Edward's Videogame Obsession #7: Super Mario 64

I entered the world of Super Mario 64 late, but it was still waiting there for me when I got around to it--pristine, colorful, and enchanting. Enchanting in that this game made you feel like you were entering the world of childhood again. I mentioned that with Banjo-Kazooie too. Perhaps platformers uniquely have this ability to make us feel like kids again in their bright fantasy worlds, controlling characters to do acrobatic moves that we dreamed about doing as kids when we were climbing trees or jumping off walls. There is a lot of wish-fulfillment in platformers--the way they create the worlds that we fantasized about. At least for me. Perhaps shooters are wish-fulfillment for others, I don't know. But what I dreamed about as a kid was faraway worlds and fantastical creatures.

Super Mario 64 is to me the quintessential platformer just like Ocarina of Time is the quintessential adventure game. There are debatably greater ones, but this set the standard for 3D platforming games, just like the original Super Mario Bros. set the standard in its generation and still remains among the greatest videogames of all time.

Just as the gunplay in a shooter is the most important aspect of the game (and still one reason why I can't place BioShock on as high of a pedastal as others have), the most important aspect of platformers for me are the levels. Just how good are they? Banjo-Kazooie and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy are both great to me because they create large overworlds that absorb you into the game. Mario takes a different route here. While its levels are not as big as those in Banjo, their small size allows for there to be a lot of them, and there is a wide variety in types here. It's a bit hard to describe what makes me like or dislike a level. Perhaps some of it has to do with the gameplay itself and how you can react to that level. Mario, of course, had some of the finest gameplay of all time. This was the first real game in full 3D that I remember. Nintendo must've flipped some wigs when it released this and players could long-jump Mario across bottomless caverns, have him swim to the bottom of a shimmering lake, and backflip up an ice cliff. This I truly believe to be the most influential console game of its generation, surpassing Final Fantasy VII and Zelda and all of the rest, purely becuase of its 3D gameplay and the attention that went into creating the world. These were some mindblowing graphics when it came out, but it is the simplicity of the gameplay in this new 3D world that really was the determining factor in making it great. It felt so incredibly natural and fluid to control Mario, and I can say having played it recently, the gameplay still holds up better than any other game of its generation. You could make a strong case for this being the best game on the system.

I had a lot of fun playing this for the first time when Daniel stayed at my house for a week (part of it detailed in Daniel's first story here). Again, this is one I plan to beat one day, and one of the many games that I stopped once I was on the final boss. Oh, my lack of dedication back then....

--Edward