Poll of the Day > I gotta confess i never really liked mario 64

(+) Yeah! (+)

Now not liking vs being a bad game is different. It's a good game and I'll still Play it from time to time but I just didn't care for it not back then. And I still have the same opinion on it today. I just feel it's very boring and a chore. It felt empty but I know it really isn't. It's not a Mario game I highly favor but I don't think it's a bad game at all

Banjo kazooie had more action

I loved it back in the day. I haven't played it since I was like 10 though, so I dunno if I'd still love it

I never liked early 3D platformers, Mario 64 included. Even most modern ones have a hard time finding a good balance between exploration and action, and most times just stick to the exploration stuff.

Crash Bandicoot probably did it the best of the 90's ones, although I would argue it doesn't take advantage of the 3D elements as much as it could.

honestly if you told me i had to replay a 3D mario right now, it'd probably be galaxy

Mario 64 is still the best 3D Mario to this day.

Kanatteru posted...

honestly if you told me i had to replay a 3D mario right now, it'd probably be galaxy

I should really replay... all of them, actually. 64 is the only one I can actually remember replaying in full, and I've done it multiple times. The others, I've only actually gone through once (though to 100% in Galaxy 1/2, which if memory serves involves playing through multiple times).

I like it and it's the 3D Mario game I've beaten the most but I think it was surpassed by all the other 3D games except maybe 3D Land

SA1 is better

Mario 64 probably had the most emergent complexity of all the adventure games.

Lokarin posted...

Mario 64 probably had the most emergent complexity of all the adventure games.

To explain why, first we need to talk about parallel universes.

Mario 64 is the only 3D Mario game I've played, despite owning several of them.

Sunshine was the best, but 64 was fine. Dunno if I'd replay it unless I magically had NSO+ for free.

It's probably my favorite Mario game.

It's definitely the one I go back to the most. Mario is just really fun to control in it.

I do not like Mario 64.

keyblader1985 posted...

Mario 64 is the only 3D Mario game I've played

Keep in mind I like every 2D Mario game I've played which aren't many because I haven't played one since... New Super Mario Bros.

adjl posted...

To explain why, first we need to talk about parallel universes.

It's now been done in 0 A presses, time sure flies

MagicalPrincess posted...

Mario 64 is still the best 3D Mario to this day.

Super mario sunshine is underrated and beats out 64.

Lokarin posted...

It's now been done in 0 A presses, time sure flies

Yeah, I saw your topic about it a couple weeks ago. Speedrunners are weird.

MagicalPrincess posted...

Mario 64 is still the best 3D Mario to this day.

slacker03150 posted...

Super mario sunshine is underrated and beats out 64.

I stand by what I said.

Yep, with you TC; once the novelty wore off, I just didn't have fun anymore, and it convinced me that 3D Mario isn't my thing.

Super Mario 64 was the prototype for all 3D platformers to follow, and to some extent all 3D games in general. For many years, developers throughout the industry gave credit to Mario 64 for inspiration. Like Banjo Kazooie? Thank Mario 64 for inspiring it. Like Halo or Call of Duty? Thank Mario 64 for paving the way for them.

How did Mario 64 pave the way for the latter games?

Creation of Mario 64 lead to figuring we can and need to move around with analog control rather than a D-pad (PlayStation didn't have analog sticks at first) and that we also needed to be able to independently, directly control the camera. Granted, as this was new territory and we were still figuring out how to make it work, so we didn't have a second (right) stick yet but Nintendo had up/down/left/right camera buttons, leading to later use of a second stick for camera movement.

I've played a lot of it over the years and always enjoyed it. Always found the controls snappier than the other games people say improved on the formula (at least in that gen). It was a game me and friends got lost in for days at a time as kids. I was born in '91. The neighbors got an N64 when I was 6 or 7 so we played Mario 64 and Mario Kart constantly.

I realized that I don't really care for 3D Mario anymore after Odyssey didn't impress me at all.

I didn't even have time to check it out. I was busy with school.

ReturnOfFa posted...

Always found the controls snappier than the other games people say improved on the formula (at least in that gen)

I think it was Yahtzee's video on Bomb Rush Cyberfunk that got me recently thinking about the idea of traversal as a core part of a game experience, and I think SM64 is a good example of that. The camera's janky and the level design is dated such that later games definitely improved on the formula, but Mario's options for moving around just plain feel good. I think that might actually be the biggest reason a lot of people were disappointed with Sunshine, since while FLUDD added some interesting new traversal tools, they just aren't that enjoyable to actually use. They're all consistent with how you'd expect movement based on pressurized water to work, but that means they feel sluggish and can't really be used for anything really interesting. It's been too long for me to really compare, but I seem to remember Mario's non-FLUDD movement also not being quite as snappy, but I know people praised the non-FLUDD sections for being better platformers, so I might be misremembering.

Thinking about it more, both Galaxy games were quite a bit floatier, just as part of their focus on interesting level design within the concept of traversing round surfaces with wonky gravity, and then 3D Lane/World were both much more focused on platforming level design than on free-form traversal. Odyssey, however, was an absolute blast to move around in and had a world that was brilliantly designed to reward players for experimenting with the movement options they were given. That might actually have been the first Mario game to really improve on the traversal side of SM64, and that was a big part of why I loved it as much as I did.