With Super Mario Galaxy's release today (even though the store doesn't have my preorder yet) I thought this would be a good time to take a little look back at Super Mario 64!
Super Mario 64 was released alongside the Nintendo 64 on September 29, 1996 with great critical success; it is still one of my favorite games. It combined all the great platforming elements into one game and everything just seemed to flow together. The controls were easy to master and stayed the same the rest of the game.
The story: Peach invites Mario to her castle because she's baking him a cake. Mario shows up and Peach is gone. She's kidnapped by Bowser and Mario must unlock paintings to get stars to defeat Bowser. The gameplay is great with enemies to defeat, tough bosses, great puzzles, risky platforming, and plenty of good old fashioned jumping and it's all in 3d. You begin the game at Princess Peach's castle.
Inside, there is a room with a painting in it and you can jump into the painting to get into the first world. As you go along you unlock more paintings and secret stars which eventually lead to a final showdown with Bowser. The game has 15 worlds and 120 stars to collect total, though you can beat the game with only 70 stars. Nintendo added tons of depth to this game. Even after beating the game, many people would wander around and find many different things Nintendo ha
d put in. Some of the great things I thought were good in this game are:- The Gameplay was phenomenal. It had the perfect mix of jumping, puzzles, racing, and fighting.
- Everything feels like the same game. Nowhere does it feel like you're playing something different, yet it accomplishes this with still having plenty of new things you have to do
- The game has an easy learning curve yet will challenge even the best of gamers to the very end.
- It was a very fun game with lots of different things to do; something you didn't want to put down till you had beaten Bowser for the final time
If you want to discuss this more please comment,
Till then,
Rawk on,
Nate
