September 9, 2014 by

A look at what made Mario first 3D adventure so great.

Author’s Note: This blog post serves as a support blog for the 2014 MyIGN Video Game Tournament.

“It’s-a me, Mario!”

Those are the first few words that players heard when they turned on Super Mario 64. For the first time ever, Mario had a personality. He was no longer just some dude trying to save the princess. He was energetic and charismatic. He was playful yet daring. He was Super Mario, and in 1996, he now had a voice.

“Hello!”

Hello?

Although I remember Mario Kart 64 to be the first game I had ever put my hands on, Super Mario 64 could not have been too far behind. Those two games were among the few titles that defined my early childhood gaming career. As a kid, Super Mario 64 was eye opening; it was a world inside my CRT television that I could jump into and explore. It was more than just a game for me, because it almost felt like an extension of my life.

Even today, Super Mario 64 is a game that I continue to go back to from time to time. The game is often cited as being the first title to use the analog stick effectively for full 360-degree movement. While that claim is debatable, Mario 64 did set the standard for how developers would tackle 3D games in the future. Controlling Mario felt perfect. His jumps and dives felt completely natural. To this day, it still boggles my mind how Nintendo was able to accomplish all this on their first try.

The game opens up in front of Peach’s castle. Immediately, the instinct is to go right in; the princess has, in fact, made you a cake and has invited you to have some with her. Unfortunately, all is not well in the Mushroom Kingdom; Bowser has kidnapped the princess, and in the process has stolen all of the power stars in the castle. It is your job now to find them all and save the kingdom.

However, most people would probably spend the first ten minutes of their time with Super Mario 64 outside, running around the trying out all of Mario’s moves. Mario’s athletic ability seems to have tripled since his 2D days, and he is now able to do somersaults, backflips, triple jumps, butt stomps, and others (my favorite being the butt slide, which I did not discover until years later). Like I said though, everything felt surprisingly natural. Even swimming, a mechanic that all gamers dread, actually worked well.

Even swimming feels right in Mario 64.

Mario 64 has a very structured level system. Once you enter the castle, you will be faced with an overwhelming number of doors, but only one can be accessed from the get-go. The others require certain number of stars in order to unlock. Thus, your first level in the game will be the iconic Bob-omb Battlefield. Each level has seven stars to collect; they can be collected in any order, though a few require that you complete a previous mission before accessing them. Some of these goals are quite simple – for example, get to the top of the level and defeat the boss. Others are much more cryptic and difficult to get, especially those that require certain power-ups to retrieve. This is one aspect of Super Mario 64 that I love the most; it urges players to explore and hunt for treasure.

Although the game only has fifteen fully featured levels (each of which are uniquely themed), the castle itself has a few secrets of its own. Hidden levels and stars and scattered throughout the many halls and corridors, which results in a hub world that feels almost as robust as the levels themselves. Some of these secret areas even have secrets within them, though I will not delve into that in case some of you have not yet played this masterpiece of a game.

Boss fights are relatively rare in this game, as some levels do not even have a boss to defeat. Unlike most other Mario games that have followed, Super Mario 64 puts a greater focus on puzzle solving than combat. Many of these puzzles require Mario to use certain power-ups called “caps,” which can only be accessed after finding their respective switch palaces scattered throughout the castle. These caps bestow certain special abilities on Mario; the Metal Cap makes Mario invincible and heavy, the Vanish Cap makes Mario invisible and allows him to go through certain walls, and the Wing Cap – perhaps the most iconic cap of them all – allows Mario to fly.

Exploring Mario 64's worlds is a blast.

Another innovation Mario 64 offered to the gaming industry was its use of the dynamic camera. Depending on Mario’s position, the game’s camera (which is actually controlled by a flying Lakitu according to the game) shifts and pans in order to make platforming easier for the player. It is by no means perfect, of course, and there are still times when the camera completely freaks out due to a mistimed jump or dive, but it gets the job done most of the time. Thankfully, the game allows players to move the camera around manually, though could be improved on multiple facets.

One more thing that is especially notable in Super Mario 64 is its music. Some of Nintendo’s most iconic tunes are from this game, including Bob-omb Battlefield and Bowser’s Road. Other notable tracks include Jolly Roger Bay and Rainbow Cruise. The difference between this soundtrack and that of other games is that the Nintendo 64’s extra processing power and storage space allowed for more complex compositions, and thus the signature jazz style of music found in past Mario games was more profound here.

No doubt, Super Mario 64 is one of the greatest and most influential games ever made. When it first released in 1996, it was a must-have. Today, it is still a must-play. Not only did Nintendo successfully bring Mario into the third dimension, it ushered in a completely new era of 3D games, one that gave birth to some of my favorite titles of all time. Without Super Mario 64, the gaming industry would be much different today, and I may not have become a gamer myself. For this, I thank Super Mario 64.

Super Mario 64 (N64) Review

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