Poll of the Day > Super Mario 64 is so unplayable

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DorkLink
04/12/17 12:46:18 AM
#1:


I didn't love the controls (especially the camera) even when it was new, but I tried playing it some today and it just controls like shit all around. I have a certain fondness for the game, but I don't know if I can play through it anymore. It's one of the rare games that I think might be better to watch than to play yourself (especially with some of the crazy shit people do with it nowadays)
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Ferarri619
04/12/17 12:54:21 AM
#2:


For such an easy (yet fun) game like SM64, who the hell cares about the controls? They aren't bad.
You'd probably get slaughtered playing DMC 1-4 or Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2.
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promero14
04/12/17 1:02:39 AM
#3:


Wtf
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SilentSeph
04/12/17 1:11:59 AM
#4:


It's kinda clunky, but it's bearable (speaking of Mario). The camera is a nightmare to deal with, though.
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Entity13
04/12/17 1:17:34 AM
#5:


SilentSeph posted...
It's kinda clunky, but it's bearable (speaking of Mario). The camera is a nightmare to deal with, though.


If Mario 64's camera is a nightmare, then what's the camera in FFXV?
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WhiskeyDisk
04/12/17 1:23:21 AM
#6:


if you're playing it in emulation, its probably terrible. platformers don't translate well to touch controls.even side-scrolling platformers are awful with touch controls.
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Lokarin
04/12/17 1:23:35 AM
#7:


To tell you why, I'll have to explain parallel universes
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DorkLink
04/12/17 1:24:34 AM
#8:


WhiskeyDisk posted...
if you're playing it in emulation, its probably terrible. platformers don't translate well to touch controls.even side-scrolling platformers are awful with touch controls.


I was playing it on an N64
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WhiskeyDisk
04/12/17 1:25:49 AM
#9:


DorkLink posted...
WhiskeyDisk posted...
if you're playing it in emulation, its probably terrible. platformers don't translate well to touch controls.even side-scrolling platformers are awful with touch controls.


I was playing it on an N64


then i really can't help you there.
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Kana
04/12/17 1:30:33 AM
#10:


Lokarin posted...
To tell you why, I'll have to explain parallel universes

I think SM64 is garbage, but this dude's videos are so much fun. They're all a treat to watch.
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DorkLink
04/12/17 1:33:14 AM
#11:


Kana posted...
Lokarin posted...
To tell you why, I'll have to explain parallel universes

I think SM64 is garbage, but this dude's videos are so much fun. They're all a treat to watch.


They're more enjoyable to me than playing SM64

Edit: I guess I'm just being redundant since I said pretty much the same thing in my first post
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helIy
04/12/17 2:41:37 AM
#12:


WhiskeyDisk posted...
if you're playing it in emulation, its probably terrible. platformers don't translate well to touch controls.even side-scrolling platformers are awful with touch controls.

you live in a world where emulators are only on touchscreen devices?
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Claude_Frollo
04/12/17 2:42:45 AM
#13:


The DS remake is better.

Seriously. It is a significant improvement.
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WhiskeyDisk
04/12/17 2:48:14 AM
#14:


helIy posted...
WhiskeyDisk posted...
if you're playing it in emulation, its probably terrible. platformers don't translate well to touch controls.even side-scrolling platformers are awful with touch controls.

you live in a world where emulators are only on touchscreen devices?


not at all, but then there's still having several different controllers to consider...

android emus are great for RPG's but that's about it.
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SilentSeph
04/12/17 2:53:01 AM
#15:


Entity13 posted...
SilentSeph posted...
It's kinda clunky, but it's bearable (speaking of Mario). The camera is a nightmare to deal with, though.


If Mario 64's camera is a nightmare, then what's the camera in FFXV?

Surprisingly, I haven't had too many problems with XV's camera except for in tight corridors, where it can get horrible.

Claude_Frollo posted...
The DS remake is better.

Seriously. It is a significant improvement.

I love the added content, but the d-pad made my hand cramp and iirc there was a run button now which was bleh
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spooky96
04/12/17 3:13:48 AM
#16:


Played it 5-6 years ago, wasn't bad at all.
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DorkLink
04/12/17 3:23:26 AM
#17:


SilentSeph posted...
Claude_Frollo posted...
The DS remake is better.

Seriously. It is a significant improvement.

I love the added content, but the d-pad made my hand cramp and iirc there was a run button now which was bleh


Yeah, I've heard about the run button/d-pad, which doesn't sound like it would be a good way to control it if you ask me. Maybe a 3DS version could work
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Foppe
04/12/17 3:35:16 AM
#18:


This topic made me hook up my N64 and replaying Super Mario 64.
I got 10 stars and I have no problems with the controls.
Are your controller broken?
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Mead
04/12/17 3:36:27 AM
#19:


Claude_Frollo posted...
The DS remake is better.

Seriously. It is a significant improvement.



The controls are abysmal, the original is better
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Ultima_Dragoon
04/12/17 4:17:45 AM
#20:


Mead posted...
Claude_Frollo posted...
The DS remake is better.

Seriously. It is a significant improvement.



The controls are abysmal, the original is better

I could not agree more. I played SM64 a couple of years ago, and while the camera wasn't good, it usually only sucked if I was in a corner or running along a wall or something. I always found it good enough to give me a good angle when I needed to make a crucial jump.

I tried playing the DS version last year and it was horrible. The characters did not feel right at all and I couldn't finish the game.
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SmokeMassTree
04/12/17 6:37:37 AM
#21:


This reminds me of the time I bet this girl oral sex over the fact that if you get 100 coins (?) you get an extra life.

It had been years since I played the game, and I honestly didn't remember but it sounded right.

I won, but her uncle came over to fix something with the electrical while she was preforming the act.
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Entity13
04/12/17 6:51:00 AM
#22:


SmokeMassTree posted...
I won, but her uncle came over to fix something with the electrical while she was preforming the act.


Sounds like the perfect excuse to call him a buzzkill.
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ArvTheGreat
04/12/17 7:02:11 AM
#23:


Everyone thinks they are a critic
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myghostisdead
04/12/17 7:29:52 AM
#24:


I played it not too long ago on my N64. The camera does do weird stuff at times but is by no means unplayable.
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Peterass
04/12/17 9:21:36 AM
#25:


It was certainly very playable back when it came out. We've become so accustomed to how games are today that we lost the muscle memory we had way back when..

For example, I used to be a beast at Mario Kart 64 back in the day, able to play with extreme precision.. I played a few months ago and I was atrocious. However, I'm sure that if I gave it some time the feeling would come back and it would feel natural again.
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nurlen
04/12/17 10:32:28 AM
#26:


I never cared for the game
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green dragon
04/12/17 10:35:39 AM
#27:


i love the game. the controls to me are fine, but the camera is not the best. I replayed it recently, and the camera pissed me off so much.


side note: glaxy 1 and 2 are the shit. wish nintendo would remake mario 64 with added content (again) and update the camera and graphics.
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That_70s_show
04/12/17 10:35:51 AM
#28:


WhiskeyDisk posted...
if you're playing it in emulation, its probably terrible. platformers don't translate well to touch controls.even side-scrolling platformers are awful with touch controls.


emulation = touch controls?
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Dmess85
04/12/17 1:18:57 PM
#29:


Well, SM64 was the N64's first AAA title from Nintendo and the genre of 3D platformers was just getting started. I think the camera in Star Wars Shadow of the Empire was horrible.
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DorkLink
04/12/17 1:26:00 PM
#30:


Maybe the controls themselves aren't that bad, but I think the camera affects the controls in other ways. For example, on the first snow level there's a broken bridge you can long jump across, but I couldn't get the camera to go behind Mario or to view the bridge from the side. It would be much easier to jump that gap from one of those straight angles, but instead you have to do it at like a 30 or 60 degree angle, which makes it easy to be slightly off on your direction and miss the jump.


I also still have problems with ground pounding when I'm trying to long jump but maybe that's my fault.
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DorkLink
04/14/17 3:16:42 AM
#31:


I decided to persevere, up to 106 stars now. This game is actually really easy; it's crazy how simple some of the stars are, especially looking back on how long it took me to beat as a kid. I may rag on the camera and controls, but they almost help by preventing the game from being too boring. I've always had something of a love-hate relationship with it, since it's so full of issues, but they add to the charm.


At least it's better than that pile of shit Sunshine.
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TyVulpine
04/14/17 9:00:26 AM
#32:


It's really not unplayable. The only hard part is throwing Bowser into the third bomb in Bowser In The Sky.
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Ultima_Dragoon
04/14/17 9:05:47 AM
#33:


DorkLink posted...
I decided to persevere, up to 106 stars now. This game is actually really easy; it's crazy how simple some of the stars are, especially looking back on how long it took me to beat as a kid. I may rag on the camera and controls, but they almost help by preventing the game from being too boring. I've always had something of a love-hate relationship with it, since it's so full of issues, but they add to the charm.


At least it's better than that pile of shit Sunshine.

I thought the game was fairly easy except for a couple of the last levels, notably the clock one and the rainbow magic carpet one.
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GinsuVictim
04/14/17 10:38:14 AM
#34:


Great game, still play it on n64. The controls are great, it's just the camera that's shite.
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SilentSeph
04/14/17 11:51:07 AM
#35:


DorkLink posted...
I decided to persevere, up to 106 stars now. This game is actually really easy; it's crazy how simple some of the stars are, especially looking back on how long it took me to beat as a kid. I may rag on the camera and controls, but they almost help by preventing the game from being too boring. I've always had something of a love-hate relationship with it, since it's so full of issues, but they add to the charm.


At least it's better than that pile of shit Sunshine.

I don't know if it's because I beat the game like 20 times or not but I always found 64 the easiest out of the 3D collectathons despite its worse controls. There are a handful of stars in the others that I have more trouble with than the entirety of 64.

What do you dislike about Sunshine? I hate the Blue Coins but other than that I absolutely love everything else about it. Minus swimming, I feel Mario controls the best in Sunshine compared to the others.
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fettster777
04/14/17 12:22:05 PM
#36:


It was better on DS.
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DorkLink
04/14/17 2:02:07 PM
#37:


Ultima_Dragoon posted...
I thought the game was fairly easy except for a couple of the last levels, notably the clock one and the rainbow magic carpet one.


Yeah, those levels are the ones where I died the most, since they're basically just giant bottomless pits. I had one death in Tick Tock Clock which I'd consider bad control but maybe that's not the right term, more like unforgiving collision detection. There are those flat rotating platforms (like the ones in the section with the red coins), and I tried to jump onto one that I had to cross for a certain star, but I apparently hit it slightly too low. There are certain ways that you can hit a wall that cause Mario to completely lose control until you hit the ground, and so you can't dive or ground pound, so being in TTC that pretty much screwed me. And that kind of thing happens all the time. Compare that to later games (which are admittedly a little too forgiving about this) where you can glide down the wall and jump off, making such situations more avoidable.

SilentSeph posted...
What do you dislike about Sunshine? I hate the Blue Coins but other than that I absolutely love everything else about it. Minus swimming, I feel Mario controls the best in Sunshine compared to the others.


- Camera is still frequently a pain in the ass.
- The took out a lot of Mario's moves.
- You can only do one shine mission at a time, and have to do them in order.
- Beating the game is tied to beating all but the last shine in each level instead of getting fixed number of stars. Admittedly, playing SM64 again I realize that also has a pathetic number of stars needed to beat the game (70, which you can get without even doing an upstairs level), but at least you could choose which stars to get. The secret shines and blue coin ones in Sunshine are effectively pointless unless you're going for 100%.
- Blue coins only appear in specific missions of the level even though the area they appear in is often one that can be accessed on a number of different missions.
- Can only get 100 coins on certain missions. I think this might have happened sometimes in SM64, but much less frequently, and usually it was intuitive figuring out which missions were best for it.
- Repetitive mission types... also an issue in SM64, but with Sunshine I was always going "Oh look, another goop cleaning mission" or "Oh look, another Shadow Mario chase." SM64's were too simple sometimes that they got repetitive, but I think that helped, because they felt more organic. Sunshine's repetitive missions are more clearly following a formula.
- Unlocking levels isn't as intuitive since it's not tied into a clearly-indicated number of stars. The world map was also lacking in imaginative entry points like the ones for Shifting Sand Land, Wet-Dry World, Snowman's Land and Tiny-Huge Island.
- Yoshi is useless and he dies from touching WATER.
- Too many similarly-themed levels since they were trying to make them all part of the same island instead of these arbitrary worlds you're transported to.
- Voice acting.
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LeetCheet
04/14/17 2:32:16 PM
#38:


I like Sunshine more than 64 but I'm fully aware of Sunshine's problems.
Mario's movement felt really good and precise in Sunshine IMO though.

I think the reason why Mario doesn't have that many moves in Sunshine was because many of his moves in 64 were kinda pointless.

He had even less moves in Galaxy and most people loved that game though?
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ToastyPOP
04/14/17 2:36:53 PM
#39:


Mario 64 has easily the best play control out of any 3D Mario game. The camera could be problematic at times but was overall still pretty manageable.

Also, some of the added content in the DS version was neat, but the controls really were awful. Playing it on the 3DS does help a little bit though.
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Go_Totodile
04/14/17 2:38:02 PM
#40:


Lokarin posted...
To tell you why, I'll have to explain parallel universes

*teleports through 40 PUs*
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WarGreymon77
04/14/17 2:43:23 PM
#41:


I was trying to play this game with a GC controller on Wii VC. Just for the record, the GameCube controller is terrible for any game that isn't a GameCube game.
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Zeus
04/14/17 2:47:44 PM
#42:


It's probably not the game's fault, but you're just getting used to a N64 controller again.

Claude_Frollo posted...
The DS remake is better.

Seriously. It is a significant improvement.


The DS remake is shit.

Seriously, it's garbage. While it adds some levels, having to start as Yoshi is annoying and holding down a button to run is awkward.
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SilentSeph
04/14/17 2:54:50 PM
#43:


That's quite the list haha although I agree with some points. Anything negative about the Blue Coins I agree with, they are horrible in every way. Yoshi's that are native to a tropical island that die instantly in water is a dumb idea). And it is annoying that only certain missions have 100 coins in them (I think the only time this is an issue in 64 is Dire Dire Docks).

I don't remember having too many camera problems other than one of the rooms in Sirena Beach hotel with pink Boos.

For Mario's moves, I feel the only useful move that was removed was his jump kick. I rarely if ever used his punch kick combo or his breakdance kick (as amusing as that one is). I'll take his new moves like the spin jump or wall slide any day.

I'm not personally bothered by progression being based on the missions themselves rather than Shine count since I always go for 100% anyway but I agree that it is a really strange choice. I don't know why they chose to do it that way.

Everything else I can see why others are bothered by it, but they don't really bother me.
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Kenan_Birkan
04/14/17 3:00:47 PM
#44:


best. game. ever.
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Jiggy101011
04/14/17 3:18:20 PM
#45:


Most N64 games are hard to go back to, clunky camera and a frustrating controller. I played through OOT a few months ago and my hand would cramp up after about 2 hours of playtime. Such an odd design choice.
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DorkLink
04/14/17 3:21:49 PM
#46:


Zeus posted...
It's probably not the game's fault, but you're just getting used to a N64 controller again.


Eh, I find the stick fine, as crappy as it is. The bigger problems are the camera and the sometimes weird wall collisions. Although oddly enough, I do find myself accidentally hitting R pretty often and that changes the camera, but that hasn't caused any real problems.
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DeathMagnetic80
04/14/17 3:30:42 PM
#47:


It's ok, and I understand how revolutionary it was at the time.. but I prefer the classic Mario platformers still. Even stuff like New Super Mario Bros. has yet to hit that sweet spot for me that SMB3 and SMW did.
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GinsuVictim
04/14/17 3:49:43 PM
#48:


fettster777 posted...
It was better on DS.

At being shit.
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DorkLink
04/14/17 4:52:54 PM
#49:


I'm not a big fan of playing games on a portable if they're available on a home console, even if the portable one is a remake. But from what I've heard of the DS one, it doesn't even sound like an upgrade in many ways. I'd consider playing a 3DS remake but then again I haven't bought either of the Zelda remakes and those are games I like way better.
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DorkLink
04/14/17 7:10:44 PM
#50:


Got all 120 stars.

Another thing that annoys me is how if you put the slightest part of your foot on an incline, it sends you rolling down like you're skiing from the top of a mountain. A good example of this is near the top of the tiny island in Tiny-Huge Island where there's a narrow plank you can walk across. It doesn't help that the camera needlessly pans on its own when you're walking this part. Tall Tall Mountain also has many examples of this problem - long straightaways that you come at from a perfectly viable camera angle, but the camera just pans too much and you have to constantly readjust your movement angle.

These kind of things to me feel like they were always flaws, even for the time. It's not like the lack of a free camera, which is excusable since you had buttons instead of a second stick. They made a fairly functional camera for the game, so why does it do stupid things on its own sometimes? Or why does it swing between such huge angles when you press C-right or C-left, usually passing over the one that would be optimal?

In comparison, a game like Ocarina of Time holds up much better in my opinion because it doesn't really have such huge flaws. I mean, there are certainly instances where I feel like some things are pretty bland compared to later games, but nothing really where I'm like "Wow, why did they program that this way?"
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