The fifth-generation of gaming consoles was just getting started. With the fourth generation taking 2D gaming almost to its limits, it was pretty evident that the future was going to revolve around 3D games. Many efforts were made trying to create 3D games before (Star Fox on the SNES, Virtua Racing on the Genesis/Mega Drive, just to name a few) but many of those efforts show their age today.

The fifth-generation was truly when 3D gaming was starting to take off, but not initially. Many games released early in the generation were still just 2D games, and 2D gaming was still going strong during the generation. But in 1996, Nintendo released its next console: the Nintendo 64. And alongside it, two games: Pilotwings 64, and Super Mario 64.
Super Mario 64 ended up being the star of the show, it would serve as a stepping stone to many 3D platformers in the coming years, with some of its influence still visible today.

Watching Mario's 3D face was a gaming milestone.​

However, Super Mario 64 also suffers due to its status as a revolutionary title. Since it was the stepping stone for many other games in its genre, inevitably some games improved on that foundation. Sometimes so much that when you return to Super Mario 64, you might find yourself missing some of the improvements that were made later. This even extends to future 3D Mario games. This fact has led Super Mario 64 to become a pretty vanilla experience. What was once considered groundbreaking is now just standard. So can Super Mario 64 still offer a great experience today in the year 2020? Is it worth playing today when many games have improved so much on Super Mario 64's foundations?

The plot of the game is standard Mario shenanigans: Bowser kidnaps Peach, so you have to save her once again. For the first 3D game in the series, it makes sense to keep things as simple as possible to make the shift to a new formula comfortable to veterans as well as newcomers. So the plot works just as well here as it did on the many Mario games that came prior.
When it comes to the presentation, it shows its age. The graphics are pretty basic but still colorful enough to not become an eyesore. Many of the 3D elements don't look that great today, while some just look okay enough. Goombas and Koopas barely resemble their artwork, while Bowser looks so bad that it's quite hilarious. Mario himself does not look that bad and has some decent animations to his movements, but on the whole, the graphics are just okay. They get the job done, but have not aged well.

Bowser just barely resembles his artwork.
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The music fares a lot better. Koji Kondo returns as the composer for this title and he brings his usual stamp of quality to the soundtrack. Many of the compositions are just complete earworms that you'd be hard-pressed to forget, which is typical for the Mario series. Also typical for the Mario series is the fact that there is not a whole lot of music to work with, Super Mario 64 is no exception. Rainbow Ride, Tick Tock Clock, and many secret stages share the same musical track. And while that is not a problem in it of itself, it does disappoint me that we could not get more fitting tracks on certain stages. But then there are stages such as Tiny-Huge Island where I really cannot come up with a better alternative as to what type of music would fit better, so I'm overall pretty satisfied with the results here. Some of the standouts of the soundtrack include: Inside the Castle Walls, Slider, the Title Theme, and of course Dire, Dire Docks.

Sound effects are pretty standard, but the main addition here is the voice of Charles Martinet. Martinet had previously served as the voice actor for Mario in the 1995 Windows game Mario's FUNdamentals, but Super Mario 64 was when many people were exposed to his voice. Martinet just offers a few phrases and grunt noises that somehow fit the character very well. So well, that Martinet's voice became synonymous with the character.

But how does the gameplay of Super Mario 64 hold up? Trying to adapt the core aspects of a Mario game in a 3D game was not going to be easy, especially since there was no true precedent as to how exactly this could be done. So it is pretty important to consider how exactly Nintendo EAD decided to adapt Mario in a new environment. Due to the limitations of the Nintendo 64, it was unrealistic to expect a full 1:1 transition of the 2D Mario formula, so Nintendo EAD had to create a new formula for this to work. But before we discuss how the formula worked, we have to recap on what exactly was the formula that 2D Mario used before.

2D Mario mainly consists of many linear levels where the objective is to get to the end goal. Mario can also use power-ups that allow him to perform certain abilities that not only help Mario to progress through the level, but also serve to add variety into an otherwise pretty bland set of movements. There also may be some secrets in the levels, which encourage exploration of the level as well as adding replay value. This formula is simple, but effective and has been refined for many years.

Nintendo was exploring uncharted territory.
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From that formula, we can already see what are some certain core elements of a Mario game, which include platforming, secrets to find, enemies to kill, coins to grab, etc. So as long as the game sticks to those core elements, it does not matter if the overall formula is changed. With this in mind, how well did Nintendo EAD execute this new formula?

The controls of the game are as standard for a 3D platformer as you can get, you move Mario with the analog stick and use the A button to jump as well as the B button for attacks. But the controls aren't as simple as a 2D Mario game. Thanks to the shift to 3D, the developers were given more freedom to develop upon Mario's superhuman athletics. Moves that were introduced in this game include the long jump, the backflip, the somersault, the dive, wall jumping, ground pounds, and triple jumping. All of the moves mentioned are a natural evolution of the simple running and jumping gameplay of previous installments, and due to the introduction of analog movement, the run button was scrapped in favor of controlling Mario's speed depending on how you're handling the stick. If you make more subtle and slow movements, Mario will move slowly. And if you hold the stick all the way, Mario will run at his max speed.

And seeing how much fun Mario's move set can be, that move set is enough to carry the overall experience. But as a consequence, the power-ups are pretty boring and situational. The power-ups in this game are the Wing, Vanish, and Metal Caps. The Vanish cap allows you to go through certain walls, the Metal Cap allows you to walk underwater and kill enemies just by touching them, and the Wing cap allows Mario to take flight. Both the Vanish and Metal cap make Mario completely invincible and are simple enough to understand. The Wing cap is the odd one out. To use it, you need to first perform a triple jump, or you can also shoot Mario out of a cannon. The Wing cap controls are awkward and can take some time to get used to, but they get the job done.
While on 2D Mario the power-ups are an essential element that adds variety to the core running and jumping, on Super Mario 64 the number of things that Mario can do on his own add variety to the core gameplay by default. So the power-ups are only there to add some mechanical variety, and for that purpose, they succeed.

Metal Mario looks so nice, that he became a separate character.​

However, seeing as Mario's move set has expanded, so too have his weaknesses. For instance, Mario now has a health meter that can go down when you receive damage from enemies as well as from fall damage. So you have to be careful in how you control Mario to avoid possible death. The health meter can be replenished by collecting coins or by finding floating hearts in certain levels.
Another overhaul of the controls was made regarding underwater sections. The swimming controls are pretty intuitive, move the stick up to make Mario swim downwards and move the stick down to make Mario swim upwards, and press the A button repeatedly to swim. And much like how Mario has fall damage, he can also drown if he stays in the water for too long. However, besides being able to replenish your air meter by collecting coins, you can also just make Mario go to the surface to replenish your air meter as well.

Unlike previous games, Mario is vulnerable to water.
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So far the changes to Mario's controls have been pretty positive, but I do have some complaints regarding the controls. Making Mario turn around can be inconsistent. For some reason, Mario will react differently when you push the stick down to make him turn around. Sometimes he makes a complete 180° turn without issue, but other times he makes an arc which can lead to your death in tight corners. A workaround is to have Mario make a complete stop and then turn into the desired direction. This ensures that Mario will always make a 180° turn, but it does not solve the underlying issue. Another complaint I have concerns the wall jumping. For Mario to do this maneuver, you must press the A button the second Mario makes contact with the wall. This strict timing can take some time to get used to, especially if you are used to how wall jumping works in future games.

However, my main complaint regarding the controls is without a doubt: the camera. In a similar fashion as Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario 64 decides to have an explanation as to how the camera works. Ever since you start the game, there's a Lakitu with a camera following you around. And while I appreciate that detail, it ultimately does not matter when the camera controls are inherently flawed. You control the camera with the C buttons. This game uses inverted camera controls, so pressing C left moves the camera to the right and vice versa. Regardless of the direction in which you move the camera, the camera moves in set increments. Those increments can get stuck on a lot of level geometry, obscuring your view to such a degree that you might get lost and frustrated when the camera gets stuck. Pressing C up zooms the camera to Mario's head and makes him come to a complete stop, you can then move Mario's head with the analog stick to look around the environment. But besides having to use this to access a certain level, I barely find myself using this option. C down allows you to zoom out the camera, giving you overall better visibility. And finally, you can use the R button to activate two extra camera modes which you can change freely on the pause menu when you are inside a level. By default, the R button activates the Mario cam. The Mario cam zooms in to Mario's head, making it pretty useless. But if you press C down to zoom out the camera, this camera mode is incredibly useful when you need to navigate through some tight spots. The other camera mode is just a fixed camera angle, but besides certain wall jumping spots, I mainly find this camera mode useless.

"The Lakitu Bros., here reporting live from just outside the Princess's castle."
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So far, it seems that Nintendo EAD has been doing a good job with transitioning Mario when it comes to controls. But that does not matter if the landscapes he can explore are not fun to travel trough, so how are the levels in Super Mario 64?

One of the major changes made to the Mario formula is the dramatic decrease in the number of levels. Super Mario 64 only has 15 main stages to travel trough. And while this may be unacceptable in a 2D Mario game, the 15 levels are bigger than anything we've ever seen in a Mario game up until that point. Instead of having to reach the end of an obstacle course, in Super Mario 64, you have to explore the levels to complete certain tasks. As a reward, you get a Power Star which is required to progress to further levels.

While the story is nothing special, it does set up the foundation of how you have to progress through the game. Bowser's scheme this time is to rob the Power Stars that reside inside Peach's castle, and he scattered them around the 15 levels which can be accessed by jumping into paintings. Bowser also set up some progression gates that require a certain number of stars before you can get past them. To tie all of this together, Princess Peach's castle serves as the first hub world in a Mario game. At the start of the game, you can only open a door that leads to the first level Bomb-Omb Battlefield. But besides that requirement, you are free to progress through the rest of the game as you wish. When you enter a level, you can get any of the stars that correspond to that level. What if you don't want to fight King Bomb-Omb as intended? You can instead free the Chain Chomp and get that star if you prefer. And while certain stars require that you choose the specific star to obtain it (such as the races against Koopa the Quick) a vast majority of the stars can be obtained in any order. This level of freedom is one of the strongest aspects of the game. Being able to create your route as to how exactly you are going to beat the game adds a lot of replay value since you have so much room for experimentation. This is further helped by the fact that out of 120 stars, you only need 70 stars to beat the game. So that's 50 stars you can avoid, which is a huge amount.

You see all of those doors?
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Each of the 15 levels has a total of 7 stars available for you to collect, while they are 15 secret stars that can be found either in certain spots on the hub world or inside some of the levels themselves. And the hint list that accompanies the main 15 levels makes it easy to remember what stars you have already collected. The exceptions to that are the 15 secret stars, which have no hint list whatsoever. So you have to keep track of which stars you have collected and which ones you have left. When it comes to the overall construction of the 15 levels, most of them are open-ended. A perfect example of this is the second world of the game: Whomp's Fortress. There are two main ways to get to the top of the level. You can either go through the hallway filled with moving walls and floors that can make you fall to the bottomless pits, or you can take the ramp that's in front of you as a quick shortcut. Regardless of your choice, both routes lead to the same destination, so what route you take mainly boils down to preference. Most of the levels in the game follow this design principle, while also having unique set pieces to make them stand out. Jolly Roger Bay has the sunken ship, Wet-Dry World has the changeable water levels, and Dire, Dire Docks has the submarine. And those three are the main water levels of the game, so the fact that you can easily tell them apart even though they all share the water level trope is commendable.

Both are ice levels, but they don't look exactly the same.
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Not all levels are open-ended, however. The last two worlds, Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride are linear obstacle courses that don't offer much freedom besides the order in which you collect the stars. On both these levels, you're going to find yourself repeating the same route over and over again just to progress. In Rainbow Ride, for example, two stars require you to take the same route with only minimal changes. For both stars, you need to ride a flying carpet to reach a floating ship. For one star you just need to go to the edge of the ship's bowsprit while fighting against the gusts of wind. The other star requires you to first activate the ship's cannon, and then use it to land into a floating platform. Not only can this be utterly tedious due to how repetitive and boring it is, but this is made worse because you get kicked out of a level when you collect a star. So this means that you have to repeat the same boring route twice, and that's only if you do not die beforehand. The starting section of Dire, Dire Docks is also an example of a repetitive route you have to go through for all but two stars in the level. And while most of the secret stars are also linear obstacle courses, you only have to do them once, making them much more tolerable.

Be ready to come back here later!
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One last thing that is worth mentioning is the secret 7th star that all of the 15 worlds share, the 100 coins star. The star is pretty self-explanatory, just collect 100 coins in the stage for the star to appear. If you die, you're booted out of the level and have to repeat the process. There are three different types of coins, the yellow coin is the most common and is worth exactly a single coin. The Red coins are worth two coins, and there are always 8 red coins in each world since collecting all 8 grants you a star. And finally, there's the Blue Coins which are worth five coins. The 100 coin stars are an overall mixed bag since it depends on the level itself on whether or not is the experience going to be enjoyable. Some of the levels in which getting 100 coins are easy to include Whomp's Fortress, Cool, Cool Mountain, and Big Boo's Haunt. Those levels are dynamic as well as fun enough to explore that getting 100 coins is not a problem at all. It also helps that getting coins in these levels is pretty simple to do. Bomb-Omb Battlefield, Jolly Roger Bay, and Dire, Dire Docks are examples of stages in which 100 coins is not hard to do, but it can be pretty boring. Tick Tock Clock, Rainbow Ride, Lethal Lava Land, Tiny-Huge Island, Tall, Tall Mountain, and Shifting Sand Land are examples of how frustrating and annoying the 100 coin stars can be. On these stages, death is a common occurrence. So you'll find yourself having to repeat the process of getting 100 coins over and over again, and they are by far the low points of Super Mario 64.

You're going to learn how important these coins are.
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However, most of the issues that I described above can be completely avoided by just simply ignoring the 100 coin stars as well as the levels that you don't like. Again, you only need 70 stars to complete the game. So with the correct routing, you can avoid most of these issues. But that still does not fix the core issues, especially if you like to complete the game 100%. But with that said, the core gameplay is so enjoyable that these issues don't ruin my experience with Super Mario 64 overall. That's a testament to how solid the core mechanics of the game are. Overall, for Nintendo EAD's first attempt for a 3D Mario game, their new formula worked wonderfully, so much so that it would set many standards in 3D game design for the years to come. That's mighty impressive for a concept that had not been truly explored before, and it is because of that fact that I will always have a soft spot for Super Mario 64 as well as the utmost respect to the developers at Nintendo EAD for being able to create this achievement. But that still does not change the point that I mentioned previously, that Super Mario 64's foundation has been improved constantly throughout the years. So much so that the main innovations that the game offered are just gaming standards, so they don't mean that much in 2020 as much as they did in 1996. But Super Mario 64 is fun and unique enough that the experience, while pretty basic is still enjoyable today.

Riding the slide is still tons of fun today!
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Seeing as there was no good place to talk about them, here is a quick look at the boss fights in Super Mario 64.

Ever since the days of the original Super Mario Bros. in 1985, boss fights were never really a highlight of the Mario games. Most of them have been pretty pathetic and way too easy to defeat. And Super Mario 64 continues that tradition. The boss fights include King Bomb-Omb, the Whomp King, Big Boo, Big Bully, Eyerok, Wiggler, and finally Bowser himself.
Almost all of the bosses mentioned above are a complete joke, and they don't require much of a strategy to defeat them. King Bomb-Omb? Grab him from the back and throw him three times. The Whomp King? Wait for him to fall flat on the ground and do a ground pound on his back three times. Wiggler? Jump on his head three times.
Big Boo and Big Bully are the only bosses you face more than once, and they're both pretty easy to defeat and they don't change their strategy whatsoever. You defeat Big Boo three times by doing ground pounds, while you fight Big Bully three times by punching him out of the platform.

Three out of seven stars is just fighting Big Boo.
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Bowser himself does not fare that much better. You face the king of the Koopa's three times, with the first two fights he dies in one hit while on the last one it takes three hits. The main strategy to defeat Bowser is to grab him by the tail and spin him around with the analog stick. Then once you have enough momentum, you press the B button to throw him into one of the floating bombs. This can be pretty difficult to do due to how easy it is for you to become disoriented, and more often than not you are going to throw him out of the platform instead of throwing him into a bomb.
However, it is possible to brute-force the first two battles. Since Bowser dies in one hit, just keep throwing him close to the bomb very slowly and quickly grab his tail to throw him again. Using that strategy, both fights are pretty easy to beat, and frankly, I recommend you use that strategy to beat him.

But the same thing cannot be said about the third encounter. Since Bowser now dies in three hits, the brute-force strategy is only useful for the first two hits. Since when you hit Bowser the second time, the arena takes the shape of a Star, meaning that you have to throw Bowser into the bombs as intended. This alone makes the final fight the worst in the game. The fact that you have to rely on an unreliable mechanic just to beat the game is just bad game design, and it always manages to be a miserable experience. In conclusion, the boss fights are for the most part pathetic and harmless, with only the last Bowser fight being something that I consider to be terrible.

Super Mario 64 is one of the most influential and important games of all-time. This game not only proved that Mario could successfully make the shift to 3D, but it also showed the potential of 3D gaming as a whole. It was a bold step forward by Nintendo, probably the boldest move they have ever done. But the efforts of Nintendo EAD paid off wonderfully. And while the game does have issues such as the ones described above, the game is just so fun to play for the issues to be nothing more than a minor annoyance. But considering the vast array of improvements that have been made to the core foundation of Super Mario 64, this game can feel downright archaic to players who are used to newer 3D platformers. And even though this is not my favorite Mario game of all time, 24 years later Super Mario 64 has stood the test of time, and is a game I would recommend to any fan of the platforming genre.