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 In 1996, the 3D revolution was in full swing. Crash Bandicoot showed off what the Playstation was capable of, Sonic was on his way (according to Sega, at least), and Nintendo was putting the finishing touches on their marquee franchise for the N64's launch. Sure, Super Mario 64 wasn't the first 3D platformer ever made (that honor goes to Alpha Waves in 1990, according to wikipedia), and it wasn't even the first game to be what we would recognize as a modern 3D platformer (Geograph Seal and its sequel, Jumping Flash), but it was special in a way that those games weren't. Maybe it was the tight, responsive controls shaped by the inclusion of the analog stick. Maybe it was the sprawling level design, trading straightforward obstacle courses for large, explorable levels far beyond what other 3D platformers of the time had done. Or maybe it was a little bit of that Nintendo Magic, that je ne sais quoi that seems to elevate their best games that much higher, with just the right little touches. Whatever the reason, Super Mario 64 was an astounding success, and to this day remains one of, if not THE best example of how to translate a franchise from 2D into 3D. It's amazing how much Nintendo got right on their first try, especially with only a handful of games to look at and say "This didn't work." The largest and most obvious blight on the game is the camera, and while it's never very good, it rarely crosses the line into "actively detrimental," so it gets a pass for the most part. There are also some problematic level design decisions that mostly come down to "Hey, let's use the same level and just shove six different goals in it!" but we'll worry about those when we get there. The LP This LP is going to be an intensely casual affair. While I do enjoy this game, I'll be the first to admit that some of its stars are incredibly samey (see Tall Tall Mountain as a prime example) and there are more than a few that are just flat out a pain in the rear end to get. As such, this is NOT going to be a 120 star run - this allows me to skip said rear end in a top hat stars, and to streamline how I show off each level. Essentially, we will be seeing everything in the game - we just might not see ALL of everything. As far as a schedule goes, videos will be going up every Friday, but if something comes up I'll let you guys know earlier in the week if I can.  Spoilers Absolutely none. There are no fuckin' spoilers about Mario 64. Yoshi is on the roof of the castle, you fight Bowser three times in increasingly dumb fights, and Peach really does just want to bake a drat cake for you. So no black bars, because I've already spoiled everything worth mentioning in the game. Updates Part 1: Bob-omb Battlefield Part 2: Whomp's Fortress and Jolly Roger Bay Part 3: Cool Cool Mountain and Bowser in the Dark World Part 4: Big Boo's Haunt and Lethal Lava Land Part 5: Hazy Maze Cave and Shifting Sand Land Part 6: Dire Dire Docks and Bowser in the Fire Sea Artix fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Jul 29, 2016 |
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Jun 20, 2016 15:52
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reserved
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Jun 20, 2016 15:52
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Part 1: Bob-omb Battlefield BOB is really a glorified tutorial, but that's okay!
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Jun 20, 2016 15:54
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King Bob-Omb is actually kinda fast at turning if you try to spin around him immediately after he gets up, it's kinda weird. Also this might've been one of the first games I've ever played in my life, so it holds a special place in my heart for that. Edit: Also you technically could do Mario Wings to the Sky now without the wing cap but that's suuuuper tedious and dumb.
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Jun 20, 2016 15:59
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Yeah, Super Mario 64 is a huge nostalgia trip for me as well. I always watch it when AGDQ and SGDQ come up but I can never bring myself to play through 64 again instead of Banjo. Also, you said you were skipping the rear end in a top hat stars so does that mean you're skipping the 100 coin stars?
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Jun 20, 2016 16:02
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I'm actually pretty impressed with how Nintendo stepped into the the world of 3D. This game looks pretty bad by modern standards, but gameplay-wise, it seems like they transitioned very well, especially compared with other gaming companies.
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Jun 20, 2016 16:12
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The Throwback Galaxy in Galaxy 2 doesn't actually have any discontinuity because Whomp's Fortress in this game also plays the "Bob-omb Battlefield" BGM. It's just that the music is more attributed to the level we saw in this first video.
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Jun 20, 2016 18:18
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Is it bad I was expecting this to be chaos mode?
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Jun 20, 2016 23:34
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Blastinus posted:I'm actually pretty impressed with how Nintendo stepped into the the world of 3D. This game looks pretty bad by modern standards, but gameplay-wise, it seems like they transitioned very well, especially compared with other gaming companies. Uh, yeah, that's kind of the point. People don't hold Mario 64 up as a defining work because it still holds up incredibly well (although, let's be fair, it's far from awful to play these days), it's because Mario 64 (and Ocarina of Time) helped define some of the most basic rules of how to manipulate characters and cameras in a 3D space in a way that make sense and entertain the player. Those design rules are ubiquitous nowadays, so we largely take them for granted, but it's important to remember that they simply didn't exist yet at the dawn of 3D gaming. Mario 64 isn't an amazing game anymore, but it'll never stop being an important game. I mean, look at everything from Sonic Adventure all the way until Unleashed to get an idea of just how hard a time previously successful developers had adapting to the new challenges and advantages of three dimensions. Spiritus Nox fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jun 20, 2016 |
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Jun 20, 2016 23:46
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 Man, this has been done like a million times already.
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Jun 21, 2016 00:40
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you know i was one of the kids unfortunate enough to not have a nintendo 64, so I've never played this! I haven't seen a real LP of it either, only speedruns and races, which are very entertaining. This'll be my first time seeing the game played "properly" though!nine-gear crow posted:
thanks for your constructive contribution. you know you dont have to watch it right?
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Jun 21, 2016 04:30
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nine-gear crow posted:
This is what happens when old man crow doesn't update Prince of Persia. We get Mario 64 LPs! This is (somehow) all your fault.
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Jun 21, 2016 05:01
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It's hard to even get across how amazing this game looked to me as a child when it first came out. Now a days jumping from one console generation to another is just a way to get slightly better graphics and more memory, but going from a SNES and a Genesis to this was an experience. I still have fond memories of getting this game for Christmas and spending the whole day with my dad, sister, and future brother-in-law passing around the controller and marveling at the graphics.
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Jun 21, 2016 07:37
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Part 2: Whomp's Fortress and Jolly Roger Bay We're still dealing mostly with tutorial stuff, but at least there's a vague threat of death. Whomp's Fortress is probably the most instantly recognizable level from the game, which is why it appears in Galaxy 2 over BOB.
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Jun 24, 2016 14:22
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Artix posted:
It's me, I'm the person that doesn't like Mario 64. It's an iconic game, and an important one, but it really doesn't hold up as well in the face of the massive improvements made on the formula since it came out.
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Jun 24, 2016 15:12
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So this is definitely not an LP where you want the commentary playing in the background while you do other stuff
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Jun 24, 2016 15:32
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I haven't played Mario 64 in a long time, so this is a nice stroll down memory lane. Even if what I remember isn't quite the same as what I'm seeing in the video. Guess it goes to show that you can't trust nostalgia and 20 year old memories.
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Jun 24, 2016 15:35
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Jolly Roger Bay is the course with exactly 104 coins. All the others are a bit more lenient about their 100-coin stars.
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Jun 24, 2016 16:04
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Dire Dire Docks has 106, so both water levels have an obscenely low amount of coins!  Also it's a day late, but happy 20th birthday, Mario 64!
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Jun 24, 2016 18:58
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Learning that simple wall jump for Whomp's Fortress star 3 makes what is an otherwise annoying star to get into a quick, painless and very reliable one if you're ever racing the game.
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Jun 24, 2016 19:16
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Too bad to see that Project 64 is still held together with bubblegum and hope, but you're taking those random texture rendering errors in stride. How are you encoding the videos? .avi, .mp4, codec H140.85?
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Jun 25, 2016 04:37
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iirc the way the eel works is you have to swim kinda above him, and then when you need to swim far away enough before he'll come out. It's weird but Shiggy adores weird exploration and mechanics. He likes people exploring his games to figure stuff out, even if it's little things like that.
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Jun 25, 2016 05:28
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Tyty posted:iirc the way the eel works is you have to swim kinda above him, and then when you need to swim far away enough before he'll come out. I think part of the eel's deal  is that you can't bee looking at the eel because n64 limitations
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Jun 25, 2016 05:55
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I'm a little curious about the moving pirate ships in the cave. Are there any stars that require you to board them, or are they just there for set decoration?
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Jun 25, 2016 14:58
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Blastinus posted:I'm a little curious about the moving pirate ships in the cave. Are there any stars that require you to board them, or are they just there for set decoration? There is! It's kind of a pain to get to, which is why I skipped it, but you have to climb up on one of the ships, ride it over to a part of a wall with a cannon, and then shoot to the top of the lighthouse. The cannon bits are always hit or miss when it comes to distance shots, and you don't keep momentum when you're on the ship so climbing to the top of them requires some really precise triple jumps. I just decided it wasn't worth the effort.
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Jun 25, 2016 15:57
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I don't remember Project64 doing any of this way back when I used it as a kid.  It's possible that I forgot, I was happy as long as the game ran vaguely smoothly back then. I appreciated that you deadpanned through it completely.This is still the only 3D Mario game I've played (and beaten), so I guess I never really thought about it critically because I have nothing to directly compare it with. Good to hear they got better at controls since.
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Jun 25, 2016 23:46
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Aithon posted:I don't remember Project64 doing any of this way back when I used it as a kid. Yeah, especially when they manually exited out of Jolly Roger Bay and it was suddenly called 'Gloomy Galleon' in the menu, which the internet tells me is a Donkey Kong level. I'm not sure what kind of bug could cause games to merge, but I strongly suspect it's cosmic rays. Is your house properly shielded, Artix?
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Jun 26, 2016 07:50
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Carbon dioxide posted:Yeah, especially when they manually exited out of Jolly Roger Bay and it was suddenly called 'Gloomy Galleon' in the menu, which the internet tells me is a Donkey Kong level. I'm not sure what kind of bug could cause games to merge, but I strongly suspect it's cosmic rays. Is your house properly shielded, Artix? I think he moved to the Bermuda Triangle for this LP, it would probably explain why nobody noticed anything while playing.
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Jun 26, 2016 20:30
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poorlywrittennovel posted:It's me, I'm the person that doesn't like Mario 64. It's an iconic game, and an important one, but it really doesn't hold up as well in the face of the massive improvements made on the formula since it came out. y'all sound real bad at it too lol
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Jun 28, 2016 08:12
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Part 3: Cool Cool Mountain and Bowser in the Dark World Today I'm joined by Ryushikaze as we clean up the rest of the first floor. Hope everyone likes ice physics!
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Jul 1, 2016 13:23
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Somehow I've never noticed that alternate route where the 6th red coin was. No wonder I could never get that star.
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Jul 1, 2016 13:56
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I learned that long jump for the 6th Bowser Red Coin back when there was the Let's Race SM64 thread. I had no idea it was so easy to reach because I never messed with the camera all that much for bowser levels.
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Jul 1, 2016 16:15
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The timing for wall jumps in Mario 64 is pretty precise and makes the red coins and the 100-coin star in Rainbow Cruise a real pain in the rear end to get. That's why future Mario games have him slide on the wall when he jumps on it, making wall jumps much easier. Edit: oh god I completely forgot how ugly Bowser is in get that OUT of my face fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 20:07
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Back when I first played this, I had a non-official player's guide, and it had several tricks in it like the long jump to red coin 6 in the first Bowser stage. It also recommended using a flower hat higher up in Cool Cool Mountain to float down to the Wall Kicks Will Work star. I haven't seen that guide in years, so I wonder what other speed running tricks it recommended.
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Jul 1, 2016 21:37
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I've played this game only once and a long, long time ago, but I still remember the wall jump tutorial for some reason. I guess I found it cool that there was a location so clearly meant to teach you an ability you technically knew all along. And good job on the Bowser fight. 
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Jul 2, 2016 04:16
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Masterfully done Artix, I usually always take at least one hit, usually because I am so impatient and just want to move on, but this shows I have a lot of things I can do to up my game as it were.
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Jul 5, 2016 18:58
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Part 4: Big Boo's Haunt and Lethal Lava Land I'm gonna be on vacation for the next week and a half or so, so I'm gonna put this up now. No update next week, but we should be back to the normal schedule after that.
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Jul 7, 2016 04:37
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"Violence in the media"  The rabbit was behind Mario when you caught it, so I was sure it got away into the wall or something for a moment. Also I approve of dealing with bullies by pushing back until they fall into lava, wish I'd thought of it way back.
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Jul 7, 2016 12:07
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Hey, Project 64 rendered Mario's shadow! Over water... You can see it while chasing MIPS.
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Jul 7, 2016 15:50
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It puzzles me that we gave a fully functional and superior WiiU-Wii-and-GameCube emulator while the N64 emulators we have are all poo poo.
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Jul 8, 2016 07:16
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