this game is super cool. it's a high-grade experiment that barely cares about the (already not that established) Mario tropes in exchange for nonsense tiny playgrounds that have more ideas than they have "levels" inside them. i think that's cool. it barely feels like you're playing a videogame sometimes. the floating pieces of land that you walk on are there almost entirely to take advantage of a piece of Mario's movement options, so they actually feel like those 2D Mario levels where every single thing is there in the name of the core game. but i unfortunately kinda hate that part.
i've never been a fan of nintendo's utilitarian approach to design. it just means that areas must be in some way useful more than they are actual places. in 64 this means that you're forced to care about Mario's (conceptually cool) moveset at every opportunity. i can't even enjoy my abstract nothinglands in peace without having to engage with some random setpiece to get a star.
it's the structure as well… yuno.. i'm not one to usually care about intricate challenges when a game cares about it more than anything. even considering how loose some star objectives are, they're still filled with specific little challenges that completely ruin any sense of hanging out i could've had. yeah, i also really dislike the way almost all stars kick you out of the levels. they sometimes linearly change the level to different versions of themselves that make other stars possible and some others impossible, but sometimes that just makes the levels way too bite-sized to make an impact. like, i have to get at least 70 stars in this thing, so i have no time to keep playing around because that shit takes time to do. i get a similar feeling when i'm done with 4 worlds in 2D Mario games and i know that i still gotta make my way through another 4 worlds. i'm already dreading to do the rest before i'm even there.
when you get used to a level's flow in Mario 64, it gets a little better - but then you gotta consciously go through that all over again and see some new tiny setpieces in another level. and it's gonna really suck when you realize that you can only get all the red coins (of which you already spent some time looking for) when the level changes to another star and a path to that last one opens up.
but it's such a magical game with magical lands… these understated little boxes of characters and structures made tangible only by Mario's presence are a thing to behold. the level Tall, Tall Mountain, for example, is just this huge chunk of a mountain that you gotta climb multiple times to get different stars in different situations. it feels monumental because it's one of the few levels that takes the game's trend toward up/downhill climbing to the foreground of the play. in this level specifically, stopping to smell the roses feels positively uncanny because, since everything is there for a mechanical purpose, it loses itself in the absence of interaction. that's kinda awesome but it makes my head hurt a little.
it irks me because i genuinely enjoy the landscapes in here. they're the extreme version of the visually agnostic Mario levels that feel completely alien because of how random and generic their assets are. by setting the levels up as these random paintings that you stumble onto and not holding on to even some basic staples like the turtle guys and pipes, they made something that feels really uncanny.
i don't really get how people frame some games like Majora's Mask as being "mysterious" when they feature some really charming and normal-ass writing, full-on cutscenes, and NPCs with schedules walking around the world. it feels way more deliberate than the surprising nothings that Mario 64 gives players. there's a vague sense that Bowser took over Peach's Castle but absolutely nothing that contextualizes the bonkers structure. for me that's what makes it interesting! it just really loses me when those cool aspects are stuck with nintendo's approach to games.
Mario 64 is stuck in an impossible equation in my head bc it's at once the coolest game by nintendo that i've touched because it's made by them and also a game that i dislike playing because it still tries to follow their design pillars so much. goddamnit now i wanna play more nintendo games to satisfy my curiosity. please help me
i've never been a fan of nintendo's utilitarian approach to design. it just means that areas must be in some way useful more than they are actual places. in 64 this means that you're forced to care about Mario's (conceptually cool) moveset at every opportunity. i can't even enjoy my abstract nothinglands in peace without having to engage with some random setpiece to get a star.
it's the structure as well… yuno.. i'm not one to usually care about intricate challenges when a game cares about it more than anything. even considering how loose some star objectives are, they're still filled with specific little challenges that completely ruin any sense of hanging out i could've had. yeah, i also really dislike the way almost all stars kick you out of the levels. they sometimes linearly change the level to different versions of themselves that make other stars possible and some others impossible, but sometimes that just makes the levels way too bite-sized to make an impact. like, i have to get at least 70 stars in this thing, so i have no time to keep playing around because that shit takes time to do. i get a similar feeling when i'm done with 4 worlds in 2D Mario games and i know that i still gotta make my way through another 4 worlds. i'm already dreading to do the rest before i'm even there.
when you get used to a level's flow in Mario 64, it gets a little better - but then you gotta consciously go through that all over again and see some new tiny setpieces in another level. and it's gonna really suck when you realize that you can only get all the red coins (of which you already spent some time looking for) when the level changes to another star and a path to that last one opens up.
but it's such a magical game with magical lands… these understated little boxes of characters and structures made tangible only by Mario's presence are a thing to behold. the level Tall, Tall Mountain, for example, is just this huge chunk of a mountain that you gotta climb multiple times to get different stars in different situations. it feels monumental because it's one of the few levels that takes the game's trend toward up/downhill climbing to the foreground of the play. in this level specifically, stopping to smell the roses feels positively uncanny because, since everything is there for a mechanical purpose, it loses itself in the absence of interaction. that's kinda awesome but it makes my head hurt a little.
it irks me because i genuinely enjoy the landscapes in here. they're the extreme version of the visually agnostic Mario levels that feel completely alien because of how random and generic their assets are. by setting the levels up as these random paintings that you stumble onto and not holding on to even some basic staples like the turtle guys and pipes, they made something that feels really uncanny.
i don't really get how people frame some games like Majora's Mask as being "mysterious" when they feature some really charming and normal-ass writing, full-on cutscenes, and NPCs with schedules walking around the world. it feels way more deliberate than the surprising nothings that Mario 64 gives players. there's a vague sense that Bowser took over Peach's Castle but absolutely nothing that contextualizes the bonkers structure. for me that's what makes it interesting! it just really loses me when those cool aspects are stuck with nintendo's approach to games.
Mario 64 is stuck in an impossible equation in my head bc it's at once the coolest game by nintendo that i've touched because it's made by them and also a game that i dislike playing because it still tries to follow their design pillars so much. goddamnit now i wanna play more nintendo games to satisfy my curiosity. please help me
2 Comments
@Gaba_ yeaaa i get that feeling from Sea of Stars as well...
that aspect from Crypt Underworld you mentioned is one of the things that attracts me the most to it. in some ways, it's playgrounds remind me of Mario 64 considering their looseness and the sandboxy ways you can interact with them. but there i can just do something for it's own sake. there are so many huge scale areas that almost beg you to explore them even knowing there's "nothing" there. it's exploration for it's own sake, which i love!
thanks for the kind compliments <3 i'd like see more of your writing here... no pressure though!
that aspect from Crypt Underworld you mentioned is one of the things that attracts me the most to it. in some ways, it's playgrounds remind me of Mario 64 considering their looseness and the sandboxy ways you can interact with them. but there i can just do something for it's own sake. there are so many huge scale areas that almost beg you to explore them even knowing there's "nothing" there. it's exploration for it's own sake, which i love!
thanks for the kind compliments <3 i'd like see more of your writing here... no pressure though!
Gaba_
6 months ago
and another recent game that does this, but in the opposite way, and that i really really like is Crypt Underworld. i love how some scenarios are just... THERE, y'know? they fit perfectly with the current situation of the game, but they're not necessarily designed for the player. you can simply walk through them and experience all those unnecessarily long scenarios and even break some parts LOL
tl;dr It's not something i hate or dislike, but i understand how you feel. i think it depends on game to game. and i appreciate how you can express yourself through your texts so fuck off s2