Board 8 > Do You Think Mario 64 Has Aged Well?

(+) Yeah! (+)

'Age well' doesn't necessarily mean 'exactly as good as it was 24 years ago', just that it holds up.

I've been replaying it recently and I have extremely mixed feelings. It's still damn fun, no doubt about it, and some of the star missions are pretty interesting and creative. On the other hand, holy fuck the camera sucks. And there are issues with the controls and physics where you bounce and slide off shit that you really shouldn't, stuff that I know wouldn't have happened in Galaxy or Odyssey. I'm pretty down on the pyramid level design in a lot of courses; all it takes is to step on a square inch of slope and slide to the very fucking bottom. Might as well just kill me.

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you definitely have to be willing to put up with a lot of shit to still enjoy Mario 64

there is a good game under all that, but still

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Not particularly but many 3D platformers from that generation have aged like fine crap

100%'d it for the first time back in 2014, still one of my favorite games. But it does show its age at times.

I never found the camera to be THAT bad, it mostly just has problems in tight spaces. Otherwise it's fine.

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LinkMarioSamus posted...

100%'d it for the first time back in 2014, still one of my favorite games. But it does show its age at times.

I never found the camera to be THAT bad, it mostly just has problems in tight spaces. Otherwise it's fine.

There are points where it will wildly swing for no reason even out in the open. The mountain level is a big offender

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I remember no such thing TBH.

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The camera's rough and sometimes the platforming is a little wonky at times but it's still a blast.

Also can we just talk about how well Banjo-Kazooie has aged. Like for a 'Mario 64 ripoff' it's definitely more playable nowadays.

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Mario 64 is still a good game. The camera sucked in 1996, too, but the actual world design is still solid.

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I know people say the graphics this era haven't aged well, but I kind of like the "emptiness" that some of the N64/PS1 games have. It gives games like Mario 64 a kind of melancholy feeling.

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Still my favorite game ever. I admit it has its problems but they don't hinder my enjoyment of it.

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That being said, I do get people being frustrated with the physics. It leads to some really wonky deaths at times, and it feels like your margin for error in some areas is super slim. I just think its general creativity outweighs that.

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Having played recently, no, no, I still can't accept this. Maybe the N64 stick is just impossible to emulate on anything you port it to, but that seems to not be an issue with any other system. I never have this problem with Spyro. Even Crash seems to control okay with the d-pad.

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It's such a curious discussion.

I think it really comes down to how much you're willing to learn to enjoy the game fully. Older games just have a steeper curve because you have to figure out the physics and controls that are less intuitive than they used to be.

If you can get past that you'll find most games age just fine, especially formative legends like SM64. The core game design is still excellent and enjoyable, the controls work perfectly when you understand them.

I just got done playing Vice City for the first time, and yeah a whole bunch of things don't age well in that game or the other PS2 GTAs, but after a solid 10 hours lots of the same stuff that was making me pull my hair out because of bad controls became no problem (like shooting mechanics in general).

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BetrayedTangy posted...

Also can we just talk about how well Banjo-Kazooie has aged. Like for a 'Mario 64 ripoff' it's definitely more playable nowadays.

The reason B-K probably ages better is because there's much less demand on the controls of the player to begin with. You really don't have the freedom of movement you do in SM64, but it takes a lot longer to master SM64, and people just aren't willing to put up with that.

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I just 100%'d this game on Stream last week, and I was fully expecting WAY more jank than I actually encountered. The hardest thing was 100 coins in Rainbow Cruise but to be fair, it's the final level and the hardest star of that level.

I think people overemphasize the jankery. Still a fantastic game.

Started playing Sunshine immediately after and oh dear god why.

https://twitter.com/TarvouldsQuest/status/1266950021670490113?s=19

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Mario Sunshine is an interesting example of level design gone wrong. Because of the FLUDD mechanic, you need plenty of water sources, which results in levels being designed vertically to accommodate all the water. As a side effect, this means when you make a misstep, it will probably take several minutes to get back where you were because you fell down and have to deal with the slowness of swimming. Rico Harbor is the biggest offender in this regard.

You can see a stark contrast in level design when you go to the parts where you can't use FLUDD. Not to say all the levels are bad. The theme park and hotel are both fun, but it's an unavoidable problem because of the game's gimmick.

Also the most curious design decision was making Yoshi melt in water in a game full of water.

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Super Mario Sunshine's levels are better-designed for exploration than linear platforming while 64's are the opposite.

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Mario 64 has aged poorly. My kids tried it out, and they quit after a few minutes. But they actually beat Super Mario Bros.

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Only because they made Sunshine's worlds so massive and yet the game railroads you most of the time.

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i think part of me thinking this is such a slam dunk "yes" is that i've not really accepted more modern games. to me that is still like... the template for a 3d video game

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Oh, Sunshine aged worse. Or was just worse to begin with.

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i think people are missing the forest for the trees here

game still has super tight controls and level design that is to this day not only the blueprint of modern mario games but many other platformers

like, yeah the camera is definitely wonky and the controls are tighter and less forgiving than they are now - but the whole experience still holds up fantastically

this should be a slam dunk "yes" tbqh

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maybe it's just me, but the time investment it takes to get to the point where 64's controls aren't a bother is way too much to make it worth playing casually when you could just play like, Galaxy or something instead and still have a good time

either way though, people saying the game controls perfectly are really understating how annoying it is to helplessly bounce off of a wall because you were 0.5 degrees off the angle you were meant to hit it at

there definitely is an argument for 'no' here

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wall jump angles are pretty much as fine as any other game, the timing window to not bonk is a lot tighter but it's seriously not that bad

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I would pick some kind of in-between option if the poll had one, because some aspects have aged well and some have not.

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I feel like when people say a game hasn't aged well, they point to things people criticized when the game was new, too, as if people thought the camera was fantastic in 1996.

What didn't age well was your ability to tolerate it (which is understandable).

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The overall design is still borderline miraculous and the mechanics are tight enough to make it kind of mindblowing that this was a first crack at 3D.

BUT the controls and camera are really, really rough compared to its contemporaries. If the rumors of a SM64 remaster turn out to be true I think we'll see just how badly that touch-up was needed.

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64 is my favorite speedrun to watch, but I wouldn't ever want to actually play it myself in the year 2020.

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Meh. All the problems I have with it now I had with it back when it was new.

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This game's level design will always be timeless, imo. Of course the passage of time has improved some technical aspects compared to what was a vanguard of 3D platforming, but the foundation of this game remains brilliant.

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Leonhart4 posted...

What didn't age well was your ability to tolerate it (which is understandable).

But other games doing things better is the entire point of another game "aging". I think the better way to look at these kinds of questions is to imagine the game came out tomorrow instead of 1996 and try to imagine how it would be received.

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Nobody can argue the game hasn't aged. Aged poorly would mean that similar games that are the same age have aged much better. That's just not true.
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I mean, it would look like a regression compared to Odyssey (because it would be) but those are critiques of the limitations of games back then. People never liked the camera but they were willing to tolerate it back then.

Maybe it's just me, but when I think of something not aging well, it's some aspect that I thought was fun back in the day, but when I replay it now, I don't find it as fun, not stuff I always thought was bad.

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It's not as fun as it used to be and the camera is a big part of that.

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Like if someone says "Shifting Sand Land hasn't aged well," no, it was always the worst Mario 64 level, even in 1996.

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I'm not sure about wall jumping in 64 being a negative. I liked how skill-based it felt, honestly. And it felt really great after mastering it.
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I still get enjoyment from all the nonsense that still happens with the speedrun community for this game. Like, just the other week there was apparently some new world record set. There are some absolutely bonkers videos I've seen that detail some of the exploitable mechanics like a 'half A press' and other silly things.

The game itself has aged fine, it does have its issues common to many games back then, but it is still a fine enough experience today, though given a choice between it and Odyssey I'd take the latter in a heartbeat...jeeze we've come a long way. But I'll always be a little nostalgic for SM64.

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I think the only thing about SM64 that doesn't hold up is that the game was a lot more difficult when we were kids (or at least when I was a kid) because the idea of even moving around in a 3D world was brand new, so everything FELT much bigger and more challenging, and going back to look at it now everything seems a lot simpler and easier to understand

This is a tough question to answer.

I've been playing a good amount of SM64 Rando lately, and while the game is still fun, I am mostly annoyed by control issues. Stuff like 'you landed on a slope on your stomach, so you're fucked' and being unable to work certain slopes at all.

The game is certainly still playable, but it feels so bad compared to sunshine in terms of how Mario controls that it's hard to say it hasn't aged negatively, though poorly might be taking it too far.

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No 3D platformer had controls and movement as good as this game until Mario Odyssey so yes, it has aged very well

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I'm keeping track of the people who say the controls aren't very good and labeling you all under "people who apparently put very little effort forth"

like mario 64 has the tightest controls in video games. Odyssey is arguably better but waggle makes it a tight race

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I really love the feeling of momentum that Mario has in SM64 - I actually think that later games, including Odyssey, give him turning and aerial controls that are a little too tight and make him kind of lose the feeling of having acceleration in his movements.

SantaRPidgey posted...

I'm keeping track of the people who say the controls aren't very good and labeling you all under "people who apparently put very little effort forth"

like mario 64 has the tightest controls in video games.

For my part I was mostly talking about the act of actually playing it with an N64 controller, which IMO is an abomination. I haven't personally played SM64 on anything else but I'm willing to believe it's a thousand times better on several other options.

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

I've been playing a good amount of SM64 Rando lately, and while the game is still fun, I am mostly annoyed by control issues. Stuff like 'you landed on a slope on your stomach, so you're fucked' and being unable to work certain slopes at all.

with regards to sm64 rando, that'll sometimes ask you to do some awkward slope jumps (and generally places stars) in places where you wouldn't be required to get to normally (i'm looking at you snowman's land)
doesn't quite seem like a fair comparison there imo

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Naye745 posted...

with regards to sm64 rando, that'll sometimes ask you to do some awkward slope jumps (and generally places stars) in places where you wouldn't be required to get to normally (i'm looking at you snowman's land)
doesn't quite seem like a fair comparison there imo

The issue isn't that it's asking me to get weird stars, the issue is that the game's controls and engine have artifacts that make movement awkward in a multitude of placements. For example...

SantaRPidgey posted...

like mario 64 has the tightest controls in video games.

Nothing quite like facing a ledge, pressing the opposite direction from a stop, and having Mario run forward because he has to run in a circle to turn around.

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SantaRPidgey posted...

I'm keeping track of the people who say the controls aren't very good and labeling you all under "people who apparently put very little effort forth"

Everything about modern game design doesn't want players to put in effort in this way though

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SantaRPidgey posted...

I'm keeping track of the people who say the controls aren't very good and labeling you all under "people who apparently put very little effort forth"

like mario 64 has the tightest controls in video games. Odyssey is arguably better but waggle makes it a tight race

I've beaten the game at least twice. What more do you want? I know the controls allow for a lot of cool stuff at a high level. They also make really basic stuff extremely difficult if you're not an expert.

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I've never had trouble getting used to Mario 64's controls.

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Movement still feels so good in Mario 64. The camera has some moments of jankery, but it holds up better than any other game from that era, no contest. Games that came out a decade later still struggled to implement a 3D camera system as well as Mario 64 did. The graphics are very simple and plain, but thats a plus; while almost all early 3D games aged horribly, Mario 64 is still tolerable because it didnt try to overreach with its texture work.

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