The start of something truly special!
I don’t really need to do some intro to the game here, it’s Super Mario 64, one of the most famous games ever made. A monumental leap in gaming history, a game that cemented itself in history as soon as it was released, and a game that fostered a community that thrives even to this day. When I first played it, I remember not really liking it much, finding its control and camera system too dated for me to really enjoy, but the more I replayed it, the more it started to click for me, to the point where I can now confidently call this my favorite 3D mario game! Sure, it can be a slog if you don’t know what you’re doing, but with enough time and dedication, you can experience something truly special,
Bowser has once again returned, this time stealing the power stars that power Peach’s Castle, sealing her away, and filling the worlds within with his evil. It’s up to our favorite plumber to once again put a stop to this turtle menace. It’s the same simple Mario plot you’ve gotten used to time and time again, and it serves its purpose well so I won’t really go into too much detail about it. It’s everything else surrounding this game that I find fascinating. There’s a specific feel Super Mario 64 brings in me, something that no other game really has been able to recreate, this strange feeling of unease. The castle plays this peaceful tune for sure, but the halls are mostly empty, Bowser’s influence clearly being felt in every corner. Graphically, the game is a tad off, which makes sense considering it;s one of the earlier 3D platformers, but it still creates a strange disconnect with the game, leaving you a little uncomfortable as you roam through these worlds. The levels themselves even feel strange, being these weird pieces of geometry stitched together, it’s an interesting feeling, and while I wouldn’t ever call this game horror, it does strike a certain creepiness to me that I always felt each run through, and it’s an aspect that I feel adds a lot of intrigue to what this game has to offer.
Gameplay first is Mario’s goal though and Super Mario 64 is no different. The basic structure is you jumping into one of the 15 levels in the game, running around exploring it looking for stars, and repeating this until you get the 70 needed to beat the game! There’s 120 total stars to get, 7 per level and a couple of hidden stars in the castle, so you have a lot of leniency in what stars you want to get, leading to a lot of variety on what stars you want to go for on each playthrough! In terms of obtaining the stars, most are pretty fun to get. Having you defeat a boss, or complete a short platforming challenge, or even find a couple of hidden secrets to unlock the star it’s fun! WIth the game having so many stars though, they got a good few that are just utter garbage to obtain no matter the run, and those stars are the ones I look the least forward to getting in an 100% run. The two main ones are the eight red coins and the 100 coin stars, these are just plain annoying to get no matter what. Eight reds isn’t so bad, but it just feels repetitive, and the spots to find them are never really that though besides one or two, so it just feels like a bit of a slog running through each stage desperate to find each coin. 100 coins are easily the worst though, these ones just SUCK, and while some stages are more generous than others with coins, there's a handful that are just horrid with the coin counter, making you really explore the whole stage for the single, tiniest coin you can find in order to get what you need, it just plain sucks! The other stars I don’t like much are the cap stars, Mario 64 has a few caps you can obtain for Mario to expand his moveset with, being the vanish, metal, and wing cap. These feel really useless most of the time, and all 3 are not used enough to be memorable besides maybe the wing cap. That one lets you basically glide in the sky, it feels weird to control, but once you get the hang of it, it can be pretty exhilarating, and I do look forward to using it whenever I can. Vanish cap is only used for three stars in the game and that’s it, it's a wasted effort and easily the worst cap in the game. I’d say metal is the worst considering it’s only used by two stars, but you get a cool song to go along with it, though I never really get to hear it since I just get the stars it needs without it, since it’s not too hard to learn the tricks required to do that. The other castle hidden stars are pretty fun and don’t take too much effort to find so they become a good pace breaker if you’re getting tired of the main stages, I like them!
As I mentioned above, there are 15 total stages here, and each one is pretty unique to each other. I enjoy them quite a bit! The intro stage Bob-omb battlefield is pretty great, having you dodge a literal warzone to get each star, it’s a good intro, and while it can be a little repetitive with how much you have to climb up the mountain, it’s a good level to get your gripes on how Mario controls. Whomp’s Fortress is one of my favorites, it’s a tiny contained level that has a ton of mini platforming challenges to it, it’s exhilarating running through it! Jolly Roger Bay is one of my least favorites, same with Dire Dire Docks as they are both the water levels of the game and Mario’s swimming just isn’t too great, once you learn fast swimming they just feel like a waste of time, I always skip them on replays. Cool Cool Mountain is alright, I like the slide section, but besides that there isn’t much to the level and it’s over before it even gets good. Big Boo’s Haunt is another one of my favorites, the small mansion space lets you nab each star quickly, and there’s a ton of opportunities to pull off some really cool walljump, it's a blast! Hazy Maze Cave is also the same, though the 8 red coins are really annoying here, but they make up for it with the funny little dinosaur they have at the bottom! Lethal Lava Land is alright, it used to be one of my favorites, but the more flat level design means Mario’s moveset doesn't get much use here besides like the dive so it’s a little boring because of it. Shifting Sand Lands sucks on the outside for similar reasons, but the pyramid itself is really fun, there’s a ton of cool ways to grab each star there, and I always like to try out different ways to do them each. Tall Tall Mountain just isn’t that great, a lot of the stars just involve you climbing up to the top, it’s a bit of a slog, and the only real saving grace is that you can clear it quickly once you learn some pretty simple tricks. Wet Dry World is incredibly fun, you don’t really have to engage with the water at all once you’re good enough, and the walljump feels cathartic here, I adore this. Tiny Huge Island is one of the worst by far, it seems like a decent idea on paper, but on execution it;s way too easy to slip off into the abyss, I hate this level. Snowman’s Land is alright, it’s once again too small to really be memorable, so it never really sticks in my mind too much. Rainbow Ride is really fun at first, but once you have to start engaging with the carpets, it becomes terrible, it's just boring autoscrollers! Tick Tick Clock I’m also mixed on, in terms of how it uses your moveset it’s a blast, but every star is just you climbing to different points of the level, it gets super repetitive quickly. The Bowser Stages are great here, no comment on them, they’re just really solid obstacle courses to go all out on, I always look forward to doing each one!
Mario’s moveset is the star of the show here and it’s what makes this game my favorite 3D Mario by far. This is easily his peak, and I find every moveset after takes away a lot of what made this one great, and while it can be really hard to fully grasp, once you practice it enough it becomes exhilarating with how amazing the acrobatics feel! You got a basic triple jump here, that one’s fun enough to pull off, but you also got a long jump and a dive letting you cover a ton of ground when used correctly, especially with the dive. I love this move so much. It’s incredibly fun hitting a jump and diving at just the right frame in order for Mario’s body to get the height needed to knock him up the ledge, it never gets old. You got a backflip which I truthfully never use, and also a sideflip which is super useful, letting you basically get the height of a backflip without needing to kill your momentum. Then there’s the walljump, easily the best moveset in your arsenal, and what I consider one of the best walljumps in gaming history. It can seem super unfair at first, Mario can easily smack into the wall and fall down, but that’s because this wall jump actually requires a ton of timing to it! One issue I have with so many modern walljumps is that they aren’t real walljumps, it's just magnetically clinging to a surface or attaching to it and sliding down automatically with you being able to jump whenever with 0 skill attached to it! It feels less like a valid move in your arsenal and more like an easy adjust button when you mess up a jump! With Mario 64, there’s actual skill behind it, you have to time your jump when you connect to the wall, and it’s always consistent when you hit it, so it’s about learning that timing and best applying it to any situation. When that timing is learned, you can use it basically anywhere, it’s such a useful move letting you scale up so many walls, the game feels designed around it at many points, and the way it rewards your dedication to learning it by giving you faster ways to get each star is cathartic, it changed my entire perception on how Mario 64 played! You can hit a wall with a walljump and have so many different combinations on how Mario leaps off of it depending on your timing, it’s incredible, I love this walljump so much and it really opened my eyes to how important a moveset can really be a platformer, it can make or break one for me at this point!
I adore Mario 64 a ton, it’s got some small issues that can hold it back in some areas, but Mario’s moveset and the variety in what stars you can get more then makes up for it. He just feels so fun to chain move togethers with, and there's a big reason why Mario 64 has such a large hacking and speedrun community behind it compared to the others, they just hit the ball out of the park with this first entry! Every replay of it has me mastering it more and more, and my time spent on Mario 64 romhacks is too high to count at this point. This was the game that really made me fall in love with platforming, and I’m so glad I was able to figure out just what made it so great!
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