Super Mario 64
Super Mario 64 is a 3D platform game originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 1996. It was the launch game for the system, and boy, was it something. The Nintendo 64 was Nintendo’s first foray into a fully 3D capable console. It was named as such because it was a 64-bit system, though bits started to not matter around this time. Nintendo was a little late to the game when it came to a 3D console, as the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation had both been around for about a year at this time. That didn’t matter, though, because Super Mario 64 changed everything. It was considered a revolutionary game, forever changing the game industry as we know it. This was one of the first fully polygonal games with a completely dynamic camera system and true analog movement. Analog sticks were used in gaming’s infancy, but they briefly went into remission when the digital pad came about. However, Nintendo brought back analog sticks for 3D gaming, which worked wonders and quickly became the standard. There were many 3D games before Mario 64, but most of them were still designed like 2D games. Mario 64 was one of the first games to fully take advantage of what the third dimension had to offer. On top of all that, Mario 64 is also one of the best games ever made.
One day, Princess Toadstool Peach (this is one of the first Mario games in North America to refer to her by the Peach moniker) invites Mario to the castle for cake. Mario arrives via warp pipe, which is typical for a portly Italian plumber in the Mushroom Kingdom. Upon entering Peach’s Castle, Mario realizes that something has gone horribly wrong. Bowser, the giant turtle antagonist of the Mario series, has taken over Peach’s Castle. Oh no, I wasn’t expecting that! I will say that this premise is slightly original this time around, as Bowser usually doesn’t take over somebody else’s castle; he tends to kidnap the Princess and then chill at his own place. And yeah, he’s technically kidnapped the Princess again, except he also has her castle. As always, it’s up to Mario to put a stop to the King of Koopas. However, there is a catch. Bowser stole all of the Power Stars and is using their unimaginable power to control the castle and imprison its servants. In order to actually get to Bowser, Mario will have to recover a good amount of those stars. This is one of Mario’s most grandiose adventures outside of an RPG, so it’s kind of a big deal. I applaud Mario 64’s plot for changing things up a bit with the setting, even though it’s still another quest to save the Princess.
This time, the plumber has a ton of new tricks up his proverbial sleeves. First off, there is no run button. Mario’s walking and running speeds are controlled via the analog stick, which is a standard feature in most games today, but was revolutionary at the time. Lightly pressing on the analog stick will have Mario slowly tip-toe around; useful for sneaking past sleeping foes. Of course, Mario’s main thing is jumping. Mario’s standard jump in this game is rather ineffectual, as it doesn’t travel very far or very high, so it’s necessary for players to make use of Mario’s more advanced jumps to get around. His more advanced jumps include an acrobatic backflip, which is an easy way to get extra height, but is slow to perform. Pressing the jump button whenever Mario makes a skidding turn allows him to perform a side flip, a move taken from Donkey Kong for the Game Boy. The side flip is similar to the backflip in that it gives Mario extra height, but it’s a lot faster to perform. However, it’s harder to pull off. Then there’s the long jump, which is done by quickly ducking and pressing the jump button while running. This advanced maneuver is difficult to pull off for beginners, but it’s an invaluable move for getting across large gaps. The least practical but coolest move is the triple jump, which is basically three consecutive jumps, with each jump being higher than the last. Lastly, Mario can do the infamous wall jump by jumping towards a wall and pressing the jump button at the right time. Mario’s large repertoire of moves adds an incredible amount of depth to the game.
Most 3D games prior to Mario 64 stuck with fixed camera angles, which was a lot easier to pull off. Having a dynamic camera system does open a can of worms, though, because now you need camera controls. The concept of camera controls was unique and strange at the time, but it was obviously a necessity, and pretty much all games today have them. Mario 64’s camera controls will seem a bit primitive by our current standards, though they have aged reasonably well. For the purposes of controlling cameras in 3D games, the N64 controller was designed with four yellow buttons near the top right of its face. These buttons are exclusively dedicated to controlling the camera in Mario 64, although some games use them for other purposes. Unfortunately, the camera doesn’t support analog control like in newer games, but you still get a good amount of viewpoints with what’s available here. Pressing the down C button zooms out the camera, and pressing the up C button lets you look around the environment from Mario’s perspective. Even though you do have plenty control over the camera, the game is usually pretty good at giving you the best angles automatically, so you rarely have to do it yourself. As far as camera issues, the game doesn’t have many, but it does have a few. There are a small amount of locations where fixed camera angles are used, preventing you from changing the angles at all. For the most part, though, Mario 64 has a functional camera system.
The whole game is set in Peach’s Castle, which acts as the hub that connects you to all the other worlds in the game. You access the other worlds in the game via magical paintings; jumping through them will take you to a unique world. The worlds have varied environments like grassy fields, mountainous regions, deserts, volcanoes, a haunted mansion, snowy lands, and much more. A nice touch is how there are sometimes worlds within worlds. For example, the desert world has a pyramid inside of it, and entering the pyramid transports you to a new location entirely, practically revealing another world to explore. The same deal happens in the lava world, where jumping inside of the volcano takes you to another fiery location to spelunk. You’ve also got a few cool water levels to swim through. My favorite is this water stage that eventually takes you to an undersea town; it’s so much fun to explore. Speaking of water levels, Mario 64 has really great swim controls. They take a little getting used to, as they offer a large degree of precision, but they’re superb. This is something even modern 3D games have trouble with. Anyway, I would like to make special mention of the infamous slide sections. Throughout the game, there are these small courses styled like racetracks that are suspended in midair, and Mario slides across them on his butt. Sometimes you’ll be racing an opponent or going for a fast time, but the objective is usually to get to the end without falling to your death. These levels are very fun and are a pleasant deviation from the norm.
Everything you do in Mario 64 revolves around collecting stars. The stars are primarily collected inside of the worlds within the paintings, but many of the paintings are locked away behind doors. Each door usually has a star counter associated with it, and it’ll unlock once you’ve acquired the specified amount of stars. Every world has a certain number of stars to collect, and they tend to involve various objectives. One of the first stars in the game is won by beating a Koopa in a race, for example. There are also instances where you may need to defeat an enemy or boss to earn a star, collect eight red coins, collect a hundred gold coins, etc. What’s truly brilliant about the stars in Mario 64 is that, for the most part, they can be collected in any order. Additionally, you typically have access to a large number of worlds at any one time, which you can visit in any order you please. This makes Mario 64 one of the least linear Mario games ever released, giving the player complete freedom in how they want to play the game. In some ways, Mario 64 is a true sandbox game. There are 120 stars in the Mario 64, but you only need a little over half of that to beat the game. Coupled with being the most nonlinear Mario game ever, Mario 64 is also one of the lengthiest Mario games ever, with countless hours of play time available if you’re up to it. People bought a whole console to play this game, and it was worth it.
The classic Mushrooms and Fire Flowers have been replaced with mystical caps that bestow unique abilities upon Mario. Before you actually get the caps, you must find secret switches hidden throughout the game that will activate their respective power-up blocks. This is clearly a reference to the Switch Palaces from Super Mario World. Once a switch is activated, it will remain activated forever. The power-up blocks that contain the caps aren’t available in every area of the game, but they do make regular appearances. Power-ups in this game all function based on a timer, so you have to reacquire them once time runs out. It’s not too big of a problem, because power-up boxes will reappear once your power-up runs out. As for the caps themselves, you’ve got the Wing Cap, Metal Cap, and Vanish Cap. The Metal Cap makes Mario impervious to damage and allows him to walk along the sea floor, whereas the Vanish Cap makes Mario invisible, enabling him to pass through certain walls. The best of these caps is easily the Wing Cap, which gives Mario the incredible ability of flight. You have to keep in mind that this was one of the first fully 3D games, so being able to fly anywhere in full 3D was absolutely mind blowing. The controls for flight are a bit tricky, but that was deliberate on the developers’ part, as they didn’t want the ability of flight to break the game too easily. Once you get the hang of it, though, it ends up being one of the most exciting parts of the game.
You fight Bowser multiple times throughout the game, and defeating him nets you a big key that unlocks a major room inside of Peach’s Castle, earning you access to new worlds. I have to say, the fights with Bowser in this game are probably the best out of any Mario game ever made. Bowser is humongous in this game, making Mario look like an ant in comparison. So how can such a small plumber topple a beast of that magnitude? It’s simple, really; grab his tail and swing him around in circles. This is very fun and satisfying to pull off, especially since you get to rotate the control stick like a madman. Simply spinning Bowser around won’t accomplish anything, though. To actually injure Bowser, you must throw him into one of the large explosives surrounding the arena. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because it’s not easy to aim when you’re spinning in circles at such a high speed. The first few battles with Bowser only make you do this once to win the fight, but the final fight makes you do it multiple times. Similar to the original Super Mario, each subsequent Bowser fight is harder than the last, sometimes introducing new gimmicks to make the fight harder. For instance, the second fight with Bowser takes place on a large platform suspended over lava, and Bowser will sometimes tip the platform to make you slide right off. The only flaw to the Bowser fights is that they’re basically the same fight recycled over and over, but they’re so much fun, it doesn’t matter.
Mario 64 is perhaps the single most important game in video game history. There have been many influential games over the years, like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and the original Super Mario, but this one takes the cake. This game helped the world make the jump to 3D, a jump that will probably never be replicated. It created a genre that influenced companies to make many identical copies of, usually unsuccessfully so. In addition to its immeasurable influence, Mario 64 is also a wonderful game. The game was way ahead of its time, featuring camera controls and game design that went unmatched for many years. As a result of that, it has aged surprisingly well, though it does have a few blemishes. For one, the graphics are pretty awful, which was due to 3D gaming’s early inability to render rounded surfaces, making everything a triangular shape of some kind. The other issue is that the camera isn’t quite up to our current standards, even if it took the rest of the game industry countless years to meet Mario 64’s camera control quality. Other than those issues, though, the game is absolutely fantastic.
