I feel like a lot of Mario's issues can be contextualized for the time. The "leaving the level" syndrome allows for, say, someone working who grew up with Mario and was entering adulthood (something that had never occurred with Mario or, Hell, a video game period before except MAYBE Donkey Kong Country) to enjoy Mario by trying to figure out an objective, getting the star, and putting the controller down. I do not think that Mario 64 was a game designed for a single sit-down playthrough, and I feel like Nintendo compensated for this by making stars individualized and giving the player ample time to play around with controls and explore. Hell, it's why the outside of Peach's Castle is so massive and contains everything from things to scale to wall jump opportunities to slopes to introducing the game's water physics and ideas right off the bat. I do feel as if that's something that has been lost to time (and frankly, Banjo-Kazooie does the whole "tutorial to 3D movement" better anyway), but I feel like Mario 64 was designed as Nintendo's answer to the times in 1996 - how to foster to their kids that had gotten older, and how to make things simple for new kids. Mario was an absolute force then, but he wasn't "evergreen" or "invincible" like he was at the time that 64 DS came out, and I feel that Nintendo adapted to what it('s Japanese) fanbase craved at the time and designed the game around it. Trying to teach players to get out of levels and save through the pause menu would require further tutorializing, and Mario 64 made essentially everything other than "how to beat Bowser" and "how to use camera" learnable at the player's leisure. And I feel that "do it and explore at your own pace" mentality is why the original release remains so special to so many people, beyond just 'moving in 3D'. Or at least why we hear about Mario 64 more than, say, Crash Bandicoot or Doom as "the joy of learning the third dimension". As always, a pleasure to watch.
For me, the third dimension came from Quake. Doom was not a 3D game. Also, for me, personally, Mario 64 came after Ocarina and GoldenEye. Not the first console games I played, but the first I owned.
No game is really 3D, it is all fakery and illusion, just that later down the timeline it is done better. All graphics are fake, 3D is more a look than anything real. Flat graphics on a screen. But I can't say this is a game I have played much of, but I did play a lot of earlier PS1 games. Then later iRobot, but I doubt many others caught that game in their childhood either. (Nothing to do with the film, 3D platformer from 83.)
+Amaranthus616 While what's displayed on a 2D screen is a 2D image, the representation of the game-world internally to the game can be 3D. DOOM was a 2D game with some additional information to make it look 3D - for example, if the enemies line up you can fire two shots without changing your aim, and one will hit an enemy, say, 100 meters away at ground level, while the other hits an enemy 101 meters away but 10 meters above ground level. Or there's the total lack of bridges/tunnels - there's never any situation in the game where the floor passes over another floor below it - the closest it comes are lifts (places where the floor-level moves up and down) and places where a narrow path passes below a break in a higher path that you can cross by running across it (there's no actual jump; just the ability to blip to the new floor level if it's not too far above your current foot-level - not that you have feet as such outside of multiplayer). Or you can punch a demon that's tens of meters above or below you but within melee range horizontally. The general consensus is to refer to DOOM as a 2.5D game. Later versions of the engine, including most modern open-source engine ports, went fully 3D. Mario 64, while, yes, being represented as discrete blobs of light on a flat screen, does work mechanically as though Mario were running and jumping inside a 3D space...
My mom figured out Blast The Wall when I was 6 years old. I stayed home sick from school and I remember asking her to help me. First time she ever played a video game.
If I remember right, in the DS version, you didn't need to switch out terribly often because levels would suddenly have caps to turn into the other characters temporarily to use their specific cap powers, sometimes preventing you from needing to actually go to the rec-room to switch off to the other character.
True but some caps, like the Wario cap in Hazy Maze Cave, isn't really in a convenient spot. Also I don't do stars in order so when I see a star that I can only get with a certain cap, I find it more convenient to just boot out switch characters and come back.
1. Wow I somehow missed this reply. Honestly Yoshi noises coming from Wario was weird but in context it was fine XD 2. Yeah, admittedly not always the most convenient, but it still was better than ALWAYS having to go back and switch characters.
In regards to you talking about players mostly wanting to do clean sweeps of stages: I would have hated that as a kid, when I first played SM64. I absolutely played a stage, got one or two stars, and then immediately went running around trying to find a new stage. The fun was navigating the world, and seeing what was around the corner. I still play it this way, tending to pinball from one stage to the next. If the game forced me to - or strongly persuaded me to - do all of the stars in a stage before accessing the next, I would hate it. That sort of linearity is probably the only thing I dislike about the Mario games that came before this one.
As a kid, you couldn't have cleared levels even if you wanted to. Getting a star was an accomplishment. You could be stuck at 58 stars or whatever for a few days. After getting a star after being stuck you expected to be booted out of a level to take a breath and celebrate. You didn't get all 7 stars in a level in 15 minutes like someone could easily do today. Figuring out where stars were wasn't so easy because we were kids and no one understand how to play a game like this. If you weren't there you just couldn't understand. Growing up with it on the DS, with 3D games already ubiquitous and understood conceptually by the player, is not even close to the same.
Ben Haney Excellent call! I adored the original Mario 64 when it came out, and I had absolutely no problems with its huge and inviting overworld and the plethora of levels to explore. It was part of Mario’s charm.
The DS Version still has that experience if it's your 1st playthrough. I remember not realizing how to get into Big Boo's Haunt for 2 weeks because of how different it was to enter from everything else in the game. It also took me about 2 weeks to figure out how to unlock the ? Boxes for similar reasons. Without the freedom of choice, the various challenge videos wouldn't be possible like trying to beat the game without Luigi, Wario, or ? Boxes unlocked in the DS Version or trying to do it without the cap switches in the original game.
There's also the fact that some stars actually create map changes based on how you're intended to achieve the goal. Leaving the level and coming back to see that it's been changed (presumably through your involvement in the previous stars) makes it exciting to go back and see how it may be different with each new star.
Wow, I literally finished the game yesterday for the first time, there couldnt be better timing than this. I can safely say, without nostalgia goggles, that Super Mario 64 is still a great game that stood the test of time and is still a joy to play.
Also i like the linear stages like tick tock clock theyre a change of pace and a test of skill and each time you do them you find a slightly different way to do things like at 3 rotating blocks in tick tock clock instead of jumping up each one i wait for them to do theyre bounce thing and do a backflip as they rotate and land up top without having to deal with that obstacle anymore. I figured this trick out on my 3rd attempt and died a lot less. I find that every level in the game has purpose allow me to explain the foyer is the "tutorial" where you explore jump around and figure out how the game works in simple-ish stages, the first bowser level is the first test of your skills and how well you understand basic movements and teaches you how to fight bowser, the basement introduces you to new obstacles such as fire lava and boulders, dire dire docks makes you learn to swim better because of the whirl pool and teaches you how to use the climbing poles well and some other new obstacles such as using 2 caps at once to solve a problem, next is the second bowser level where the platforming test is a bit more difficult like going from classwork to homework and the boss is a little harder so as to prepare you for the final showdown, the second floor introduces a puzzle in the form of tiny huge island where the side you enter affects your size in the stage and there are pipes around the place that allow you to change size to reach certain areas like wiglers house and wet dry land is similar you can change the height of the water by jumping into the painting higher or lower but for a lot of stars you still need to change the height of the water in the level often leaving you with platforming challenges its a small step up from tiny huge island, next we have the 3rd floor with rainbow ride which is a fun platforming challenge where you usually have to stay on a floating carpet but there are times where have to jump off it onto something else in order to avoid obstacles and often having multiple options like at the start of the course the player is hit with the basic carpet and then 3 options left right or centre each of these having 2 more routes diverging from them and one of the routes having 2 more diverging from it this is a linear-ish level but because of the number of options it isnt so simple and the player is still deciding for themselves tick tock clock is next on the list depending on when you enter the course the speed of the moving objects is slowed speed up or completely stopped this gives the player options because just as rainbow ride has diverging paths so does tick tock clock keeping the control in the players hands and making the player feel more independent and ontop of that the aforementioned clock speed makes some parts easier while making others harder so the player has to decide for themselves which parts they feel comfortable enough with that they themselves can make it harder so that they can make an part the find to demanding of them easier the 3rd floor completes the players training, now they get to the last bowser level from homework to final test the platforming is much harder but the player barely notices the difference because they have been trained for this moment they get to the last bowser and they take him on beating him in only a few attempts because the first 2 bowser fights taught them how to do it but there was still an increase in difficulty. This is the games tutorial level intermediate and advanced level. The game does all this while also giving the characters like koopa the quick and levels like bob-omb battle field and secret like the slide personality and making them memorable. Then theres the credots with that beautiful music it feels like a trip down memory lane and its emotional because the player gets to reflect on theyre own progression and theyre reminded of the fun they had playing this open world sand box puzzle platformer where they held the power and made the decisions for themselves no-one could could control how they played the game so no-one tried so instead they gave the player power over everything and allowed them to play the game how they wanted. They could explore and take their time to see everything they could collect every star or they could run through and beat the game as fast as they could or they could mess around practicing their platforming. Nothing was controlled by nintendo except the difficulty which still isnt quite true as speedrunners try to find the fastest way to do everything and often make the game more challenging. The game is a personal experience of progression where each player develops their own bonds to courses and characters for different reasons. The game is different for everyone and when you finish you feel refreshed knowing youve achieved what you started playing the game to do and have no missing experiences nothing you could add to the game that would make it more enjoyable for you because you got to make the decisions not the game and if you collect all 120 stars you get to meet everyones favourite dinosaur yoshi. No-one can say the game isnt for them because they decide what happens. It truely is a great game the best 3d mario game and arguably the best mario game over all. Edit: i started wiriting this at 3:50 am and its now 4:20 and i am really tired i just had a lot to say and kept writing please leave a like
I agree its one of the reasons why i hate odyssy the moons feel like bonuses like star coins in new supe (unimportant) until you realise fuck i need them to get outa here. And even if you do want to do a clean sweep of the courses which is what i did my first time playing (this week was my first time im 15) i still loved the leaving the levels because it gave me time to cool off and think about what needed to be done next. Btw the second reason i hate odyssy is the lack of power ups and the introduction of cappy i hate it sm64 doesnt really have power ups like the caps kinda are but they dont feel the same but they dont feel lime a replacement either and thats what cappy is instead of deciding on a mario game without power ups someone at nintendo decides y'know what would be a great idea mario uses a sentient magic hat to mind control enemies animals and objects and someone else goes thats great flawless gimick that definately wont loose us any sales to the use of bad gimicks to overshadow everything that we did right with this otherwise good game with good controls and no need for gimicks.
I remember being TERRIFIED of that eel in JRB. I HATED that level because of the eel and did everything I could to never have to go there. I still get the creeps when I see it.
I was so afraid of him up until I was about 13. Then one day I got into the water and I wasn't afraid anymore. It was the first time a game actually scared me.
I'm pretty sure the 'booting you from the level' was a workload management decision. Letting the player stay in the level increases the complexity of the state tracking they have to do to prevent things like sequence breaking for the missions. It's much easier from a design and programming standpoint to just clear the memory and start from a known good state.
It never bothered me though. The 100 coin star was grabable without leaving the stage,allowing for a combination of red coins and 100 coin and regardibg the othet stars,youre inside the stage again in a few seconds anyway
@Joe Parziale you say he is bothered by the game booting you out because he didn't grow up with the game, but that's really dumb. Maybe you're just blinded by nostalgia because you (i assume by what you wrote) did grow up with it?
Personally, I feel like the levels booting you out after completing a star, wasn’t padding at all. It was to make the game generally consistent across all star completions since some stars do require a level reset. It would be far more disjointed to have only a handful of instances of being booted out- people would think that it was a glitch. But this boot out system also promotes people to explore in a much more non-linear fashion. I think they did take advantage of being able to compress files by not having all star avenues available in order to overwhelm this system by constantly having to code for the possibility of all stars being attainable at once. You are allowed certain non-linear freedoms, but not all of them at once because that would be too much code for a system to handle 120 star completion possibilities all at once. You can’t even really compare banjo kazooie to Mario 64 because there’s an additional 2 years worth of trial and error banjo kazooie had on top of already having a frame of reference Mario 64 pioneered for them.
In some levels that's honestly fine, and some circumstances require a level reset regardless. My issue is when you go for say, all the stars in Bob-Omb Battlefield, you end up having 4 stars which involve a lot of the same repetitive steps, and you just end up wishing you could grab them all in one go like in Odyssey instead of having to grab them one at a time, which leads to the tedium setting in rather quickly.
@@FezTheSpaceBiker And that is why Galaxy does what SM64 tried to do way better. Each star, besides some of the secret ones, felt like a relatively new experience despite being in the same galaxy. There were actually substantial changes made to level layouts each time. And the comet stars usually appeared later on after you've partly forgotten your experience with the galaxy. Now if only the galaxies felt more open. Ironically despite being set in outer space, the worlds are overall more constrictive than SM64 and Sunshine's worlds because Mario can't fly in space and the gravity-based platforming relies on small planetoids.
I always saw it as a matter of hardware limitations. I recently replayed this game via Super Mario 64 Plus, which allows you to stay inside the map after grabbing a star *and* making the necessary adjustments to make getting everything on one visit possible. It does wonders for the pacing, at least in my opinion. Agreed with BK being an unfair comparison. I do think BK handles completion better, but again, there was a two year gap to play with.
The towers on Shifting Sand Land can be run up, no need for the flying cap (similar to the walls with arrows in the last Bowser stage). I find that SM64 controllers are like an instrument, easy to pick up but hard to master, having enormous depth for those who want it, as speedruns clearly shows.
I feel bad for you that you didn't get the full revolutionary Mario 64 experience in the 90's. I like the DS version too but playing Mario 64 when it was new was an indescribable joy that I don't think newcomers will ever get to feel. I was 5 years old when I first saw the game and I literally froze up in awe, my jaw completely dropped and I could not stop staring. The jump from SMB to Mario 64 was just too unreal, it felt like a dream.
Yeah it's tough getting across just how next level SM64 was at launch. Most people were coming from a 16 bit console with an eight directional dpad where 3D video games as a generalized concept meant either mode 7 style sprite scaling or perhaps 2.5d FPS games like wolf3d. And analog controls meant "joystick or trackball". Imagine if all the hype behind Kinect or Oculus Rift "changing the face of gaming" actually DIDNT fall hilariously flat and maybe you'll get an idea of what SM64 was in 1996.
John Redcorn I completely agree. Even after seeing the PS1 and the Saturn, Super Mario 64 floored me. It “feeling like a dream” is an accurate description of the feeling I had while playing it for the first few times and it remained enjoyable for years to come. The game was just wonderful when it first came out.
The same can be said about Occarina of Time or Metroid Prime. It´s totally different to experience these games first jumps to 3d when they were new instead of playing them about 15 to 20 years later. Of course a game like Occarina of Time doesn´t awestruck you the same way when you first play it in 2014 opposed to the way when you played in on release. What plays a huge part is that for many these are childhood memories. I on the other hand was already 21 years old when Occarina was released, but it floored me nevertheless. The same with Mario 64 in 1996 and Metroid Prime in 2002. It was EXACTLY what I wanted at the time, a Super Metroid in 3D. These are still some of the best gaming memories I ever experienced (on many different platforms; mainly PC, Nintendo and Sony-Consoles). If I recall the last couple of years there aren´t many games that did that for me; Demon´s Souls was one of the few NEW games that somehow invoked the feeling why I fell in love with games in the first place.
I was 9 years old and used to NES and SNES. I couldn't rationalize what I was seeing or how I could possibly control it. It was amazing. Game changing.
A lot of the problems with the original game solved by the DS version were hardware or algorithmic limitations of the time. For example, the camera troubles were amplified by the horrible resolution of the 64's analog stick, there were only 32 (compared to the GameCube's 256) different angles the stick could be at. In fact, the notches on the stick were there to ensure players could reliably press directly forward, because being a little off was a huge difference in angle. This is the same reason Mario did little half circles while turning at high speeds, it allowed players to use angles other than the 3(!) between straight and 45 degrees. Later games like banjo kazooie used interpolation techniques and code developed by Nintendo after the launch of Mario 64. The walljump timing was also a feature of 64 using less precise floating point numbers and doing frequent conversions between, the smoother gameplay and timings of games like banjo kazooie is largely due to thousands of developer hours making more precise collisions and movement by building off of Mario 64's techniques and code. I'm also confused as to how not booting players out would have improved the game in the way you said without major redesigns. Multiple levels would have stars mere jumps away from each other, and expanding level sizes to solve this would have required compression techniques pioneered years after its development. So yes, Mario 64 could have had fixed the problems you bemoan, but they are in no way "minor" differences when given the constraints of the hardware and tools, and attributing the design decisions to "padding" is a gross insult to the developers at the time.
You can't blame the camera troubles on the N64's analogue stick lol, it only had one, the C buttons controlled the camera and the analogue stick was perfect. The DS version brought its own issues, like no analogue control and only the ability to move the camera left or right.
"Multiple levels would have stars mere jumps away from each other" That's exactly why it feels like padding. This functionality was already built into the game, why not use it?
Getting booted out of a level isn't a bad thing, and it actually makes the game more reminiscent of the linear progression of the older games. You have to do each start separately - otherwise you could very easily get 4 stars all at the same time and they wouldn't be special, it'd be "get these four stars time"
@@anonymoususer2756 Same here, I thought I thought I was the only one who didn't enjoy the moon system. I agree with you guys, I wish Odyssey moon system was more like 64/Sunshine/Galaxy's (mostly 64) star system to be completely honest, because the mission structure is what made almost every star special and memorable imo.
@@Rex13013 With SM64 every star was its own unique journey with different objectives you had to complete, and you could do nearly all of them in whatever order you wanted. In Odyssey every level is just kind of a big linear path with moons scattered around in diverging paths off the main objective. Some you can't do before doing another. And on top of that some you can't even collect again because of permanent changes to the level. In SM64 every course is just a blank slate that you can do whatever you want in and resets when you quit or die, just like in the 2D games. But something about Odyssey and the way its missions are structured just feels so restrictive and linear to me. I get no enjoyment out of completing them.
18:23 - YES. THIS. Back when I was a young little Real1, I had 119 stars and lacking that one. Internet was unheard of for me back then and none of my friends knew how to get the star. Eventually I saw a gaming magazine that had a text snippet on the cover that gave me uncontrollable euphoria. "How to get all the stars from the first seven worlds of Super Mario 64". But then a new problem showed up. That magazine was on the shelf behind the counter of that tiny store so I couldn't read the it, and I didn't have any money to buy the magazine. So I had to wait for my weekly allowance of 20 SEK (approx 2,5 dollars back then). But then when I got it, that wasn't enough! The magazine was 35 SEK. So in the end I had to do the dishes for a few days to get the remaining money. So, I eventually got the magazine, and shortly after I could finally reach my goal. The happiness was real. I still have that exact magazine, and its so thoroughly read
Real1Gaming really? "The one" for me was the 20 second peach painting slide. I loved getting into the cannon and blasting off to my death or into walls so i must not have taken long for me to find it. I also didnt have internet
Such a different time. Back when you learned how to beat hard levels or found secrets by talking to kids on the playground or buying nintendo power, it really made games feel more rewarding than just having all the answers at your fingertips.
Super Mario 64 is my favorite video game of all time and while I grew up with both versions, I still perfered the original on the N64💕. Great video btw 👍💯
Man. I almost agreed with you. And then you said you preferred DS's controls. :P But legit, great video as always, man. Fantastic points and very interesting observations and I haven't thought about before!
@@Caidren yeah but it's not like you need it, also it features gradual turning which means yoy aren't really limited to 8 directions, think spyro the dragon being played with a dpad
I find it pointless to argue over which one is better, to be honest. The only real problem with the two is the shitty camera in the original and the necessity to hold the run button in the DS version, and even so, both issues aren't all that annoying.
"Something revolutionary is rarely flawless." Sums up my thoughts on a lot of games actually (Metroid Prime, Ocarina of Time, Breath of the wild, etc.).
one thing i can say that for me as a young kid, getting booted out and having a fresh start, made it a lot easier for me to organize objectives, also added mystery and intrigue upon revisits. You never knew quite exactly what was going to be the difference when you went back in, which you can say is padding if mad, but optimistically for young folk it is indeed longevity in its purest form. The game demanded that you almost respect each level, know it in and out, and it would be baked into your mind forever. Not bad design (for the time) in my opinion, they indeed got us to remember every single level, aside from the submarine one cause i completely forgot that existed.
Growing up with both versions as they came out, I have an appreciation for both control schemes. And while I see the benefits and flaws in each one, I have to say the D-Pad is still the major hindrance as to why people dislike the remake. I completely agree that having a run button adds a level of precision to gameplay that is much more casual friendly. Mario 3D World showed us that having a run button in 3 dimensional platforming can work extremely well. But the nuance of a control stick just can't be beat. As a side note, I noticed your 64 gameplay was the Virtual Console version. The control in that version is a bit of a mess due to how the game was developed with the 64's true analog stick in mind. The GameCube's and Classic Controller's digital stick just don't function as well for that game and as a result make Mario's platforming really finicky. I always suggest to forgo the VC version and play on a legit 64 with a good 64 controller.
KingK that's might be why you prefer the DS version, though. You played it on the hardware it was designed for. But after having gotten used to two other versions of this game already, it might be impossible to go back to the original and appreciate the controls as they were. The subtle differences would be confusing and feel unpleasant.
The analogue stick of N64 controllers is stiffer than most analogue sticks, which honestly is for the best. I find it annoyingly difficult in, say, Super Mario Galaxy to consistently move Mario at a slow pace, and it's mostly because the Nunchuk's analogue stick is pretty loose (it's also somewhat difficult to consistently move Mario in a direction that isn't one of the eight cardinal directions, due to the fact that the hole that the stick is placed in, whatever that's called, is octagonally shaped).
That makes sense. I was wondering why he was ragging on the n64 controller. That thing was pretty much design with this game in mind and there is nothing better for it.
I love that the game kicks you out after each star because it makes the star feel even more rewarding. I feel like if the game didn’t celebrate each star like that, then they wouldn’t feel special. They’d feel like coins. And I find it satisfying to tackle the level again and see how much better I’ve gotten at it. They get easier over time and it feels good. I can see how it’s annoying for speed runners.
He is bad. And than he keeps ranting about missing "handholding" in games like Ocarina of Time, which were beaten by millions of children back in the 90s.
@@brionifanboy8792 Are you still salty about a review? I suppose I can kinda understand that. I'm still angry about some reviews from somecallmejohnny, but I just stopped watching, I don't go around his comment sections hating on him.
While I do think it generally sounds good to not be kicked out of stages, in this specific case I think it works well. Disregarding the changes made to levels between certain stars it gives you a clean slate and makes you think about what you want to do next. "Do I want to do another stage?", "Which star should I tackle next?", "Should I use the metal cap I just unlocked somewhere else?" Most often you do want to enter the same stage, but even then you often experiment & tackle the next objectives in ways you weren't doing before. It also gives you a good stopping point, in many other collectathons you continue to play even though you may not really feel like doing so. In this game's case however you actively make the choice of: "Yes, I want to do this now". In games like Banjo Kazooie this would not work for several reasons: A) The levels are much bigger and spread apart from each other. B) The levels offers more variety in their environments making it feel more like a world than a constructed space. C) You would have to make actions that would be a lot more frustrating to do multiple times, like transformations for example The reason I think it works so well with Mario 64 is that the stages are small, non linear & generally fast paced. In stages that have a single main objective the game does not kick you out of the stage for doing an optional star, like taking all the red coins in the bowser stages for example. Bottom line I think it works to this game's advantage, while it's not always good I think it's a beneficial feature overall. Thanks for reading if you did :)
While I think stating that the people complaining about the ds controls are trying to be edgy and different is fairly stupid, I never had any problems with the controls either, I was surprised to recently find out that most people didn't like it
Grew up playing the original on the Wii virtual console, tried to play the DS version but couldn't. I know its the superior version, though I wish it came out on the Wii or something originally so that I could of had a better time playing it with a joy-stick. It just feels stiff and so unnatural to me. (I played it on the 3DS.) To me, I feel like its going to be a person to person thing, mostly those who played the DS first will at least have a good grasp on the controls, while those who are used to the N64 version will not like them. Its different for everyone, or course, but having a run button in a 3D space doesn't feel right, one reason why I also don't like 3D world for the 8 directions and run button.
In spite of my age, the N64 version was the first one I played (though that's mostly due to me getting my cousin's old N64 before the original DS ever came out and Super Mario 64 being one of the games that was given with it) and in the end I somewhat prefer the DS version, despite the griping I hear about the D-Pad... ...I never really found too many gripes with the D pad on that game, looking back. Especially noticing the weird semi-circling KingK mentioned in the original N64 game.
Laughing so much of this. I never realized how brilliant and persistent I must have been when I was 8 years old. I didn't speak english and internet was a novelty that we didn't have, but still managed to get all the stars. I could have accomplished so much in life.....
Interesting to see someone else really struggled with that weird half-circle turnaround. It happens so inconsistently that it has also killed me more than anything else in any 3D Mario
@Lewis Bandas I love the original on the N64, but you mentioned seriousness in Super Mario 64 ? or any Mario game? Seriousness and Mario do not mix. These games are the opposite of serious.
It’s weird, I never minded being booted out of the stage. It kinda allowed me a moment to celebrate my accomplishment after completing a star, especially the more difficult ones. I can see now that’s not how games are designed (they are aimed at keeping you going indefinitely). But yeah, I kinda like it. It allows for nice division between achievements. To each their own I suppose.
Phony Montana To each their own but I find the DS’s more refined and accurate models, along with its sharper textures, more appealing than the N64 version’s strange models (which are sometimes inaccurate to the official artwork, like Bowser’s model) and blurry textures.
That statement about revolutionary games rarely being flawless holds up very well. Tropical Freeze is a game that admittedly isn’t revolutionary, but it is near flawless
I'm currently binge watching all your videos. My god, your voice is so nice. So chill. Most people in the business of discussing game design like to yell and depend on hyperbole or at least having some kind of joke. This is just nice to listen to.
It's videos like this that make me fall in love with video games all over again. Thank you so much for giving your input on my favorite Mario game of all time and I hope your channel continues to grow.
Maybe an alternate solution to the game forcing you out of the level after completion would be to give the players the choice of what they would like to do with a menu that says "Continue" or "Quit". This gives people like Speedrunners a much easier time not bothering with having to reenter levels over and over again, cuts out unnecessary time for completionists, and allows regular players to either continue to be immersed into the game or possibly take a break from the game or the area that they are currently in. Giving the players the choice when at a crossroad of what to do, especially in such a freeform game as you discussed in detail, is a very clever game design tactic. Also, to fix the problem of bad transitions between stars, you may be able to either play a cutscene to aid the game in getting more time to transition, or possibly use it to your advantage in certain scenarios. For example: The tower begins to crumble, so Mario has to jump between falling rocks to stay alive. And maybe some of the rocks that were hidden inside of the tower contained 1-ups and coins, so we can design this skill challenge in such a way to where Mario is guided to where the best places to jump are by coins, while being challenged to jump in riskier places to obtain an occasional 1-up. There could be some super cool quicktime platforming scenarios created by this form of transition, and I believe it would diversify the already insanely open-world game shenanigans, making the game a much more thrilling and satisfying experience. The best part is: they already got the star, so there wouldn't be much room to complain if they failed, allowing it to further provide a purely fun and enjoyable experience.
As much as I enjoy the 3D Mario games, it always annoyed me how power ups were mandatory for progressing through a certain objective as opposed to the older games where you could just pick them up. I'm glad 3D Land and 3D World went back to this. Great video btw.
Wouldnt it be cool if they made a remake of 64 as DLC for Odyssey? They could put a pipe in the Mushroom Kingdom that brought you to the 64 version with updated graphics and music! Cappy would have to go, but it would be cool if other moves could stay. The main thing I would like to see in a remake would be to not be booted out upon grabbing a star and remixes of songs for repeat stages. Like, Whomp's Fortress could have more drums or something. Just something to make the repeat songs more distinct. Maybe I'm crazy. I just think it would be a good fit.
ClipOnSunglasses I definitely think they should go all out. Not just redone textures, but more like how beautiful it is to run around the Mushroom Kingdom in Odyssey.
ClipOnSunglasses I guess I didn't mean throw in more things. Because, yeah, that wouldn't work. I just meant visual things. Like the flower patches in the Mushroom Kingdom, or the pixel art in the Cascade Kingdom. Something to spice up the less visually interesting worlds of 64.
+ClipOnSunglasses This is a great and an extremely underexposed idea. Older 'fuzzy' graphics make sparse levels look more lively and dense than they really are. It's what makes Banjo feel more alive and kicking than Yooka, in my opinion. There really isn't THAT much going on in Banjo, but the jaggy (jiggy? ;p) moving textures made the world seem bustling with energy in a way that's hard to replicate with high fidelity and smoother textures. For the record, I think Odyssey does an absolutely wonderful job of overcoming this while maintaining the simplicity of design.
"I had the pleasure of growing up with Super Mario 64 on my DS." Goddamn do I feel old. I was already in high school when this game came out... on the Nintendo 64!
Someone who played SM64 first - before any remakes or sequels - will have no problem with the controls. It takes five minutes to learn how to do everything, and from there it's pure intuition. Sure, something newer could "feel" better 20 years later where we've had time to master it, but in 1996 when I started playing it was no problem. Also, any sentiment about it being outdated is contradicted by the vast playerbase that still plays the game today; especially in speedrunning circles. New rom hacks and mods are being released for this game with the same controls and mechanics. A multiplayer mod just came out a few months ago. Stuff like this exists for Sunshine, maybe, but I haven't seen it. Nobody is playing Galaxy. People are still playing this game, regardless of how the sequels "improved."
This is a perfect compliment to Mathew Matosis review on Mario. I love the detailed observations and perspectives put out on this review. The nostalgia is strong and becomes an ever growing lesson in perfecting game design.
I just got here from TH-cam's algorithm and I've barely watched any of the video so far but I've got to say that I appreciate using World of Longplays as a source.
Getting booted out of the level after every star, while annoying, made the game more memorable and fostered a sense of accomplishment. The sense of accomplishment made me want to jump back into the level and get the next star. Getting booted out also allowed me to explore at my leisure, and I'm sure if I didn't get booted out after every star, I would've found the game boring, at some stage. In retrospect, as a kid, it's incredible how both uninformed you are of a game's flaws and how much b.s. you're willing to put up. Kid's have an underrated ability to put up with a lot, simply for the fact they don't know any better and because they have boundless energy.
Something I rarely see people mention is that while 64's levels are ostenbly open sandboxes, for most levels in practice there's really only actual meaningful platforming along set paths. In Bob-omb Battlefield, for example, everything other then the path to and then up the mountain is more or less empty field with trees and enemies scattered around. By contrast, Sunshine has far more actual platforming tools and paths all around levels in multiple directions: Bianco hills still has a very similar path and trek up a vertical structure, but the village and the hills and the ropes over the lake are all far more conductive to freeform sandbox platforming. On that note, sunshine actually does way more with the narrative progression between missions.
Some levels in sunshine basically don't have platforming at all though. The hotel, beach, like half the stars in Pina park, the imposter Mario levels, etc all focus on gimmicks outside of platforming.
i was like 7 years old when i got the n64 bundled with super mario 64. i had very little understanding of the game and pretty much just ran around trying to figure out what it is i needed to do. I played a ton and never beat the game for one sad reason. I didnt understand at the opening of the game you could have different profiles and what that meant. so i started my first profile, and would randomly start new profiles and re-do everything. so a majority of my game time was spent running through lvls i already completed and re-doing them aimlessly not even realizing i was starting from scratch again and again.. LOL
I was a teenager when the game came out. It's one thing playing this game back when 3D polygonal games were common, but playing this after playing 2D games (or first person Doom Clones) forever was a revelation.
I agree with you about the level design of tick tock clock being annoying due to getting kicked out after each star, but there is a functional reason it was designed this way. By making the player complete the exact same section over and over, it helps to clue them in to the fact that the speed of the levels moving components can be changed (from slow to medium to fast) depending on where the hands were when entering the level. If the design hadn't been so linear, it would have been much easier for a player not to realize this mechanic existed. Not that it was perfect (many people still didn't realize it was happening) but I can't really consider this a fault of the game as I'm fairly certain it was a conscious design choice that did serve a purpose. That said, this is relative to the n64 version - having never played the DS one, I'm not sure if other steps were taken in it (like better dialogue from toad) to help explain the mechanic to the player.
It should be noted; one of Super Mario 64's inspirations is a game called "Ultima: Underworld 2: The Labyrinth of Worlds", a game that came out in 1993. It even borrows the base concept, Bowser could even be said to be a stand-in for Ultima's "The Guardian".
Regarding the obtuse nature of the "blast away the wall" mission in Whomp's Fortress... I have a funny story regarding that: I found that star completely by accident. The way it happened is that I came to the "fall into the floating cage" mission and didn't realize you could climb the tree in the beginning to make an owl appear that would carry you up to the floating cage. I automatically assumed "oh, I just need to shoot to the cage using the canon". Turns out, I was too low on my first shot from the canon, and broke away the wall without even realizing it was possible. Two birds, one stone. If anything, I'd argue that figuring out the owl was there was much trickier and more obtuse than learning you could break away the wall. However, looking back, there are a number of ways to get into that floating cage... which is another great demonstration of the open ended nature and freedom this game provides. Great video!
I think I was told about that one by a friend. I do remember thinking that I'd never find it on my own. I also remember the 2nd star on the princess's secret slide being the last star for me to find. I knew it was one of the castle stars from the menu list but never thought to look in a previous area. I was sure there was another secret wall or window to search. I think I found it out in a magazine but boy I was floored. That one would have taken forever for me to find.
I do like retrospective videos in terms of learning from the past but it's always good to keep in mind hindsight is 20 20 and that a lot of errors in early game design specifically in 3D game design is simply a result of nothing to work from as a reference and no rules or norms to follow in the world of 3D game design
i really want to see this game get an hd remaster with qol features, a DS version with better controls, and more slide themed levels. i am still upset that i lost my copy.
Solution for the character swapping issue in the DS remake...play the whole game as Yoshi. At the start of every level, you can start with the cap of any unlocked character, so become them if you need them for a certain objective. Their cap will also naturally be found in the level so if you lose it, you can always get it back. Unless you need them for something around the castle, Yoshi can do everything, even if it's weird to hear his voice out of Warios mouth.
Mario 64 is still my favorite of the 3d games (haven't played Odyssey yet). I prefer it over Sunshine because of the way Sunshine handled progression as well as the pain that is 100%ing it. Sunshine could have easily beat 64 for me if those were fixed. And I prefer it over the Galaxy games and 3d World simply because I prefer more open collect-a-thons over linear 3d platforming. Galaxy is good and all but I rarely ever get the urge to replay it. 64 isn't the best collect-a-thon, Banjo and Donkey Kong easily out did it, but for Mario, 64 is the closest to that style. And I get what your saying about the ds versions controls, but I really don't like it when 3d games have run buttons, the only game where I do is Sly Cooper. 64 is definitely rough around the edges, but that doesn't stop it from being good.
It's hard to have a discussion with someone you just randomly inserts his opinion as fact and just leaves it like that. Unless you can actually bring a discussion with good arguments and points, I'm going to consider you not worth talking to.
Only thing I really gotta say is that the DS Version does not look better lol. I really don't see it, it looks way more pixelated than the n64 version.
So it's not the original Mario 64's fault that it could only handle however many polygons per screen because of the N64, right? I guess I'm not following how a game made for a specific console doesn't have to take shit for looking bad on that one specific console.
I will always love this game. Even though it’s not the best game I’ve ever played, I can’t think of a game that blew me away more than Mario 64 when I first saw the demo kiosk of it setup at Toys’R’Us. The jump from 2D sprites to full 3D polygons was so awesomely jarring to see back in the day. It’s one of those things you just had to have seen/experienced to fully appreciate.
I feel like very few analysts look at games the way that you do. You do an impeccable job of dissecting a game from head to toe -- from the faults to the strengths. While I realize it's all subjcetive, it's nice seeing someone able to take a game and share its many aspects of design for its viewers. Please keep creating videos!! Well done!
I mean, I was 11 years old when this game released and I managed to complete it 100% by myself. It's definitely (very) challenging at times, but nothing too bad. :)
I don't think anyone would ever argue that Mario 64 is flawless, but you can't call something a flaw just because a later game does it better. That'd be like saying "Muskets were great rifles, but they would have really benefitted from being able to hold multiple rounds, something that most later rifles would do". Being revolutionary means there wasn't anything before it to copy or improve. It broke ground and it's because of Mario 64 that games like Banjo Kazooie could exist. This is why I think going back and picking apart games that came out 20+ years ago and comparing their features to the features of games that came out years after isn't fair and doesn't make for a good comparison.
My only real problem with SM64 is the camera system. It makes some sections unnecessarily difficult as you can't see what you need to. Also not a fan of the side flip controls.
the clock is great, since it challenges your dexterity time again with every star and gives you many options to tackle different obstacles. it also changes the way the level plays depending on the hand position so you get many different challenges on top. it was the most fun level for me and my friend as we played it decades ago.
Watched this when it came out, coming back to it now I'm baffled by the idea that level boot outs were some kind of technical limitation of the N64. Like the 100 coin star doesn't boot you out, so that's technically possible. Banjo is an entire game that doesn't have a boot out mechanic on the same console. There's big level change set pieces like the snowman getting built in CCM, or the pyramid top exploding in SSL. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are built on the exact same engine as Mario 64 if I recall correctly. Just a wild piece of discussion I keep seeing in the half decade old comments. I guess I'll edit in some other thoughts as I have them. Tall Tall Mountain gets some praise in this video as a level that there should be more of rather than another Rainbow Ride. And sure it would be better than Rainbow Ride, but Tall Tall Mountain sucks. Here are some Objectives: Get to the top, Get to the top but this time there's a monkey, Get to the top but this time get behind the waterfall, Get to the top but this time jump into a wall on the side of the mountain. Terrible level.
I had the pleasure of playing this at launch back in the 90s on the N64 and you can’t critique it by today’s standards or games that came after as this laid the groundwork.
Yes you can. Not doing so is unfair to games that came after. You should certainly keep in mind the time that it came out when critiquing it and understand why certain things in the game are the way they are, but ultimately a flaw doesn't become less bothersome to a player just because it's only there due to the limits of it's time.
I will say, the Ds version, while being impressive, was the wrong system to port the game to. I'd much rather see a 3ds port and I really want a true 3d Mario for the 3ds
If you play as Yoshi, then you don't have to go back and switch characters because at the start of each level you can select which character you need. If your in the stage already and you realized that your the wrong character, you can find a cap or just boot out and jump back in the painting as a different character.
I have so much nostalgia for this game. It was like my first Nintendo 64 game and it was so much fun to mess around with the overworld of the castle. I actually like that a lot of my early games had this kind of mechanic such as Sonic Adventure which made it a lot of fun to play even after I completed the levels.
I don't think it would take more memory to stay in the course. That just doesn't make any sense to me. New objects can just be loaded from the ROM, cause those cartridges are really fast. Far away sprites don't seem to stay in the memory either.
As someone who grew up with the DS version, I can say that the N64 version is absolutely painful for me to play. The only insentive I had to finish it was novelty. It's really just a matter of which one you played first.
I grew up with the DS version, I finished the game with all 150 stars a lot of times, but nowadays it's unplayable yo me. N64 version controls are way superior imo.
16:56 totally agree with you thats what i do collect 100 coin and 8 red coins at the same time. Usually when I have 98 coins left, and the last coin is red, I make both stars appear at the same time
Your criticisms of this game are odd. Super Mario 64 was the first of its kind, it literally invented what it meant to be a 3D game. There was nothing to base it on or take inspiration from, so of course it was never going to be perfect. You are judging it by today's standards instead of accepting it for what it was at the time. PlayStation did not even have an analog stick and was still using a d-pad when this game was released. Let that sink in for a moment. Sony did not even understand how a game should control in 3D, and you are complaining about being booted out after collecting a star? Hilarious.
He’s judging it by todays standards because he’s playing it today, not 25 years ago. Old games aren’t immune from criticism just because they’re old. There are plenty of games that came out around the time Mario 64 did that were the first to try something and hold up much better today.
@@heydun It's not appropriate to review past media using today's standards. Developers learn from their mistakes and improve their games over time, and the industry as a whole benefits from this process. It is unfair and illogical to criticize a game for not meeting the standards of games released 27 years later, as those games had the advantage of learning from and improving upon their predecessors. I'm not saying the game should be immune from criticisms, but these things need to be considered
Booting you out of the stage made collecting every Star a lot more memorable. Especially because the level then changed but still kept the sandbox experience almost intact for the rest of the level's Stars. One thing I liked was that the 100 coin Star didn't kick you out. While some may consider that a flaw, I choose to believe it's not, especially because collecting those coins makes you approach the levels in a different way...in order to avoid collecting that 100th coin in a place where you knew was impossible to get the Star. It also plays out as a secret since you may not have collected those 100 coins on purpose and suddenly you get a secret Star and THEN realise there may be secret Stars in the other levels, too. Now it is a given, but back then I found that out on my own and it felt like an accomplishment...one that allowed me to also get the Star I was actually there for. When compared to Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, booting you out of the level only encouraged the game's linearity. If there's one thing I nitpick about the Galaxy games is how linear they were, but every Star also feels pretty memorable because of it. Then comes Mario Odyssey and the game no longer boots you out of the stage once you collect a Moon. Which is a great choice given that the game no longer features just a bit over 100 Stars but over 800 Moons not to mention 50 to 100 purple coins for every Kingdom. The problem I have with that is that, because it didn't even give you a hint unless you talk to the parrot, every Moon you collect is pretty much anyone's guess...thus making it less memorable. Again, totally understandable because of how many Moons there are in the game. But let's imagine for a second that you don't exit the stage in SM64 when you get the Star. You would just find the next star and go on until you've collected everything and then move on. There weren't that many Stars per level to begin with but I can assure you they would be a lot less memorable. Booting you out of the stage made the game, as a whole, more memorable because every objective felt unique, even if you decided to go for a different Star than the one suggested. These are all great games but the choices made in every single one of them serve a purpose that may not even be strictly related to game design per se...except for Sunshine. Sunshine sells you the idea of it being an open sandbox-type game but it isn't really. It was more linear than open sand box except for the hub world and I think that's what makes it the most divisive Mario game to date...that and the FLUDD mechanic lol
I feel like a perfect solution to the problem of stars kicking you out is only have it so only the star that you selected kicks you out. Most of the changes in the level happen after the first star anyway.
I feel like a lot of Mario's issues can be contextualized for the time. The "leaving the level" syndrome allows for, say, someone working who grew up with Mario and was entering adulthood (something that had never occurred with Mario or, Hell, a video game period before except MAYBE Donkey Kong Country) to enjoy Mario by trying to figure out an objective, getting the star, and putting the controller down. I do not think that Mario 64 was a game designed for a single sit-down playthrough, and I feel like Nintendo compensated for this by making stars individualized and giving the player ample time to play around with controls and explore. Hell, it's why the outside of Peach's Castle is so massive and contains everything from things to scale to wall jump opportunities to slopes to introducing the game's water physics and ideas right off the bat.
I do feel as if that's something that has been lost to time (and frankly, Banjo-Kazooie does the whole "tutorial to 3D movement" better anyway), but I feel like Mario 64 was designed as Nintendo's answer to the times in 1996 - how to foster to their kids that had gotten older, and how to make things simple for new kids. Mario was an absolute force then, but he wasn't "evergreen" or "invincible" like he was at the time that 64 DS came out, and I feel that Nintendo adapted to what it('s Japanese) fanbase craved at the time and designed the game around it. Trying to teach players to get out of levels and save through the pause menu would require further tutorializing, and Mario 64 made essentially everything other than "how to beat Bowser" and "how to use camera" learnable at the player's leisure. And I feel that "do it and explore at your own pace" mentality is why the original release remains so special to so many people, beyond just 'moving in 3D'. Or at least why we hear about Mario 64 more than, say, Crash Bandicoot or Doom as "the joy of learning the third dimension".
As always, a pleasure to watch.
For me, the third dimension came from Quake. Doom was not a 3D game. Also, for me, personally, Mario 64 came after Ocarina and GoldenEye. Not the first console games I played, but the first I owned.
No game is really 3D, it is all fakery and illusion, just that later down the timeline it is done better. All graphics are fake, 3D is more a look than anything real. Flat graphics on a screen. But I can't say this is a game I have played much of, but I did play a lot of earlier PS1 games. Then later iRobot, but I doubt many others caught that game in their childhood either. (Nothing to do with the film, 3D platformer from 83.)
Fakery? I think YOU'RE the fake 3d around here. You're comparing iRobot to Mario 64? Ha! You're not even good enough to be my--
Alright hard ass, bad assery points to you!
+Amaranthus616
While what's displayed on a 2D screen is a 2D image, the representation of the game-world internally to the game can be 3D. DOOM was a 2D game with some additional information to make it look 3D - for example, if the enemies line up you can fire two shots without changing your aim, and one will hit an enemy, say, 100 meters away at ground level, while the other hits an enemy 101 meters away but 10 meters above ground level. Or there's the total lack of bridges/tunnels - there's never any situation in the game where the floor passes over another floor below it - the closest it comes are lifts (places where the floor-level moves up and down) and places where a narrow path passes below a break in a higher path that you can cross by running across it (there's no actual jump; just the ability to blip to the new floor level if it's not too far above your current foot-level - not that you have feet as such outside of multiplayer). Or you can punch a demon that's tens of meters above or below you but within melee range horizontally. The general consensus is to refer to DOOM as a 2.5D game. Later versions of the engine, including most modern open-source engine ports, went fully 3D.
Mario 64, while, yes, being represented as discrete blobs of light on a flat screen, does work mechanically as though Mario were running and jumping inside a 3D space...
My mom figured out Blast The Wall when I was 6 years old. I stayed home sick from school and I remember asking her to help me. First time she ever played a video game.
Now that's some wholesome stuff right there!
What made her consider where it could've been?
My dad found the hidden star near the Boulder level. Can’t remember the name but it was a fond memory!
Aww
Leave it to moms lol
"I prefer the DS remake controls"
Oh boy, those are some fightin words
The DS controls in comparison absolutely suck ass
@@uknighted213 Both N64 controller and DS suck
@@OGXenos controls does not mean controller
@@johnnypiquel2295 Did I specify DS controller? No I didn't. Both the DS controls and the N64 controller, by which controls are done, suck.
64 ds is the best on the 3ds and prior to that the n64 controls were the best. Moving mario and co around with a d pad is kinda wack
Holy shit I never thought that the 3rd rolling ball in bob-omb battlefield may be the corpse of king bob-omb
Right??? Never heard that, that's awesome theory
Same
It's fucked up, but it's cool
Same here when I heard him say that in the video I had to rewind the video just to make sure what I heard. Lol
When he said it, I just went yep because I noticed that after you beat him there were three balls. Now I guess it makes sense.
I never noticed that there is one more rolling ball
If I remember right, in the DS version, you didn't need to switch out terribly often because levels would suddenly have caps to turn into the other characters temporarily to use their specific cap powers, sometimes preventing you from needing to actually go to the rec-room to switch off to the other character.
True but some caps, like the Wario cap in Hazy Maze Cave, isn't really in a convenient spot. Also I don't do stars in order so when I see a star that I can only get with a certain cap, I find it more convenient to just boot out switch characters and come back.
1. Wow I somehow missed this reply. Honestly Yoshi noises coming from Wario was weird but in context it was fine XD
2. Yeah, admittedly not always the most convenient, but it still was better than ALWAYS having to go back and switch characters.
In regards to you talking about players mostly wanting to do clean sweeps of stages:
I would have hated that as a kid, when I first played SM64. I absolutely played a stage, got one or two stars, and then immediately went running around trying to find a new stage. The fun was navigating the world, and seeing what was around the corner.
I still play it this way, tending to pinball from one stage to the next.
If the game forced me to - or strongly persuaded me to - do all of the stars in a stage before accessing the next, I would hate it. That sort of linearity is probably the only thing I dislike about the Mario games that came before this one.
As a kid, you couldn't have cleared levels even if you wanted to. Getting a star was an accomplishment. You could be stuck at 58 stars or whatever for a few days. After getting a star after being stuck you expected to be booted out of a level to take a breath and celebrate. You didn't get all 7 stars in a level in 15 minutes like someone could easily do today. Figuring out where stars were wasn't so easy because we were kids and no one understand how to play a game like this. If you weren't there you just couldn't understand. Growing up with it on the DS, with 3D games already ubiquitous and understood conceptually by the player, is not even close to the same.
Ben Haney Excellent call! I adored the original Mario 64 when it came out, and I had absolutely no problems with its huge and inviting overworld and the plethora of levels to explore. It was part of Mario’s charm.
The DS Version still has that experience if it's your 1st playthrough. I remember not realizing how to get into Big Boo's Haunt for 2 weeks because of how different it was to enter from everything else in the game. It also took me about 2 weeks to figure out how to unlock the ? Boxes for similar reasons. Without the freedom of choice, the various challenge videos wouldn't be possible like trying to beat the game without Luigi, Wario, or ? Boxes unlocked in the DS Version or trying to do it without the cap switches in the original game.
There's also the fact that some stars actually create map changes based on how you're intended to achieve the goal. Leaving the level and coming back to see that it's been changed (presumably through your involvement in the previous stars) makes it exciting to go back and see how it may be different with each new star.
"I had the pleasure of growing up with it on my Nintendo DS"
You're way too young to have this deep of a voice.
42Caio (Caio Esteves) kids born in 2000 are 17 now
He's probably 19 or 20.
@Jacob Wood No it didn't. DS came out in 2004
I grew up with it and I’m 20 lol
42Caio (Caio Esteves) we are just getting old 😂
Wow, I literally finished the game yesterday for the first time, there couldnt be better timing than this. I can safely say, without nostalgia goggles, that Super Mario 64 is still a great game that stood the test of time and is still a joy to play.
I find leaving the stage after finding the star gives an extra sense of accomplishment.
X X it makes every star feel important, unlike moons in odyssey
I find it breaks immersion. Episodic gameplay is fun. World building is fun. I prefer the latter
Also i like the linear stages like tick tock clock theyre a change of pace and a test of skill and each time you do them you find a slightly different way to do things like at 3 rotating blocks in tick tock clock instead of jumping up each one i wait for them to do theyre bounce thing and do a backflip as they rotate and land up top without having to deal with that obstacle anymore. I figured this trick out on my 3rd attempt and died a lot less. I find that every level in the game has purpose allow me to explain the foyer is the "tutorial" where you explore jump around and figure out how the game works in simple-ish stages, the first bowser level is the first test of your skills and how well you understand basic movements and teaches you how to fight bowser, the basement introduces you to new obstacles such as fire lava and boulders, dire dire docks makes you learn to swim better because of the whirl pool and teaches you how to use the climbing poles well and some other new obstacles such as using 2 caps at once to solve a problem, next is the second bowser level where the platforming test is a bit more difficult like going from classwork to homework and the boss is a little harder so as to prepare you for the final showdown, the second floor introduces a puzzle in the form of tiny huge island where the side you enter affects your size in the stage and there are pipes around the place that allow you to change size to reach certain areas like wiglers house and wet dry land is similar you can change the height of the water by jumping into the painting higher or lower but for a lot of stars you still need to change the height of the water in the level often leaving you with platforming challenges its a small step up from tiny huge island, next we have the 3rd floor with rainbow ride which is a fun platforming challenge where you usually have to stay on a floating carpet but there are times where have to jump off it onto something else in order to avoid obstacles and often having multiple options like at the start of the course the player is hit with the basic carpet and then 3 options left right or centre each of these having 2 more routes diverging from them and one of the routes having 2 more diverging from it this is a linear-ish level but because of the number of options it isnt so simple and the player is still deciding for themselves tick tock clock is next on the list depending on when you enter the course the speed of the moving objects is slowed speed up or completely stopped this gives the player options because just as rainbow ride has diverging paths so does tick tock clock keeping the control in the players hands and making the player feel more independent and ontop of that the aforementioned clock speed makes some parts easier while making others harder so the player has to decide for themselves which parts they feel comfortable enough with that they themselves can make it harder so that they can make an part the find to demanding of them easier the 3rd floor completes the players training, now they get to the last bowser level from homework to final test the platforming is much harder but the player barely notices the difference because they have been trained for this moment they get to the last bowser and they take him on beating him in only a few attempts because the first 2 bowser fights taught them how to do it but there was still an increase in difficulty. This is the games tutorial level intermediate and advanced level. The game does all this while also giving the characters like koopa the quick and levels like bob-omb battle field and secret like the slide personality and making them memorable. Then theres the credots with that beautiful music it feels like a trip down memory lane and its emotional because the player gets to reflect on theyre own progression and theyre reminded of the fun they had playing this open world sand box puzzle platformer where they held the power and made the decisions for themselves no-one could could control how they played the game so no-one tried so instead they gave the player power over everything and allowed them to play the game how they wanted. They could explore and take their time to see everything they could collect every star or they could run through and beat the game as fast as they could or they could mess around practicing their platforming. Nothing was controlled by nintendo except the difficulty which still isnt quite true as speedrunners try to find the fastest way to do everything and often make the game more challenging. The game is a personal experience of progression where each player develops their own bonds to courses and characters for different reasons. The game is different for everyone and when you finish you feel refreshed knowing youve achieved what you started playing the game to do and have no missing experiences nothing you could add to the game that would make it more enjoyable for you because you got to make the decisions not the game and if you collect all 120 stars you get to meet everyones favourite dinosaur yoshi. No-one can say the game isnt for them because they decide what happens. It truely is a great game the best 3d mario game and arguably the best mario game over all.
Edit: i started wiriting this at 3:50 am and its now 4:20 and i am really tired i just had a lot to say and kept writing please leave a like
I agree its one of the reasons why i hate odyssy the moons feel like bonuses like star coins in new supe (unimportant) until you realise fuck i need them to get outa here. And even if you do want to do a clean sweep of the courses which is what i did my first time playing (this week was my first time im 15) i still loved the leaving the levels because it gave me time to cool off and think about what needed to be done next. Btw the second reason i hate odyssy is the lack of power ups and the introduction of cappy i hate it sm64 doesnt really have power ups like the caps kinda are but they dont feel the same but they dont feel lime a replacement either and thats what cappy is instead of deciding on a mario game without power ups someone at nintendo decides y'know what would be a great idea mario uses a sentient magic hat to mind control enemies animals and objects and someone else goes thats great flawless gimick that definately wont loose us any sales to the use of bad gimicks to overshadow everything that we did right with this otherwise good game with good controls and no need for gimicks.
A sense of pride and joy
Walking into Blockbuster and playing Mario 64 for the first time was such a memorable and magical experience.
I had the same experience. Played it first at Blockbuster. The game was nothing short of mind blowing at the time.
Going into blockbuster after school on a Friday afternoon to rent Nintendo64 games was such a great time. I truly miss those days.
@@33Dannyb still is mind blowing imo. Way ahead of its time
Getting pop corn and a copy of Terminator 2 or Van Damme movie. Those were the days
I remember being TERRIFIED of that eel in JRB. I HATED that level because of the eel and did everything I could to never have to go there. I still get the creeps when I see it.
I was so afraid of him up until I was about 13. Then one day I got into the water and I wasn't afraid anymore. It was the first time a game actually scared me.
Fr
I hated the eel too! It was always my least-favorite level! Something about being underwater too freaked me out.
Meeeee to
Getting the start from that Eel's tail was the final star I got on my first run as a kid. That eel scared the crap out of me
>an excuse to use Dire Dire Docks in the background
I am thankful to be subscribed.
I'm pretty sure the 'booting you from the level' was a workload management decision. Letting the player stay in the level increases the complexity of the state tracking they have to do to prevent things like sequence breaking for the missions. It's much easier from a design and programming standpoint to just clear the memory and start from a known good state.
It also seems like a natural progression from 2-D games that make you leave the level any way
This
It never bothered me though. The 100 coin star was grabable without leaving the stage,allowing for a combination of red coins and 100 coin and regardibg the othet stars,youre inside the stage again in a few seconds anyway
@Joe Parziale no you don't? That's what his retrospectives are. Looking at an old game and see if it still stands on it's own years after his release
@Joe Parziale you say he is bothered by the game booting you out because he didn't grow up with the game, but that's really dumb. Maybe you're just blinded by nostalgia because you (i assume by what you wrote) did grow up with it?
Personally, I feel like the levels booting you out after completing a star, wasn’t padding at all. It was to make the game generally consistent across all star completions since some stars do require a level reset. It would be far more disjointed to have only a handful of instances of being booted out- people would think that it was a glitch. But this boot out system also promotes people to explore in a much more non-linear fashion. I think they did take advantage of being able to compress files by not having all star avenues available in order to overwhelm this system by constantly having to code for the possibility of all stars being attainable at once. You are allowed certain non-linear freedoms, but not all of them at once because that would be too much code for a system to handle 120 star completion possibilities all at once. You can’t even really compare banjo kazooie to Mario 64 because there’s an additional 2 years worth of trial and error banjo kazooie had on top of already having a frame of reference Mario 64 pioneered for them.
In some levels that's honestly fine, and some circumstances require a level reset regardless. My issue is when you go for say, all the stars in Bob-Omb Battlefield, you end up having 4 stars which involve a lot of the same repetitive steps, and you just end up wishing you could grab them all in one go like in Odyssey instead of having to grab them one at a time, which leads to the tedium setting in rather quickly.
@@FezTheSpaceBiker And that is why Galaxy does what SM64 tried to do way better. Each star, besides some of the secret ones, felt like a relatively new experience despite being in the same galaxy. There were actually substantial changes made to level layouts each time. And the comet stars usually appeared later on after you've partly forgotten your experience with the galaxy.
Now if only the galaxies felt more open. Ironically despite being set in outer space, the worlds are overall more constrictive than SM64 and Sunshine's worlds because Mario can't fly in space and the gravity-based platforming relies on small planetoids.
I feel like Tick tock clock should have been more forgiving
I always saw it as a matter of hardware limitations. I recently replayed this game via Super Mario 64 Plus, which allows you to stay inside the map after grabbing a star *and* making the necessary adjustments to make getting everything on one visit possible. It does wonders for the pacing, at least in my opinion. Agreed with BK being an unfair comparison. I do think BK handles completion better, but again, there was a two year gap to play with.
@@jonahabenhaim1223 It's pleasant enough with Super Mario 64 Plus. Stopped time and literally got everything in one sweep.
The towers on Shifting Sand Land can be run up, no need for the flying cap (similar to the walls with arrows in the last Bowser stage).
I find that SM64 controllers are like an instrument, easy to pick up but hard to master, having enormous depth for those who want it, as speedruns clearly shows.
Those are largely unintentional tricks
I feel bad for you that you didn't get the full revolutionary Mario 64 experience in the 90's. I like the DS version too but playing Mario 64 when it was new was an indescribable joy that I don't think newcomers will ever get to feel. I was 5 years old when I first saw the game and I literally froze up in awe, my jaw completely dropped and I could not stop staring. The jump from SMB to Mario 64 was just too unreal, it felt like a dream.
Yeah it's tough getting across just how next level SM64 was at launch. Most people were coming from a 16 bit console with an eight directional dpad where 3D video games as a generalized concept meant either mode 7 style sprite scaling or perhaps 2.5d FPS games like wolf3d. And analog controls meant "joystick or trackball".
Imagine if all the hype behind Kinect or Oculus Rift "changing the face of gaming" actually DIDNT fall hilariously flat and maybe you'll get an idea of what SM64 was in 1996.
John Redcorn I completely agree. Even after seeing the PS1 and the Saturn, Super Mario 64 floored me. It “feeling like a dream” is an accurate description of the feeling I had while playing it for the first few times and it remained enjoyable for years to come. The game was just wonderful when it first came out.
John Redcorn i remember not even liking 64 at al because it didnt play like 2D SMB. It being revolutionary never phased me
The same can be said about Occarina of Time or Metroid Prime. It´s totally different to experience these games first jumps to 3d when they were new instead of playing them about 15 to 20 years later. Of course a game like Occarina of Time doesn´t awestruck you the same way when you first play it in 2014 opposed to the way when you played in on release.
What plays a huge part is that for many these are childhood memories. I on the other hand was already 21 years old when Occarina was released, but it floored me nevertheless. The same with Mario 64 in 1996 and Metroid Prime in 2002. It was EXACTLY what I wanted at the time, a Super Metroid in 3D. These are still some of the best gaming memories I ever experienced (on many different platforms; mainly PC, Nintendo and Sony-Consoles). If I recall the last couple of years there aren´t many games that did that for me; Demon´s Souls was one of the few NEW games that somehow invoked the feeling why I fell in love with games in the first place.
I was 9 years old and used to NES and SNES. I couldn't rationalize what I was seeing or how I could possibly control it. It was amazing. Game changing.
A lot of the problems with the original game solved by the DS version were hardware or algorithmic limitations of the time. For example, the camera troubles were amplified by the horrible resolution of the 64's analog stick, there were only 32 (compared to the GameCube's 256) different angles the stick could be at. In fact, the notches on the stick were there to ensure players could reliably press directly forward, because being a little off was a huge difference in angle.
This is the same reason Mario did little half circles while turning at high speeds, it allowed players to use angles other than the 3(!) between straight and 45 degrees. Later games like banjo kazooie used interpolation techniques and code developed by Nintendo after the launch of Mario 64. The walljump timing was also a feature of 64 using less precise floating point numbers and doing frequent conversions between, the smoother gameplay and timings of games like banjo kazooie is largely due to thousands of developer hours making more precise collisions and movement by building off of Mario 64's techniques and code.
I'm also confused as to how not booting players out would have improved the game in the way you said without major redesigns. Multiple levels would have stars mere jumps away from each other, and expanding level sizes to solve this would have required compression techniques pioneered years after its development.
So yes, Mario 64 could have had fixed the problems you bemoan, but they are in no way "minor" differences when given the constraints of the hardware and tools, and attributing the design decisions to "padding" is a gross insult to the developers at the time.
It is padding though? Like- are we even arguing about that? Of course it's padding
You can't blame the camera troubles on the N64's analogue stick lol, it only had one, the C buttons controlled the camera and the analogue stick was perfect.
The DS version brought its own issues, like no analogue control and only the ability to move the camera left or right.
"Multiple levels would have stars mere jumps away from each other" That's exactly why it feels like padding. This functionality was already built into the game, why not use it?
That ending credits music . . .gets me emotional every time.
H.D Beird same, and I don't even like this game that much
Gives me goosebumps every time...
Getting booted out of a level isn't a bad thing, and it actually makes the game more reminiscent of the linear progression of the older games. You have to do each start separately - otherwise you could very easily get 4 stars all at the same time and they wouldn't be special, it'd be "get these four stars time"
Aco somebody finaly gets it💯👌
You are right, he actually says something parallel to this in his retrospective of Odyssey
+therandom3591 Thank God I’m not the only one who thinks that! The moon system in Odyssey is terrible! I wish they were more like SM64’s stars.
@@anonymoususer2756 Same here, I thought I thought I was the only one who didn't enjoy the moon system. I agree with you guys, I wish Odyssey moon system was more like 64/Sunshine/Galaxy's (mostly 64) star system to be completely honest, because the mission structure is what made almost every star special and memorable imo.
@@Rex13013 With SM64 every star was its own unique journey with different objectives you had to complete, and you could do nearly all of them in whatever order you wanted. In Odyssey every level is just kind of a big linear path with moons scattered around in diverging paths off the main objective. Some you can't do before doing another. And on top of that some you can't even collect again because of permanent changes to the level. In SM64 every course is just a blank slate that you can do whatever you want in and resets when you quit or die, just like in the 2D games. But something about Odyssey and the way its missions are structured just feels so restrictive and linear to me. I get no enjoyment out of completing them.
My favorite memories from these games was everybody coming together and sharing what they found with each other
18:23 - YES. THIS. Back when I was a young little Real1, I had 119 stars and lacking that one. Internet was unheard of for me back then and none of my friends knew how to get the star. Eventually I saw a gaming magazine that had a text snippet on the cover that gave me uncontrollable euphoria. "How to get all the stars from the first seven worlds of Super Mario 64".
But then a new problem showed up. That magazine was on the shelf behind the counter of that tiny store so I couldn't read the it, and I didn't have any money to buy the magazine. So I had to wait for my weekly allowance of 20 SEK (approx 2,5 dollars back then). But then when I got it, that wasn't enough! The magazine was 35 SEK. So in the end I had to do the dishes for a few days to get the remaining money.
So, I eventually got the magazine, and shortly after I could finally reach my goal.
The happiness was real. I still have that exact magazine, and its so thoroughly read
Real1Gaming really? "The one" for me was the 20 second peach painting slide. I loved getting into the cannon and blasting off to my death or into walls so i must not have taken long for me to find it. I also didnt have internet
Such a different time. Back when you learned how to beat hard levels or found secrets by talking to kids on the playground or buying nintendo power, it really made games feel more rewarding than just having all the answers at your fingertips.
this one was my last one too... 2nd last was the peach slide under 20 seconds
Fellow Swede, fellow happiness!
I had a very similar experience as a kid :D
yeah think i found it by accident. anyway the secret slide star took me longest i believe
Super Mario 64 is my favorite video game of all time and while I grew up with both versions, I still perfered the original on the N64💕. Great video btw 👍💯
Man. I almost agreed with you. And then you said you preferred DS's controls. :P
But legit, great video as always, man. Fantastic points and very interesting observations and I haven't thought about before!
I mean he made some good point though. The run button is kind of nice.
uh yes the ds versions controls are great, don't dis it until you actually played it
@@ajddavid452 mmmm yes 8 way movement for a game literally used to showcase 360 control
@@Caidren yeah but it's not like you need it, also it features gradual turning which means yoy aren't really limited to 8 directions, think spyro the dragon being played with a dpad
@@ajddavid452 yeah using a dpad is the best for a 3d game 😒🙄
I got 120 stars once as a kid...i was so proud of myself...never been so happy to see yoshi lol.
I’m one of those lucky few that enjoy both SM64 and SM64-DS’ control schemes and believe both to function soundly.
I find it pointless to argue over which one is better, to be honest. The only real problem with the two is the shitty camera in the original and the necessity to hold the run button in the DS version, and even so, both issues aren't all that annoying.
I honestly preferred how Ape Escape Controls over Mario 64
@@jonahabenhaim1223 Oh.
"Something revolutionary is rarely flawless." Sums up my thoughts on a lot of games actually (Metroid Prime, Ocarina of Time, Breath of the wild, etc.).
Most things aren't flawless after all.
I think oot should be taken of the flawless list
But those games are masterpieces
And the reason for mario 64 flaws is because there wasn't a good way to control the camera it was the first game of his kind so is understandable
@@somethingsomething7993
This is coming from a guy who's favourite piece of media ever is Ocarina of Time: it is NOT a flawless game at all.
one thing i can say that for me as a young kid, getting booted out and having a fresh start, made it a lot easier for me to organize objectives, also added mystery and intrigue upon revisits. You never knew quite exactly what was going to be the difference when you went back in, which you can say is padding if mad, but optimistically for young folk it is indeed longevity in its purest form. The game demanded that you almost respect each level, know it in and out, and it would be baked into your mind forever. Not bad design (for the time) in my opinion, they indeed got us to remember every single level, aside from the submarine one cause i completely forgot that existed.
Growing up with both versions as they came out, I have an appreciation for both control schemes.
And while I see the benefits and flaws in each one, I have to say the D-Pad is still the major hindrance as to why people dislike the remake. I completely agree that having a run button adds a level of precision to gameplay that is much more casual friendly. Mario 3D World showed us that having a run button in 3 dimensional platforming can work extremely well. But the nuance of a control stick just can't be beat.
As a side note, I noticed your 64 gameplay was the Virtual Console version. The control in that version is a bit of a mess due to how the game was developed with the 64's true analog stick in mind. The GameCube's and Classic Controller's digital stick just don't function as well for that game and as a result make Mario's platforming really finicky.
I always suggest to forgo the VC version and play on a legit 64 with a good 64 controller.
ProphitDesigns Hah, that'll be the day. Nowhere near owning an N64
You'd probably get better analog control using an emulator and a modern controller even.
KingK that's might be why you prefer the DS version, though. You played it on the hardware it was designed for.
But after having gotten used to two other versions of this game already, it might be impossible to go back to the original and appreciate the controls as they were. The subtle differences would be confusing and feel unpleasant.
The analogue stick of N64 controllers is stiffer than most analogue sticks, which honestly is for the best. I find it annoyingly difficult in, say, Super Mario Galaxy to consistently move Mario at a slow pace, and it's mostly because the Nunchuk's analogue stick is pretty loose (it's also somewhat difficult to consistently move Mario in a direction that isn't one of the eight cardinal directions, due to the fact that the hole that the stick is placed in, whatever that's called, is octagonally shaped).
That makes sense. I was wondering why he was ragging on the n64 controller. That thing was pretty much design with this game in mind and there is nothing better for it.
You say the DS version has a "lack of aliasing", but it actually has a lack of "anti-aliasing". The DS version has aliasing in spades.
yeah, It's due to the incredibly low resolution of the DS screen
Woah, a person who's videos I watch
hows kane carter doing
I love that the game kicks you out after each star because it makes the star feel even more rewarding. I feel like if the game didn’t celebrate each star like that, then they wouldn’t feel special. They’d feel like coins. And I find it satisfying to tackle the level again and see how much better I’ve gotten at it. They get easier over time and it feels good. I can see how it’s annoying for speed runners.
I like how all of your footage is you playing badly
hahahahhahahhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahazhazhzhzhzhhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhhzhzhahahahahahhahahahah
Indeed
Keeping it real tho. Lol kinda better than a speed run
He is bad. And than he keeps ranting about missing "handholding" in games like Ocarina of Time, which were beaten by millions of children back in the 90s.
@@brionifanboy8792 Are you still salty about a review? I suppose I can kinda understand that. I'm still angry about some reviews from somecallmejohnny, but I just stopped watching, I don't go around his comment sections hating on him.
While I do think it generally sounds good to not be kicked out of stages, in this specific case I think it works well.
Disregarding the changes made to levels between certain stars it gives you a clean slate and makes you think about what you want to do next.
"Do I want to do another stage?", "Which star should I tackle next?", "Should I use the metal cap I just unlocked somewhere else?"
Most often you do want to enter the same stage, but even then you often experiment & tackle the next objectives in ways you weren't doing before.
It also gives you a good stopping point, in many other collectathons you continue to play even though you may not really feel like doing so.
In this game's case however you actively make the choice of: "Yes, I want to do this now".
In games like Banjo Kazooie this would not work for several reasons:
A) The levels are much bigger and spread apart from each other.
B) The levels offers more variety in their environments making it feel more like a world than a constructed space.
C) You would have to make actions that would be a lot more frustrating to do multiple times, like transformations for example
The reason I think it works so well with Mario 64 is that the stages are small, non linear & generally fast paced.
In stages that have a single main objective the game does not kick you out of the stage for doing an optional star, like taking all the red coins in the bowser stages for example.
Bottom line I think it works to this game's advantage, while it's not always good I think it's a beneficial feature overall.
Thanks for reading if you did :)
Huh, people usually have a lot of complaints about the DS version, but it was the first one I played, so I'm with you on most issues there.
NotQuite Videos I played the 64 version first, but I prefer the DS version by far, even the controls. It's just better overall in my opinion.
While I think stating that the people complaining about the ds controls are trying to be edgy and different is fairly stupid, I never had any problems with the controls either, I was surprised to recently find out that most people didn't like it
Grew up playing the original on the Wii virtual console, tried to play the DS version but couldn't. I know its the superior version, though I wish it came out on the Wii or something originally so that I could of had a better time playing it with a joy-stick. It just feels stiff and so unnatural to me. (I played it on the 3DS.)
To me, I feel like its going to be a person to person thing, mostly those who played the DS first will at least have a good grasp on the controls, while those who are used to the N64 version will not like them. Its different for everyone, or course, but having a run button in a 3D space doesn't feel right, one reason why I also don't like 3D world for the 8 directions and run button.
I perfer te DS control scheme to the N64. I really dont understand people that claim it ruined the game.
In spite of my age, the N64 version was the first one I played (though that's mostly due to me getting my cousin's old N64 before the original DS ever came out and Super Mario 64 being one of the games that was given with it) and in the end I somewhat prefer the DS version, despite the griping I hear about the D-Pad...
...I never really found too many gripes with the D pad on that game, looking back. Especially noticing the weird semi-circling KingK mentioned in the original N64 game.
Laughing so much of this. I never realized how brilliant and persistent I must have been when I was 8 years old. I didn't speak english and internet was a novelty that we didn't have, but still managed to get all the stars. I could have accomplished so much in life.....
Interesting to see someone else really struggled with that weird half-circle turnaround. It happens so inconsistently that it has also killed me more than anything else in any 3D Mario
Same. Even my friend who has played 64 all his life has the same issue.
I played the DS version first, and I played it really a lot when I was a child, but today I can't stand its control. I prefer the N64 version by far.
Carlos
If Mario 64 DS had updated graphics and full analog movement it would be amazing.
If playing it on the using the analog on the 3ds made the game function like the stylus mode it would be good. Or even the ds analog strap on
@@garbanzomeatball Kinda--I hate how some missions force you to use characters other than mario
@Lewis Bandas rite
@Lewis Bandas I love the original on the N64, but you mentioned seriousness in Super Mario 64 ? or any Mario game? Seriousness and Mario do not mix. These games are the opposite of serious.
It’s weird, I never minded being booted out of the stage. It kinda allowed me a moment to celebrate my accomplishment after completing a star, especially the more difficult ones. I can see now that’s not how games are designed (they are aimed at keeping you going indefinitely). But yeah, I kinda like it. It allows for nice division between achievements. To each their own I suppose.
Then why does the 100 coin star not boot you out?
@@jonahabenhaim1223 Because they obviously added that feature late in game development. You can find articles where they confirm that.
" I grew up playing the DS version"
Well that explains everything lol
I grew up with the DS version as well, and to this day, SM64 has remained my favorite game of all time
The only thing that is better in the nintendo 64 version is the control stick...
Seriously... wtf is this dude talking about? The DS graphics alone for SM64 is shitty and blocky
Phony Montana To each their own but I find the DS’s more refined and accurate models, along with its sharper textures, more appealing than the N64 version’s strange models (which are sometimes inaccurate to the official artwork, like Bowser’s model) and blurry textures.
Bitch please, the only people who call the original's controls good are so blinded by nostalgia that Stevie Wonder could help them cross the street.
That statement about revolutionary games rarely being flawless holds up very well. Tropical Freeze is a game that admittedly isn’t revolutionary, but it is near flawless
I'm currently binge watching all your videos. My god, your voice is so nice. So chill. Most people in the business of discussing game design like to yell and depend on hyperbole or at least having some kind of joke. This is just nice to listen to.
one of the best game ever...in 1996 it was the best game to play
"grew up with it on my Nintendo DS"
This phony wasn't even there man
HE WASNT EVEN THERE
I’m excited for this series
It's videos like this that make me fall in love with video games all over again. Thank you so much for giving your input on my favorite Mario game of all time and I hope your channel continues to grow.
Maybe an alternate solution to the game forcing you out of the level after completion would be to give the players the choice of what they would like to do with a menu that says "Continue" or "Quit". This gives people like Speedrunners a much easier time not bothering with having to reenter levels over and over again, cuts out unnecessary time for completionists, and allows regular players to either continue to be immersed into the game or possibly take a break from the game or the area that they are currently in. Giving the players the choice when at a crossroad of what to do, especially in such a freeform game as you discussed in detail, is a very clever game design tactic. Also, to fix the problem of bad transitions between stars, you may be able to either play a cutscene to aid the game in getting more time to transition, or possibly use it to your advantage in certain scenarios. For example: The tower begins to crumble, so Mario has to jump between falling rocks to stay alive. And maybe some of the rocks that were hidden inside of the tower contained 1-ups and coins, so we can design this skill challenge in such a way to where Mario is guided to where the best places to jump are by coins, while being challenged to jump in riskier places to obtain an occasional 1-up. There could be some super cool quicktime platforming scenarios created by this form of transition, and I believe it would diversify the already insanely open-world game shenanigans, making the game a much more thrilling and satisfying experience. The best part is: they already got the star, so there wouldn't be much room to complain if they failed, allowing it to further provide a purely fun and enjoyable experience.
As much as I enjoy the 3D Mario games, it always annoyed me how power ups were mandatory for progressing through a certain objective as opposed to the older games where you could just pick them up. I'm glad 3D Land and 3D World went back to this. Great video btw.
*But first we need to talk about Parallel Universes...*
my mom did not let me go trick or treating this year becuase she says i might cathch the coronavirus and kill all of my friends
@@RickSatan cool story beo
@Gibdo An A press is an A press, you can't say it's only a half.
Wouldnt it be cool if they made a remake of 64 as DLC for Odyssey? They could put a pipe in the Mushroom Kingdom that brought you to the 64 version with updated graphics and music! Cappy would have to go, but it would be cool if other moves could stay. The main thing I would like to see in a remake would be to not be booted out upon grabbing a star and remixes of songs for repeat stages. Like, Whomp's Fortress could have more drums or something. Just something to make the repeat songs more distinct.
Maybe I'm crazy. I just think it would be a good fit.
A door in peach castle that requires 999 moons.
ClipOnSunglasses I definitely think they should go all out. Not just redone textures, but more like how beautiful it is to run around the Mushroom Kingdom in Odyssey.
ClipOnSunglasses I guess I didn't mean throw in more things. Because, yeah, that wouldn't work. I just meant visual things. Like the flower patches in the Mushroom Kingdom, or the pixel art in the Cascade Kingdom. Something to spice up the less visually interesting worlds of 64.
+ClipOnSunglasses This is a great and an extremely underexposed idea. Older 'fuzzy' graphics make sparse levels look more lively and dense than they really are. It's what makes Banjo feel more alive and kicking than Yooka, in my opinion. There really isn't THAT much going on in Banjo, but the jaggy (jiggy? ;p) moving textures made the world seem bustling with energy in a way that's hard to replicate with high fidelity and smoother textures. For the record, I think Odyssey does an absolutely wonderful job of overcoming this while maintaining the simplicity of design.
spoonfreakdotcom Yeah, exactly. And I think it would be cool if that treatment was given to 64. :)
"I had the pleasure of growing up with Super Mario 64 on my DS." Goddamn do I feel old. I was already in high school when this game came out... on the Nintendo 64!
Someone who played SM64 first - before any remakes or sequels - will have no problem with the controls. It takes five minutes to learn how to do everything, and from there it's pure intuition. Sure, something newer could "feel" better 20 years later where we've had time to master it, but in 1996 when I started playing it was no problem.
Also, any sentiment about it being outdated is contradicted by the vast playerbase that still plays the game today; especially in speedrunning circles. New rom hacks and mods are being released for this game with the same controls and mechanics. A multiplayer mod just came out a few months ago. Stuff like this exists for Sunshine, maybe, but I haven't seen it. Nobody is playing Galaxy.
People are still playing this game, regardless of how the sequels "improved."
Galaxy has a healthy community too wtf
*Ha ha this guy was a baby or one*
This is a perfect compliment to Mathew Matosis review on Mario. I love the detailed observations and perspectives put out on this review. The nostalgia is strong and becomes an ever growing lesson in perfecting game design.
I just got here from TH-cam's algorithm and I've barely watched any of the video so far but I've got to say that I appreciate using World of Longplays as a source.
Unpopular opinion: the best way to play Super Mario 64 is the DS version, on a 3DS.
Getting booted out of the level after every star, while annoying, made the game more memorable and fostered a sense of accomplishment. The sense of accomplishment made me want to jump back into the level and get the next star. Getting booted out also allowed me to explore at my leisure, and I'm sure if I didn't get booted out after every star, I would've found the game boring, at some stage.
In retrospect, as a kid, it's incredible how both uninformed you are of a game's flaws and how much b.s. you're willing to put up. Kid's have an underrated ability to put up with a lot, simply for the fact they don't know any better and because they have boundless energy.
Something I rarely see people mention is that while 64's levels are ostenbly open sandboxes, for most levels in practice there's really only actual meaningful platforming along set paths. In Bob-omb Battlefield, for example, everything other then the path to and then up the mountain is more or less empty field with trees and enemies scattered around.
By contrast, Sunshine has far more actual platforming tools and paths all around levels in multiple directions: Bianco hills still has a very similar path and trek up a vertical structure, but the village and the hills and the ropes over the lake are all far more conductive to freeform sandbox platforming. On that note, sunshine actually does way more with the narrative progression between missions.
Some levels in sunshine basically don't have platforming at all though. The hotel, beach, like half the stars in Pina park, the imposter Mario levels, etc all focus on gimmicks outside of platforming.
I seriously get giddy when you upload. You've become one of my favorite content creators quickly.
This was the best xmas ever! I loved my 64.
i was like 7 years old when i got the n64 bundled with super mario 64. i had very little understanding of the game and pretty much just ran around trying to figure out what it is i needed to do. I played a ton and never beat the game for one sad reason. I didnt understand at the opening of the game you could have different profiles and what that meant. so i started my first profile, and would randomly start new profiles and re-do everything.
so a majority of my game time was spent running through lvls i already completed and re-doing them aimlessly not even realizing i was starting from scratch again and again.. LOL
I was a teenager when the game came out.
It's one thing playing this game back when 3D polygonal games were common, but playing this after playing 2D games (or first person Doom Clones) forever was a revelation.
I agree with you about the level design of tick tock clock being annoying due to getting kicked out after each star, but there is a functional reason it was designed this way. By making the player complete the exact same section over and over, it helps to clue them in to the fact that the speed of the levels moving components can be changed (from slow to medium to fast) depending on where the hands were when entering the level. If the design hadn't been so linear, it would have been much easier for a player not to realize this mechanic existed. Not that it was perfect (many people still didn't realize it was happening) but I can't really consider this a fault of the game as I'm fairly certain it was a conscious design choice that did serve a purpose. That said, this is relative to the n64 version - having never played the DS one, I'm not sure if other steps were taken in it (like better dialogue from toad) to help explain the mechanic to the player.
I never thought about that, thats actually a pretty clever design choice (although it didnt work on me lol)
I love your retrospectives, you'd be surprised of the amount of time ive needed something to listen to before i goto sleep and choose your videos
Finally someone else who likes SM64DS more.
I like how something me and all my friends could do as children takes impossibly good dexterity. 120 stars is free
Yeep
It should be noted; one of Super Mario 64's inspirations is a game called "Ultima: Underworld 2: The Labyrinth of Worlds", a game that came out in 1993. It even borrows the base concept, Bowser could even be said to be a stand-in for Ultima's "The Guardian".
Regarding the obtuse nature of the "blast away the wall" mission in Whomp's Fortress... I have a funny story regarding that:
I found that star completely by accident. The way it happened is that I came to the "fall into the floating cage" mission and didn't realize you could climb the tree in the beginning to make an owl appear that would carry you up to the floating cage. I automatically assumed "oh, I just need to shoot to the cage using the canon". Turns out, I was too low on my first shot from the canon, and broke away the wall without even realizing it was possible. Two birds, one stone.
If anything, I'd argue that figuring out the owl was there was much trickier and more obtuse than learning you could break away the wall. However, looking back, there are a number of ways to get into that floating cage... which is another great demonstration of the open ended nature and freedom this game provides.
Great video!
I think I was told about that one by a friend. I do remember thinking that I'd never find it on my own. I also remember the 2nd star on the princess's secret slide being the last star for me to find. I knew it was one of the castle stars from the menu list but never thought to look in a previous area. I was sure there was another secret wall or window to search. I think I found it out in a magazine but boy I was floored. That one would have taken forever for me to find.
I do like retrospective videos in terms of learning from the past but it's always good to keep in mind hindsight is 20 20 and that a lot of errors in early game design specifically in 3D game design is simply a result of nothing to work from as a reference and no rules or norms to follow in the world of 3D game design
22:34 Gotta build up speed for 12 hours
I gotta say, I agree with almost every point in this video. I thought I was the only one with these thoughts but I guess I'm not!
i really want to see this game get an hd remaster with qol features, a DS version with better controls, and more slide themed levels. i am still upset that i lost my copy.
Get a 428 in 1 card. I found my brother's and it has SM64DS, Mario Party DS, NSMB 1 and Sonic And Sega All-Stars Racing.
Solution for the character swapping issue in the DS remake...play the whole game as Yoshi. At the start of every level, you can start with the cap of any unlocked character, so become them if you need them for a certain objective. Their cap will also naturally be found in the level so if you lose it, you can always get it back. Unless you need them for something around the castle, Yoshi can do everything, even if it's weird to hear his voice out of Warios mouth.
Mario 64 is still my favorite of the 3d games (haven't played Odyssey yet). I prefer it over Sunshine because of the way Sunshine handled progression as well as the pain that is 100%ing it. Sunshine could have easily beat 64 for me if those were fixed. And I prefer it over the Galaxy games and 3d World simply because I prefer more open collect-a-thons over linear 3d platforming. Galaxy is good and all but I rarely ever get the urge to replay it. 64 isn't the best collect-a-thon, Banjo and Donkey Kong easily out did it, but for Mario, 64 is the closest to that style. And I get what your saying about the ds versions controls, but I really don't like it when 3d games have run buttons, the only game where I do is Sly Cooper. 64 is definitely rough around the edges, but that doesn't stop it from being good.
It isn't bad no matter what you say.
Your arguments are impeccable, how could anyone argue against that?
It's hard to have a discussion with someone you just randomly inserts his opinion as fact and just leaves it like that. Unless you can actually bring a discussion with good arguments and points, I'm going to consider you not worth talking to.
DarkSonic180 Would you plz shut up
@The Red Guy
I can't stand Donkey Kong 64. Such a tedious and bloated game.
Only thing I really gotta say is that the DS Version does not look better lol. I really don't see it, it looks way more pixelated than the n64 version.
TheLastSliceOfPie That's not really the game's fault, it's just that the DS never had good aliasing. Even the 3DS lacks aliasing as well
So it's not the original Mario 64's fault that it could only handle however many polygons per screen because of the N64, right? I guess I'm not following how a game made for a specific console doesn't have to take shit for looking bad on that one specific console.
There's more to graphics than anti-aliasing...
That's only because you are looking at it blown up on a screen. On the DS it looks perfectly fine, and not blurry and distorted like the 64 version.
The DS versions has better character models a few nice textures but that's about it.
"i dont let nostalgia blind me" followed immediately by "i prefer the ds version because thats what i grew up on", lmao
I don't see the issue. Those statements can coexist without contradiction.
But he said other reasons
I will always love this game. Even though it’s not the best game I’ve ever played, I can’t think of a game that blew me away more than Mario 64 when I first saw the demo kiosk of it setup at Toys’R’Us. The jump from 2D sprites to full 3D polygons was so awesomely jarring to see back in the day. It’s one of those things you just had to have seen/experienced to fully appreciate.
I feel like very few analysts look at games the way that you do. You do an impeccable job of dissecting a game from head to toe -- from the faults to the strengths. While I realize it's all subjcetive, it's nice seeing someone able to take a game and share its many aspects of design for its viewers. Please keep creating videos!! Well done!
I would like seeing you cover the Banjo series on N64, since it looks like a great thing to compare to SM64.
"Growing up with it on my nintendo ds" I feel old.
"Better control" lul.
I mean, I was 11 years old when this game released and I managed to complete it 100% by myself. It's definitely (very) challenging at times, but nothing too bad. :)
I've never watched a review of SM64 that was even comparable to the legend Matthewmatosis ...but this is a extremely close second. Well done.
Wow "1st games are almost always eclipsed by their sequels" that's a reach if I've ever heard one
I don't think anyone would ever argue that Mario 64 is flawless, but you can't call something a flaw just because a later game does it better. That'd be like saying "Muskets were great rifles, but they would have really benefitted from being able to hold multiple rounds, something that most later rifles would do". Being revolutionary means there wasn't anything before it to copy or improve. It broke ground and it's because of Mario 64 that games like Banjo Kazooie could exist. This is why I think going back and picking apart games that came out 20+ years ago and comparing their features to the features of games that came out years after isn't fair and doesn't make for a good comparison.
My only real problem with SM64 is the camera system. It makes some sections unnecessarily difficult as you can't see what you need to. Also not a fan of the side flip controls.
It’s not the only fault with the game I think
the clock is great, since it challenges your dexterity time again with every star and gives you many options to tackle different obstacles. it also changes the way the level plays depending on the hand position so you get many different challenges on top. it was the most fun level for me and my friend as we played it decades ago.
I mean if you like challenging levels
Watched this when it came out, coming back to it now I'm baffled by the idea that level boot outs were some kind of technical limitation of the N64. Like the 100 coin star doesn't boot you out, so that's technically possible. Banjo is an entire game that doesn't have a boot out mechanic on the same console. There's big level change set pieces like the snowman getting built in CCM, or the pyramid top exploding in SSL. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are built on the exact same engine as Mario 64 if I recall correctly. Just a wild piece of discussion I keep seeing in the half decade old comments.
I guess I'll edit in some other thoughts as I have them.
Tall Tall Mountain gets some praise in this video as a level that there should be more of rather than another Rainbow Ride. And sure it would be better than Rainbow Ride, but Tall Tall Mountain sucks. Here are some Objectives: Get to the top, Get to the top but this time there's a monkey, Get to the top but this time get behind the waterfall, Get to the top but this time jump into a wall on the side of the mountain. Terrible level.
I had the pleasure of playing this at launch back in the 90s on the N64 and you can’t critique it by today’s standards or games that came after as this laid the groundwork.
Yes you can. Not doing so is unfair to games that came after. You should certainly keep in mind the time that it came out when critiquing it and understand why certain things in the game are the way they are, but ultimately a flaw doesn't become less bothersome to a player just because it's only there due to the limits of it's time.
Getting shot wouldn’t be less frustrating if you were shot by a civil war musket compared to an AK47, would it?
IT BEGINS! 🙌🏾
I will say, the Ds version, while being impressive, was the wrong system to port the game to. I'd much rather see a 3ds port and I really want a true 3d Mario for the 3ds
If you play as Yoshi, then you don't have to go back and switch characters because at the start of each level you can select which character you need. If your in the stage already and you realized that your the wrong character, you can find a cap or just boot out and jump back in the painting as a different character.
I have so much nostalgia for this game. It was like my first Nintendo 64 game and it was so much fun to mess around with the overworld of the castle. I actually like that a lot of my early games had this kind of mechanic such as Sonic Adventure which made it a lot of fun to play even after I completed the levels.
"There is not technically motivated excuse for it to boot you out."
*MEMORY LIMITATIONS, YOU CHUNGUS*
I don't think it would take more memory to stay in the course. That just doesn't make any sense to me. New objects can just be loaded from the ROM, cause those cartridges are really fast. Far away sprites don't seem to stay in the memory either.
@@Anonymous-sb9rr You really don't know how limited the 64's memory was, do you?
@@UmbreonMessiah I said it wouldn't take more memory, not it would take more memory but the N64 has a little to spare.
When you don't have the skill to complete a simple task in a child's game, you call the task or control scheme archaic. Makes me chuckle
The flying cap scene killed me
foam queen *That ticked me off too! Finding it!*
As someone who grew up with the DS version, I can say that the N64 version is absolutely painful for me to play. The only insentive I had to finish it was novelty. It's really just a matter of which one you played first.
I grew up with the DS version, I finished the game with all 150 stars a lot of times, but nowadays it's unplayable yo me. N64 version controls are way superior imo.
The 100 coins element is by far my least favourite aspect of SM64. Some levels make it arduous rather than enjoyable.
16:56 totally agree with you thats what i do collect 100 coin and 8 red coins at the same time. Usually when I have 98 coins left, and the last coin is red, I make both stars appear at the same time
You sound way too old to have "grown up" with Mario on DS.
I grew up with the N64 version of Mario, and I'm 22.
I'm 21, it isn't so farfetched to believe I grew up with it.
I'm currently 17. My first console was the wii with NSMBW as the first game.
@@KingKlonoa You make me feel so damn old. xD
I’m 25 and played N64 and PlayStation when I was growing up.It was so much fun going to a cousins house because we all had N64s
"Sound way too old"
Your criticisms of this game are odd. Super Mario 64 was the first of its kind, it literally invented what it meant to be a 3D game. There was nothing to base it on or take inspiration from, so of course it was never going to be perfect. You are judging it by today's standards instead of accepting it for what it was at the time. PlayStation did not even have an analog stick and was still using a d-pad when this game was released. Let that sink in for a moment. Sony did not even understand how a game should control in 3D, and you are complaining about being booted out after collecting a star? Hilarious.
amen
I kinda prefer the booting after a star. The maps would change depending on what star you selected and this can even be exploited.
He’s judging it by todays standards because he’s playing it today, not 25 years ago. Old games aren’t immune from criticism just because they’re old. There are plenty of games that came out around the time Mario 64 did that were the first to try something and hold up much better today.
@@heydun It's not appropriate to review past media using today's standards. Developers learn from their mistakes and improve their games over time, and the industry as a whole benefits from this process. It is unfair and illogical to criticize a game for not meeting the standards of games released 27 years later, as those games had the advantage of learning from and improving upon their predecessors. I'm not saying the game should be immune from criticisms, but these things need to be considered
The guy directly acknowledges this in the first sentence of the video.
if you want to hear someone complain about getting kicked out of a level after getting a star for 15 mins then this is the video for you...
Booting you out of the stage made collecting every Star a lot more memorable. Especially because the level then changed but still kept the sandbox experience almost intact for the rest of the level's Stars. One thing I liked was that the 100 coin Star didn't kick you out. While some may consider that a flaw, I choose to believe it's not, especially because collecting those coins makes you approach the levels in a different way...in order to avoid collecting that 100th coin in a place where you knew was impossible to get the Star. It also plays out as a secret since you may not have collected those 100 coins on purpose and suddenly you get a secret Star and THEN realise there may be secret Stars in the other levels, too. Now it is a given, but back then I found that out on my own and it felt like an accomplishment...one that allowed me to also get the Star I was actually there for.
When compared to Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, booting you out of the level only encouraged the game's linearity. If there's one thing I nitpick about the Galaxy games is how linear they were, but every Star also feels pretty memorable because of it.
Then comes Mario Odyssey and the game no longer boots you out of the stage once you collect a Moon. Which is a great choice given that the game no longer features just a bit over 100 Stars but over 800 Moons not to mention 50 to 100 purple coins for every Kingdom. The problem I have with that is that, because it didn't even give you a hint unless you talk to the parrot, every Moon you collect is pretty much anyone's guess...thus making it less memorable.
Again, totally understandable because of how many Moons there are in the game.
But let's imagine for a second that you don't exit the stage in SM64 when you get the Star. You would just find the next star and go on until you've collected everything and then move on. There weren't that many Stars per level to begin with but I can assure you they would be a lot less memorable. Booting you out of the stage made the game, as a whole, more memorable because every objective felt unique, even if you decided to go for a different Star than the one suggested.
These are all great games but the choices made in every single one of them serve a purpose that may not even be strictly related to game design per se...except for Sunshine. Sunshine sells you the idea of it being an open sandbox-type game but it isn't really. It was more linear than open sand box except for the hub world and I think that's what makes it the most divisive Mario game to date...that and the FLUDD mechanic lol
I feel like a perfect solution to the problem of stars kicking you out is only have it so only the star that you selected kicks you out. Most of the changes in the level happen after the first star anyway.