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Holy crap. I don't know what to say. This video was incredible. Not only does it cover its bases by going over the subject matter in a thorough and well-thought-out manner but does so with some of the most fitting, unique, and atmospheric music choices possible. What caught me particularly off-guard was the way you used Giygas's music. Particularly the use of the prayer music when talking about old rumors that - as we grew older - we long accepted as false. Then you get to iceberg and start gradually reopening a "conflict" that FELT resolved. Finally when you hit the absolute deepest end of the iceberg, you accompany the description with the disturbed, chaotic music from the Giygas fight itself, completing the reversal on that satisfying stage of nostalgic acceptance conveyed only a few minutes earlier and send the viewer back where they were all those years ago. But what hit me the hardest was when you took that entire concept of Super Mario 64 "as an idea." You not only capitalized on my nostalgia in a way that I never thought possible, but somehow made a final point that brought together every single idea you talked about into one singular point. The technology being both new and incredibly heavily focused on this game in particular. The "playground talk" culture that came with this game and to various clues hinting at more than there is. The way we grew out of that feeling. The iceberg reopening the can of worms that is our imagination wondering if there IS more than we knew about. The spiral into personalization. And finally: the explanation debunking everything with cut content, intentional design decisions, and even just the simple decoration. Completely dismantling the idea of personalization once and for all... All for the final statement to do the most whiplash-inducing 180 imaginable, bringing all that back together just to propose that maybe every copy of Super Mario 64 WAS personalized. Not by the developers.... but by us, the people who experienced the game. It made me truly reflect on how MY copy was personalized. How my brothers and I would stomp the 4 posts in BOB to create a small baseball field. How I turned Lethal Lava Land into a Skate Park. How my particular set of skills prompted me to entirely miss the TTM slide thanks to a mid-air kick. How my particular set of skills also made me find a sort of comfort in the red-coin room of HMC since my inability to long jump made it my only option. How I permanently gave the monkey my hat to keep him warm. How I never touched the water levels due to the monsters my brothers told me lurked under the surface - Some real like the JRB eel and DDD Shark and some fake like the DDD piranha that comes from the whirlpool and elemental spiders that would attack you for spending too much time in the WDW city. Reflecting on all of those experiences and being able to call them uniquely my own was a feeling I am not sure I have ever felt before.
I feel like something that primed the internet for The Great 2020 SM64 Reawakening was the half A press/parallel worlds meme from a couple years back. Like, the video was just a TAS explanation, but it added a sense of mysticism/sci-fi flair to the game and the internet's perception of it
19:31 Haha... yeah. It was impossible to imagine at the time that an entire youtube subculture would emerge out of a video that was born out of wanting to share some obscure Mario knowledge among my friends. Hell, that's why I glossed over it 25:23. I was more hung up on discussing the weird things that explicitly existed as a part of the game instead of theories that you could make by applying such a lens to almost anything. Though I think zeroing in on things that _just_ existed as a part of the game is in a way my biggest failure when making the video. I've received comments over the past year saying that, despite the thousands of other iceberg videos, people preferred the Mario 64 one because it crafted a narrative in addition to just being a compilation of trivia. The thing is, I basically failed to realise this. I had ignored the idea that the people responsible for making the image had planted the seeds of the idea that the game was even more mysterious and secretive than it actually is. I think the focus on only adhering to things in or about the original game led to other iceberg videos doing the same, and maybe the trend would have been less obnoxious if I hadn't. Because yeah, if you take out any sort of semiotic analysis, iceberg videos are essentially just really glorified, long top-10 videos. But no use speculating about what could have been. 32:24 I completely agree with what you're saying here. Calling it something closer to a religion is honestly kind of accurate. It does genuinely feel like a fixture in my life as opposed to just a game, and as embarrassing as that sounds, I know this sentiment is shared with a lot of people. So many things about it, from its speedrunning scene, to the romhacking community, to its importance as a monumental 3D game, all solidify the idea that the game will always be relevant in some way. Icebergs and personalization are just the latest way. I know some other comments have mentioned it, but Pannenkoek's video on Half-A Presses is definitely another time that the more esoteric aspects of the game were widely displayed and engaged new people. I want to thank you for making this video. It's an amazing look at the sheer culture this game has spawned, from a perspective I hadn't really seen before. Just like the ways in which the game can be played, I love that there are an infinite amount of ways to talk about it too.
Glad you liked it, we of course threw around some hyperbole for comedic effect and such. Always easy to forget that the people you refer to would also watch your work, haha. No hard feelings, hopefully. And we absolutely see how the unplanned escalation would've unintentionally solidified certain unplanned things. Honestly, we didn't even go that deep into analyzing how your choices probably influenced a lot of how people would then go on to perceive icebergs, but it's totally true! Just a huge chance incident. However, we'd also just like to thank you for making that video, because it was thoroughly enjoyable and evidently made us think a lot about media engagement!
@@Transparencyboo Yeah, no hard feelings at all. Even through the hyperboles, your criticisms ring true. It is undeniably infinitely cool to see a thought-provoking video like this about a game that I love. Likewise, much love and good luck on any future projects and videos!
I’m very much a “lurker” on TH-cam, but I stumbled upon your channel through this video, and I must say this is some of the highest quality video essayism I’ve seen in a while. I really hope that your channel takes off because you have a large backlog of work (which I will inevitably make my way through) and way too few views and subscriptions. This is great work. If the algorithm works against you, please don’t stop producing content-this is amazing stuff. Thank you!
Thank you too. This one has already kind of underperformed, so it is nice to hear some encouraging work. Hopefully one day we'll get pushed out of TH-cam obscurity, and people like you will find our stuff and enjoy it. Again, thanks a lot.
Incredible video from a criminally underviewed channel. Thank you, this was AMAZING. I love the throughline you took and the light touches of humour throughout.
Thank you! We hear this a lot honestly, that we are underviewed, underrated and whatever - and hopefully it is true, because man could we use a real break, haha.
This is great. My N64 experience mostly consisted of 4 games and this wasn’t one of them, aside from a few times playing at friends’ houses. I had no idea there was such an imagined mythology around this game.
What an amazing video. There really is something magical about how, for once reason or another, Mario 64 has basically been the only relevant single player game for the entire history of Web 2.0. I'm glad I could experience this weird fandom first-hand for the past decade, and this video does an excellent job capturing the bizarre zeitgeist surrounding this 4 megabyte game from 25 years ago. trans rights
This video unlocked two memories I hid away in a secure safe (the iceberg meme and how I gave up on the super Mario 64 DS import to play something like Nintendogs or Harvest Moon because Super Mario 64 was too stressful).
I loooove the point you made of 3D spaces inherently creating an air if mystery around areas that you "should" be able to go to. I never thought about it that way but I think you're spot on - I think 2D games can make that feeling too, with things like visible "walkable" areas outside of the boundaries of the game (Pokémon's Pallet Town area outside the trees, for instance), but they are much more common in 3D games by virtue of their very construction.
aaaaa, this is such a good video! i haven't engaged with the "this classic video game you love actually has spooky scary secrets n stuff" side of gaming internet culture in a long time, and it's really nice to retrospect and look back at all that stuff with how much my view of games as a medium has changed over the years. i really hope the algorithm picks up your channel soon, because the work you put out is incredible quality and absolutely deserves the attention!
Haha, thank you! We are hoping to get picked up at some point too, either way we are doing quite alright I think. Plenty of patrons, new people every time we make a new vid and all that good stuff. We'll just have to hope for our big supporters who wish for us to take off to share and talk about our videos I suppose. We are at your wims, friends
This is genuinely one of the coolest videos I've seen covering Mario 64. I haven't seen its entire history and impact summed up in such an extensive and entertaining way
I just googled _"youtube video that explains the philosophy behind the mario 64 personalized"_ and, to no one's surprise, this was the tippy top result. Goddamn, I couldn't ask for more; great production! Great narration as well, got my Slavoj Žižek brain receptors tingling, primo shit.
The funny thing is there is a way to "personalize" a game without AI especially one that uses a physical cartridge, it is possible to make a resistor that can be burned out via software. Get about ~128 of those and at a certain point in the game burn out a random selection of those (plus one extra to "remember" that the action has been done). After this action you have a cartridge that has almost certainly a unique number embedded (that can't be guessed in advance!). You can now use this number to determine all kinds of things making it possible that one game copy of the game behaves quite differently than an other without any AI needed. Something like this would have been well within the capabilities of the time and is a technique sometimes used to setup hardware security keys.
@@PlatyNewsVery common these days and since long ago too! Specially in arcade games, for fairly obvious reasons. Xevious was already doing adaptive difficulty in '81!
N64 games in general are so strange looking back. They aged disproportionately poorly in a lot of ways compared to other consoles. But that's also what makes them so interesting.
@@BigmanDogs Heck, and it is pretty fun to watch too. Just such a neat little speedrun game. Lots of tricks, easy to get into and whatnot. Not too daunting for newcomers at all. If you ever try the BLJ trick chances are you will be able to do it.
This one was so good! I love the ending a lot. I hope you can add more subtitles for your videos in the future! My deaf partner really enjoyed this one.
We are working on this right now, it takes some time to adjust the autosync, but we've been putting it off unnecessarily long. In fact, if you have any requests we can prioritize those videos first.
@@Transparencyboo I understand!! Aw, thank you for putting that work in! She would love to see the Crafted World video when you get that ready! I understand it is not a trivial process so I/we appreciate it!
I have not played Super Mario 64, but now I know things about it! Very interesting and cool and well made as always, and great little background details :3
Missed videos from this channel, and I felt scratching my head on this whole iceberg thing I've never watched a single video on it. However the part about finding all the secrets I connect with a lot, I watch a lot of Kingdom Hearts speedruns and I love seeing how the game is broken and even use techniques to get through a lot of parts of those games, however when glitches are made there's a weird feeling that someone is showing me how to be big brain in the games rather than teach it. It's worth mentioning that while there are games that I consider favorites like KH, I don't replay them as often or go to discover their glitches as much because I look at games as art but also they are meant to be enjoyed any way we want, especially the first time playing, especially games which are very open to begin with like Role playing games that give you the option to make your party at the start. With that I think the internet blessed us with all the knowledge we can get with games but also took away the enjoyment of a lot of games like it was pre internet days (or early 2000's when it wasn't hugely common as much) and took a lot of the innocents of going into a game and discovering all the secrets on your own even the strategies to beating bosses and etc.
A lot of it probably also has to do with being kids. You know, even if kids can look up things on the internet today I don't necessarily think games are less mysterious to them today. In some ways even more thanks to youtube content that fuels that kind of speculation and wonder. I mean kids have a different way of looking at things, and as we grow up we realize how things are really made, work and just what truly is possible. Harsh but true. Hopefully you'll catch up on our videos too, haha. There are some real bangers!
As someone who's had a minor obsession with B3313 and the Personalization phenomena and watched it slow to a brisk walk since 2020, this is *exactly* the video I've been looking for. Without throwing shade, I feel like a lot of people who cover this phenomenon always miss something I can't put my finger on, or just buy into the whole thing outright without examining it a little critically first. This video is measured and pinpoints almost exactly how I feel about this whole thing, while also suspending disbelief just a little to encourage the mental exercise of creating a Mario 64 that never existed. Really good stuff!
You know, while I never really played Mario 64, I think I did pretty much the same thing with Ocarina of Time as a kid, obsessively searching everywhere and trying to check odd places you can't actually reach for secrets, and even dreaming about it. Anyone else remember that little raised wood alcove with a crate in it in Talon and Malon's house on Lon Lon Ranch that you can't get onto as child Link at least? I tried everything to get up there so I could move the crate looking for a crawlspace behind it, even jumping with a Cuccoo from the stairs. Happy memories. That sense of wonder that some games are able to invoke is something I really treasure greatly. Excellent video!
Thanks! I am glad you had similar experiences with Ocarina of Time that makes you relate to this. It is a very cool thing of just being a kid and exploring vast worlds without understanding the boundries. I think a lot of kids today play Minecraft and have the same sense of wonder really, although that game is a bit more vast in scope than what a N64 game could ever be.
I never saw the Mario 64 iceberg meme before, saw the "Every copy of Mario 64 is personalized" and burst out in creepy laughter. Like I've never touched on this little mini-fandom but immediately got how ridiculous that was, but also how much that makes sense in a weird way if you just let go and have fun with it. I definitely missed out on this little creepypasta-adjacent phenomena, kind of a bummer but fun to learn about in retrospect.
[Algo food. Strong opinion, to stir controversy to add engagement to the video.] Ah, I remember these "secret" discussions as a kid. For me it was on Links Awakening, where the schoolyard kids all pretended to have found hidden dungeons and whatnot.
Just in general Minecraft is just such a big open game that probably invokes the same feelings for kids. Mysterious and almost like it has endless possibilities. Herobrine I guess helped too.
Something fascinating to me about the Maio 64 resurgence and iceburg is that I figured after the rise and fall of video creepypastas a decade earlier, the Internet community had picked clean a lot of the conspiratorial concepts of the game. The 2020 Super Mario 64 Iceburg proved that we could just create more, new conspiracies and speculations and still have them spread and fool people and awaken imagination and creativity, after all this time.
this video really excellently and lovingly hones in on a topic ive always felt is also encapsulated within undertale! no two players will ever have the exact same experience-the same route down to the step, the same relationships to each character, the same takeaways and nostalgia. i believe its fair to say that this was a fundamental aspect of undertales design, too-its not hard to see in all the alternate paths and optional content, only portions of which nearly all players will see during their playthrough (or even in subsequent ones). this extends to the lore and mysteries present deep in all corners of the game; i honestly felt it pretty enthralling to see how sm64 fans resurged in such a similar way as the undertale community had been from the start! and at a more personal level, the game really does want each player to connect to the game in their own way-the wonderfully diverse host of characters gives so much room for even two who follow _(approximately)_ the same tangible route through the story to have deeply unique relationships to and feelings about the friends and strangers theyve met within its world. i think the resultant community, so curious and creative in nearly every aspect of the game, speaks to the power and impact of the game and the emotions it stirred, and i feel thats something to be compassionately cherished :) slightly offtopic and rambley comment a little, but i think its cool to consider the parallels and find some deeper commonalities in the phenomena :D thank you for creating and sharing this really excellent video!! :)
OH i have to ask!!! have the both of you played oneshot yet? it really is a wonderful game and is probably the purest expression of the ideas in this comment and the conclusion of your video, and is just a wonderful piece of art all in its own rights-its not terribly long and i couldnt recommend it enough if you havent yet!! edit: lol wonderful bonus description meme
Oh, if you have missed it you might want to have a look at our Undertale video from last year. It goes into some of these aspects too I think! Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
This video's intro almost managed to convince me that Super Mario 64 was MY first 3d game as well, until I remembered that that's not remotely true, because not only had I played games like Doom's shareware version on PC, but had a PS1 a couple years before an N64. My first 3d console game was probably like... Final Fantasy 7 or Crash Bandicoot, lol. Incredible what internet nostalgia and 25 years of history can do to perception.
16:15 not with that specific example but omg you just called out baby me who saw pre-release mgs1 footage that featured Snake and Meryl shooting side by side and went "ZOMG HOW DO I ACCESS THIS SECRET CONTENT?????" and hyperfixated on it for literal months
ok i havent finished the video yet so i dont have a comment yet but ive recently realized ive only ever played this game at my Child Dentist office waiting room
39:41 My brain: "Huh, a slipup, you've called them Bowser so far why are you calling them Bowsette now?" -- My heart in spite of that: "Thank-you for not deadnaming her." Yeah, I'm just as confused as you are. Edit: OK the transforming photo suddenly makes way more sense now in context. Edit 2: My gay brain on Mario 64: "Did they conquer the castle because they wanted to be Peach? Is that their egg moment? Their unhealthy dysphoria compensation?" I need to go easy on the energy drink it seems.
I know of a few other games that could be given the "idea" thing that you described here, great video as always, also where did you get that Hazy Maze Cave remix at the start?
I wonder how many hours I tried to jump into the glass painting outside the castle or jump at the star statue. Nevermind I dont think I want to know hahaha
I will tell everyone the coolest way to engage with SM64: The OwO mod for the decompilation In more seriousness, I also think that just how like surreal and weird some of the levels and settings were added a lot of the fervor. Wet Dry World just lives rent free in my mind. Between edited photograph skybox and the underwater city just the entire vibe and aesthetic just... It sticks with me. It is one of my top examples I give whenever i say that I miss the aesthetic of early 3d platformers that were just these odd dioramas floating in abstract space. Another is Jumping Flash. Though a lot of marble games/monkeyballlikes still use that sort of aesthetic and thats why they are all good games.
Oh, you mean Marsmom, the one who made the Moomin iceberg? Yeah, we know of that, really cool stuff. Actually we are the ones who made that one, haha ;) Thanks for the comment, by the way. It really made our day
the idea with the ai needing a long time to manifest is actually quite logical. ai is just a tool to find patterns within large sets of data. the more data it gets, the better it works. the game engine unity nowadays has an ai tool. (mostly used to control enemies. ) The ai often needs thousands of tries to become useful. the real problem with the personalization theory is this: an ai needs to get criteria to separate good tries from bad. But how do you define good or bad personalization. In the worst case, such an ai would just learn to build the most efficient death trap for mario.
Customization is actually real, not to the level the iceberg say, however, however, in F-Zero X(1998) Nintendo literally had the customized, randomly-generated levels as its catch, so Nintendo actually held this power back in the day AND curiously enough, there never was any Nintendo 64 game that had this technology in embryonic state, unless, one consider Mario 64 as the original customization-friendly game :)
So nice of Nintendo to make Luigi a playable character, now that Mario is dead, you wouldn't be able to experience the game otherwise! It's very thoughtful of them and shows that Nintendo truly cares about the preservation of their old games beyond pleasing loyal fans
Hi! Is there any way to get a listen at that remix of dire dire docks? It plays near the beginning if the video, and sounds somewhat folk-ish? I really like it, and if you have any way of linking me to an upload of it, would mean a lot to me. Thank you for reading, I hope how this is not a bother.
There is a list of every song in the credits at the end of the video, in order of appearance. I think the one you refer to is called Dire on the Rocks, and can be found on OCremix. :)
We're usually just making whatever comes to our minds at any given moment. I'll never say 'never', but let's just say that it's not in the pipeline at the very least. It's usually about finding an angle that's new or at the very least a bit different from what has already been said. But who knows? Maybe there is a small video in there somewhere? :)
Your work is impressive and I really like your channel so I hope this won't come off as rude because that is not my intention at all, but I feel like you're kinda repeating yourselves sometimes, giving a lot of examples and coming back to points you've already made. This is just my opinion though, it doesn't mean you have to change anything, but I hope it can be useful to you.
Haha, yeah, it was just a bit interesting to us. Feels funny how theorizing about things to wild conclusions is fine, but not making connections in other ways. Curious.
If you liked this video, there's more where that came from!
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Super Mario 64 the "idea" rather than Super Mario 64 "the game" is an excellent and interesting point. Great work!
Thanks! We think about Super Mario 64 the idea all the time.
Holy crap.
I don't know what to say. This video was incredible. Not only does it cover its bases by going over the subject matter in a thorough and well-thought-out manner but does so with some of the most fitting, unique, and atmospheric music choices possible. What caught me particularly off-guard was the way you used Giygas's music. Particularly the use of the prayer music when talking about old rumors that - as we grew older - we long accepted as false. Then you get to iceberg and start gradually reopening a "conflict" that FELT resolved. Finally when you hit the absolute deepest end of the iceberg, you accompany the description with the disturbed, chaotic music from the Giygas fight itself, completing the reversal on that satisfying stage of nostalgic acceptance conveyed only a few minutes earlier and send the viewer back where they were all those years ago.
But what hit me the hardest was when you took that entire concept of Super Mario 64 "as an idea." You not only capitalized on my nostalgia in a way that I never thought possible, but somehow made a final point that brought together every single idea you talked about into one singular point. The technology being both new and incredibly heavily focused on this game in particular. The "playground talk" culture that came with this game and to various clues hinting at more than there is. The way we grew out of that feeling. The iceberg reopening the can of worms that is our imagination wondering if there IS more than we knew about. The spiral into personalization. And finally: the explanation debunking everything with cut content, intentional design decisions, and even just the simple decoration. Completely dismantling the idea of personalization once and for all...
All for the final statement to do the most whiplash-inducing 180 imaginable, bringing all that back together just to propose that maybe every copy of Super Mario 64 WAS personalized. Not by the developers.... but by us, the people who experienced the game. It made me truly reflect on how MY copy was personalized. How my brothers and I would stomp the 4 posts in BOB to create a small baseball field. How I turned Lethal Lava Land into a Skate Park. How my particular set of skills prompted me to entirely miss the TTM slide thanks to a mid-air kick. How my particular set of skills also made me find a sort of comfort in the red-coin room of HMC since my inability to long jump made it my only option. How I permanently gave the monkey my hat to keep him warm. How I never touched the water levels due to the monsters my brothers told me lurked under the surface - Some real like the JRB eel and DDD Shark and some fake like the DDD piranha that comes from the whirlpool and elemental spiders that would attack you for spending too much time in the WDW city.
Reflecting on all of those experiences and being able to call them uniquely my own was a feeling I am not sure I have ever felt before.
Thanks for the thorough comment, we're happy that someone noticed our small details and took something valuable away from the entire experience!
@Ben Shapiro no
Whoa, whoa, whoa. The ability to unlock Luigi by doing what to your brother?
Excuse me, that's how you play as Yoshi.
It's hard to get all these rumours straight, you know? Thanks for the clarification.
I feel like something that primed the internet for The Great 2020 SM64 Reawakening was the half A press/parallel worlds meme from a couple years back. Like, the video was just a TAS explanation, but it added a sense of mysticism/sci-fi flair to the game and the internet's perception of it
Just the way of expressing it as "parallel worlds" made people's minds wander, haha. But yes, agreed.
19:31 Haha... yeah. It was impossible to imagine at the time that an entire youtube subculture would emerge out of a video that was born out of wanting to share some obscure Mario knowledge among my friends. Hell, that's why I glossed over it 25:23. I was more hung up on discussing the weird things that explicitly existed as a part of the game instead of theories that you could make by applying such a lens to almost anything.
Though I think zeroing in on things that _just_ existed as a part of the game is in a way my biggest failure when making the video. I've received comments over the past year saying that, despite the thousands of other iceberg videos, people preferred the Mario 64 one because it crafted a narrative in addition to just being a compilation of trivia. The thing is, I basically failed to realise this. I had ignored the idea that the people responsible for making the image had planted the seeds of the idea that the game was even more mysterious and secretive than it actually is.
I think the focus on only adhering to things in or about the original game led to other iceberg videos doing the same, and maybe the trend would have been less obnoxious if I hadn't. Because yeah, if you take out any sort of semiotic analysis, iceberg videos are essentially just really glorified, long top-10 videos. But no use speculating about what could have been.
32:24 I completely agree with what you're saying here. Calling it something closer to a religion is honestly kind of accurate. It does genuinely feel like a fixture in my life as opposed to just a game, and as embarrassing as that sounds, I know this sentiment is shared with a lot of people. So many things about it, from its speedrunning scene, to the romhacking community, to its importance as a monumental 3D game, all solidify the idea that the game will always be relevant in some way. Icebergs and personalization are just the latest way. I know some other comments have mentioned it, but Pannenkoek's video on Half-A Presses is definitely another time that the more esoteric aspects of the game were widely displayed and engaged new people.
I want to thank you for making this video. It's an amazing look at the sheer culture this game has spawned, from a perspective I hadn't really seen before. Just like the ways in which the game can be played, I love that there are an infinite amount of ways to talk about it too.
Glad you liked it, we of course threw around some hyperbole for comedic effect and such. Always easy to forget that the people you refer to would also watch your work, haha. No hard feelings, hopefully.
And we absolutely see how the unplanned escalation would've unintentionally solidified certain unplanned things. Honestly, we didn't even go that deep into analyzing how your choices probably influenced a lot of how people would then go on to perceive icebergs, but it's totally true! Just a huge chance incident. However, we'd also just like to thank you for making that video, because it was thoroughly enjoyable and evidently made us think a lot about media engagement!
@@Transparencyboo Yeah, no hard feelings at all. Even through the hyperboles, your criticisms ring true. It is undeniably infinitely cool to see a thought-provoking video like this about a game that I love. Likewise, much love and good luck on any future projects and videos!
I’m very much a “lurker” on TH-cam, but I stumbled upon your channel through this video, and I must say this is some of the highest quality video essayism I’ve seen in a while. I really hope that your channel takes off because you have a large backlog of work (which I will inevitably make my way through) and way too few views and subscriptions. This is great work. If the algorithm works against you, please don’t stop producing content-this is amazing stuff. Thank you!
Thank you too. This one has already kind of underperformed, so it is nice to hear some encouraging work. Hopefully one day we'll get pushed out of TH-cam obscurity, and people like you will find our stuff and enjoy it. Again, thanks a lot.
"The real personalized copy of Super Mario 64 was the memories we made along the way", beautiful
Incredible video from a criminally underviewed channel. Thank you, this was AMAZING. I love the throughline you took and the light touches of humour throughout.
Thank you! We hear this a lot honestly, that we are underviewed, underrated and whatever - and hopefully it is true, because man could we use a real break, haha.
This is great. My N64 experience mostly consisted of 4 games and this wasn’t one of them, aside from a few times playing at friends’ houses. I had no idea there was such an imagined mythology around this game.
Thanks! Which 4 games were yours then? ;)
@@Transparencyboo Goldeneye, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and the Star Wars Pod Racer that came with the system.
@@Cannotbetamed1 Star Wars Pod Racer is the true MVP here.
What an amazing video. There really is something magical about how, for once reason or another, Mario 64 has basically been the only relevant single player game for the entire history of Web 2.0. I'm glad I could experience this weird fandom first-hand for the past decade, and this video does an excellent job capturing the bizarre zeitgeist surrounding this 4 megabyte game from 25 years ago.
trans rights
Thanks! And yes, trans rights heck yeah!
This video unlocked two memories I hid away in a secure safe (the iceberg meme and how I gave up on the super Mario 64 DS import to play something like Nintendogs or Harvest Moon because Super Mario 64 was too stressful).
Nintendogs was quite a neat little game, wasn't it?
@@Transparencyboo All of Nintendo's work with 3d environments was leading up to Nintendogs
@@redactedredacted6656 More true words have never been spoken. The real most classic game from Nintendo really.
I loooove the point you made of 3D spaces inherently creating an air if mystery around areas that you "should" be able to go to. I never thought about it that way but I think you're spot on - I think 2D games can make that feeling too, with things like visible "walkable" areas outside of the boundaries of the game (Pokémon's Pallet Town area outside the trees, for instance), but they are much more common in 3D games by virtue of their very construction.
Yeah, we think a lot of people understand this subconsciously, they just never inspected the why's and how's.
i just noticed I hopped into this video under a minute of it being uploaded
woah
Bless!
That "bye" at the end sounded EXACTLY like the brazilian version of Toad in the mario bros cartoon
Don't tell anyone, but Alicia's biggest secret is that she is in fact doing the voice for brazilian Toad.
aaaaa, this is such a good video!
i haven't engaged with the "this classic video game you love actually has spooky scary secrets n stuff" side of gaming internet culture in a long time, and it's really nice to retrospect and look back at all that stuff with how much my view of games as a medium has changed over the years.
i really hope the algorithm picks up your channel soon, because the work you put out is incredible quality and absolutely deserves the attention!
Haha, thank you! We are hoping to get picked up at some point too, either way we are doing quite alright I think. Plenty of patrons, new people every time we make a new vid and all that good stuff. We'll just have to hope for our big supporters who wish for us to take off to share and talk about our videos I suppose. We are at your wims, friends
Somehow I never encountered Mario 64 as a kid, but I definitely treated Zelda OoT just like this!
Fair, it surely follows a lot of the same ideas that we present here :)
This is genuinely one of the coolest videos I've seen covering Mario 64. I haven't seen its entire history and impact summed up in such an extensive and entertaining way
I just googled _"youtube video that explains the philosophy behind the mario 64 personalized"_ and, to no one's surprise, this was the tippy top result. Goddamn, I couldn't ask for more; great production! Great narration as well, got my Slavoj Žižek brain receptors tingling, primo shit.
Happy to serve!
The funny thing is there is a way to "personalize" a game without AI especially one that uses a physical cartridge, it is possible to make a resistor that can be burned out via software. Get about ~128 of those and at a certain point in the game burn out a random selection of those (plus one extra to "remember" that the action has been done). After this action you have a cartridge that has almost certainly a unique number embedded (that can't be guessed in advance!). You can now use this number to determine all kinds of things making it possible that one game copy of the game behaves quite differently than an other without any AI needed. Something like this would have been well within the capabilities of the time and is a technique sometimes used to setup hardware security keys.
And "AI adapting the game to how you play" is basically the definition of adaptative dificulty, a very common process these days
One day we might even be able to put ghosts in the games that haunt us for a bit.
@@Transparencyboo Only if you look the other way
@@PlatyNewsVery common these days and since long ago too! Specially in arcade games, for fairly obvious reasons. Xevious was already doing adaptive difficulty in '81!
N64 games in general are so strange looking back. They aged disproportionately poorly in a lot of ways compared to other consoles. But that's also what makes them so interesting.
Super Mario 64 aged surprisingly well though for being such an early title in the age of much experimentation. They just nailed it.
@@Transparencyboo Yeah it's not surprising that it's such a popular speedrunning game on twitch and youtube.
@@BigmanDogs Heck, and it is pretty fun to watch too. Just such a neat little speedrun game. Lots of tricks, easy to get into and whatnot. Not too daunting for newcomers at all. If you ever try the BLJ trick chances are you will be able to do it.
This one was so good! I love the ending a lot. I hope you can add more subtitles for your videos in the future! My deaf partner really enjoyed this one.
We are working on this right now, it takes some time to adjust the autosync, but we've been putting it off unnecessarily long. In fact, if you have any requests we can prioritize those videos first.
@@Transparencyboo I understand!! Aw, thank you for putting that work in! She would love to see the Crafted World video when you get that ready! I understand it is not a trivial process so I/we appreciate it!
@@Paperlanty It'll be top in the priority list, then! Will tag you when it's ready.
@@Paperlanty Sorry for the wait, Hard Aesthetic has subtitles now!
@@Transparencyboo that's so awesome thank you so much!! No problem on the wait, I understand they take time!
I have not played Super Mario 64, but now I know things about it! Very interesting and cool and well made as always, and great little background details :3
Thank you! If you get the chance, give Super Mario 64 a chance, it is a cool little piece of history worth experiencing!
Missed videos from this channel, and I felt scratching my head on this whole iceberg thing I've never watched a single video on it.
However the part about finding all the secrets I connect with a lot, I watch a lot of Kingdom Hearts speedruns and I love seeing how the game is broken and even use techniques to get through a lot of parts of those games, however when glitches are made there's a weird feeling that someone is showing me how to be big brain in the games rather than teach it.
It's worth mentioning that while there are games that I consider favorites like KH, I don't replay them as often or go to discover their glitches as much because I look at games as art but also they are meant to be enjoyed any way we want, especially the first time playing, especially games which are very open to begin with like Role playing games that give you the option to make your party at the start.
With that I think the internet blessed us with all the knowledge we can get with games but also took away the enjoyment of a lot of games like it was pre internet days (or early 2000's when it wasn't hugely common as much) and took a lot of the innocents of going into a game and discovering all the secrets on your own even the strategies to beating bosses and etc.
A lot of it probably also has to do with being kids. You know, even if kids can look up things on the internet today I don't necessarily think games are less mysterious to them today. In some ways even more thanks to youtube content that fuels that kind of speculation and wonder. I mean kids have a different way of looking at things, and as we grow up we realize how things are really made, work and just what truly is possible. Harsh but true.
Hopefully you'll catch up on our videos too, haha. There are some real bangers!
Me here
"Yeah, that game sure exists."
One day you might exist in it!
As someone who's had a minor obsession with B3313 and the Personalization phenomena and watched it slow to a brisk walk since 2020, this is *exactly* the video I've been looking for. Without throwing shade, I feel like a lot of people who cover this phenomenon always miss something I can't put my finger on, or just buy into the whole thing outright without examining it a little critically first. This video is measured and pinpoints almost exactly how I feel about this whole thing, while also suspending disbelief just a little to encourage the mental exercise of creating a Mario 64 that never existed. Really good stuff!
The serial experiments lain voice for the terms GOT ME GOOD.
Delicious!
its actually amazing how high quality the video is and yet that there is such a small audience viewing it
We're still building our audience slowly but surely!
16:35 "And at worst, it may even foster a lore community"
Elder Scrolls LoreLords would like to know your location.
Let them come!
You know, while I never really played Mario 64, I think I did pretty much the same thing with Ocarina of Time as a kid, obsessively searching everywhere and trying to check odd places you can't actually reach for secrets, and even dreaming about it. Anyone else remember that little raised wood alcove with a crate in it in Talon and Malon's house on Lon Lon Ranch that you can't get onto as child Link at least? I tried everything to get up there so I could move the crate looking for a crawlspace behind it, even jumping with a Cuccoo from the stairs. Happy memories. That sense of wonder that some games are able to invoke is something I really treasure greatly. Excellent video!
Thanks! I am glad you had similar experiences with Ocarina of Time that makes you relate to this. It is a very cool thing of just being a kid and exploring vast worlds without understanding the boundries. I think a lot of kids today play Minecraft and have the same sense of wonder really, although that game is a bit more vast in scope than what a N64 game could ever be.
@@Transparencyboo Ha, yes! Never was the biggest fan of Minecraft myself, but I can certainly see the appeal.
Love your videos. Keep up the great work!
Thank you~ We'll do our best! :) 🧡
Such a great video... and it's dedicated to ME!!! Thank you, friendos. ❤ wHaT wOuLd HaPpEn If MaRiO cOuLd'Nt EnTeR tHe FiRsT lEvEl?!
Thanks to you too, friend
The Hollow Knight ice berg in which mossbag literally just made stuff up and complain was funny as hell.
I never saw the Mario 64 iceberg meme before, saw the "Every copy of Mario 64 is personalized" and burst out in creepy laughter. Like I've never touched on this little mini-fandom but immediately got how ridiculous that was, but also how much that makes sense in a weird way if you just let go and have fun with it. I definitely missed out on this little creepypasta-adjacent phenomena, kind of a bummer but fun to learn about in retrospect.
It is very fun, yeah. There are surprisingly people who take it very seriously though, haha.
[Algo food. Strong opinion, to stir controversy to add engagement to the video.]
Ah, I remember these "secret" discussions as a kid. For me it was on Links Awakening, where the schoolyard kids all pretended to have found hidden dungeons and whatnot.
for me it was minecraft that the kids would all lie about, haha
Just in general Minecraft is just such a big open game that probably invokes the same feelings for kids. Mysterious and almost like it has endless possibilities. Herobrine I guess helped too.
Something fascinating to me about the Maio 64 resurgence and iceburg is that I figured after the rise and fall of video creepypastas a decade earlier, the Internet community had picked clean a lot of the conspiratorial concepts of the game. The 2020 Super Mario 64 Iceburg proved that we could just create more, new conspiracies and speculations and still have them spread and fool people and awaken imagination and creativity, after all this time.
If there is a will, there is a creepy pasta apparently.
this video really excellently and lovingly hones in on a topic ive always felt is also encapsulated within undertale! no two players will ever have the exact same experience-the same route down to the step, the same relationships to each character, the same takeaways and nostalgia. i believe its fair to say that this was a fundamental aspect of undertales design, too-its not hard to see in all the alternate paths and optional content, only portions of which nearly all players will see during their playthrough (or even in subsequent ones). this extends to the lore and mysteries present deep in all corners of the game; i honestly felt it pretty enthralling to see how sm64 fans resurged in such a similar way as the undertale community had been from the start! and at a more personal level, the game really does want each player to connect to the game in their own way-the wonderfully diverse host of characters gives so much room for even two who follow _(approximately)_ the same tangible route through the story to have deeply unique relationships to and feelings about the friends and strangers theyve met within its world. i think the resultant community, so curious and creative in nearly every aspect of the game, speaks to the power and impact of the game and the emotions it stirred, and i feel thats something to be compassionately cherished :)
slightly offtopic and rambley comment a little, but i think its cool to consider the parallels and find some deeper commonalities in the phenomena :D
thank you for creating and sharing this really excellent video!! :)
OH i have to ask!!! have the both of you played oneshot yet? it really is a wonderful game and is probably the purest expression of the ideas in this comment and the conclusion of your video, and is just a wonderful piece of art all in its own rights-its not terribly long and i couldnt recommend it enough if you havent yet!!
edit: lol wonderful bonus description meme
We have not actually, but might have a look soon! Thanks for the recommendation!
Oh, if you have missed it you might want to have a look at our Undertale video from last year. It goes into some of these aspects too I think! Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
This video's intro almost managed to convince me that Super Mario 64 was MY first 3d game as well, until I remembered that that's not remotely true, because not only had I played games like Doom's shareware version on PC, but had a PS1 a couple years before an N64. My first 3d console game was probably like... Final Fantasy 7 or Crash Bandicoot, lol. Incredible what internet nostalgia and 25 years of history can do to perception.
THANK you so much for actually pronouncing crevasse correctly. It drive me crazy that seemingly every video pronounces it as ‘crevice’
I am funny like that, because I usually pronounce it both ways for good measure. I am chaotic by nature.
this definitely is the most in depth analysis of anything that ive seen
Thanks! We really went places, glad you could join us for the ride!
L is real is just the 3d version of the truck by the SS Anne.
It clearly says Eternal Star, though.
Yes. Mew is Luigi.
@@Transparencyboo Mew is all of us.
This. This is the good shit right here.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it
16:15 not with that specific example but omg you just called out baby me who saw pre-release mgs1 footage that featured Snake and Meryl shooting side by side and went "ZOMG HOW DO I ACCESS THIS SECRET CONTENT?????" and hyperfixated on it for literal months
Gotta love how the mind works when you're a kid and know nothing, haha.
I was really worried you were gonna throw a wario jumpscare at me after that beautiful sincere ending
Nah, that would just be rude, we actually worked to tweak the little Wario WAH to be more funny than startling.
Never really played any Nintendo games but your video essays about games I've never played are interesting to watch nonetheless 👍
Glad to hear, that is quite reassuring, haha. :)
Incredible video as always, I've been following ever since your undertale video and y'all always make such insightful and well-produced content!
Hey, thanks, that's quite some time. Glad you enjoy our ramblings, haha.
music selection went crazy. mario tennis to galaxy 😅 such a fun channel to watch
And EarthBound! Loved hearing that, specially with some of the creepier tracks being picked.
Just yesterday Pannenkoek improved on the A button challenge in Wet Dry World! With 6 different approaches of course
Amazing video! You really deserve more subscribers!
Bless! We hear this a lot, trust us, haha.
I a bit late but it is always nice to see a new video from you ^^
Thanks
Ah yes, my first Mario game, and my first video game ever.
A special one at that~
ok i havent finished the video yet so i dont have a comment yet but ive recently realized ive only ever played this game at my Child Dentist office waiting room
Oh my, that could make for some real fun 'personalized' memories I think.
Good vid👏👏👏
Thanks, friend!
39:41 My brain: "Huh, a slipup, you've called them Bowser so far why are you calling them Bowsette now?" -- My heart in spite of that: "Thank-you for not deadnaming her." Yeah, I'm just as confused as you are.
Edit: OK the transforming photo suddenly makes way more sense now in context.
Edit 2: My gay brain on Mario 64: "Did they conquer the castle because they wanted to be Peach? Is that their egg moment? Their unhealthy dysphoria compensation?" I need to go easy on the energy drink it seems.
Incredible video
Thank!
WHAAAHHHHHAHOOOO
I know of a few other games that could be given the "idea" thing that you described here, great video as always, also where did you get that Hazy Maze Cave remix at the start?
Which ones, please do tell! And all the music is listed in order at the very end, it is a remix from OCremix. :)
@@Transparencyboo Well the main games that came to mind here is Ocarina of Time and Minecraft even if to a lesser extent.
Special thanks to “TBSkyen”!! Their great!
The best!
But what about the freemasons?
“Mama’s delicious meatballs” absolutely killed me
I wonder how many hours I tried to jump into the glass painting outside the castle or jump at the star statue. Nevermind I dont think I want to know hahaha
It is a fair question though, haha.
these videos are amazing, youre up next
Love your videos
Thanks for your offering, friend
34:07 look mom im on tv
Haha, well look at you go!!
I will tell everyone the coolest way to engage with SM64: The OwO mod for the decompilation
In more seriousness, I also think that just how like surreal and weird some of the levels and settings were added a lot of the fervor. Wet Dry World just lives rent free in my mind. Between edited photograph skybox and the underwater city just the entire vibe and aesthetic just... It sticks with me. It is one of my top examples I give whenever i say that I miss the aesthetic of early 3d platformers that were just these odd dioramas floating in abstract space. Another is Jumping Flash. Though a lot of marble games/monkeyballlikes still use that sort of aesthetic and thats why they are all good games.
We cut some short talk about Jumping Flash actually, haha.
Did you ever think about making a video on the moomin iceberg? Someone on tumblr explained it super well, but too little people saw that
Oh, you mean Marsmom, the one who made the Moomin iceberg? Yeah, we know of that, really cool stuff.
Actually we are the ones who made that one, haha ;)
Thanks for the comment, by the way. It really made our day
@@Transparencyboo holy shit, really?! I follow that account. Absolutely love your posts and website!!
@@zouexzouex297 Thanks, friend! Kiki put a lot of effort into her Moomin stuff. A real scholar on the subject :)
the idea with the ai needing a long time to manifest is actually quite logical. ai is just a tool to find patterns within large sets of data. the more data it gets, the better it works. the game engine unity nowadays has an ai tool. (mostly used to control enemies. ) The ai often needs thousands of tries to become useful. the real problem with the personalization theory is this: an ai needs to get criteria to separate good tries from bad. But how do you define good or bad personalization. In the worst case, such an ai would just learn to build the most efficient death trap for mario.
I think the real main problem is that we're talking about it in connection to Super Mario 64.
Customization is actually real, not to the level the iceberg say, however, however, in F-Zero X(1998) Nintendo literally had the customized, randomly-generated levels as its catch, so Nintendo actually held this power back in the day AND curiously enough, there never was any Nintendo 64 game that had this technology in embryonic state, unless, one consider Mario 64 as the original customization-friendly game :)
So nice of Nintendo to make Luigi a playable character, now that Mario is dead, you wouldn't be able to experience the game otherwise! It's very thoughtful of them and shows that Nintendo truly cares about the preservation of their old games beyond pleasing loyal fans
They should make a game.
@@Transparencyboo The fans or Nintendo?
LMAO THE BOWSER ROOM IS IN THERE
icebergs, personalization, and ME?
ye
Hi! Is there any way to get a listen at that remix of dire dire docks? It plays near the beginning if the video, and sounds somewhat folk-ish? I really like it, and if you have any way of linking me to an upload of it, would mean a lot to me. Thank you for reading, I hope how this is not a bother.
There is a list of every song in the credits at the end of the video, in order of appearance. I think the one you refer to is called Dire on the Rocks, and can be found on OCremix. :)
What was that platformer near the beginning with the tank controls?
It's a game called Floating Runner on the PS1.
Algorithm and love frends
Much love!
Will you do a video of the nes game Super Mario 2 ?
My fav
We're usually just making whatever comes to our minds at any given moment. I'll never say 'never', but let's just say that it's not in the pipeline at the very least. It's usually about finding an angle that's new or at the very least a bit different from what has already been said. But who knows? Maybe there is a small video in there somewhere? :)
You need about 100 times the subscribers you have. At minimum.
Not gonna lie, that would be great!
Your work is impressive and I really like your channel so I hope this won't come off as rude because that is not my intention at all, but I feel like you're kinda repeating yourselves sometimes, giving a lot of examples and coming back to points you've already made. This is just my opinion though, it doesn't mean you have to change anything, but I hope it can be useful to you.
Not at all, not at all. Don't worry about it. Thank you for the feedback, we appreciate it. Also thanks for the kind words about our work :)
WAHOO WAHOOO WAAHOOO WAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH
oh my god, what am I doibg with my life
video games
why would you do stunt race fx dirty like that :( i mean yes it runs at 7-8 fps but the little guy's trying!
A for effort.
25:10 I remember being annoyed by this trend by commentators. Yes, of course it's bullshit, but it's interesting bullshit.
Haha, yeah, it was just a bit interesting to us. Feels funny how theorizing about things to wild conclusions is fine, but not making connections in other ways. Curious.
Meow
Cat!
0/10 video, L isn't credited for being real.