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 >:(
 
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.