2890 - Super Mario 64 --- The Canon Game
**Posted by Sherlock at 4:59 AM
Super Mario 64
------- The Canon Game
Intro
Super Mario 64 will always be one of the greatest games that ever made, not only in the Super Mario game series, but in the whole game history as well. As the first 3D version in the series, it creates too many new features and amazing control feelings, which made it becomes a guide of the 3D platform games afterwards.
The game was released in Japan
The game brought player brand new feelings of game playing. The background story is decent and fits the game’s genre. The control is smooth and basically the players can do all the movements they want to do. The Camera is dynamic and unique that it can change different camera angle. The actions are diverse that the player can hardly get bored even after a long time playing.
It’s not easy to become a classic game, but Super Mario 64 is definitely one of them. I have been playing this game many times and I noticed some brilliant parts of this game.
History
Since the debut in “Donkey Kong” 1981, Mario appears on every famous video game consoles. The NES version “Super Mario Bro” made a great successful in the market. But all of them are on 8-bit quality consoles.The images are good but can’t satisfy the players. Into the 90’ s, Nintendo made several sequels of Super Mario, but all of them keep at 2D versions. At 1995, Shigeru Miyamoto decided to make Mario into 3D. After two years’ work, Super Mario 64 was finally released in Japan
Honors
Super Mario 64 is “the greatest game of all time”. It’s the first game that brings a 2D characters into 3D in it’s series. This masterpiece is one of the most successful games that Nintendo have ever made. It has won a lot of honor and awards. It’s “the game of year” of 1997. It has been highly acclaimed by players and press. Shigeru Miyamoto again proves his place in game development.
The unique features
The outstanding operation feelings
Super Mario 64 has the free-roaming concept in large open areas. So basically, you can reach anywhere inside the map. And because the world is in three dimensional, it create a completely different feelings from the old Super Mario Brothers.
The first time I played this game, I felt so free simply because I don’t need to go left to right on the screen as the old Mario games, I go where ever I want to go. You can run, you can jump, you can fly, you can swim, you can be on a tree, and there even have cannons that can shot you onto a floating island. It is so much fun just to walk a round and see different environments.
The nice graphics
We all remember the first Super Mario on NES, it only has 8 colors but still create us a bright and cute world full of surprise. And now on the new console, there are 64 colors. It’s 8 times much as the old ones. Nintendo didn’t let us down. The game successfully keeps the consistent style of Super Mario games, simple and colorful. If you compare to the other games at the same time, Super Mario 64 is definitely not one of the best graphic games. But people still loves it. Just because they always keep the right things.
The incredible game controls
Nintendo always bring us very nice games. They do understand the word “dynamic”. In Super Mario 64, there are so many actions, easy ones and hard ones. If you like the action games nowadays such as Assassin’s Creed 2, you will notice that there are several different kinds of actions. And that starts from Super Mario 64.
In the game Mario can walk, run, jump, crouch, crawl, swim, climb and attack. And these are just the basic movements that you can figure out when you first playing this game. If you keep playing a little longer, you will find out more movements such as double jump, lunge, and back flip. And if you keep playing more, you will learn how to do triple jump, kick wall jump, lunge from in the air, stumble and slide. If that’s not enough, you can still get more actions like high kick, heavy land and fly. Just think of all the actions you can do with the N64 joystick, that’s really amazing and surely requires a lot of practice to become a master. And the cruel thing is that you have to know almost everyone of them to pass certain parts of the game. But it’s really cool to let Mario do all kinds of awesome movements to kill enemies or reach a high peak.
The brilliant level design
The story is still about rescuing Princess Peach. She was caught by Bowser at the beginning of the game. The story happens in the castle, but there are paints on the wall that lead you to other worlds. There are 15 different levels in this game and each of them are designed very interesting. In each level, there are several tasks, they are all about getting stars to save the princess.
For example, the first level is a place where bombs live there. There are mountains, trees, bridges, cannons, living bombs and mushrooms attacking you, a bomb dog, and at the top of the mountain, there lives the king of bombs. There are 7 tasks in the first level. Each of them is different game play. The first task is like a tutorial of the game. You walking around killing things and finally reach the peak and fight the boss. The boss will give you the first star before he die. The Second task is a racing game. The player has to beat a tortoise. It’s still a task letting you learn more about the control. You just reach the end earlier than the tortoise then you get the second star. The third task is cool because Mario is going into cannon and blow to an island which is floating in the sky. On the island you will find the third star.
And the whole game is about collecting stars from various levels. And there are totally 105 stars in the game play! Think how dynamic the levels are.
There also are 15 hidden stars in the castle so if you are really hard core maybe you can try to collect all the 120 stars in the game!
The classis character design
Nintendo did a great work on change the characters from 2D pixels to 3D models. The title screen is a face of Mario and the game title. All the characters are modeled as close as their original figures. But Nintendo did do some change on several monsters. But all of them looks good and fit the game.
From 2D to 3D is an important step of a lot of game series. Nintendo 64 is not a very powerful console. At the time, there are Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. But the 3D effect looks pretty good on Nintendo 64. The 3D design is the best Nintendo 64 can do.
The dynamic camera
The camera setting of the Super Mario 64 is a great step on game history. Now when we play big 3D games on XBOX360 or PS3, we always can rotate the camera angle to have a clear look around. But when does that function invented? It’s on Super Mario 64. There are 5 buttons on the joystick just for the players to change camera angle. Although the technology is not that good at the time, Nintendo did their best. Using the C-pad players can zoom in, zoom out or do a slightly pan left and pan right. The most useful function is the player can switch the camera angle to an over-shoulder follow view. It’s the same thing as the camera angle in Resident Evil 4 and 5. And you can still use the default third person view, but because the technology, some time the camera just can’t get right, in that case player just need to switch angle to avoid that. I have to say it not that easy to use, but it inspired the game later on. The camera setting is another important reason that makes Super Mario 64 a great game.
The fantastic sound effect and BGM
For a classic game, the sound effect is really an important part. Super Mario 64 is a good example of dynamic sound. The BGM was composed by Koji Kondo. The music follws the old Mario music a little bit but in other martial. BGM for each scene is suitable to the environments. They help player into the game well. Every different movement comes with unique sound effect. So it is one reason why this game always makes player feel fresh. There are also some dialogues in the game. There two versions, the Japanese version and the English version.
My feeling
I played this game in the last few weeks, and I am really impressed by the playability. It contains so much fun and freedom. The style is pretty cute and seems like a girl’s game, but still it can be very hard, many parts I have to play over and over again to find out how to pass. The game developers are really take care about every small details. For examples at the first level there is a platform which rotate up and down by itself, when Mario goes under it and the platform come down, Mario get compressed a little bit, it really funny and when you see that, you will appreciate the game developers for their hard works.
There are plenty of things you can collect in the game, three different coins, stars, ruby, sapphire, mushrooms, boxes and spinning heart. There are so many kinds of enemies you can fight with. There are so many things you can destroy. There are so many different tasks and game mode you can experience.
It is a game that keep surprising you in every possible ways. You don’t want repeat the boring across the map, they designed a teleporter for you. You want go higher, they send you a hat that gives you the ability to fly. Like they are asking, what else do you want to do?
Summary
Super Mario 64 is an epic game. It contains so many vital principles. The features appears in this game inspires so many game ideas. The game mode is so interesting that people keep thinking it’s good. Nintendo is proud of this game cause it proves that they understand games and players. Every game developer should play and study from this game.
It is one of the most popular games in game history; it’s the first free-roaming 3D games; it’s still released in cartridges; major game principles appears everywhere through the whole game play. So many reasons makes it a solid canon game.
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