easy does it) . Then again I thought Wall Jumps were brutal until I realized I didn't ahve to Kick first, just jump again with momentum :-p

I love love love the way a lot of the tunes are basically new renditions of teh classics.

Basement-ish

A lot about tihs game is really quite difficult (and wonky, but learnable and ful of nuance once you're used to it), but it's aslo forgiving in that the Stars heal you etc. Dang those insta-death falls tho lol. As per usual my favorite parts are when I just get to show of my jumping and controls skills and enjoy the ride. But I get it taht as I get deeper into the basement, a good chunk through the lava lake level, it's late enogh in the game to break the fun platforming and make it a bit more complex. Oh and I love the sitar chill music for this leve.

It's interesting how part of me wants to remark that games like this would be too difficult without savestates etc because lives are limited, but the fact is, I 100%'d Crash 3 as a kid etc . and i always could've just reloaded a mario 64 save file etc as needed. just interesting how my perspective got lazier in the retro era when saving was too unforgiving, and now that I'm in my childhood gaming era, I have no excuse and have to adjust my mindset to properly using saves etc. If I don't fully finish a game, so be it, but I should rate it as it is. Yada yada. We'll see.

Yesss the inside of the pyramid tune (which I know has been used elsewhere, it's the cave tune, btu when this first started) reminds me so much of a Humongous Entertainment tune.

This game raelly is forgiving with its bosses and its healing opportunities. I got the key for the upstairs but I am gonna get the non-100-coins stars for this dire docks level then consider it late game and head upstairs.

This manta ray's rings thing is... very glitchy.

The fact I'm getting all the Cap Switches and the Secret Stars... and all the Stars exccept the 100 Coin stars lol. Says a lot

Upstairs-ish

The slipperiness is really getting old. But I still love the game anyway :-p

I love how many different ways there are to complete these stars. sometimes they feel unintentional with how teh cameras get wonky, but sometimes they seem unavoidable so they must have been planend! lol. or like including teh helicopter enemy at convenient places for alternative methods to complete a star etc.

Omfg this slipperinesssssss

Ooo trly late game now tho

You'd think for these final areas there'd be some new tunes... still love it all tho.

Welp I've done it all. I got all the Stars except 100 Coin Stars and the <50 Rabbit one (which I simply didn't know about), including Secret Stars and whatnot. Time for final Bowser!

I love the background of this final Bowser level the blues and pinks are nice, tho I wish there were a new tune.

And at last!

Whoa actual normal voice acting from Peach for the ending. Cute positive ending tune and vibe. Feels polite but accomplishing.

Look: 9/10

Sound: 9/10 Great all around and the nice ending tune being new was a big boost

Play: 9/10 Addictive, completionism looping, sure some flaws but so early for 3D platformers and did most of it right

Feel: 9/10

Attachment: 9/10 Second time playing this and indeed, I was hooked again. If it weren't for some of the slipperiness and control issues, I'd likely have gone for a true 100% completion, which says a lot.

Overall: 9/10

The brilliance of Super Mario games over the last 40+ years isn't just that they're fun; they're also often defining where games can go in the future. It's impossible to imagine where video games would be without a plumber who eats mushrooms, and so many of these games have completely altered the possibilities of what video games could look like going forward. Maybe more important than all of this is that these games are also timeless. Super Mario Bros. remains as addictive as it was in the '80s, and it's remarkable the longevity that all the mainline Mario games have had.

I go back to a lot of the classic Mario games all the time. I've played Super Mario World in its entirety probably at least once a year since it came out, and I still find myself challenged by the NES games. But I don't think I've played Super Mario 64 to completion in decades. I had popped in here and there, but after a few levels, I'd usually move on to something else.

But playing Super Mario 64 completely through 30 years after its release, I found myself coming to terms with two things. One, this might actually be the most important Mario game ever made. Platforming games would've existed without Super Mario Bros., but I don't know that 3D games would've hit the same levels they did without the existence of Super Mario 64. But two, and this is what shocked me the most: this might also be the most difficult Mario game to get back into over time. Most of these games feel timeless, but Super Mario 64 is locked into such a specific time, place, and period of video game history that it's the hardest game to return to decades after its release.

2D Mario on consoles always feels right. We know how he's supposed to feel, and that's what makes those games so addictive: Mario always controls the way we want him to, with very little frustration. Six years after Super Mario 64, Nintendo would put out Super Mario Sunshine, a game that smoothed out the rough edges (both literally and figuratively) that existed in Super Mario 64. In the years since Super Mario Sunshine, Nintendo has consistently refined how he played, but we underappreciate how major this jump from the Nintendo 64 to the GameCube truly was.

Super Mario 64 exists in this period where Nintendo — and video games in general — were trying to figure out what the hell a 3D platformer even looked like. It's truly nuts that in a year, we went from Jumping Flash! to Super Mario 64. And while Super Mario 64 was a major step for 3D gaming, it's not without its clunkiness that has grown even more difficult to overlook all these years later. The controls are often frustrating, even when you know exactly what you want to do (again, one of the few Mario games where that's the case), and the ability to move the camera is an important step, but one that still hasn't been figured out at this point. And considering how small some of the sections this game requires Mario to get into are, this can lead to some truly exhausting sections.

While the ambition is grand in Super Mario 64 still to this day, considering the castle you can explore, the secrets within, and all the levels that the game offers, it's also surprising just how small these levels feel individually. Levels that felt massive as a child have extremely clear limitations now. For example, Whomp's Fortress used to seem like a gigantic tower to explore, and now, it seems so quaint in how restricted this section actually is.

I went into Super Mario 64 this time around with the intention to try and finally get all 120 stars, but after a few days of playing, I realized that I simply couldn't do it. I didn't have the patience, nor did I think I could effectively pull off the tricks this game was asking me to do. Again, with most Mario games, I feel like I can do everything that is being asked of me, I just need to sit with it and figure it out. Here, I actively don't think these are things I can do anymore, and I believe that's simply because I've played the next several iterations of Mario, I know what he can do, and it feels like I'm de-evolving to make Mario work the way I need him to work. It feels antithetical to this franchise that I can't just jump back into this game again and be just as good as it as I was 30 years ago, yet here I find myself.

But it's also still truly impressive that this game even exists. It's remarkable that Nintendo was able to nail a 3D platformer right out the gate and completely redefine what the next generation of video games would look like. It might not be as easy to jump back into as other Mario games, and it does show its age more than most of the other games in the series as well, but it's not less unbelievable how well this concept works in their first 3D Mario attempt. Super Mario 64 might be more locked in time than other Mario games, yet it's still a masterpiece that ensured Mario didn't just get stuck behind in two-dimensions.

I don't have a huge relationship to Nintendo which I find a little strange. Yeah I played Pokemon on my Gameboy and Fire Emblem on my GBA but outside of the portable world my main console was always PlayStation. I didn't grow up with Mario, I grew up with Crash, Ape Escape, Jak and Dakter, Spyro and Sly Cooper. If there was a PlayStation mascot game, chances are I played it. So how did I come back to this game specifically? Well I honored a word to a friend that I would play this after they read something of mine. Suffice to say after all of this lead-up, I think this game is fun. It didn't blow me away or convert me to loving Mario or the games but I do think there is clearly something here for people to latch onto.

I think the main draw for this title all these years is the gameplay. It is really incredible to still see how much they nailed Mario’s movement in the 3d space. I never felt like I was playing an older game except in a few instances but this game really shines with how timeless the movement feels. To add to that, while I'm not a speed runner, I watched a couple of them and watching people break the game in such a way is still so satisfying. Even chaining slides to jumps and wall kicks felt like something I could do today. This game just feels future-proofed in that way at least in regards to movement.

The levels are another area that really excels more often than not. If I wanted to run through all of them we would be here all day but I think there just needs to be a solid B grade for me. Pretty good with some great but some stinkers. I think what I want to actually say about the levels and how they will stay with me, is that it reminded me of Skies of Arcadia a bit where the level design felt so good that it makes the levels feel pretty big and open even on the N64. I think when I was star hunting for the last ones I wanted to get, I thought it would take forever but was always surprised and how quick it really went by.

For me the areas that haven't aged the best are the camera and any of the boss fights. I know I'm commenting on bosses from a game designed for children but I kind of forgot you fight Bowser more than once. It's just clear that the levels, star collecting and movement tech are what mattered here and they are pretty great. The camera was the only other thing that gave me trouble and I won't say I'm an expert platformer, it's probably one of my least played genres but when I do play a modern one I am used to a 360 full rotation, not one locked to Lakitu following Mario, although that's a cute touch. I just had some fiddly moments which is pretty good considering how well the game has aged.

So where does this all leave me? I think it is in a spot where I can appreciate this title pretty aptly for what it was and how it still shines through all these years later. I don't see myself actively pursuing other Mario platforming titles but it has given me a nice push to try the Paper Mario or Mario RPG titles at some point. Either way I wanted to just make a really big standard review for this. I did enjoy my time overall and I want to thank my friend for giving me the push to step outside my comfort zone.

3D PLATFORMER - Mario embarks on a quest to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser, exploring a magical castle and its diverse worlds to collect Power Stars in order to thwart Bowser's plans.

PROS:

++ Movement. Although the camera and the visuals aged poorly, the movement aged wonderfully. On paper, Mario can only run and jump. But that's putting it very lightly. Yes, Mario can only run and jump, but the fun is found in mastering all the different types of jumps in order to beat levels faster. In total, Mario can do a long jump, backflip, triple jump, side flip, wall jumps, dive & slide, and a couple of other things. At first, I found the movement to be quite slippery, but the more I got used to it, the more I realized the level of precision you can achieve within this movement system. This is only proven by the crazy speedrun feats that others are able to do. It is the definition of "simple to learn, but difficult to master". The fact that this game makes basic movement highly enjoyable and engaging is quite impressive.

++ Level design. I really appreciate the game's level design because it highly encourages experimentation. There's a "correct" way to obtain each star, but nothing is stopping the player from trying to obtain the star using another method and paving their own path. The levels are designed with the advanced movement system in mind. It was incredibly satisfying to get stars knowing that I didn't follow the prescribed (or default) method.

++ Charming. Most of the worlds/levels were quite memorable: Bob-Omb Battlefield, Cool-Cool Mountain, Whomp's Fortress, Big Boo's Haunt, and Tiny-Huge Island, just to name a few. The music score was equally great. It's another game that oozes charm.

++ Revolutionary. Paved the way for future 3D platformers.

++ Power Stars. The way the game progresses is through collecting more Power Stars. A glitch-less run will require the player to collect 70 of the 120 stars available. But I really appreciated this system because it highly encourages the player to fully explore each level. Each of the 15 worlds featured 7 Power Stars, and the player had to do different things in order to acquire them. It encourages the player to interact with the whole level and to see every inch, instead of just running past everything. It goes back to the game's great level and game design. Also, this made it so that a player can progress any way they want. If they didn't like a certain world, they had the option of completely ignoring it and getting their stars someplace else. The game requiring only 70 out of the 120 was a brilliant move in my opinion.

CONS:

-- Camera. The biggest issue I had with this game is the (seemingly) unwieldy and sometimes un-cooperative camera. I understand that this was one of the first 3D platformers, so I know that the camera is obviously going to be highly flawed by today's standards. But nevertheless, I died a fair share of times because the camera would switch angles last second, or refuse to move how I wanted it to move. It definitely caused some frustration but because it paved the way for future 3D platformers, I'll give it some grace.

-- Dated visuals. Not necessarily the fault of the game, but the visuals didn't really age all that well.

-- Easy bosses. I understand that it was made for children, but I think the bosses are way too easy. Many just requiring one or two hits to beat, without requiring the player to really try all that much.

What's kind of sad is we're very unlikely to witness another technological and aesthetic leap as large as the transition from 16 bit graphics to 3D. The extra dimension, fully explored in the next gen, was toyed with in the 16-bit era, albeit very rudimentary. Star Fox on the SNES is a good example of this early experimentation.

A lot was on the line for Super Mario 64. Not only as a launch title for the n64 but also as Nintendo's first foray into the new dimension. What's shocking is just how much Nintendo knocked this out of the park on the first attempt. What's sad is how little they have pushed this since.

It's been stated that Miyamoto's primary directive when developing this game was to make Mario's controls feel good to play. In a sense, even the clunky n64 controller feels like it was designed for Mario and not the other way around. The controls feel great. It cannot be understated just how different this was from any previous Mario game. Mario's moveset increased ten fold compared to Super Mario World. Mario could now punch, kick, slide, somersault, back flip, dive, mid-air dive, wall jump, butt slam, double and triple jump and able to string together any of the previous moves seamlessly together with only a few button presses. The end result is one of Mario's most robust move sets to date (yes including new Mario titles). This development prerogative was nothing short of genius and paid dividends in making Mario 64 immensely enjoyable to play. My save file got corrupted after I collected roughly 60 stars, yet I didn't mind starting over and in a way it was satisfying because I was able to get back where I was in roughly a quarter of the time. Mario 64 is a skill game that feels satisfying to master and play with. You can often get rewarded for figuring out clever ways to sequence break which is why Mario 64 is still a popular game to speed run. While Mario games have always been about athleticism, Mario 64 takes this to the natural conclusion in a great way.

Even the hub is still one of the best (my personal favorite) Mario hubs to date. It's simple, yet maintains the same language the player uses to progress through levels. Resulting in no dissonance between game play and level selection. It's all the same. They even push the hub to it's limits by including clever secrets which open up new possibilities in the levels themselves. Thus removing a disconnect between level and hub. It's legitimately fun to explore the castle and find a secret entrance, star or power switch. The power ups are certainly limited compared to previous Mario games, yet the game more than makes up for it via robust Mario move set. So this decision doesn't feel lazy. The power ups don't do too much to modify Mario's move set (excluding flight of course), have time limits making them more akin to challenges. This actually is a good thing since it forces you to still engage with Mario's core mechanics. One negative thing about the flying power up in Mario 3 and World is how it allowed you to completely by-pass platforming and effectively skip levels. Having power ups being tied to specific challenges removes this issue.

The difficulty curve is kind of all over the place for stars. This doesn't bother me, because this allows players of all skill levels to enjoy the game. There are 120 stars, but only 70 are required to beat the game. In tandem with "Star Power" being used to gate keep more challenging levels from curious players, gave the devs the freedom to challenge yet still make the game very accessible. They managed to have their cake and eat it too which is a rare accomplishment. In addition, this is one of the least linear Mario games still. There is a linear progression to unlocking levels, but often you never need to complete all the stars in a given course before you're allowed to move on to a new course. In fact, the early levels are all designed explicitly to encourage you to leave and come back early. This is ensured by including a few stars that require a power up (which you haven't unlocked yet) to collect. This never felt frustrating to me like the power switches did in Super Mario world. Mostly because getting to different courses is actually fun since you have access to Mario's full move set in the castle. In World you had to tediously scroll through the board game to get back to where you were. Sure this was easy, but certainly not fun!

Boss fights aren't anything special. You fight the same Bowser 3 times, given he has one added move each time and the last time you fight him he has more health. But it's effectively the same fight just marginally more difficult. There are other bosses throughout the game, but they are likewise pretty simplistic. With the exception of the Pyramid boss. This fight isn't hard but it does shake up the formula more than any other boss encounter making it stand out.

I do have an immense amount of Nostalgia for this game, but I would argue it still holds up on its merits. I still remember leaving school on a rainy day and my Mom standing outside the school to pick me up. She was under and umbrella and holding something in a plastic bag. I came up to her, curious. She extended her hand towards me, Super Mario 64's cartridge in a plastic bag. My Mom traded in my NES, it's games then used that to get me a n64 and Mario 64. I was ecstatic! I hugged her tightly praising her profusely. Then I played the hell out of the game the moment I got home. If you have never played Mario 64, fix that immediately. Sure the graphics are dated, but the game play is timeless.

There's no denying how much Mario 64 has redefined gaming. Any modern platformer owes its DNA and core mechanics to this game. This game sprinted so later games could walk. It's a shame that contemporary Nintendo has stagnated profoundly and Nintendo has become increasingly anti-consumer. They have finally started to run out of their good faith they established from their humble beginnings.

I don't know what to expect to say about this that hasn't been said everywhere by everyone for years. It was a revolutionary game, it paved the way for 3D Platformers, it's a masterpiece, etc. Those statements may or may not be true enough, but I'm not trained or versed enough to say that.

What I can say though is that yeah, checking this out again 27 years after the first time I played it, it still is pretty great. It's clever, the levels are varied, it's kind of crazy how well they were able to cram so much stuff to do into relatively small amounts of space.

I had gotten all 120 Stars back in '97, so figured I should do that again. I don't remember it being so hard back then. Maybe it was, maybe I took more time with it instead of feeling like I was trying to just "do it again". Maybe it wasn't even that hard this time, just harder than I expected.

It's not like most Mario games don't end up with some levels towards the end that are like "Oh, yeah, I guess this does get harder", but my biggest issue with this playthrough was that some of this difficulty kind of feels like it's just the controls. You can get used to it enough to offset some of it, but overall, it really does feel like sometimes you're fighting the controls more than the level design.

That was really the main point I wanted to make and the rest of this is just rambling fluff because I didn't want to just come in and say "The Controls are rough, but it's still pretty good". But I guess that's about all I need.

Note - I played this as part of the 3D All Stars Collection on Switch

I firmly fit in the age category when Mario 64 was released on original hardware, and it blew young minds everywhere. Now, playing it so many years on it is showing a little age, but aren't we all?

I don't know all the mid 90's history of 3D platformers, but from what I understand, Mario 64 was the first to perfect the genre (at the time). I hesitate to call it an "open world" 3D platformer, because its more of a hub world with instanced levels. The entire game takes place in Princess Peach's castle where you openly explore different rooms and jump into paintings to enter a level. Its open in the sense that permitting you collect enough stars (120 in all), you can complete the levels in any order and I believe mostly any star within each level. Personally, I opted to do each world in order, collecting each star in order. Again, while the worlds are open once you enter them, in the sense that you can go anywhere at (mostly) any time, they are also linear in the sense that they stay the same. Enemies spawn the same, everything is found in the same location except for slight variations depending if a star has specific completion requirements. Each course has six stars, plus one extra for collecting 100 coins in each. Another 15 hidden stars in the castle takes you to a grand total of 120.

Overall, the game is pretty good. There is lots to explore, and the challenges slowly ramp up as you get later in the game, much like you would see later in a Mario Odyssey and such. Also, the minimum requirement to beat the game is 70/120 stars, so actually beating Bowser is accessible even if you don't want to grind out every level for all the stars, although I suggest you give it a try. The glaring issue to me is how annoyingly frustrating the game gets in the last half to 2/3rds. Between finding where some of the stars actually are, and then figuring out how to manipulate the game to get them and failing again and again, it can get painful.

I say not timeless, because there is other frustrations that would not have been noticeable at the time of release, but the quality of life issues are drastic when compared to modern titles. The camera frequently sucks and is annoying to use and line up. Sometimes Mario turns weird, or is very slippery when stopping and moving which leads to him falling off platforms. The game has lives, which was always common for Mario games at the time, but when you run out, you get booted out of the castle and have to run all the way back to where you were. And let me beat up the wing cap for a minute, with how shitty it controls. I dreaded ever having to use it because its such a pain in the ass. Regardless, I find myself having to take a step back and realize this game came out in 1996, and was absolutely cutting edge. I highly doubt at the time these criticisms would have been realized, so for me to look back and beat it up by modern standards is a bit disingenuous, given how much the industry has progressed.

I will leave it by saying, if you enjoy retro games, understand their quirks and limitations and appreciate them for what they are, you should take the time to work through Mario 64 (although likely you already have). If you are more the type that likes to poke at retro games and not fully committed, you might want to give Mario 64 a pass. I would argue you aren't really missing anything by skipping Mario 64 that can't be had in more modern titles.

I remember being five years old and going over to one of my grandmas' friends house... To my surprise there was a present waiting for me on the kitchen table. Opening it up, I little knew how much a single game could change my life forever. It wasn't Mario 64 but it was Mario 64 DS, definitively my most played game throughout my life, but that's not what this review is about.

Throughout my childhood I would Look through videos on YouTube, because as a 5-6 year old, Mario 64 DS was an incredibly hard game for me, I cam across a trick called Backwards Long Jumps, a trick you can use to beat the game relatively quickly... I was young so I could not decipher the fact that hey this version looks much different than the game I have been playing, I actually tried the trick several times before realizing that the version I had been watching is the original version... From the Nintendo 64. I thought it looked ugly and was happy that I had the Nintendo DS and moved on with my life, until around the age of 16.

There was a certain YouTuber I discovered around the time that did speed-runs for Super Mario 64. Clint Stevens, this was around covid so most of my time was spent playing Smash Ultimate, Animal Crossing New Horizons and watching Clint. From watching his videos I got back into a YouTuber that I had not watched in many years SimpleFlips, as well as new YouTubers Liam Kings, and Simply. My 16 year old brain was enveloped in the magic of the original Mario 64, the movement, the people, the culture. Everything about it was attractive to me, I dug up my old 2ds and busted out Mario 64 ds and for the first time in my life I beat the game as well as 100% it, I played it over and over, yearning to have the original game.

Luckily around this time it was the 35th anniversary of Mario, Nintendo released Mario 3D all stars and it was about to come out the next month later, upon pre ordering a copy of the game and getting it in the mail, I pop the game in, load it up, and immediately head into Mario 64...

I hated it...

But I hated it for reasons most players would call reasonable, the controls were actually really hard to get used to and the camera was god awful, I remember the swimming levels being the worst things I had ever played in my life... but I gave it time... I vowed to get all 120 stars. I remember 100% the game a few weeks later and in particular I remember when the game finally clicked in my head, in snowmans land there is a star that you can obtain my panning the camera to the left and triple jumping then jump diving into a big block of ice, I can't remember what the specific star is called. I think in the deep freeze though I could be wrong. I had pulled off speedrun strats in level prior though it was rare I admit, something in my brain just loved the moved I just pulled off, it looked good on screen, it felt good, Mario did exactly what I wanted him to. After that run was over I immediately started a new file, and then another, and another.

I remember playing only Mario 64 for a good year straight, I even began emulating the game, playing rom hacks, watching speed-runs. It completely took over my mind. I began speedrunning, though its not overly impressive to me now I remember crying from happiness after getting a sub 20 in 16 star. Mario 64 isn't just a game to me, it is a spiritual experience, and emotional one.

It is the greatest game I have ever played, it's more than just a game.

I remembered when Mario 64 came out, it was a huge hit, all my friends raved about it, shared secrets, and the various ways to get different stars, I tried it, and didn't like it. I distinctly remember dying over and over, getting frustrated with controls, and just not feeling any return on the struggle.

Because of these I only played the first 3 worlds usually for an hour, then rage quit.

The obvious answer is I just needed to get good, but even when gathering stars I shrugged and just moved on.

Recently, I played Mario Odyssey and loved it, having gained an appreciation for a 3D Mario games I thought I would revisit Mario 64 on Mario All Stars.

At first, it was going good, I loved the music, the visuals for its age popped well, and I was enjoying some of the exploration. I still felt like often I was fighting the controls more then the barriers (walking in a straight line is legitimately hard in this game), but I felt like I had an ok grasp of them, progressing slowly but surely. Finding stars felt good, and when I got stuck I just looked up a walkthrough (an option not available before since internet wasn't a huge thing for me back when it was released) .

Then I got past the first batch of worlds, and immediately was reminded why I disliked the game. The lava level and sand level both had me dying in such annoying ways, oh I mistepped and died, oh Mario jumped but not quite right...dead, oh I have to walk in a straight-line but the camera went wonky...dead. After an hour of struggling and growing increasingly frustrated, I decided to put the game down.

For me, the game is better sitting in the past. I'm sure the other Mario 3D games aren't such a struggle to play. Maybe if you played and loved it back in the day you will still like it, but for me, the barrier to play and wonky controls are just infuriating.

Great soundtrack though.

One of the first video games I ever played, I still vaguely remember me and my brother opening this on Christmas day along with our N64 and what followed was an experience I wouldn't forget. The game wasn't particularly difficult and the camera was a nightmare at times, but everything else from hunting stars to the incredible soundtrack to those simplistic but still memorable encounters with Bowser were amazing. This game is a big reason why the Nintendo 64 is still my favourite console.

PROS

• Bright, colorful art style that is still appealing to this day
• Loaded to the brim with secrets and objectives
• Inviting levels are a pleasure to navigate
• Iconic hub world and game structure
• Koji Kondo's legendary soundtrack is pure 🔥
• Flexible, exciting move-set is still one of the best in all of 3D platformers
• Given how much of an unknown 3D was at the time, an astonishing amount of the game holds up perfectly well

CONS

• Awful, awful camera complete with annoying sound effects every time the angle changes
• Mario's forward momentum affects his controls in weird ways that were polished out of later entries in the series
• Some objectives are lazy and a pain in the butt to complete (****ing 100 coin stars...)

Super Mario 64 is one of those games that never gets old - The visuals are of course dated by modern standards, but the core of the game remains as enjoyable as ever.

The controls still feel fantastic and the level design remains great. Like many other Mario games, it offers players a path to beat the game with moderate difficulty, while also incorporating plenty of additional challenges for completionists or people who enjoy the difficulty of collecting some of the harder stars in the game.

It is cliche to call a game 'iconic', but Mario 64 took a style (3D platforming) that had been hit-and-miss on other console of the time and nailed a home run on it's first at bat.

Few games are as transformative as this was, for it's time - It really set the standard by which all other 3D games would be measured (in this genre, and others).