skadann

Playing Through Mario 64 1st Time, Difficult or Just Me?

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Spending as many precious minutes as possible in Blockbuster playing Cool Cool Mountain in Mario 64 were the best memories of my father's visitation weekends. Since adulthood, I've picked up Mario 64 a few times only to be frustrated by the "2nd world" - falling in lava repeatedly, quicksand, etc. I'm now committing to beat this game (53 stars as of this post), and I figured out how to get the majority of my stars without ever going into those basement levels. After decades of video game practice, I still find this game so difficult - I blame the camera. 

 

Having owned a PS1 and PS2, I missed out on N64 and Gamecube games almost entirely until college or later. Mario 64 isn't the only N64 game I struggle with, I remember at friends' houses Goldeneye and Mario Party being a lost cause too.

 

Is Mario 64 considered a difficult game? A bad game? I'm also curious to hear the forums' opinion on N64 games: if their game design choices (camera), etc. are notably different than Sony games of the same era and if that has any impact on difficulty.

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Super Mario 64 was the first game I ever completed. I didn't find it all that taxing other than the final confrontation with Bowser. I recall waking up early every day before school for at least a week, just playing that last damn level over and over until I finally conquered it.

 

Mario 64 was generally recognized--at the time, at least--as the first 3D action game to have a serviceable camera. I personally played with the Mario follow camera as opposed to Lakitu's directed camera, which I found less prone to interfering with the gameplay.

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I went back and replayed Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie about a year ago, and I was actually a little surprised at how easy they seemed to me (Banjo Kazooie especially).  I think a huge part of it for me, though, was that I had played both of these games a lot when I was around 7-8 years old (and I definitely remember struggling quite a bit), and they kind of built the base of my video game experience. I didn't recall every detail of every level, but at any point, probably for the rest of my life, I could pick up an N64 controller and beat "Wall Kicks Will Work" just from muscle memory.  So I guess I may not be the most objective judge of these games' difficulties.

 

I've never touched a PS1 or PS2, and have zero experience with any Sony games from that era, and I wouldn't be surprised if I had the same reactions to them as you have to Super Mario 64.  

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Mario 64 is difficult because of the camera and inprecise movement, resulting in many dumb errors. But then again, you've got plenty of health.

I think the basement levels were the most annoying because of constant camera turning near the walls.
But in general I think its easier than SMW or Mario3.

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I'm with ya buddy, personally I consider those games to be a challenge.

 

As a kid, I did not beat games. I wasn't good enough at them, the first game I officially beat must've been something on the PS2. I go back to all my Sega MegaDrive classics and they still kick my ass!

 

Super Mario 64 is finishable, but I'd still say it's a test. I like it, I'd be a little dissapointed if I could glide on through the whole thing.

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I replayed SM64 on DS last year and thought it was spot on, challenge-wise. The camera isn't perfect but does what you want it to when you make adjustments. I felt the camera in both SM64 and B-K were fine, but you had to take active control of them.

 

Funnily enough, I'm playing through Mario Sunshine right now (never finished it originally, want to tick it off the Mario list) and having problems with both camera and difficulty. You can't invert the X or Y axis (it's taken me about 10 hours to adjust) and the difficulty is all over the place. One of the reasons I always preferred Banjo was the character control. For example, Mario will turn in a small arc unless you pull back exactly 180 degrees and that can be perilous if you're on a ledge. Sometimes I'll do a reverse somersault when I don't want to, other times I'll have trouble pulling off that move. It looks acrobatic and feels great when you successfully combo leaps and wall jumps together, but it can be frustrating. Banjo, somewhat less realistically, immediately points in the direction you jab the analogue stick. For me, it's precise where Mario can be jittery and unpredictable.

 

Sunshine is also ruining the camera in Dark Souls and Psychonauts as now I'm constantly rotating the wrong way! I change the settings and muscle/soul memory from 100 hours in Drangleic suddenly spurts in and it's moving the wrong way again  :wacko:

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I thought the camera and controls were great.  I had no problems quickly jumping around between camera angles to get a better view and land a jump exactly where I wanted.  I got to the point where I'd try to finish as much of a world as I could with the camera locked at the start and then locked into a new position once I could no longer see myself.  I actually have more trouble in the recent games for some reason.  I keep doing dumb things over and over in 3D Land and 3D World, stuff I never would have done in Mario 64.  Something about Mario 64 really clicked for me and hasn't quite been the same since.  I don't know if that would still hold true if I went back and revisited the game today though.

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While I enjoy the ability to lock on and manipulate the camera, it seems to move on it's own when I'm about to make a jump. It's very possible that I'm doing something wrong. I expect my joystick to move Mario right, and suddenly the camera shifts, he's jumping up.... and into an abyss.  

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I was always very proactive about controlling the camera so I hardly ever found it in a position I didn't put it in.  That might be more effort than other people care to put in but I like having that control.

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Hmm, I found it pretty difficult at times due to camera and precision, but I also have only finished the game on DS, and last year in fact. I remember it controlling better when playing the 64 long ago, but that was at a friends house and I never got that far.

 

The problem I had with the DS one was mostly just on levels where you can't see shit and you are climbing a pole or something and it knocks you into the lava causing you to restart the whole level. It's even worse when sometimes the camera is locked and you can't move it. I hear I did not play the game under the most ideal conditions, but 64 DS has all of the extra stars and stuff as well as characters, so meh. I did get all of the stars, and it wasn't until near the end where the game was making me want to tear my hair out at times.

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I remember really fighting with the controls, which was the case for basically all 3D console games of that era.

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The final battle with Bowser is pretty intensely frustrating, but I never really had that many problems with Mario 64. It's the very first console game I ever owned and I still replay it every few years, so I'm probably speaking from a position of heavy nostalgia.

 

 

Also, the N64 is old enough to vote as of today. Perfect timing.

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I remember Mario 64 being really hard when I was a kid, but I was probably too young when I first played it. It's weird because I finished it completely on the DS, with all 150 stars without much difficulty. Certainly the camera improved in places, but I felt that the slightly more finicky controls like the wall jump worked better on the DS version.

 

Banjo-Kazooie I fucking loved as a kid though. I never beat Gruntilda, but I remember being super excited to collect all the eggs and the big ice key and the mystery behind it all. The mystery that was only revealed when the remake came out on the 360 and was super underwhelming. But I also completed B-K easily when I replayed it on the 360. I don't know if my skills have just improved massively over the years, or the game is somehow easier on a controller that isn't the N64's.

 

B-T sucked. I was really dissapointed with it.

 

Also another game you should try is Conker's Bad Fur Day. Which is great.

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I played SM64 to death as a kid, and loved it. It was a challenge in parts, but I seldom felt too frustrated. Even as a kid, though, the camera always used to bother me (much more so than the cam in Banjo, for example), and I say this as someone who likes to control the camera a lot. Lakitu would often swivel as I was running up to a tricky jump, or swoop dramatically to the side when I had taken pains to line it up just so. If you got too close to a wall, it was hell, and I ground my teeth to powder after hearing that incredibly abrasive 'denied' sound when the camera wouldn't move any more.

I tried replaying it recently on an emulator but my patience wore thin about half-way through. For the record, and to finish on a positive note, SM64 is wonderful and I have many happy memories

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can i ask what platforms all playing on?  i know its been released a couple different ways in the eshops

 

i would probably find the camera infuriating w/o the C-Button configuration and Z-Button trigger of the n64 controller

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The final battle with Bowser is pretty intensely frustrating, but I never really had that many problems with Mario 64. It's the very first console game I ever owned and I still replay it every few years, so I'm probably speaking from a position of heavy nostalgia.

 

 

Also, the N64 is old enough to vote as of today. Perfect timing.

 

Yeah, the N64 birthday is what prompted me write the post!

 

 

can i ask what platforms all playing on?  i know its been released a couple different ways in the eshops

 

i would probably find the camera infuriating w/o the C-Button configuration and Z-Button trigger of the n64 controller

 

I'm currently playing Mario 64 on the Wii Virtual Console with Gamecube Wavebird Controller. My copy of Mario 64 for N64 won't load anymore :-/

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The game is certainly difficult, but to an extent that was true of all the early 3D platformers.  Half of it is dealing with the camera and the rougher controls (the difference between a wall kick in this and later games is night and day), but there's definitely also just less hand-holding in the design than would be true later on. 

 

Yet at the time I didn't think of it in those terms, it was received unquestioned as just "how it was."  I oddly found it way easier in 1996 than I find it now.  There are certain expectations now, but at the time the game was setting the expectations.  Plus my platformer muscles have atrophied immeasurably since adolescence.  (I still find Psychonauts pretty slight in that regard, though, including the last level, so I was always nonplussed by that controversy.  There's no comparison between that and Mario 64, and Mario 64 is not even close to the hardest of 3D platformers.)

 

Incidentally, there are few things I want to recapture more than the feeling of running around a 3D Mushroom Kingdom for the first time.  Definitely in my top five mindblowing moments as a gamer.

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Boy, you guys are seriously making me question my own memory.  I really don't remember finding the game hard at all but maybe I've somehow repressed it.  I'd love to be able to play it again to see if my memories hold true but I feel like I'd have to do it with an N64 controller to get an accurate test.

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I found that the game felt sort of "off" the last time I went back to it, and I think it was a result of the difference between the N64's control stick, which I remember feeling sort of loose, and whatever other controller I've tried using (Wii Classic Controller, Xbox Controller, whatever) which feel weightier in comparison. Then again, I haven't touched a real N64 controller since I was a kid, so maybe my memory is off base.

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The game is certainly difficult, but to an extent that was true of all the early 3D platformers.  Half of it is dealing with the camera and the rougher controls (the difference between a wall kick in this and later games is night and day), but there's definitely also just less hand-holding in the design than would be true later on. 

 

Yet at the time I didn't think of it in those terms, it was received unquestioned as just "how it was."  I oddly found it way easier in 1996 than I find it now.  There are certain expectations now, but at the time the game was setting the expectations.  Plus my platformer muscles have atrophied immeasurably since adolescence.  (I still find Psychonauts pretty slight in that regard, though, including the last level, so I was always nonplussed by that controversy.  There's no comparison between that and Mario 64, and Mario 64 is not even close to the hardest of 3D platformers.)

 

Incidentally, there are few things I want to recapture more than the feeling of running around a 3D Mushroom Kingdom for the first time.  Definitely in my top five mindblowing moments as a gamer.

 

That's what I'm thinking. Had I owned Mario 64 when it came out, I would have been decent at it. I believe something happened in my gaming experience that has made that game much more difficult now than it should be.

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I get the feeling Mario 64 is not that hard if you mostly just take the straight path and don't try to get all of the stars, like collecting all of the red coins and such. I know I would have spared myself so much grief had I not had to gather those coins at once in many levels. So I'd be curious if those explaining their experience with the difficulty are factoring in collecting all 120 stars (or 150 on DS).

 

Also I feel like Rayman 2 was the first 3D platformer to totally refine such a thing into a smooth, playable experience, but I get the feeling not many people agree with me, or never have given Rayman 2 much thought.

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I definitely got every star.  Multiple times.  That was actually one of my favorite parts of the game, how each star was like a little puzzle and all you had was a vague hint on where it was and what to do.  I'll admit that some of them were kind of tedious (such as the 100 coin stars) but it was a minor problem to me.

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Ahhhh fuck you guys now I want to play this game again. ):

 

I'd honestly kill for just a straight remake of this entire game in the new Mario HD Visuals style. ):

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I've got the DS port/remake of this. I only have... I think like 30 stars, if that? I don't have any given level where I've collected all the stars. I'm not entirely sure, it's been a while since I've loaded it up. I'll take a look later today.

 

But yeah as others have pointed out, the camera makes this game kind of a pain in the ass to play. Like unintentional difficult to overcome. Which is the worst difficulty to overcome.

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The DS one is actually really neat despite not having a proper analog stick and having a single permanently missable star.

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