5/5 ★ – Rig2Big's review of Super Mario 64.

Despite having gone through several month-long stretches of religiously watching Clint Stevens, tuning into the ever-occasional Simply video, and keeping mostly up to date with Suigi shattering the #1 record on every fucking speedrun category… I’ve only personally beat SM64 once before, and even then, I didn’t get all 120 stars. During a 5-something hour plane ride to Puerto Rico from my home in Minnesota, I watched an inflight movie, then pulled out my switch and started fooling around with SM64 again. First and foremost, I will say one thing: it is incredibly satisfying to see how much better I’ve gotten at platformers in the time since I last struggled to beat this game. Old 3D video games used to be a novelty (a learning experience, if anything) to me back then. Now, I’m actually pretty fuckin good at them. After going through like 20-30 stars before landing, I walked off the airplane deciding to finally dig my heels in and 100% complete this game which I’ve been a big fan of for so long. Super Mario 64 is so obviously one of the best video games ever made. It’s practically a unanimous top 3 N64 game, perhaps only topped by Ocarina of Time (likely the very BEST of all time). I cannot even begin to wrap my head around the fact that THIS GAME—this mechanically fluid, hyper-detailed, diversified and untouchable masterpiece—was one of the first major pioneers of 3D gaming. You’d think it were a later iteration in a long storied series of 3D video games, but it ISN’T. It’s like a teenager stepping up to the plate at Yankee Stadium and swatting a 90 mph fastball out of fucking park. If dawning home console entertainment in the ‘80s was Nintendo’s first meeting with whatever monolith has gifted them the skill/motivation to do what they do, then their nearly spotless leap from 2D to 3D would be it’s evolutionary equal. It isn’t the feat of mechanical depth ALONE that has made the longevity of Mario 64 last nearly 30 years through today; it is also in thanks to a type of level structure which rewards experimentation. It’s not your standard non-linear game, but there’s a sense of liberty here that you can’t put a price on. Of the total 120 stars, you only technically NEED 70 to face the final boss and beat the game. Don’t like a star? Skip it. Don’t like a stage? Fuck it, skip the whole thing. Amongst an era where most video games command player from side to side, SM64 goes UP. For every obstacle, for every challenge, there might as well be a million different ways to overcome them. Triple-jump for maximum height, backflip to prioritize space, air-kick to coordinate the landing, wall jump to bypass entire portions of a level… this world is YOURS. I will admit, I was so close to abandoning my quest some-30 stars short. Tiny-Huge Island fucking broke my soul. What a cruel, CRUEL stage… not only makes the camera controls feel twice as wonky as they already are, but the layout is just totally incompatible with Mario’s movement. Dear reader, you must know that nothing makes me want to snap my Switch in half more than falling off a razor-thin ledge, slipping into the void after making the SLIGHTEST mechanical error, or being punished because the fucker Lakitu manning the camera clipped into a wall. Accidentally “jogging” into the side of a warp pipe and sliding my ass down the entire mountain?? Kill me. I don’t ever wanna hear any complaints about Tick Tock, Hazy-Maze Cave, or Rainbow Ride, if not following shit-talk of Tiny-Huge Island. Gotta be the worst stage in the entire game.