How do we feel about Super Mario 64?

Feels

  • 10 out of 10

    Votes: 6 42.9%

  • 9 out of 10

    Votes: 1 7.1%

  • 8 out of 10

    Votes: 1 7.1%

  • 7 out of 10

    Votes: 5 35.7%

  • 6 out of 10

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 5 out of 10

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 4 out of 10

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 3 out of 10

    Votes: 1 7.1%

  • 2 out of 10

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 1 out of 10

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    14
Flygon64

Flygon64

King Bowser
Banned User
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MarioWiki
Flygon64
I've smelt an anti-SM64 sentiment growing 'round... an EVIL agenda by a brainwashed shadowy cabal surely, I'm not a nutjob. I love 64's low poly kids' anime aesthetic with digital artifice and its masterfully composed soundtrack. When you let yourself adjust to its controls and familiarize yourself with its environments, with patience, you can have a special gaming experience that none of its sequels replicate. It's a well-paced game, being booted out of a level is a design decision that has its faults overblown, it's a very minor pacing issue at worst and I hardly think it's much of a problem at all besides when it comes to coin related stars. You can decide to quickly hop right back into the painting world if you want to play another level or you can move onto a different world and try something else. It's the Mario game where each playthrough gets better as you do!

basically

it's built around its technical shortcomings. it's really cool. and people are really mean :(
 
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I've played the 64 DS version, quite fun.

No plans of playing the OG 64 version, and if I did, it would be with mods.
 
I've 100%ed the N64 version and played a significant amount of the DS version but haven't quite finished it yet - it's been too long and I need to pick it back up again but life happened and then all the new games in recent years are taking my attention more rn

I think that SM64 was a groundbreaking game for its time and is still fun to play, but I think it hasn't aged entirely well and doesn't hold up to some of its successors such as Galaxy and Odyssey. I guess my perspectives are different than say someone who played it in the 90s, since I was born 7 years after it came out and was 16 by the time I first played it.

I actually prefer the DS version though, I never massively minded the controls/physics and enjoy the extra content and mini games but Waluigi was left out :mad:
 
only the original n64 version is worth playing and you have to play it with a nintendo 64 controller

the DS version is lame cuz who the fuck at nintendo decided 'ah yes, let's remake a game where the controls are literally centered around having an analog stick to control mario to a system that does not have an analog stick'

dumb ass
 
64 DS was one of the first games I remember genuinely enjoying so I'm kinda nostalgic for it. As for the original 64, my feelings on it are kinda weird. I still enjoy it and all but I've played/watched so many hacks of it that I just find myself being uninterested in the vanilla game. I'd genuinely rather play through Super Mario 74 again, even though it probably doesn't hold up nearly as well. For some reason I'm just a lot more fond of it than I am the original.

In short, SM74 (and a whole bunch of other hacks) better, and there's a reason I only have SM64DS on my Wii U Virtual Console.
 
i see a lot of people claim that calling out Sunshine for its glitchiness without being even harsher on sm64 is hypocritical but I disagree.

Super Mario 64 is a very primitive game by today's standards and it's not flawless, but it also understands its own limits. It doesn't have overly ambitious level design with more complex geometry than its physics engine is optimized to handle. So while glitches are still present, most of them require you to be trying to pull them off and the ones that randomly slap you in the face are both rarer and when they do happen they're less likely to result in "oh now you're dead"

I don't know how much of my bias comes from growing up on SM64 (both versions), skipping to Galaxy, and not playing Sunshine until adulthood, but I feel like this explanation is at least an attempt to articulate the differences I perceive in a context that isn't nostalgia biased. But I will admit Sunshine looking graphically closer to Galaxy subconsciously made me expect it to be as polished as Galaxy. And i wasn't nearly as analytical when first experiencing SM64.

oops this turned into arguably more of a Sunshine dunk than a SM64 defense but idk they play into each other and constantly get compared so i think it's valid. SM64 defined my childhood, it was my first 3D game, all its imperfections were things I got used to because of how magical it was to be playing it. When I grew older, my mindset became more analytical and critical, and that's when I played Sunshine for the first time. I tried to have a magical experience like with SM64 but just got frustration instead.

the DS version similarly was also something I experienced young enough to feel genuine nostalgia and wonder for. I was like 9 when it came out, and honestly had only been playing the original for a couple years at that point, but the idea of being able to take it on the go had already become mythical to me. And suddenly it was real. Not only that, but it had Luigi, it had more levels, it had WARIO even. Yeah the D-pad wasn't the most fluid control scheme but considering I'd always fantasized about playing SM64 on the Game Boy Advance having to control it with the d-pad was a concession I was always aware would need to be made. To me, a minor inconvenience for the insanely surreal experience of... actually.... experiencing... SM64.... on the go! It's something we take for granted now, with the console and handheld literally just being The Same System now, but back then? God I wish I could feel that magic again.
 
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?
 
I believe I do, the difference for me is I find the horrors enjoyable lol.

Silly old computers trying to be conventional cartoons and failing appeals to my taste. Seeing more promo material, looking at the series' developing aesthetic through a critical lens and learning more about the artists' cultural moment, recently, made me finally see what Nintendo was trying to go for, though I'll admit the team failed quite a bit their first go lmao. I started liking its world as a mysterious digital hellscape medium where people lug around GMOD ragdolls and later also began to appreciate it as Princess Toadstool's castle with a magical art gallery they wanted it to be, with the help of DS, the internet, and growing past childhood orientalism. This is not to imply anything about you, I'm only speaking about my own experience here.

I gave the soundtrack a second listen and I can hear what you mean. There's very much a subtle dissonance, I think it's the samples and their quality, again, contributes to the computer dream vibe for me. That quality is also why I don't like a lot of arrangements that lose it, it's the mix of discomfort and comfort of something like Jolly Roger Bay which is what makes it and the whole entry special to me.

I can't blame anyone for finding the game too off-putting but there's an appeal to its unnatural qualities, which I hope you can also understand even if you disagree.

When it comes to gameplay I can only say, to each their own, though I'm with you on the u-turn problem, that still annoys me sometimes to this day. What exactly did it destroy about Super Mario World exactly, if you don't mind? I'm assuming Mario's weight and speed, which, again, I won't argue against, matter of personal taste, it's why I find controlling him so satisfying. I'm not much of a fan of SMW myself so I'm biased in that regard as well.
 
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we're having a sincere conversation about things we find interesting

love and joy

and other such things
 
I appreciate how understanding your reply is!

I feel like the step back that i see is that they shifted the flow of gameplay to adversarial terrain physics. In the 2D games, hitting a wall didn't rebound you and cancel your jump arc. Most slopes didn't force you to slide. No fall damage, no air meter… 64 added mechanics that sound logical (in either a realistic or cartoony sense) but only make the ground really picky about how you approach it. And collision bugs, like wall/slope confusion and exposed ceiling hitboxes, do this no favors.

Like, take the pipes in World 1-1. You can jump against them to clear them. The standard jump suffices, even though the pipes get progressively taller. It just gives you practice with the jump button's handling. This would be a challenge with 64 physics since you need precision or advanced moves to clear such high walls without your jump getting denied. The skill floor for everything is higher, and i just like more approachable, forgiving games.

Meanwhile, formerly core mechanics like blocks, powerups, and enemy comboing, which all added tension–reward systems that i prefer, got heavily downplayed. These are parts of the series identity, swept under the rug through its adolescence. I always got the sense that each successive game was healing towards a closer adaptation of Super Mario that was unattainable (and perhaps undesirable) at the start of the 3D leap.

Admittedly 64 does elaborate on World's jump dichotomy by giving you even more moves to choose from. But for lack of slope traction, wall sliding, or midair control, i often have to stop to survey which jump reaches the next platform, then take extra time to set it up and space it out properly. Later games make it more lenient to use Wall Jumps and midair boosts to recover, so i get better flow out of those movesets and it's less difficult to pull off stunts that feel rewarding, despite the obstacle courses still falling short of their 2D contemporaries.
 
This is one of my favorite games of all time. I got to play it all the way through on the 64 for the first time last year and 100% it. I also discovered while playing this that I like really hard games. (Or at least, wish that Nintendo's more recent titles were a lot harder.) You could say the controls are bad. But I'll just say that they're hard. To me, games that take you awhile to master the controls are more enjoyable for me and less boring. My first experience with this game is actually the DS version, which I played for only a little bit about 10 years ago. (on a 3DS) But now after 100% both 64, sunshine, my next game to beet is 64 DS. (I also 100% 3D land and mostly all of the rest of the games)

Now, back to the OG, my only complaints with the game is that I had to look up a few things, like how you can walk straight up those pillars in Shifting Sand Land, or that unlocking the metal cap was through one of the levels and not from the hub world. Otherwise I think the game is pretty clever. I miss the gradual unlocking of hats (or F. L .U. D .D. nozzles) that later games don't have. Walking around and in peaches castle feels kind of eerie, and I've heard all the theories. I think it's just because Bowser has taken over the castle. Also, why in the world are the toads slightly see through before you walk up to them???
One of the toads gives you a star.
Maybe he's an early form of Captain Toad, MY NEMESIS!?
naa...


- Hint Toad, out
 
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Hint Toad said:
This is one of my favorite games of all time. I got to play it all the way through on the 64 for the first time last year and 100% it. I also discovered while playing this that I like really hard games. (Or at least, wish that Nintendo's more resent titles were a lot harder.) You could say the controls are bad. But I'll just say that they're hard. To me, games that take you awhile to master the controls are more enjoyable for me and less boring
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I think you just articulated my exact thoughts on the control scheme and the ones of 3D retro games as a whole better than I ever have lol.
 
Flygon64 said:
I think you just articulated my exact thoughts on the control scheme and the ones of 3D retro games as a whole better than I ever have lol.
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Nice! Also the u-turn problem is even more prominent in 64 DS. To me that is just bad game design. Or maybe it's because I'm playing on a 3DS and need to be using the d-pad instead of the flat joy stick?
 
I use d-pad and that still happens to me, my biggest issue with that version of the game now that I think about it.
 
I am a composer and have to say the music for this game is some of their best! Do you know if we're allowed to share YouTube links to music covers? I made a piano cover album with dire dire docs and piranha plant lullaby. If I can't share the link I can just share the name of the album.
 
Hint Toad said:
I am a composer and have to say the music for this game is some of their best! Do you know if we're allowed to share YouTube links to music covers? I made a piano cover album with dire dire docs and piranha plant lullaby. If I can't share the link I can just share the name of the album.
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There are whole threads dedicated to sharing them, you can post those here if you want though you should put them in one post to avoid spam.
 
I mean, SM64 on the N64 has some good memories attached to it, when my dad and I took turns trying to beat King Bob-omb (we couldn't). When I played it on Switch in 3D All Stars, it was the second game I beat (after Galaxy) and the second game I finished 100% (again after Galaxy) I enjoyed it, but I despised doing Tick Tock Clock coin star and most of Rainbow Ride. Final Bowser Road's red coins were also tedious. Overall, I think it's just a great game that started a lot of other great and occasionally spectacular games.
 
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