3.5/5 ★ – JakeBakesCakes's review of Super Mario 64.

HOT TAKE ALERT “Super Mario 64” is overhyped. I understand it’s place in history. I understand the monumental change this game stood for in the industry. What I don’t understand is how people can say that this game still holds up. It holds up better than most games from that era and the ones afterwards, BUT it still has plenty of problems. The camera is god awful, pop-ins have fucked me over in multiple levels, there is a sinful amount of water levels, the Bowser boss is an F-Tier boss battle, and Mario in 64 is not the Mario I’ve come to love playing as. After I’ve played the incredible games that are Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Odyssey, I can’t go back. Galaxy and Odyssey’s level design are both genius and contain none of the clunkers that 64 has. Mario himself controls infinitely better in both of those titles than he does in 64. In Galaxy, they managed to make Mario fun to play while dealing with complex gravity mechanics. In Odyssey, you have so much control over Mario and how he moves that every missed jump was completely my fault. Odyssey felt like the Mario they wanted to make in 64. Mario in 64 is hard to play as. I hate his stutter step he does after almost every step, messing me up throughout the entire game. Yes, this is part of his movement, but I FUCKING hated it. His back flip was inconsistent and I couldn’t get it to work near as well as in Odyssey. He struggles to grab ledges, turn around, and do what I was intending, mostly due to the wonky camera. To summarize my review: Mario has come so far, it’s hard to go back to what Mario was.