Memories #3: Super Mario 64

Mario has been with me through my childhood, teenage years, and well into adulthood. He's like a friend that I never get tired of hanging out with. We've gone adventuring, played doctor, and even raced go-carts together. I was even there for him when he would make my ears bleed with that ear-piercing scream as an infant with Yoshi. When I was 15 years old, I was also there to witness Mario take his next big step: into the third dimension.

The plumber redefined the 2D platform game in 1985 with the release of Super Mario Bros., which also worked as a much needed Phoenix Down to revive the North American video game market after it crashed two and half years prior. Since then, Mario went on to star in a number of other games but platforming would always be his forte, despite excelling in just about everything else. If Mario showed us 2D platforming perfection, he was the man to show us how it ought to be done in 3D.

Blah blah blah. CAKE? I'm SO there!

By the time the Nintendo 64 was nearing it's release, my dad had bought himself a PlayStation and he'd let me play games on it whenever I liked because I took care of my own systems pretty well. Being a hardcore Nintendo fan, I still wanted a Nintendo 64 but when I saw Super Mario 64, I wanted that system more than I wanted my next breath. The PlayStation and the Saturn had hit the scene before Nintendo's new console and for all those systems offered, the 3D revolution hadn't really hit me yet. It's like I didn't really see what the next generation of gaming had to offer until I played Super Mario 64. In case you couldn't tell, the impact this game had on me was huge.


I have all sorts of fond memories of Super Mario 64, all of which I'll get to in a minute. But to this day, one of my favorite scenes from the game, in any video game, is the opening cut scene. When I think about it, it's kind of ironic because it's not all that Earth-shattering, but it did a fine job of getting me exited to play the game. Well, even more exited. After we read a letter from the Princess Peach, the camera circles around her castle, taking us to the front entrance. Once there, a green pipe rises from the ground. Now we've seen Mario exit from pipes a million times. Even in 1996, it was nothing new because by that time, Mario had been doing the pipe thing for more than 10 years. But like so many other things, Super Mario 64 managed to make Mario's entrance via warp pipe look epic. When Mario jumped out of that pipe and shouted "YAHOO! Ha ha!" I thought it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. For someone lacking in attitude, Mario sure does know how to make an entrance.

A great deal of fun for me simply came from running around in any direction I wanted. So many times I would just screw around with Mario's different jump techniques, walking slowly, crawling, running in circles, you name it. Goofing off was just as fun as the main quest.

When I did focus on saving Peach, it was a lot of fun. Oh, was it a lot of fun. It may seem a bit more simplified when compared to both Super Mario Galaxy titles and Super Mario Sunshine, but for me, running, jumping and collecting in Super Mario 64 was some of the most fun I've had in a Mario game or any video game for that matter. Each of the game's 15 courses were massive and exploring them in three dimensions gave the game a much broader feel than the 2D Mario games. Exploring the castle was just as much fun as running through the Bob-omb Battlefield or any other course. Super Mario 64 brought an unprecedented amount of freedom that I had never seen in a video game at the time.

Mario's method of entering the courses also deserves a mention. To enter a course, Mario would actually leap through a painting. It's as if he jumped into the pages of a story book and each page was it's own world. No longer was going to point A to point B enough in this game. You actually had to make multiple trips to the course to retrieve the Power Stars. To obtain a Star sometimes you'd have to climb a mountain, hitch a ride from an owl, defeat a mini boss, win a race, or hop into a canon and blast off. Super Mario 64 contained 120 Power Stars and I was determined to find as many as I possibly could.

The first few courses were pretty easy for me. I had little to no trouble with Bob-omb Battlefield, though I died a number of times in Whomp's Fortress. Still, I was hungry for more Power Stars because as I found more of them, more of the game opened up. I remember coming upon a door on the first floor of the castle that had a huge star on it. When I tried to enter, I was told that I needed 8 Stars to open that door and proceed. I had to know what was behind that door so I raced off to get more Stars.

I can remember being as giddy as a school girl when I finally collected up to 8 Stars. I passed through the door, climbed up a short set of stairs and started running towards a picture of Princess Peach. As I got closer to the picture, I noticed it slowly began to change. The image morphed from Peach to Bowser! That was surprise in and of itself and before that shock could fully set in, a trap door opened and sent me to a course called Bowser in the Dark World. This was not what I had in mind when I opened up that door.

This area was pretty intimidating to me at first.

Bowser in the Dark World was a liner course with just one Star to obtain, but the main goal here was to defeat Bowser and get the key to unlock the basement portion of the castle. I wasn't expecting to tangle with Bowser this early in the game and I was really caught off guard. The painting, the trap door, the theme music (as good as it was, still is), and the course itself, all of it just threw me off balance. I struggled in this world a lot. It took me numerous tries before I made it to the green pipe that would lead me to Bowser. These days I can do this stage in my sleep. When I was 15 years old, that was not the case.

Nintendo Power had actually given away some VHS tapes to some of it's subscribers before Super Mario 64 was released in the United States. Some of the footage on this tape showed a lucky select few playing Super Mario 64 and one of the highlights of this tape was the fight with Bowser. He couldn't be stomped on. You couldn't shoot fire at him (no Fire Flower in the game) and there was certainly no ax to send him into a pit of lava. If you wanted to defeat the King of the Koopas in this game, you had to grab him by the tail, swing him around and toss him into one of the bombs surrounding the area. So I knew what needed to be done to beat Bowser. I felt like that tape had prepared me and victory was assured.

Someone's been hitting the gym.

Unfortunately, when I jumped down that pipe and saw Bowser as this menacing theme played, well, you needed a forklift to pick my jaw up off the floor. Bowser had always been bigger than Mario but here, he was freaking huge! It was like looking up at Godzilla! Just because I knew how to take down Bowser, didn't mean pulling it off would be easy. I was mostly crippled by fear and not knowing how to properly throw Bowser. Sometimes I'd throw him too short a distance, other times I'd throw him off the area, at which point he would jump right back up, scaring me out of my whits. Needless to say, I failed on my first try, but sheer determination sent me to fight him again. I didn't lose near as many lives fighting Bowers as I did going through the course to get to him. In fact, I found that getting close to him and grabbing his tail was very easy to do. When I threw him and finally connected him to one of those bombs, I felt like a champion. Seeing that explosion and Bowser land on his shell made the struggle all worth it. Save for the last battle, Bowser didn't really give me much trouble after that.

My enjoyment of aquatic levels in games tends to be hit or miss, but I favor Super Mario 64's water stages. The first time Mario flipped into Jolly Roger Bay, I was overwhelmed by the peaceful music that played. I always found it nice that another layer of music would be added as soon as Mario started swimming in the water and in some cases, drums would be added to it once you were back on land. Much as I loved the game's underwater segments, it wasn't all smooth sailing. I was horrified the first time I saw Mario drown. I know from experience that drowning in games sucks, but seeing Mario do the dead man's float is downright disturbing.

Rainbows mean nothing but misery in Super Mario 64.

Super Mario 64 had few power ups and they were limited, but no less awesome additions to Mario's growing array of abilities. The Wing Cap was awesome for allowing you to fly. It had it's restrictions and unless you were fired out of a cannon you didn't have as much speed, but it was still pretty awesome. Just flying around the Wing Cap course was so exhilarating. The Vanish Cap let you play the roll of the Invisible Girl, but what could arguably be my favorite power-up from the game would have to be the Metal Cap. Mario gets covered in a full suit of metal, is impervious to harm, his feet make this killer clang sound with every step and he gets this awesome remix of the Starman theme.

For a while, it bugged me that I was never able to get 120 Stars. So in the summer of 2009, I hooked up the N64 and started a brand new game. It took a lot of work, but I finally managed to get all 120 Stars. My friend Lucas Stephens has actually gotten all 120 Stars on all four save files of his copy. I wonder if it was one of his favorite Mario titles.

Super Mario 64 was ported over to the DS with Yoshi, Wario, and Luigi as playable characters with their own special abilities. There were also an additional 30 Stars, giving Super Mario 64 DS 150 Stars to collect. The visuals were also touched up. Even so, I still prefer the N64 version of the game. It controls a lot better and I don't have to switch out characters to get certain Stars.

After 15 years, Super Mario 64 is still one of my favorite Mario games, one of my all-time favorite games, and possibly my favorite of the 3D Mario games. The original Super Mario Galaxy may beat it out but I still have to play through it again several times to decide on that one. The only things you collect are coins and Stars so there's not an overabundance of collectibles, something that would kill my interest in other 3D platform games. When I think of Super Mario 64, I think of a great game that offers good times. For all of the boundaries this game pushed and doors it opened in gaming, when you get right down to it, Super Mario 64 is a absurdly fun game. When it comes to pure, concentrated fun, this game has it in spades.