Super Mario 64 Levels

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Zack Burner
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Joined: May 3rd, 2019, 6:01 pm

Re: Super Mario 64 Levels

Postby Zack Burner » July 28th, 2022, 7:48 pm

jon wrote:Super Mario 64 to me is a game that’s hard to pigeonhole. I mean, there’s some great moments but a lot of fluff and boring levels. There’s some annoying stars like chasing that whatever animal it is twice. Very controller destroying inducing. Some courses after a while just seem so lame like Dire Dire Docks. Yet I can’t stop playing it. I don’t know if it’s incredibly great or average or maybe I just like it because it’s not too complicated.


Well said, I like it but I think time has definitely not been kind to it. Some good ideas and has some good moments but it suffers from redundancy and when stacked against other Mario titles before or after it like Super Mario World or Sunshine (my two all-time favorites) it feels kind of bare-bones. Remember fire flower, cape feather, and the ability to ride on Yoshi? You get none of that, though at least there are the three caps, but to get those you'd have to go through some tricky processes, and so far my favorite of three is the Vanish Cap as it renders you invisible without the weight issues the Metal Cap gives you, as for the Feather Cap, I feel that's too unwieldy for my tastes. I mentioned redundancy earlier and an example of this is in Big Boo's Haunt, the first two levels had you battles Boos until you have to face the Big Boo not once but twice, enough already. Jolly Roger Bay and Dire Dire Docks almost feel like Deja Vu. I think if I were to pick one level that IS my favorite I'd have to go with Shifting Sand Land as it makes me feel like Indiana Jones and the boss Eyerok gets points for originality.

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Stalvern
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Re: Super Mario 64 Levels

Postby Stalvern » July 28th, 2022, 8:03 pm

No love for the shell?

jon
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Joined: April 9th, 2015, 4:30 pm

Re: Super Mario 64 Levels

Postby jon » July 28th, 2022, 9:10 pm

Stalvern wrote:No love for the shell?


It’s funny you mention the shell. For so long I complained the game had no go to levels. Well I was in Lethal Lava Land seeing if you can get 100 coins before going into the lava pit. And not only can you, but you can ride the shell the whole time and get 100 coins without going into the lava pit. It’s really fun. It takes a while to get good at it. But it’s as close to an instant gratification level as possible for the game. It really is a shame Bc the N64 was a perfect system for cheesy platformers. Banjo Kazooie literally imo could’ve been one of the best games of all time If they gave you the option to have all the moves at the beginning instead of the mole tutorial “help” every level. Oh and you have to find him. What about killing him like I want to that ridiculous animal you have to chase twice in SM64.

jon
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Joined: April 9th, 2015, 4:30 pm

Re: Super Mario 64 Levels

Postby jon » July 29th, 2022, 8:54 pm

Zack Burner wrote:
jon wrote:Super Mario 64 to me is a game that’s hard to pigeonhole. I mean, there’s some great moments but a lot of fluff and boring levels. There’s some annoying stars like chasing that whatever animal it is twice. Very controller destroying inducing. Some courses after a while just seem so lame like Dire Dire Docks. Yet I can’t stop playing it. I don’t know if it’s incredibly great or average or maybe I just like it because it’s not too complicated.


Well said, I like it but I think time has definitely not been kind to it. Some good ideas and has some good moments but it suffers from redundancy and when stacked against other Mario titles before or after it like Super Mario World or Sunshine (my two all-time favorites) it feels kind of bare-bones. Remember fire flower, cape feather, and the ability to ride on Yoshi? You get none of that, though at least there are the three caps, but to get those you'd have to go through some tricky processes, and so far my favorite of three is the Vanish Cap as it renders you invisible without the weight issues the Metal Cap gives you, as for the Feather Cap, I feel that's too unwieldy for my tastes. I mentioned redundancy earlier and an example of this is in Big Boo's Haunt, the first two levels had you battles Boos until you have to face the Big Boo not once but twice, enough already. Jolly Roger Bay and Dire Dire Docks almost feel like Deja Vu. I think if I were to pick one level that IS my favorite I'd have to go with Shifting Sand Land as it makes me feel like Indiana Jones and the boss Eyerok gets points for originality.


I love this post. I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason you can’t ride Yoshi and that he only makes a “bit part” (I had to fit that in it’s a quote and title of a wonderful Lemonheads song) is because the game was running behind in development. That fact in of itself is absolutely astoundingly disappointing because we’d all been waiting for the freaking system to come out since 1995. I mean, did it take 2 years? Would it really have been that hard to have Luigi? I mean, make him a little faster and can jump a little further and there you go. But apparently there were deadlines and literally 2 years of development time wasn’t enough.

Then after the game you see Yoshi and he gives you 100 lives, as if a blind person couldn’t accumulate a lot of extra lives throughout the game. And Yoshi says the game’s over but not the fun. What fun? There aren’t any amazing levels pretty much. The game’s over. What exactly does Yoshi want you to do? Get the 120 stars again? It’s so obvious that they put that in because they had no time left to meet the launch deadline. The first thing I thought and I’m sure everyone did was where’s Luigi? And to have that Schtick by Yoshi at the end of a relatively underwhelming game (at least compared to expectations and the long wait for the launch date) was ridiculous. That’s why I always say the game feels like a tech demo. They just ran out of time. I mean, putting things in perspective and seeing how things happened with the N64 as a whole having literally it felt like 100 games or something, the blurriness, and a lot of genres missing. I’d be in arcades in 1994-1995 and reading GamePro and playing these amazing 3d arcade games and it was all, the “Ultra 64” is coming out soon and it’s going to be amazing. And to get from 1995 to even just 2-3 years into the N64’s run, it was unbelievably disappointing.

And I totally agree about Super Mario Sunshine. I love it and I love the graphics. It was so great to finally see a beautiful looking game again after the 5th generation.

jon
Posts: 1562
Joined: April 9th, 2015, 4:30 pm

Re: Super Mario 64 Levels

Postby jon » August 6th, 2022, 2:12 pm

I think I just won the Most Meaningless Video Game Accomplishment for Losers award by getting all 133 coins in Lethal Lava Land. You need all those black bomber things when you knock them off the surface into the lava to have their coin come up to the surface. Then when you go into the lava pit there’s 2 more of them as you go up the ramp. The first one you can knock down a few times and get to the point your only a little above the lava and knock him down and have the coin come up. But the 2nd one, he’s way up the ramp and you kind of have to knock him all the way down to the lava and then jump all the way down to get his coin after he hits the lava. It does that thing where it takes life away from you and you’re spinning out of control but you can get back on your feet so to speak. This is unless I’m just not the smart and there’s some way to get more than 133 coins hidden somewhere.


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