Super Mario 64

released on Jun 23, 1996

The first three dimensional entry in the Mario franchise, Super Mario 64 follows Mario as he puts his broadened 3D movement arsenal to use in order to rescue Princess Peach from the clutches of his arch rival Bowser. Mario has to jump into worlds-within-paintings ornamenting the walls of Peach's castle, uncover secrets and hidden challenges and collect golden stars as reward for platforming trials.


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Simplesmente o melhor jogo já feito na história, até hoje você pode jogar e se divertir muito, os gráficos pra época são excelentes, as fases são uma mais criativa que a outra, o único controle ruim e o da câmera mas nada que atrapalhe muito, as músicas são perfeitas pra cada fase mesmo as repetidas, os efeitos sonoros são ótimos e esse jogo e tão bom que foi a base dos jogos de plataforma 3d da sua época, em resumo o jogo perfeito.

Marquant dans l'Histoire des jeux mais vraiment compliqué d'y jouer maintenant

Do you know why I'm here today? Why has fate brought me to this site, writing these words for this review, with such passion for video games? Well, actually, it's not because I grew up with Mario 64, though you were close. The actual answer is way stupider:

Mario 64 blooper videos taught me english.

And I'm not talking about those SMG4 Mario 64 videos, those were actually past my prime, I was already on my way to other pastures by the time they started coming out. Nah, I'm talking the REAL old school shit, Fleskhjerta with his Windows Movie Maker editing prowess and overly liberal usage of Homer Simpson sounds. Truth is, I haven't actually gone back to most of those videos since 2010, I figure whatever the hell is waiting for me back there is either gonna be embarrassing for both me and Fleskhjerta alike, or just outright poorly aged. Maybe one day I'll ruin the magic for myself, but right now, the point is, those things were some of the very earliest opportunities for me to practice english as my second language. I mean, I don't remember them being particularly varied in their word and joke usage, so y'know, hear a pattern enough times and eventually it'll stick as being something in relation to this or that specific scenario. There's a very distinct possibility that amongst my first 10 learned words, one of them was "Mamafucker."

So in that way, Mario 64 has stuck out as something that didn't just revolutionize the industry landscape as a whole, but has also revolutionized my path in life, and the very reason why this is my main language now, with the other one being bumped into a secondary. And that's not the only things that Mario 64 had an impact on. It had an impact on the prototype and rumor mill scene too. The ever elusive quest to find Luigi, to find a beta copy, to uncover every unknown secret that's still somewhere, out there. The impact that Mario 64 had on 2D games, poisoning the entire genre to supposed obsoletion, until eventually people got their heads on straight and realized both can co-exist.

So much impact all around, yet there is one thing that very few games have ever replicated about Mario 64, and that's its impressively technical moveset. Spyro, Banjo, Jak, Sly, all excellent games in their own right, but of all the ways they've been impacted by this moustached fuck, they never quite replicated the absolute joy of being able to break every stage with just a little bit of freeform acrobatics. Those sorts of influences would only be felt much later, in the form of games like Hat in Time, and Pseudoregalia.

Is the camera a bit shit in today's age? Sure. Does the athletic theme drive me insane after hearing it for the 60th time? That too. But for every instance I return to Mario 64, my increasing knowledge of it turns it into a slightly different game each time. A seemingly huge, sprawling world turned into a small, contained playground. Walls turned from obstacles to shortcuts, roads that I once commonly traveled are now roads I can skip altogether, higher ledges that were once out of reach, I can now easily wallkick up towards. Every playthrough, I find a new route, a new way to beat a stage, a new experiment to attempt, and it fucking rules. It rules that 15 years later, I can still find new things in a game that takes less than 10 comfortable hours to beat. And the craziest part of it is, I still haven't played this game with anything else but a keyboard.

This moveset, this unabashed freedom that Mario 64 permits, the ability to solve every objective in a variety of different ways, in different orders, or even choosing what you want and don't want to do, is why it's such an instant classic. And the thing is, there are games out there where the freedom of playing a game in multiple ways removes any semblance of difficulty, when it has to balance itself around each task being potentially your first. And I think Mario 64 avoids this sort of trapping by making it so the game's difficulty scales with your understanding of the moveset. The default path will be the longest, and balanced around casual play. But once you start wondering "Hmm, I wonder if I could make it over there if I do this..." that's when the challenge really kicks in.

But you never find yourself asking "What's the point of doing it the hard way, if I can do it the easy way?" because you know that whatever unconventional trick you're about to attempt, has the potential to completely skip over a part of the stage and save you a minute or two of your time. Skilled moveset usage encourages more efficient play. Which is also a bit of an oxymoron, because despite these optional routes technically being harder to pursue, mastering them also makes the game way easier and faster than it would be otherwise. It's that sort of design that makes Mario 64 so satisfying to play.

And it's not just that Mario 64 knows what type of game it is, but its focus on shortcuts and easy versus hard routes make it so the game also wants to know what type of player YOU are. That's right, it's not just a bit, fuckers. Every playthrough of Super Mario 64 IS personalized.

3D mario at its best. Movement masterpiece. Ost stands