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Super Mario 64 DS review
Super Mario 64 (DS)
Release Date: November 21, 2004
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Action Adventure/ Platformer
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Visit www.esrb.org for more ratings information. The box, it had none. (ohno)
Intro
(Original introduction from Mario 64)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXcRfMTF3ZY
(Without additional commentary)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKsE5n4IHOk&translated=1
(With additional commentary and a look at the first star)
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DVmd6jDa38&feature=PlayList&p=9F2D18B2C2D F25C8&index=0[/media]
For those of you who don’t want to watch, Mario, Luigi, and Wario, our venerable plumber heroes and antihero, have disappeared inside Princess Toadstool Peach’s large castle after visiting this locale for a party involving some cake. (THE CAKE IS A LIE!) Yoshi, our stalwart dinosaur companion, is the only one left to save all three and help them unravel the mystery behind the castle’s turn to darkness.
You have three guesses as to who’s the culprit. 1. Satan? Wrong! 2. Paris Hilton? Wrong again! Give up? 3. Kaz Hirai/Bill Gates/Steve Jobs? Wrong and you tried to cheat! The answer: Bowser you silly readers. Once again, he torments the pleasant world of the Mushroom Kingdom with his spiky shell and awesome red hair.
Story
I’ve already pretty much told you the whole story. It’s a regular Mario game, not Paper Mario or one of its handheld brethren.
Game play
As either Mario, Yoshi, Luigi, or Wario, you will jump around exploring various environments hidden within paintings trying to find all 150 Power Stars. In addition to the main quest to save the heroes, save the princess, and defeat King Koopa (Bowser), you can capture wabbits around the castle to unlock new minigames. Each character has their own set of minigames and their own palette swap of wabbits, which will spout various different phrases depending on the person that caught them.
Audio
Classic Mario tunes, all worthy of listening to. If you don’t like them, just mute it and put on your own tunes. In addition to tunes are some stellar sound effects and occasional sayings such as “Mamma mia!” or “Oh noooooo!”. There are many different musical tracks, so don’t expect much repetition. Most of the story is communicated through text, but the intro and ending include audio from Peach.
Controls
I was unable to find any pictures of the controls for this game, so in its place I’ll show you the original 64 controls.
There are three control types, standard, touch, and dual-hand modes. I used standard mode because touch mode was too circumspect to accurately track my actions and dual-hand mode was needlessly complex. If you have played this game on the N64, prepare for some major difficulties adjusting. I miss my analog joystick and despise the stylus controls.
Good Aspects
Story was simple…I wouldn’t want it to end up with something like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmaknzSZSCE
Multiple characters that have different abilities and utilizations, extremely long game, diverse worlds, secret stars/areas, unlockable minigames, multiple save files, file options (copy, erase, scores) ,option to pursue certain stars without actually having unlocked them, option to avoid annoying stars, lots of endgame content (Catch 8 white wabbits to unlock secret door, Unlock all 150 stars instead of just 80, find all the minigames wabbits, etc.) difficulty remains relatively stable along its curve, minigames are extremely fun, some really fun puzzles, fun and simplistic multiplayer, Mario and group would be Parkour aficionados in real life, sporadic boss battles, catchy music, varied enemies, resurgence of Shy Guy and Snifit, multiple control modes, some camera control, some hints and tips provided in game through red bob-ombs, helpful signs posted throughout the castle, and Toads (Toad’s a ghost. He’s relatively lucid until you approach him and then he solidifies unexpectedly!).
Luigi is Jesus. No, I’m not kidding. He can fricking walk on water. Luigi’s my favorite character in the game because of his awesome character attributes and abilities. :awes
There are multiple animations for every situation. Ex. When the player is idle, the selected character will sleep.
This game has so much attention to detail, I can only imagine the bug testing this game endured, but I still found …
Problems
While the player has some modicum of control over the camera, it doesn’t suffice. I constantly found myself adjusting it and it really annoyed me. Over 50% of my deaths were caused by this stupid camera. It got stuck on walls, showed the least helpful angle, and just plain sucked.
Some secret stars and regular stars are just ridiculous. The chances of a person knowing where these stars are without cheating or using a strategy guide are almost nil. The truth is, I had this game for the Nintendo 64 as a kid, so I knew about quite a few of the secrets and strategies beforehand, but I still can’t find all of them without help. I don’t like using walkthroughs unless I have exhausted all possible courses of action. It’s just not fun to me.
I found some glitches during my play through.
1: Goomba’s can get caught in an infinite loop and just continually circle the player.
2: I managed to skip about 90 % of the designated path to a star in Hazy Maze Cave by simply utilizing Luigi’s higher jumping capabilities on a conveniently placed block. I know what you are thinking, “How is that a glitch if the block was convenient?”. Well, as soon as I saw the location of these objects in relation to each other, I tried jumping up there with Luigi. Most of the time my attempts didn’t work, but I managed to get up to this platform twice. The first time I fell off because I was so surprised that my plan worked, but the second time, I got my Power Star. Why did I try this? I guess I’m just more creative than some players and I figured this area would be glitch prone.
3: The lives counter no longer works correctly. I can collect however many lives I want, but as soon as I quit my game, all my efforts are worthless. I restart with 4 lives. This is good if you die often, but if you don’t and collect lives inadvertently, all that time was wasted. I tested the lives system on another game cartridge and it too suffered from the same problem.
4: Against corners and some walls, the character animations would sometimes spaz out. In addition, stairs are just slightly changed ramps. Try crouching on them. On a stairway, crouching wouldn’t do anything. On a ramp, crouching might cause you to lose traction and slide down. What do you know? The stairs in this game function just like a redesigned ramp.
5: On Cool, Cool Mountain, I saw that when you teleport back and forth between the bottom of the level and the top, enemies respawn. These enemies allow the player to collect 100 coins with ease and this should not be allowed.
6: In Tick Tock Clock, there is a challenge to collect 5 silver stars to unlock a power star. I watched the map screen upon loading up the level and noticed that these stars, unlike the regular silver stars, frolic about without provocation. I then proceeded to wait at the bottom of the level, collect all 5 stars, and leisurely collect my reward. Way too easy and I doubt this is what was originally intended for me.
Boss fights are pathetically easy. Maybe it’s just because I know some smart strategies now, but I had no trouble with any of them even if I purposefully tried to get hit a couple times.
I’ve captured 5 white wabbits so far, and you know what irks me? Each one I’ve captured has said one of two things: just I’m the 2nd fastest out of 8 wabbits or an extended text about how much faster their older brother is and how this particular wabbit is the 2nd fastest out of 8 wabbits. If you tell me there are 8 wabbits, I expect 8 different texts, so I can figure out which wabbits I have left and which wabbits I have captured. Also, each wabbit I captured was in one of two places: in the castle courtyard or along the way to the third floor. Randomize their locations further.
The designation of which levels allow the player to gain a star for collecting 100 coins is devilish. If a level allows me to collect 100 coins, I do so, and I receive no reward; rest assured, I’m going to be pissed off. In the level where you free Mario, I tried multiple times to get 100 coins because I was sure that an elusive star would soon be in my grasp. Well, I’m never playing that level again because nothing happened.
I like freedom and most of the time, freedom of choice is allowed in this game. However, the player is limited to progress along the linear path determined by Nintendo in some cases. For example, in a level where you have unlocked some of the stars, you can choose to pick the next star from where you skipped around or repeat a star you have already done. Why can’t I officially pick any random star and just try to go for that? In some cases, it is still possible to unlock a random star, but in others, it’s impossible. Visual Ex. You have unlocked *'s and have yet to complete 0's. **000** and you want to go to the middle star and try your luck. You can’t because you haven’t unlocked the previous challenge. Like I said, this can be circumvented, but it’s annoying because selecting that star allows for hints through the star name and the map screen.
Summary
Mario 64 DS is a game with a lot of depth and heart, but it’s got a couple of arteries clogged with cholesterol. If you want a fun experience and some lighthearted 3D platforming, it’s hard to find a better game. Even if you have played the original on the N64, this game is worthy of another purchase. The minigames alone would amount to a full game.
If you would like more information about the game, some spoilers, etc., just Private Message me or post your question on this thread.
Sincerely,
**** Aka Randomduded12
Feel free to repost on other sites or whatever, even if you just want to point out I committed a solecism on page three line 8, you smarmy grammar Nazi. One condition: maintain my username within this review/article under any and all circumstances.
Contact me with a PM for information regarding online gaming with me or other accounts I have.
Don't hate on videogames, they suck more than they should anyway. "I'm a hypocrite"
-Randomduded12 "LOGIC IS GOD!!!11!"
Super Mario 64 (DS)
Release Date: November 21, 2004
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Action Adventure/ Platformer
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Visit www.esrb.org for more ratings information. The box, it had none. (ohno)
Intro
(Original introduction from Mario 64)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXcRfMTF3ZY
(Without additional commentary)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKsE5n4IHOk&translated=1
(With additional commentary and a look at the first star)
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DVmd6jDa38&feature=PlayList&p=9F2D18B2C2D F25C8&index=0[/media]
For those of you who don’t want to watch, Mario, Luigi, and Wario, our venerable plumber heroes and antihero, have disappeared inside Princess Toadstool Peach’s large castle after visiting this locale for a party involving some cake. (THE CAKE IS A LIE!) Yoshi, our stalwart dinosaur companion, is the only one left to save all three and help them unravel the mystery behind the castle’s turn to darkness.
You have three guesses as to who’s the culprit. 1. Satan? Wrong! 2. Paris Hilton? Wrong again! Give up? 3. Kaz Hirai/Bill Gates/Steve Jobs? Wrong and you tried to cheat! The answer: Bowser you silly readers. Once again, he torments the pleasant world of the Mushroom Kingdom with his spiky shell and awesome red hair.
Story
I’ve already pretty much told you the whole story. It’s a regular Mario game, not Paper Mario or one of its handheld brethren.
Game play
As either Mario, Yoshi, Luigi, or Wario, you will jump around exploring various environments hidden within paintings trying to find all 150 Power Stars. In addition to the main quest to save the heroes, save the princess, and defeat King Koopa (Bowser), you can capture wabbits around the castle to unlock new minigames. Each character has their own set of minigames and their own palette swap of wabbits, which will spout various different phrases depending on the person that caught them.
Audio
Classic Mario tunes, all worthy of listening to. If you don’t like them, just mute it and put on your own tunes. In addition to tunes are some stellar sound effects and occasional sayings such as “Mamma mia!” or “Oh noooooo!”. There are many different musical tracks, so don’t expect much repetition. Most of the story is communicated through text, but the intro and ending include audio from Peach.
Controls
I was unable to find any pictures of the controls for this game, so in its place I’ll show you the original 64 controls.
There are three control types, standard, touch, and dual-hand modes. I used standard mode because touch mode was too circumspect to accurately track my actions and dual-hand mode was needlessly complex. If you have played this game on the N64, prepare for some major difficulties adjusting. I miss my analog joystick and despise the stylus controls.
Good Aspects
Story was simple…I wouldn’t want it to end up with something like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmaknzSZSCE
Multiple characters that have different abilities and utilizations, extremely long game, diverse worlds, secret stars/areas, unlockable minigames, multiple save files, file options (copy, erase, scores) ,option to pursue certain stars without actually having unlocked them, option to avoid annoying stars, lots of endgame content (Catch 8 white wabbits to unlock secret door, Unlock all 150 stars instead of just 80, find all the minigames wabbits, etc.) difficulty remains relatively stable along its curve, minigames are extremely fun, some really fun puzzles, fun and simplistic multiplayer, Mario and group would be Parkour aficionados in real life, sporadic boss battles, catchy music, varied enemies, resurgence of Shy Guy and Snifit, multiple control modes, some camera control, some hints and tips provided in game through red bob-ombs, helpful signs posted throughout the castle, and Toads (Toad’s a ghost. He’s relatively lucid until you approach him and then he solidifies unexpectedly!).
Luigi is Jesus. No, I’m not kidding. He can fricking walk on water. Luigi’s my favorite character in the game because of his awesome character attributes and abilities. :awes
There are multiple animations for every situation. Ex. When the player is idle, the selected character will sleep.
This game has so much attention to detail, I can only imagine the bug testing this game endured, but I still found …
Problems
While the player has some modicum of control over the camera, it doesn’t suffice. I constantly found myself adjusting it and it really annoyed me. Over 50% of my deaths were caused by this stupid camera. It got stuck on walls, showed the least helpful angle, and just plain sucked.
Some secret stars and regular stars are just ridiculous. The chances of a person knowing where these stars are without cheating or using a strategy guide are almost nil. The truth is, I had this game for the Nintendo 64 as a kid, so I knew about quite a few of the secrets and strategies beforehand, but I still can’t find all of them without help. I don’t like using walkthroughs unless I have exhausted all possible courses of action. It’s just not fun to me.
I found some glitches during my play through.
1: Goomba’s can get caught in an infinite loop and just continually circle the player.
2: I managed to skip about 90 % of the designated path to a star in Hazy Maze Cave by simply utilizing Luigi’s higher jumping capabilities on a conveniently placed block. I know what you are thinking, “How is that a glitch if the block was convenient?”. Well, as soon as I saw the location of these objects in relation to each other, I tried jumping up there with Luigi. Most of the time my attempts didn’t work, but I managed to get up to this platform twice. The first time I fell off because I was so surprised that my plan worked, but the second time, I got my Power Star. Why did I try this? I guess I’m just more creative than some players and I figured this area would be glitch prone.
3: The lives counter no longer works correctly. I can collect however many lives I want, but as soon as I quit my game, all my efforts are worthless. I restart with 4 lives. This is good if you die often, but if you don’t and collect lives inadvertently, all that time was wasted. I tested the lives system on another game cartridge and it too suffered from the same problem.
4: Against corners and some walls, the character animations would sometimes spaz out. In addition, stairs are just slightly changed ramps. Try crouching on them. On a stairway, crouching wouldn’t do anything. On a ramp, crouching might cause you to lose traction and slide down. What do you know? The stairs in this game function just like a redesigned ramp.
5: On Cool, Cool Mountain, I saw that when you teleport back and forth between the bottom of the level and the top, enemies respawn. These enemies allow the player to collect 100 coins with ease and this should not be allowed.
6: In Tick Tock Clock, there is a challenge to collect 5 silver stars to unlock a power star. I watched the map screen upon loading up the level and noticed that these stars, unlike the regular silver stars, frolic about without provocation. I then proceeded to wait at the bottom of the level, collect all 5 stars, and leisurely collect my reward. Way too easy and I doubt this is what was originally intended for me.
Boss fights are pathetically easy. Maybe it’s just because I know some smart strategies now, but I had no trouble with any of them even if I purposefully tried to get hit a couple times.
I’ve captured 5 white wabbits so far, and you know what irks me? Each one I’ve captured has said one of two things: just I’m the 2nd fastest out of 8 wabbits or an extended text about how much faster their older brother is and how this particular wabbit is the 2nd fastest out of 8 wabbits. If you tell me there are 8 wabbits, I expect 8 different texts, so I can figure out which wabbits I have left and which wabbits I have captured. Also, each wabbit I captured was in one of two places: in the castle courtyard or along the way to the third floor. Randomize their locations further.
The designation of which levels allow the player to gain a star for collecting 100 coins is devilish. If a level allows me to collect 100 coins, I do so, and I receive no reward; rest assured, I’m going to be pissed off. In the level where you free Mario, I tried multiple times to get 100 coins because I was sure that an elusive star would soon be in my grasp. Well, I’m never playing that level again because nothing happened.
I like freedom and most of the time, freedom of choice is allowed in this game. However, the player is limited to progress along the linear path determined by Nintendo in some cases. For example, in a level where you have unlocked some of the stars, you can choose to pick the next star from where you skipped around or repeat a star you have already done. Why can’t I officially pick any random star and just try to go for that? In some cases, it is still possible to unlock a random star, but in others, it’s impossible. Visual Ex. You have unlocked *'s and have yet to complete 0's. **000** and you want to go to the middle star and try your luck. You can’t because you haven’t unlocked the previous challenge. Like I said, this can be circumvented, but it’s annoying because selecting that star allows for hints through the star name and the map screen.
Summary
Mario 64 DS is a game with a lot of depth and heart, but it’s got a couple of arteries clogged with cholesterol. If you want a fun experience and some lighthearted 3D platforming, it’s hard to find a better game. Even if you have played the original on the N64, this game is worthy of another purchase. The minigames alone would amount to a full game.
If you would like more information about the game, some spoilers, etc., just Private Message me or post your question on this thread.
Sincerely,
**** Aka Randomduded12
Feel free to repost on other sites or whatever, even if you just want to point out I committed a solecism on page three line 8, you smarmy grammar Nazi. One condition: maintain my username within this review/article under any and all circumstances.
Contact me with a PM for information regarding online gaming with me or other accounts I have.
Don't hate on videogames, they suck more than they should anyway. "I'm a hypocrite"
-Randomduded12 "LOGIC IS GOD!!!11!"
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