Super Mario 64 is one of the most iconic and important games of all time, and it came out on a famously rough transition point for gaming from 2d to 3d, so it's unbelievable it has aged as well as it has.
My only real complains are: the camera, which is pretty darn bad but actually completely excusable for a first attempt ever, and some stars that are just bad sadly.
There is a lot of good to be talked about: the level design still holds up, the game is very creative. Of course not every level is a banger, but in most of them it's just fun to roam around and explore and the stars tend to have very clever placings, also there are already used some really interesting concepts only possible with 3d
The controls are great, Mario is very responsive and there are a lot of options for a varied experience and some precise and fun jumping.
The aestethic is a controversial point but I find it very appealing and don't think it looks bad at all.
I am a great fan of 3d mario games and, while this isn't Odyssey, it sure didn't disappoint

Когда я играл в эту игру, то невольно завидовал тем, кто застал её в своё время. Эмоции от открытия секретов и нахождения шорткатов, которые казалось бы не предусмотрены разаработчиками, вызывают не поддельную радость. Количество контента так же не позволяет скучать и хочется верить, что даже имея одну эту игру в то время на N64, тебе было не до скуки.

Дизайн уровней выполнен не привычно, ибо служит исключительно геймплейной части, редко являясь чем-то художественно цельным. Но меня такой подход только привлекает, т.к. стоит начать исследовать и эксперементировать всегда становится не до созерцания. И всё же некоторые уровни не хотелось проходить именно из-за их странного облика. С другой стороны, всё что не нравится можно было пропустить, и собрать больше звёзд на тех уровнях, что тебе интереснее.

Управление требует привыкания, но в целом я с ним совладал за пару вечеров. Но усиление, позволяющее Марио летать я так и не смог обуздать и каждая попытка пройти секретный уровень в холле замка сопровождался громким матом.

Итого: запуская игру просто чтобы ознакомиться с ней я с большим удовольствием прошёл её. Сейчас сложно найти игру, которая бы дарила такие же эмоции радости от новых открытий.

An experienced dev team's first foray into true 3D that, shockingly, gets it right all the way back in June 1996.

Absolutely rock-solid fundamentals which set the tone for the rest of the genre. Analog controls enable precise adjustment of angles which have huge downstream effects. A signature focus on momentum, combined with tricks both intentional and unintentional, birthed one of the most legendary and iconic speedrunning scenes of all time. Systems like this in a casual single player context, balanced to enhance rather than subvert challenges, are rare to find, and even the devs themselves never quite managed to recapture this particular flavor.

The level design here is emblematic of the early 3D era "golden age": enough detail and representation to evoke sense of place, but with the abstraction necessitated by the time's technology both facilitating dense layouts and imbuing the atmosphere with a surreal, dreamlike quality. No established formulas for success existed yet, so levels aren't overly concerned with providing the player a frictionless experience. Each expresses their own quirky character, something felt even more strongly than usual since gameplay is so contextualized by the precise placement of nearby geometry.

Shortcomings mainly occur in obtuse progression/secrets and a handful of stages (more concentrated in the latter half) that don't play to the game's strengths. Luckily, the huge modding scene has leveraged this fantastic foundation and learned from these mistakes to create a veritable cornucopia of visions, both vanilla-like and experimental, for you as a player to explore.

Yup, Quake is a pretty great game!

Played on the fan PC port using the Render96 retexture/remodel mod

I've never actually beaten Super Mario 64, I've played it on dozens of occasions, getting to every level, getting most of the stars, but they were all separate instances and half the time powered by cheats, I've been in a bit of a 3D platformer mood recently so I sat down and went through the entire thing start to finish, and long story short, while my opinions have hardly changed for the game, it's really a landmark title and a great game.

In terms of how I feel after finally replaying it, best case scenario I can say that I've grown more fond of the control scheme than I was before, and worst case scenario I've really figured out how bad the level design is in the game.

Fundamentals wise the game is tight as hell, it's the major reason why the game is so great, the controls are just really really good, and it's fun to do what effectively feels like cheating to do some tight jumps to get a star without going through the objective the game intended.

Level design kind of reeks though, it's not offensively bad just a bit boring and simple, there are a few particularly bad ones like the water level though, and the ones with giant falls for every missed jump aren't an amazing experience, and it kind of sucks how generic a lot of the visuals are, most levels sharing a set of like 4-5 songs doesn't help either, the joy is just out of how often the levels are oversized playgrounds and have been designed thoughtlessly enough for you to be able to just hit some jump and snag a star because of it.

Power-ups aren't really worth noting, 2/3 of them are just basic tools to solve a problem you'd have with a puzzle, and the other one is a gimmick that rarely gets used that while cool for it's time, isn't fun to control.

Bosses are super forgettable, there's 3 that'd I'd consider actual boss-fights, and 1 of those 3 you can totally miss, there's King Bob-omb who's more of a tutorial, the bowser fights which are cakewalks with the third one being a bit annoying if you don't know how to chain throws together, and there's the hand fight in the desert level, they're all nothing special.

It's really interesting to look back and see how much this game really influenced the industry due to how much of a hit it was, it's still got a chokehold on the design of current 3D Mario games, and plenty of indie games take massive inspiration from it, though you'll just as often see a major inspiration by another game I plan to play eventually, Banjo-Kazooie.

I can't really say this game is one-of-a-kind though, as not only did the industry and indie devs follow in suit for years, but that Nintendo themselves did the same with most 3D Mario games lifting major elements from this, but it's definitely worth playing if you've even somewhat enjoyed anything that takes inspiration from this.