I find it strenuous to imagine Super Mario 64 on its own terms, as whatever game it would have been intended and understood as upon release. To me, it has so persistently been anything else—a Machinima engine, a sandbox of glitches and exploits, a cryptic tome of rumors and mysteries, a technical showpiece, a grasp for unattainable realism at the expense of mechanical identity, a canvas for modders, a cautionary tale for computer scientists, an uncanny dream-prison of Platonic irreality, a minigame and soundfont donor, a shared creepypasta universe, a historical artifact warranting defense as good for its time (rather than for its own merits?)… It feels impossible to consider it with eyes untainted by decades of hindsight, fan reinterpretation and blasphemy. A thick wall blocks me from connecting to this game except through some deep misplaced darkness in its nature. I struggle to put this into normal prose, let alone a score out of 10. It is sincerely one of the most fascinating games in the main series!
Either way, in terms of gameplay, i can never seem to adjust to the controls. It's like pulling Mario around by a leash, with no midair handling. When turning around, it's a crapshoot whether he skids and doubles back along a line, as expected, or makes a wide U-turn off to the side and flies off the platform. Or he'll just start sliding uncontrollably, half the time off of a bugged collision triangle and halfway across the course. Bonking off of walls is an appalling addition and i hate that it's stuck around, and the cherry on top in this first incarnation is the overly precise window to Wall Kick. For how many segments the health meter has, it's far too easy for any form of knockback to send you slipping and careening straight into the nearest pit, instantly losing all your progress within the mission. I'm sorry to be so negative here but it's frustrating enough to mar my experience! The game introduced some really nice moves like the Long Jump, but i find that it destroys everything that made games like Super Mario World fun to control, for no directly apparent reason. But then, i'll never be able to judge this game's controls in a vacuum, independent of later 3D games that i'm primed to think feel more natural!
Perhaps a lot of this stuff explains the disconnect in opinion, and it doesn't seem like a matter where one side will have success convincing the other.
The structure of the game is pretty neat, and i'm still astonished that for all the adoration it receives, Nintendo has never acquiesced to reusing it without making breaking alterations. As an underdiscussed part of that, i love that Switch Palaces return—they should have become more of a series staple. I think the highest extent of the game's openendedness is pretty heavily hyperbolized due to how well-known the sequence breaks are; you can't get absolutely any Power Star in any order, which is a claim i've heard on multiple occasions. But it is nice to be able to change course when you're stuck, or curate a lot of what you play once you're good enough to get that choice. I wouldn't have much issue with the boot-out system if only i felt in control of Mario (and if Wing Mario Over the Rainbow didn't,, Do That), so i can see where you're coming from there.
The soundtrack feels really off somehow, ranging from just decent to unintentionally nightmarish. Mostly good compositions though, since arrangements of the soundtrack are usually stellar. For example, "Inside the Castle Walls" feels oppressively uneasy and makes navigating the hub world feel downright terrifying at times, whereas every arrangement feels perfectly calm and stately. This is probably a me thing to some extent, since i can't remember anyone else reporting that the imperfection in the guitar rhythm of the "Main Theme" is accidentally nerve-wracking, or that the original "Slider" sounds like a frenzied, overstimulating panic attack, but i have to speak my truth. Does anyone get what i'm talking about?
