THE MUSHROOMS HAVE LOST THEIR MAGIC
On a bright summer day, the ever-cheerful plumber Mario is invited by Princess Toadstool for a piece of cake. He arrives at an empty castle, save for a few panicked Toads. The princess has been kidnapped by Bowser, the spike-shelled Koopa who has plagued Mario since the dawn of the franchise. To rescue her, Mario must collect a set number of the 120 Power Stars scattered across fifteen worlds hidden within—and outside—the castle’s enchanted paintings, and finally defeat Bowser himself.
Before I begin my rant, it’s important to clarify my perspective: this review is written by a complete newcomer. Prior to this playthrough, I had never touched a 3D Mario game, let alone the genre-defining Super Mario 64. While I fully acknowledge what the game accomplished historically, I found myself unable to translate that significance into genuine enjoyment. On an intellectual level, the level design, structure, and playful experimentation impressed me. Emotionally and mechanically, however, one fatal flaw ruined the entire experience.
It could be argued that Mario’s true nemesis is not Bowser, but the camera—personified by the in-game cameraman Lakitu. Your viewpoint has a will of its own, constantly drifting, swinging, and reorienting itself in ways that sabotage precise control.
This becomes catastrophic in a game so heavily built around narrow platforms and exacting jumps. As you carefully jog along a ledge on the side of a pyramid in the desert level, the camera may suddenly nudge itself sideways. Unless you instantly compensate, Mario veers off-course and slides to his death in the quicksand below. You are ejected from the stage and forced to start over. The further you progress, the worse this becomes, as later levels turn into long, vertical gauntlets where a single misstep can undo several minutes of careful play. By the final worlds, frustration reaches a boiling point.
You might object, because you are technically allowed to influence the camera. Before a difficult section, you can stop and carefully reposition Lakitu to align Mario with the upcoming obstacles. But the camera refuses certain angles entirely, and the moment you start moving, it drifts off again—undoing your preparation and betraying you once more.
This is the game’s major flaw, and it is a game-breaking one. It persists throughout the entire experience and is nearly impossible to truly adapt to. The aged visuals do not bother me. The archaic concept of “lives” is a mild annoyance at most—losing them merely boots you back to the castle without real penalty. These are trivial issues by comparison.
What frustrates me most is that Nintendo had the opportunity to address this. The original Nintendo 64 controller lacked a second analogue stick, making camera control an unsolved problem at the time. That limitation is understandable. What isn’t is preserving it unchanged in the modern Switch release. Nintendo chose preservation over adaptation, as if the past 25 years of control standards never happened. As a result, Super Mario 64 is miserable to learn today.
Which is a shame—because beneath that lies a brilliant game.
The levels are masterclasses in abstract, game-first design. Their simple color palettes and low-polygon geometry may not impress visually, but everything exists for a reason. Every shape, slope, and platform serves gameplay. The worlds are playful, experimental, open-ended, and surprisingly varied. Boo’s haunted mansion—one of my favorites—even features a basement section whose unsettling audio design briefly reminded me of Silent Hill.
Watching skilled players navigate these worlds—exploiting advanced jumps, discovering shortcuts, bending the mechanics—is often more enjoyable than playing the game yourself. The better you are, the more the game opens up. I can imagine enjoying a future replay more, armed with hard-earned knowledge and skills.
Each of the fifteen main worlds contains six core challenges, each rewarding a Power Star. These range from traditional platforming and clever puzzles to races, slides, and boss encounters. The challenge names serve as cryptic hints, requiring observation and experimentation to decipher. Most levels are non-linear, letting you tackle objectives in nearly any order. Cleverly, you’ll often pass future challenges en route to your current goal.
Beyond the standard 90 stars, the game hides additional secrets throughout the castle. Special power-ups—flight, invisibility, invulnerability—are tucked away in obscure locations. Miss too many of these, and finishing the game through straightforward means becomes questionable. I was delighted to stumble upon several secrets simply by being curious. Jumping into paintings at different heights alters water levels on one stage. Entering the clock level at specific times changes platform behavior. And more, probably—I’m certain I missed far more than I found.
Judged on its own terms, Mario’s movement is responsive on flat ground. His arsenal of jumps is satisfying to master, allowing creative solutions to challenges. Flying is unsteady, swimming sluggish, but manageable. Unfortunately, whenever precision matters most, the Lakitu camera undermines everything.
You’d expect to improve significantly over the course of a playthrough. That never happened for me. Super Mario 64 comes from an era when games were expensive and scarce—designed to be replayed endlessly until mastery emerged. If 2D Mario games were arcade experiences, this is a Mario simulator.
I barely scraped through, dying countless stupid deaths. I mistimed jumps, misjudged distances, walked off edges I couldn’t properly see. I finished with the minimum number of stars required, feeling nothing but relief. The only scenario where I imagine real enjoyment is a couch co-op situation—passing the controller back and forth, laughing at mutual failure.
I fully recognize what Super Mario 64 got right. The hub world, the collectathon structure, the freedom of movement, the emphasis on exploration—it wrote the grammar of 3D platforming. Its influence is undeniable, visible in games like Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and even Dark Souls, which similarly rewards curiosity and spatial understanding.
But those games refined the camera-control relationship to the point where Mario 64 now feels like a prototype. I am 25 years late to this party. The cake is gone, the coffee is stale, and the princess has already been rescued. Everyone else is dancing while I’m stuck fighting the camera and killing the mood.
I was never a Nintendo kid. I only bought a Switch last year. Most of my peers grew up with this game, and I did not. To a modern first-timer, Super Mario 64 feels less like a masterpiece and more like a blueprint—a proof of concept presented to secure funding.
I love the blueprint. I respect the legacy.
But I don’t like the game.
Comments
Post a Comment