Super Mario 64 (2020, Nintendo Switch) Review

 THE MUSHROOMS HAVE LOST THEIR MAGIC

Also for: Nintendo 64, Wii, Wii U

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On a bright summer day, the jovial plumber Mario is invited to princess Toadstool for a piece of cake. But he arrives at an empty castle, save for a few Toads. They explain that the princess has been kidnapped by Bowser, the giant, spike-shelled Koopa who has been a thorn in Mario's side since the dawn of the franchise. Setting her free is a handful - you must collect a set number of the 120 power stars scattered across the fifteen worlds hidden inside (and outside) some of the castle's paintings, and then defeat Bowser in a duel. 

Before I begin my rant, you should know this review is written from the perspective of a total newbie. Prior to this playthrough, I had never played any Mario 3D game whatsoever, let alone touched the revolutionary Super Mario 64. While I admire what the game accomplished, I cannot translate the historical significance into any sort of positive emotional response. Thinking back on my experience, the level design, structure and the overall playfulness impressed me on the intellectual level. But one fatal flaw completely ruined the entire playthrough.

It could be argued your archenemy isn't Bowser, but the camera, which is handled by an in-game character called Lakitu. Your viewpoint has a life of its own, circling back and forth around our hero, constantly screwing up the directional controls for the player.

This is a death sentence when the levels so often are designed around narrow platforms and precise jumping. As you jog along the narrow walkway on the side of a pyramid on the sand level, the camera might suddenly decide to move slightly to the right, and unless you quickly adjust the directional stick, you'll veer to the side and slide to your death in the quicksand below. This'll throw you out of the stage, forcing you to start over from the beginning. This gets more frustrating the further into the game you get, since later levels turn into long, vertically oriented platforming gauntlets. The last few worlds can leave you at the boiling point.

It should be mentioned that you do have the power to influence the viewpoint. Ahead of a tricky run, you can stop and painstakingly move Lakitu to line up perfectly with Mario and the upcoming obstacles. But the camera will stubbornly refuse to go into certain angles, and the moment you start running it flies off again, screwing you over again.

The camera is the game's only real flaw, but it's a gamebreaking one, because it lingers throughout the entire game and it's near impossible to learn to tolerate. The aged visuals don't bother me, nor the redundant concept of "lives" - if you lose your last life, you lose no real progress, you only get booted out of the castle with a renewed set of lives. They're comparatively minor nuiscances.

Super Mario 64 makes me truly appreciate the original PlayStation's Dual Analog Controller - the first one to incorporate two analogue sticks - as one of the most gamechanging home console innovations. Since Super Mario 64 was one of the first 3D platformers, and the original Nintendo 64 controller had no second analogue stick, I understand this was the best you could get. But for this Switch port Nintendo had the chance to apply modern standards, and chose not to do it. They acted as if the last 25 years never happened, and consequently Mario 64 is hell to learn to play today.

What bugs me the most is that it's a fun game in theory. The levels are a delight in minimalistic, abstract design, that makes sense only as a game world full of challenges. Their simple color schemes and low-polygonal 3D models may not be a visual treat, but the side effect is that they are distinct. Everything you see fills a gameplay function. Most of the levels are playful, experimental, varying and open. Boo's haunted mansion - one of my favorites - has a basement section with a creepy audio design that even reminded me of the horror classic Silent Hill.

Watching footage of skilled players messing around in these worlds - like demonstrating how to find shortcuts by means of advanced jumping techniques - can be more entertaining than playing the game for yourself. And the better you are, the more enjoyment you can squeeze out of it. Therefore, I might enjoy a future replay more, since I could apply what I learned on my first attempt.

Each of the fifteen worlds (if you don't count the boss stages and the secret ones) hold six regular challenges that each reward you with a power star. They range from ordinary platforming, to surprisingly advanced puzzle solving, to mini-bossfights. Some involve races up the sides of mountains, or sliding tracks down slippery slopes. 

And they are not just a test of your reflexes and precision - you also have to use your wits to figure out how to locate the challenge in the first place. The name of the challenge itself is the only obvious clue, and the rest should come as you look for visual cues or talk to characters somewhere on the map. The level design is open and non-linear - save for a few - with a lot of freedom to experiment. Best of all is that you can tackle most of the challenges in any order. The courses are so cleverly designed, that you'll often run past upcoming challenges on the way to your current objective.

Fifteen times six means you can find 90 power stars through these regular challenges. Some of them require you to first unlock special powers that are hidden away in obscure sections of the castle. The ability to fly is one, as is timed invulnerability and invisibility. If you fail to find these, you're getting dangerously close to not being able to beat the game through straightforward means. 

But a lot of secret stars lie hidden along the way. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few easily obtainable ones by simply exploring as much as possible. I haphazardly stumbled upon a few shortcuts without even trying. For instance, just looking around at the right place unlocked a secret power. Also, the water level in one of the worlds changes depending on how high you jump into the painting (I first thought it was randomized). The platforms on the clock level move at different intervals depending what in-game time you enter the world. I'm sure I missed a lot more than I found.

When judged by their own merits, I'd say the controls work reasonably well, except for the unsteady flying and the sluggish swimming parts. Mastering Mario's abundance of jumping techniques is satisfying, as it allows you to sidestep some tricky challenges. He follows your commands as long as you run around big, flat surfaces. But when goings get tough, and you need him the most, the aforementioned Lakitu cameraman becomes a constant buzzkill.

You'd expect to get somewhat good at a game over the course of a playthrough. That simply doesn't happen with Mario 64. It stems from a time when games were crazy expensive and not so easy to get your hands on. Whenever you purchased a game, you had to commit to it, play it through time and time again, grind the mechanics to dust and mold them into subservience. That's how people got good at Mario 64. If 2D Mario were arcade games, this is a Mario simulator.

As for myself, during this playthrough I barely scraped by, dying a thousand frustrating, ridiculous deaths. I mistimed jumps, couldn't walk straight, misjudged distances, and couldn't see where I was going. I finished the game with a sigh of relief, having obtained the bare minimum amount of required power stars. Above all I felt thankful to move on to other games. The only way I could've had fun was playing along with someone else, both of us laughing at each other's misfortune before passing the controller on. "See if you can do this shit any better, dipshit!"

I realize how much Mario 64 got right, and how it wrote the book on 3D platforming design. The structure with a hub world and different courses, the invention of the collectathon subgenre, the varied level design philosophies, and the control scheme are the most obvious landmarks. Every third person game released since owes a lot to Mario 64. You can trace its influence in both obvious genre entries like Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy - which I replayed quite recently - and a game like the equally semi-open Dark Souls, which rewards exploration in similar awe-inspiring ways. It also pays obvious respects by including a whole secret world hidden inside a painting.

The problem is that those later games improved so much upon the control-and-camerawork symbiosis that they turn much of the gameplay aspect of Mario 64 into a relic. I am now 25 years late to this Mario party, which is never fun. The cake has already been served, eaten and processed, the coffee's covered in a moldy crust, and the princess has already been claimed. And while other players are raving on the dance floor, I keep fumbling with the camera, voicing my concerns, and in so doing spoiling the fun for everyone else. It's an awkward scene, but I cannot help the way I feel.

I never was a Nintendo boy, because I never owned one (until last year when I bought the Switch), but a majority of my contemporaries clearly did. This makes me feel alienated as I try to catch up. To a first-timer in this day and age, Super Mario 64 seems like a blueprint to a good game, or like a first draft you present to producers or company executives to get your project greenlit.

At first glance it looks like crap and for the remainder it controls like hell, due to the constant perspective hiccups. But it nevertheless lays the foundation to a great concept, full of charm, warmth and delight. I love the blueprint but don't care for the game. Let's just say I look forward to future entries.