From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games

Super Mario 64 - A Whole New Perspective
How the trailblazing Mario once again worked his magic and consequently washed away my doubts about three-dimensional games and helped me to see their potential.

After thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that Nintendo probably had the right idea when it programmed The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening to remind how objects functioned every single time I made contact with them. Because it really did seem to be the case that I was afflicted by a severe short-term memory issue.

I mean, how else could I explain my reaction to Nintendo Power's grand unveiling of the Nintendo 64, the announcement of which I viewed as a prognostication of doom?

Somehow I'd forgotten the lesson that I'd learned just four years earlier. I'd forgotten about my early experiences with the SNES and how my history with the console played out.

And resultantly I reacted to the magazine's early N64 coverage the same way that I reacted to its early SNES coverage: I read through its game-by-game previews not with a sense of excitement but instead with a feeling of deep concern. I was overcome with the fear that the gaming world that I knew and loved was about to be completely washed away by an unstoppable tidal wave and changed irrevocably.

So there I was, reading about the most significant advancement in console technology that the industry had ever seen, and all I could think about was what this development meant for my beloved 2D systems!

I pored over every word of the magazine's coverage hoping to understand why this sweeping shift to 3D was necessary. I was annoyed and confused, but I was willing to let the previews make their case: They spoke of the N64's ability to produce incredible three-dimensional graphics whose level of richness would "leave 32-bit architecture in the dark ages" (who or what the author was taking a shot at with that comment, I had no clue). They bragged about the machine's potential to render wonderfully vast 3D worlds. And they talked about all of the excitingly new input methods that would be made possible by its curiously designed controller interface.

What resonated most with me was what the N64's newly introduced "control stick" meant for the console's showpiece title: Super Mario 64. This control stick was, apparently, so precise that it allowed for Mario to run in circles with dizzying accuracy. Its sensitivity was such that it enabled him to run at different speeds depending upon how far the stick was tilted. And its range of motion was so great that it afforded him the ability to pull off a number of wild 360-degree maneuvers, including highly acrobatic flips and a helicopter spin.

"This control stick's capabilities are mind-blowingly next-level!" I continued to think to myself both then and for several hours in following.

And I couldn't deny that I was also impressed with some of the other things that I was reading about and observing: The immersive camera control sounded amazing. The visuals displayed in the accompanying screenshots were absolutely stunning. And the described game scenarios were spectacular-sounding and able to stir my imagination in a big way.

I was genuinely intrigued by what I was reading.

But even then, I wasn't yet ready to let my guard down. Because I still had my doubts. I was still skeptical of the N64's seemingly uncompromising focus on 3D, and I continued to fear what that focus meant for gaming as I knew it.

"If what I'm thinking is true," I was was forced to consider, "then there's a possibility that 2D games might soon disappear forever!"

I was deeply worried about the consequence of the resulting shift.

"Does it mean that all of my favorite game series are going to be forced to be 3D from this point on?" I continued to wonder in a perturbed manner. "Does it spell the end for the types of games that I've been enjoying since the early 80s?"

I mean, I had nothing against 3D games, no. I was, after all, a huge fan of Doom! But I recognized that there was a vast difference between a game that was set in a fully explorable three-dimensional world and game whose action scrolled from side to side. They were entirely different types of products!

"So why, then, does one have to replace the other?" I questioned, my thoughts becoming ever-more-desperate-feeling in tone. "Why can't they be allowed to coexist?"

The more I ruminated on the subject, the more I grew to resent the N64, whose arrival, I was increasingly sure, was going to bring about a forcible end to the SNES' life and subsequently make 2D games obsolete.

And as the months fell off, my impending sense of doom only intensified.

I was angry about what the N64 represented, but I knew that I was going to go out and purchase one anyway. Because I couldn't lie to myself. I couldn't deny that I was deeply under Nintendo's spell and that the company basically had me cornered.

I realized, after reading Nintendo Power's coverage, that I had no real choice. "If I don't hop on the train," I thought, "I'll be left behind."

I didn't want that to happen. I didn't want to find myself in a position in which I was stuck with a 16-bit console that would likely never see another game-release.

So I begrudgingly started to save up for an N64.

And on launch day in September of 1996, I bought both the N64 and a copy of Super Mario 64 using a combination of my remaining birthday funds and the $100 that I got from selling our Genesis to my brother's friend Eric (who, as I mentioned in my Sonic the Hedgehog piece, was the guy who gave us the Genesis for free and then forgot that he did).

I remember feeling anxious prior to switching the N64 on for the first time. In that moment, some negative thoughts began to surface.

"What happens if I don't like this game?" I started to worry. "And if this whole '3D' thing just doesn't work for me, then where do I go from here? Will I have to give up gaming and simply move on?"

I was about to enter the unknown, which for someone of my disposition was the scariest of places. I didn't know what was going to happen. I had no idea where the next few minutes were going to take me. And consequently, I was overcome with a feeling of nervous excitement as I switched on the N64.

So of course, I didn't expect the opening moments to go as well as they did. I didn't expect that my messing around with Mario's giant head on the title screen--that my pulling his nose and forehead as far as they could stretch and doing everything that I could to horrifically distort his face--would so quickly acclimate me to the new controller and the N64's unique visual characteristics.

But that was what happened. And as a consequence, I immediately felt right at home in this new setting.

Super Mario 64's title screen turned out to be a pivotal part of my first N64 experience. It provided me a surprisingly memorable first glimpse into the world of "true" 3D. And it made me excited to discover what was waiting for me on the screens beyond!

What was foremost on my mind, though, was the controller's "analog stick" (as it was now called). I was eager to find out if it was as versatile as advertised. "Can it really do all of the things that Nintendo Power claimed it could do?" I wondered in an anticipatory manner.

I got my answer a few seconds later, at which point I experienced the first of many eye-opening N64 moments.

 

After the camera-operating Lakitu completed his roundabout approach, Mario emerged from a pipe in a triumphant manner and did so while uttering an exuberant-sounding "WAHOO!" Then he prompted me to take control of the action. (And as I discovered, he was now a pretty chatty fellow and had a sound sample attached to pretty much every one of his actions. His utterances were high-pitched in nature, and initially I found this jarring because I was so used to Captain Lou Albano's gruff-sounding interpretation of the character.)

And in my very first act, I did exactly what Nintendo Power and all of those other game magazines had encouraged me to do: I began to continuously rotate the analog stick and make Mario run in circles!

And as I watched him run around and around with lifelike fluidity and momentum, it suddenly made sense to me. I nodded and thought to myself, "Yeah, this absolutely works. This is something really special."

That's all that it took to convince me.

I spent the next five-ten minutes intently and entrancedly running and dashing about the open field, exploring every traversable space, and experimenting with all of Mario's new moves.

In that time, I had fun discovering all of the wonderfully new things that you could do in a 3D world: I executed acrobat, multidirectional leaps. I climbed up and vaulted off of every tree in sight. I ran up and slid down hills. I swam around the castle's moat and got my first taste of 3D games' (perennially annoying) swimming mechanics. I tested all of the different camera views. And I surveyed the castle from multiple angles and did so in search of hidden access points.

And no matter what I was doing, the same thought kept popping into my head: "This is surreal! I can't believe that I'm actually doing all of this stuff!"

The whole time, the enormity of this technological shift kept becoming more and more apparent to me, and I truly felt as though I'd just entered into an entirely new, futuristic gaming world.

I was in awe of the moment.

And I appreciated how Nintendo created the conditions for that experience by eschewing a cheery opening tune in favor of allowing for a peaceful silence. I felt that the natural ambiance of birds chirping and water flowing worked to create a relaxing, stress-free environment and thus the perfect atmosphere for an introductory phase that was all about taking in the sights and getting a sense of Super Mario 64's technologically advanced world. That type of atmosphere, desirably, allowed the game to exhibit its surreality in an uninhibited way and consequently make a first impression that was all the more entrancing and awe-inspiring.

Once I was inside the castle, I explored as much of the estate as the game would currently permit me to. Honestly, there were so many entry points to consider--so many doorways and branching pathways--that I was a little overwhelmed by the number of options!

Luckily, the game's early portion had a clear structure to it (access to most rooms was restricted by magical barriers that would disperse only when you possessed a certain number of stars), and soon it became obvious to me where the game wanted me to start: the door on the far-left side, which was immediately accessible.

During that period, I listened to the castle's musical theme and took note of its character. It was a quietly optimistic, charming little piece, and its understated energy created a calming atmosphere that suggested to me that Super Mario 64 was going to be a more leisurely adventure. It was, the tune told me, a game in which I could travel about at my own preferred pace and spend as much time as I wished investigating every room in search of secrets.

And I was excited by the prospect.

At the same time, I had two very real concerns: I had a feeling that I was going to miss the series' traditional stage-based formula and thus quickly sour on whatever new system Super Mario 64 was introducing; and I feared that the game's comparably low number of stages (according to the manual, there were only 15 "courses") wouldn't be able to provide me a sufficient amount of content.

"Even though I've been impressed with everything I've seen so far," I thought, "there's still a chance that I'm not going to like what this game does with its gameplay formula and level design."

But that's not how it turned out, no. Rather, I was instantly enamored with the game's approach to both gameplay and level design. I felt that the "mission"-based system was a bold, brilliantly new idea, and I thought it was genius how a course's structure would change in some way each time you took on a new star challenge. In the early going, it was new ideas like these that helped me to see the appeal of 3D gaming.

I was also blown away by the fact that events triggered in one mission could somehow effect those that were occurring in another! "Now that's some next-level gaming magic!" I thought to myself the first time I saw something of the sort happen.

(Years later, I came to realization that Super Mario 64 basically invented the mission-based system that became standard not just in 3D platformers but also in open-world games like Grand Theft Auto. Its influence, I was able to see, was more far-reaching than most people imagined.)

It was abundantly clear to me that Super Mario 64 had no desire to rely on tried-and-true gameplay formulas or associate with them in any way. What it endeavored to do, rather, was establish itself as something entirely new. It wanted to be the first of its kind. And it succeeded in that mission. It accomplished its goal quickly and did so in the grandest fashion.

And for that reason, it was magical in a way that reminded me of my first personal experiences with Super Mario Bros., which, as I remembered, exhibited a similar ambition. It captured my imagination in the same fashion and truly made me feel as though I was witnessing the start of an incredible new era of gaming.

In Super Mario 64, I wasn't being challenged to run left or right and reach a goal within a certain amount of time. I wasn't being killed off in one or two hits. And I wasn't limited in what I could do and where I could go. Rather, I was playing by all new rules. I was playing a game whose worlds weren't about such restrictions; they were instead fun-filled playgrounds within which I was free to explore at my leisure and experiment with any toy that was lying around, be it a flight-granting wing cap or a guidable sea creature.

And the best part was that I could tackle missions in whichever way I saw fit to do so. I could, for instance, opt to reach the summit of Bob-Omb Battlefield's mountain by traversing the entirety of its long, spiraling pathway, or I could choose to instead slowly trudge my way up its steep western slope (which I would have assumed to be untraversable had there not been a red coin resting on it) and thus skip a few rotations.

Otherwise, I could duck into a small hollow near the mountain's base and use its warp field to fast-travel to a similar hollow at the mountain's summit (though, not when racing Koopa the Quick, who would reprimand me for resorting to using such a cheap trick and furthermore refuse to give me the star), or I could blast my way to the summit using one of the pink Bob-Omb's launch-cannons.

And still, Mario's impressive repertoire of acrobatic maneuvers emboldened me to get inventive and find unconventional ways to reach the mountain's top. I did a lot of that in my earliest visit to to Bomb-Omb Battlefield. I spent an ample amount of time reaching the summit with creative combinations of jumps and flips.

In fact, my attempting to gain quicker and easier access to destinations using backflips, long-jumps, wall-jumps, and "unintended" modes of travel was a big part of what made my early experiences with the game so much fun!

It was what inspired me to view Super Mario 64 as one of the most astonishingly unique, incredibly revolutionary games ever made!

For what it allowed me to do, Bob-Omb Battlefield was the perfect conveyance of Nintendo's freshly conceived 3D design philosophy. It showed me the amazing potential of 3D gaming and made me excited to embrace the industry's shift to 3D.

"And if what I've seen in my first hour of play is a preview of the era to come," I thought to myself, "then I'm ready to open up my mind and let the N64 show me the way forward!"

My memories of my first play-through of Super Mario 64 have no real chronology to them (mostly because the game is open-ended in nature and I spent my time constantly bouncing back and forth between courses and castle sections) and are instead formed by a highlight reel of special "moments."

The ones that I remember best are those that I created by partaking in the events that all of the gaming magazines talked about the most. I'm talking about events like spinning the enormous Bowser around by the tail and launching him into bombs, slowly sneaking my way past a sleeping piranha, firing out of a cannon, entering the wing-cap course by going into first-person view and looking up at the castle hall's sunbeam, and climbing across ceilings and along ledges.

I remember them vividly because of how well they delivered. They were as exciting, as delightfully novel, and as fun as the publications claimed to be. And each one of them made an instantly indelible impression and further sold me on the idea of 3D gaming.

My first play-through was all about creating moments like those. It was about experiencing all of the wonderfully inventive things that the game's advanced technology was eager to throw at me.

It was about racing a penguin down a twisting mile-long slide (which, honestly, wasn't much fun at first because I still wasn't fully acclimated to analog control); baiting out a giant eel and then furiously swimming toward it in an attempt to catch up to it and obtain the star that was attached to its tail; using a cannon to accurately propel myself across the world so that I could grab onto a narrow pole that was situated on a tiny island; hopping between tiny and huge models of the same world and triggering changes in one of them by manipulating conditions in the other; and so many other amazing first experiences.

I'll stop there because, really, it would take me an hour to list all of the special moments that I fondly remember. That's how many of them there are!

I remember, also, how blown away I was when I discovered that it was possible to influence a course's state by jumping into its associated painting at a higher point or at a certain time. If, for instance, I entered Wet-Dry World's painting at a higher point, the course's water-level would automatically raise to a height that was relative to the one at which I entered!

Also, if I entered Tick Tock Clock's face when its minute hand was in the 12-O'clock position, I'd cause the course's mechanical parts to cease their function, and consequently I'd remove certain obstructions and gain the ability to more easily traverse the course! (Though, unfortunately, deactivating certain clock components would cause me to lose access to the tower's upper portion and certain stars.)

Mechanics like these were absolutely astonishing to me, and they reinforced my belief that much of what Super Mario 64 was doing was the product of next-level sorcery. "I mean, seriously: How is it possible to do things like this?" I once again wondered.

 

I was also impressed by how original each world was. Some worlds had similar visual elements, sure, but on the whole, each one was notably distinct. Each one had its own theme and character, and it introduced a least one novel idea, be it a unique mechanic (like surfing on a shell or hitching a ride with a high-flying owl), a distinct level-design feature, or a new type of platforming challenge.

Super Mario 64 never became satisfied with itself. It never stopped trying to do new things.

Super Mario 64 wasn't content with merely being the first of its kind, no. It wanted to be something far more. It wanted to be the ultimate trailblazer and the standard-bearer for its entire generation.

That's the impression that I got as I played it.

And, really, I couldn't remember a launch game that made me feel that way. I couldn't remember playing a launch game that was dripping with that much ambition.

Super Mario 64 was also intent on differentiating itself musically. Its soundtrack did of course contain the standard selection of cheerful-, aquatic- and ominous-sounding tunes, but it applied them in a unique way. Whereas the 2D games used their music to create rhythm and dictate the action's pace, Super Mario used its music to generate atmosphere, evoke emotions, and give you something to think about as you explored its environments.

The game's style of tonal conveyance was best defined for me by Jolly Roger Bay's musical theme: Dire, Dire Docks. It was a melancholic, touching piece whose soft, delicate keystrokes filled me with conflicting feelings of sadness and wonder. What this tune was telling me, I felt, was to fondly remember the old days but refrain from lamenting over their end; the better thing to do, it suggested, was to live in the present and savor my first moments in this exciting new era.

It was another one of those tunes that was so entrancing that I couldn't help but the controller down and listen to it for a few minutes. I felt compelled to hear it in full and attempt to fully decipher and understand its message.

In time, I came to regard it as the musical piece that best told the story of why Super Mario 64 was so special to me. Its intro explained how the game captivated me and captured my imagination; its first verse described how the game connected with me on an emotional level and helped me to change my thinking; and its second verse spoke of how much fun I had over the course of my adventure and how my spirits lifted more and more as I advanced through the game.

Its progression perfectly paralleled my own.

For that reason, it will forever remain my favorite music track. (Though, I have to give honorable mention to the credits theme, which is which is also an extremely evocative and wistful piece. It, too, tells an amazingly touching story.)

Otherwise, I remember spending a whole lot of time trying to bust my way through the steel grate that was resting near the castle's entrance. I wanted to access the space beneath it because I was sure that it led to a hidden cave or some type of special world.

That was a recurring theme throughout my first play-through: I'd collect all of a course's stars or activate a special switch, and then I'd immediately head outside with the hope that my actions had somehow caused the grating to disappear. After being repeatedly disappointed, I figured that I was probably fooling myself--that, as usual, I was letting my imagination get the best of me--and I gave up on the idea that the grating could actually be removed. "It's probably just there for decoration," I thought to myself in a resigned manner.

That's why I was overjoyed when I loaded up my completed game file and discovered that the grating was indeed hiding a secret! The space below it housed a cannon that I could use to launch myself across the entire starting area!

The first place I blasted my way to, of course, was the castle's roof (previously I tried to access it with tricky wall-jumps, but I failed in every such attempt). And when I ran around to the roof's back portion, I came across a character that I never expected to see in this type of game: Yoshi! He was, for whatever reason, casually hanging around on the roof.

I was so jazzed to see him in 3D form that I didn't even care that his 99-life reward was anticlimactic and kinda pointless. For me, the real reward was knowing that Super Mario 64 respected all of the effort that I put in and appreciated my completionist spirit (which was something that very few games did).

Yoshi's appearance made me think that there had to be more surprises hiding somewhere beyond the game's walls (of both the physical and invisible variety), so I spent hours investigating every crevice and interacting with every object with the hope of discovering a path that would lead me to secret room or to a familiar Mario character like Luigi, Wario or Donkey Kong.

The game was technically completed, but I kept playing on because I truly believed that there was more content to unlock. Because that was the type of power that Super Mario 64 had: It, much like the 2D Super Mario games, continued to convince me that its world was secretly far more vast than it appeared to be.

That's one of the reasons why I kept returning to it so frequently. "This game is no doubt hiding mountains of secrets," I was excited to think, "and eventually I'm going go find one of them!"

Only two or three other N64 games (like Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire) were able to make me feel that way, and it's not surprising that they, too, were released during the console's early years--back when 3D game-design was still raw and experimental and still largely free from standardization and formularization.

Those were the days.

Super Mario 64's visuals and environments were so rich with detail that my 20-inch Sony-brand television could hardly do them justice, so I decided to move my N64 downstairs, into the den, and hook it up to our big-screen TV. (I refrained from doing this in the past because my parents didn't want our consoles cluttering up the space in front of the TV. By 1996, though, they stopped caring about the state of the den, so I was free to do whatever I wanted.)

And let me tell you: Seeing the game at that scale for the first time--seeing its every texture and structure in a blown-up, larger-than-life size--gave me a whole new appreciation for what Nintendo had achieved. It helped me to see just how visually and technologically and ambitious the game actually was.

"Everyone should play Super Mario 64 this way," I thought, "and get a true sense of how large and detailed its world is."

You can count my suddenly gaining a new appreciation for the game as another one of those of aforementioned "special moments." It certainly represented one of my best memories of my early days with Super Mario 64 and the N64.

I spent a countless amount of hours replaying Super Mario 64 in our den, and in every one of those play-throughs, I made sure to, as usual, collect all 120 stars. Save for the dreaded Rainbow Cruise 100-coin challenge, which gave me headaches (my success was contingent on not screwing up wall-jumps in the coin maze, which I'd always tackle last), I loved everything about the game. I felt that it was a fun ride from beginning to end. And I couldn't envision a time when its action would ever get old.

I never felt as though Super Mario 64 was visually or tonally congruent with the 2D Mario games, but I recognized that it earned my adoration in the same way that they did. It carved out a place in my heart by impressing me with its great quality and amazing scope.

Super Mario 64's polygonal 3D worlds didn't remind me of the flat, blocky spaces that I'd been traversing for most of my life, no, but it didn't need them to do that for me. It didn't need to evoke memories of my past experiences to win me over. All it needed to do, rather, was succeed in being great. And that's exactly what it did.

It was, in fact, one of the best games I'd ever played, and that accomplishment, alone, was enough for it to earn the title of "All-Time-Great Mario Game."

That was the power of Mario, whose games always succeeded at nailing new concepts the first time out and making me feel right at home in unfamiliar world.

Super Mario 64's world, much more so any of its technologically superior sequels', was just plain fun to traverse and explore. I didn't need to defeat bosses or collect stars to have a great time in its courses and castle areas, no. I could derive plenty of entertainment from it simply by running around its environments, executing all kinds of acrobatic maneuvers within its spaces, wall-jumping all over the place, and trying to find ways to cheat my way up to platforms that were theoretically out of reach!

The game's world was a huge sandbox that allowed me to shape and manipulate its every environment, and that's why I loved visiting it.

I could admit that its open-endedness didn't always produce the best game design, but honestly, I didn't really care to consider or think about that aspect of the game. I mean, I could tell that the game was a bit rough around the edges, sure: The camera would often refuse to cooperate and do whatever the hell it wanted to do. Mario would sometimes glitch through platforms and spasmodically slide off of others. And the flying and swimming mechanics were far from refined.

But I was fine with all of that because Super Mario 64 was, after all, the first of its kind. It was produced at a time when all of us, enthusiasts and game-creators alike, were trying to figure out how 3D gaming worked. So I considered its rawest elements to be more of a symbol of the wonderfully experimental nature of early 3D games; they reminded me of how wild and free 3D games were before they lost their spirit and sadly began to embrace convention and formula.

They're part of its charm.

Over the past 15 years, I haven't returned to Super Mario 64 as frequently as I once did. My ever-increasing list of responsibilities and my growing aversion to longer games have prevented me from doing so. And yet the game still manages to remain a constant presence in my life. I regularly watch people play it on Twitch. I routinely listen to its music on YouTube. And every so often, I read stories about its development and the enormous impact that it had on gaming.

I'm around it wherever I go.

And even if I never get the chance to play Super Mario 64 again, I won't forget how special it is and how much it meant to my life. And I'll continue to hold it in the highest regard.

It will, in every possible future, continue to retain its spot in my holy trinity of 3D platformers and forever stand among fellow masterpieces Banjo-Kazooie and Ratchet & Clank, both of which, not coincidentally, it heavily inspired.

So after I completed my first play-through of Super Mario 64, I was in a good place. I had no idea where, exactly, all of this 3D business was going, but I was encouraged by what Mario's inaugural 3D platformer had shown me. It was a promising sign.

I wasn't yet prepared to go all-in on 3D gaming because I wasn't sure what doing so would mean for the 2D games that I loved so dearly, but I couldn't deny that the N64 had vast potential and that I was excited to see what else it was capable of.

"If Super Mario 64 is any indication," I told myself, "the N64 is going to do some amazing things. It's no doubt going provide me many mind-blowing experiences in the years to come!"

The future was here, and I was happy to embrace it.

And for the entirety of the N64's life, Super Mario 64, the groundbreaker, was able to determinedly hold its place and remain one of the console's best games. In that time, it was topped by a few platformers, yes, but never rendered obsolete. It continued to be a must-play game. (And I still consider it to be the best 3D Mario game in existence. The newer ones are too scripted and restrictive for my taste. They lack the all-important sense of freedom, which is, in my view, something that a 3D Mario game needs if it wants to be truly magical-feeling.)

19 years later, it's still making its mark on the gaming world. Its still exerting its power and influence. The fingerprints of its guiding hand can be seen all over current-day Super Mario games and other 3D platformers.

That's the measure of its impact.

And I have no doubt that it'll continue to influence and make its mark on 3D action games in the following decades.

And with any luck, Mario, gaming's greatest trailblazer, will be there to awaken us to new possibilities.