Is Super Mario 64 overrated?

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Poll of the Day » Is Super Mario 64 overrated?
I would not call it a bad game, but I was always surprised at the intense amount of nostalgia the internet has for SM64. I understand the idea because Banjo-Kazooie basically holds that spot for me personally, but I never had that feeling for Super Mario 64

Usually I get bored with SM64 after beating the second Bowser/making it to the upper floors. I always thought Sonic Adventure was better, and Banjo Kazooie is definitely better also
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
I bet you say that to all the boys...
It was great for the time and is still pretty fun. I think 3D Mario in general is overrated. Odyssey was pretty bland.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiCtAUrZbUk
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No option for me: never played it. I didnt play many games on my 64. Zelda and ExiciteBike. I tried Castlevania but it was just so hard to control for me and gave me headaches.
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It's certainly not OOT levels, but I always preferred Sunshine, even with it's faults I loved the vibe.
I always thought of SM64 and Sunshine as the worst Mario games (mainline games anyways, not including the sports or spin-off series obviously). Not bad necessarily, just not as good as everything that proceeded and succeeded them. So I guess in that sense, it is overrated.
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It's still remembered for having the best controls for a 3D game which is why it's still popular today for speedrunning while other games are not really played anymore.
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aHappySacka posted...
It's still remembered for having the best controls for a 3D game which is why it's still popular today for speedrunning while other games are not really played anymore.

More like it set the standard for 3D game controls. Which may sound similar but they are not the same thing

I think it's so popular with speed runners today because there are so many different ways to speed run it. and also nostalgia. If SM64 wasn't made by Nintendo and released for the Nintendo 64 you better believe it wouldn't be getting the same love it gets today
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
I bet you say that to all the boys...
I dont really hang around Mario boards but in general id say no. Praise for and talk of it doesnt really seem to intrude on unrelated topics the way most games that i would consider overrated do.
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The game holds a special place in my heart. It was my first 3-D game and i still remember the first moment coming out of the pipe at the beginning of the game and how enthralled i was with the world. Obviously, the camera didn't age well but I think even to this day the level design is great. It's fairly rated i think
Crash Bandicoot 1 was released before Super Mario 64 in the US and is a better game IMO (although I do appreciate SM64s great influence on gaming at the time)
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
I bet you say that to all the boys...
It was pretty cool, but I wish Sunshine/Galaxy could get some of that modding love.
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The definitive version is absolutely Mario 64 DS. After playing that I can't go back to the original
...
very overrated

paper mario is much superior
I don't like platformers.
faramir77 posted...
I think 3D Mario in general is overrated. Odyssey was pretty bland.
Odyssey is just a terrible game. Mario 64 is a fantastic game in comparison.
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Sahuagin posted...
Odyssey is just a terrible game. Mario 64 is a fantastic game in comparison.

"Terrible" might a stretch, but it was pretty lame that the parts I enjoyed the most were the 2D sections. About 90% of the game just felt like a virtual Easter egg hunt. In 64 and Sunshine, finding stars felt like the culmination of some effort, whereas in Odyssey it just felt like you were finding them by coincidence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiCtAUrZbUk
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faramir77 posted...
"Terrible" might a stretch, but it was pretty lame that the parts I enjoyed the most were the 2D sections. About 90% of the game just felt like a virtual Easter egg hunt.
"Easter egg hunt" is being kind, the vast majority of the stars(moons) had no thought to them at all, and you often got 3 at once just from getting to the end of an area and fighting the obvious boss.

In 64 ..., finding stars was actually the culmination of some effort, whereas in Odyssey you were actually just finding them by coincidence.


I mean, it's gotta be the worst main Mario game I've ever played, easy, unless there's something really bad I'm not thinking of (that isn't some spinoff game like Mario is Missing).
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Its Super Mario Sunshine that's underrated IMO
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Two things

The "Dire Dire Docks" theme should be known as the Jolly Roger Bay Them because JRB is a better level than DDD

All the water levels in SM64, mainly Jolly Roger Bay and Dire Dire Docks but Wet Dry World would also count, are actually great
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
I bet you say that to all the boys...
For someone who's mastered the controls to the point where controlling Mario is an extension of pure thought, the game is a blast that never really gets old. The extremely tight and precise controls lend it to being a game that simply feels amazing to play and control for those who have been playing for decades.

Also I love the edgy contrarians trying to claim that literally any mainline Mario game is "terrible". 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, and Odyssey are all phenomenal games.
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^ yeah mario has been a consistently awesome franchise throughout the years. The only series in video game history that rivals it is zelda i think and even that has a couple stinkers
Whargarble posted...
Also I love the edgy contrarians trying to claim that literally any mainline Mario game is "terrible". 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, and Odyssey are all phenomenal games.

Very few people say this. It's more like they are overrated for different reasons.

Game series like Crash Bandicoot get way less love than they should compared to Mario games in general. But Mario has been consistently good for 40 years, that is impressive
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
I bet you say that to all the boys...
OhhhJa posted...
The game holds a special place in my heart. It was my first 3-D game and i still remember the first moment coming out of the pipe at the beginning of the game and how enthralled i was with the world. Obviously, the camera didn't age well but I think even to this day the level design is great. It's fairly rated i think

This sounds about right. If it came out today as-is, it'd be panned for the wonky camera and slightly dated controls, but the level design and overall experience still hold up very well even if you take nostalgia out of the picture.
The Christmas I got the N64 with SM64. Best Christmas ever. I'd say the game is fairly rated for the time it came out.
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Damn_Underscore posted...
Crash Bandicoot 1 was released before Super Mario 64
I didn't know this and looked it up. Crash released in the US sept 9th and Mario 64 released sept 29th.

.
"Overrated" just means you don't like something that's popular.

That said, I'm not a huge fan of the 3D Mario platformer formula of enter the same level many times and the level is a bit different, I'm more into Banjo-Kazooie where the world is set and you explore it.

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I couldn't be bothered to finish it when I played it in the all star collection on Switch. I however can understand why it's got all the praise it has.
One who knows nothing can understand nothing.
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It's a 1996/1997 game.
So it's pretty decent for that era. Sure PC had better stuff, so I have to drop the rating a bit and call it overrated. But in console world, it was pretty good.

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I am going to say that it is fairly rated.

People will complain about the controls but I'd strongly argue that the difficulty of the controls are part of the point.

I love Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy but the game is absurdly easy, one big reason why is because the controls are just way too good for a straight up platformer.

There should be some difficulty in mastering the controls of a platformer.
VioletZer0 posted...
There should be some difficulty in mastering the controls of a platformer.

Ehhh, that's a statement I can't agree with without a few asterisks. There should be room to master movement such that the player can feel a difference as they become more skilled, but if a game relies on awkward controls/movement to provide its difficulty (especially a game where movement is most of the game and moving well is where most of the fun comes from), it's probably not a good game (exception: horror games that use clunky controls to impart a feeling of helplessness, though that still has its limits). You can have challenging platformers with easy, intuitive controls by just having challenging platforming.
Damn_Underscore posted...
Crash Bandicoot 1 was released before Super Mario 64 in the US and is a better game IMO (although I do appreciate SM64s great influence on gaming at the time)
Alpha Waves did 3D platforming first. It just sucked ass.
it deserves the praise it gets. i don't think anyone would say it's flawless but it was so groundbreaking and fun, and so many of the flaws ended up adding even more depth to it. easily one of the funnest games to just explore in.
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Nade_Duck posted...
it deserves the praise it gets. i don't think anyone would say it's flawless but it was so groundbreaking and fun, and so many of the flaws ended up adding even more depth to it. easily one of the funnest games to just explore in.
How was it groundbreaking when 3D platformers existed before hand and Miyamoto stole the idea for super Mario 64 from Star foxs devs who wanted to make a 3D yoshi platformer!
Devil_May_Cry posted...
Miyamoto stole the idea for super Mario 64 from Star foxs devs who wanted to make a 3D yoshi platformer!
If this is even true, I still couldn't give a fuck lol
Devil_May_Cry posted...
How was it groundbreaking when 3D platformers existed before hand and Miyamoto stole the idea for super Mario 64 from Star foxs devs who wanted to make a 3D yoshi platformer!

Because the hard part about game development isn't the idea, it's the implementation.
lol I found this pic, the Super Mario 64 comment is factual

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/635491e1.jpg
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
I bet you say that to all the boys...
It's 100% worthy of its nostalgia. The game itself is still amazing and, honestly, I feel that it holds up better than OoT from a gameplay perspective.

Devil_May_Cry posted...
How was it groundbreaking when 3D platformers existed before hand and Miyamoto stole the idea for super Mario 64 from Star foxs devs who wanted to make a 3D yoshi platformer!

"Because somebody thought about doing something but didn't do it, something else isn't groundbreaking!"

Dikitain posted...
I always thought of SM64 and Sunshine as the worst Mario games (mainline games anyways, not including the sports or spin-off series obviously). Not bad necessarily, just not as good as everything that proceeded and succeeded them. So I guess in that sense, it is overrated.

I have a strong dislike for Sunshine, almost as strong as my love for SM64. SMG1 kinda disappointed because I was expecting more of a SM64 feel.

But my issue with Sunshine was mostly the waterpack gimmick felt like it should've just been a different franchise.

OhhhJa posted...
^ yeah mario has been a consistently awesome franchise throughout the years. The only series in video game history that rivals it is zelda i think and even that has a couple stinkers

I find it hard to rank Mario vs Zelda. The problem with Mario is that games sometimes flop for being bland (minus Sunshine, which was weird -- but that's almost a spinoff) whereas Zelda games flop for being bad/janky.
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I'd say fairly rated. I've never been super into it because it didn't feel like a Mario game to me, so as a Mario game I was always "meh" about it. That being said, it nailed being a 3D platformer (early 3D jank aside) and set the standard and codified how games would be going forward, much like the original SMB. Take a look at something like Bubsy 3D which came out around the same time to see how absolutely awful a 3D platformer can be at that time when made by people that didn't know how to do it lol A lot of games built on that foundation.
DeathMagnetic80 posted...
I'd say fairly rated. I've never been super into it because it didn't feel like a Mario game to me, so as a Mario game I was always "meh" about it. That being said, it nailed being a 3D platformer (early 3D jank aside) and set the standard and codified how games would be going forward, much like the original SMB. Take a look at something like Bubsy 3D which came out around the same time to see how absolutely awful a 3D platformer can be at that time when made by people that didn't know how to do it lol A lot of games built on that foundation.

Crash 1 bro

But in general I agree, SM64 did set the standard back then for games like Banjo-Kazooie and even Spyro
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
I bet you say that to all the boys...
it's been a long time since i've played it, but if i remember right crash 1 could be hard as fuck. not a bad thing but mario 64 being really approachable also helps it out. there were some annoying spots but nothing that felt too difficult for me as a dumb kid.
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Damn_Underscore posted...
Crash 1 bro
Is a completely different kind of game than Mario 64. Crash is a completely linear game. Mario 64 has open levels with different objectives.
What would Bligh do?
Cruddy_horse posted...
It's certainly not OOT levels, but I always preferred Sunshine, even with it's faults I loved the vibe.

I never legit beat sunshine. My best friend and I played it together. We would take turns on levels. Like he did one then I did.

I seem to recall enjoying the challenge levels the most..idk how to describe them but it wasn't a proper level

Id have to play 64 again to give my opinion on that
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I've been playing it recently after making this topic and something I really noticed is how much the fun goes up when you learn speedrunning tricks. I'm not even talking about BLJs, just tricks to help you traverse the levels faster and get certain stars more quickly. These tricks don't really make the game any easier, they just make it less tedious

So I can't really imagine playing this game before youtube existed, let alone before speedrunning was even a thing
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
I bet you say that to all the boys...
By the way has anyone played the DS version recently? I did play it back when the DS was first released but I don't really remember it. It doesn't have the nostalgia factor that the N64 version does, but there may be some improvements
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
I bet you say that to all the boys...
Damn_Underscore posted...
By the way has anyone played the DS version recently? I did play it back when the DS was first released but I don't really remember it. It doesn't have the nostalgia factor that the N64 version does, but there may be some improvements

I wanted to because wario was apparently a playable character but I only found that physical copy one time and didn't have the money. Can't find it digitally either
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Damn_Underscore posted...
something I really noticed is how much the fun goes up when you learn speedrunning tricks. I'm not even talking about BLJs, just tricks to help you traverse the levels faster and get certain stars more quickly.

That's just platformers in general. It's fun to pin down the traversal mechanics so you can pull off trickier jumps and take shortcuts you otherwise wouldn't have, on top of the fact that it just feels good to zoom around when you know that that zoominess is a product of your mastery of the mechanics.

Traversal in general is something that a lot of games don't put quite enough emphasis on. If simply moving around the game world feels good, that establishes a baseline amount of fun that carries throughout the whole game. Heck, the entire genre of skating games has been built out of the idea that having options for creative traversal is fun enough in its own right to make an entire game off of it.

Damn_Underscore posted...
By the way has anyone played the DS version recently? I did play it back when the DS was first released but I don't really remember it. It doesn't have the nostalgia factor that the N64 version does, but there may be some improvements

Not recently, but my recollection is that it was generally an upgrade in that using different characters for different stars offered more variety, but the only way to control it that wasn't a massive downgrade from the N64 was to use the thumb pad that almost nothing else ever used. That makes it rough to play on anything other than a DS Tank, and in my case my dog chewed up my thumb pad and I can't really use it anymore, so it's been many years since I've played it.

It's one that I wouldn't mind seeing rereleased. Some of the touch-centric minigames might not translate well, but it'd be a more enjoyable game on pretty much any system with an analog stick.
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shadowsword87 posted...
Because the hard part about game development isn't the idea, it's the implementation.
They made croc but they werent allowed to make a 3D platformer for Nintendo.

Hard to beat the big N as a small developer.

the other consoles at the time lacked analogue controls to initialize their vision.
I ended up using the d-pad in all future Crash games because it offers more precision, I don't mind at all that the first game has no analog control
On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
I bet you say that to all the boys...
Damn_Underscore posted...
I ended up using the d-pad in all future Crash games because it offers more precision, I don't mind at all that the first game has no analog control
It wasn't until late 6th generation that i think analog controls really improved.
Like yourself, I'd find myself using d-pad in games. Tony hawk games are hard to be precise with analog until like underground.
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The DS version is okay but I would say it's absolutely not the definitive version. The controls really do suck and the new content is a mixed bag. The new stages and the minigames are mostly fine but the new characters are not thought out very well. Wario is lame and useless and I hate how the game forces you to play as Yoshi for the first 15 or so stars. Luigi is broken but it was actually fun finding out all the skips and shit you can do with him.

I didn't have an N64 back then so this was the only version of Mario 64 I had for several years. I do have nostalgia for it but nowadays I vastly prefer the N64 version.

pedro45 posted...
It wasn't until late 6th generation that i think analog controls really improved.
Like yourself, I'd find myself using d-pad in games. Tony hawk games are hard to be precise with analog until like underground.
The early Tony Hawk games had 100% digital controls, so there was no benefit to playing them with a thumbstick anyways.
Poll of the Day » Is Super Mario 64 overrated?
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