Review
Release Date: 11.21.2004
Platform:
Nintendo DSDeveloper:
Nintendo Co., Ltd.Publisher:
Nintendo of America, Inc.Reviewed by
Ash Paulsen on 12.5.2004
| Review Rating: 9/10 | User Rating: 8.24/10 |
It's amazing how time flies, isn't it? I can hardly believe it myself, but it has already been eight years since the original release of
Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64's launch. I remember it like it was yesterday, yet it's been eight whole years. And now, here we are in 2004, with Nintendo having resurrected this classic for the release of their newest system, the Nintendo DS. So how does the game hold up today? Is it still as good today as it was back in 1996? The short answer is "yes."
But how can an eight-year old game, no matter how incredible (and few will tell you that
Super Mario 64 wasn't), still be so fun? Simple: you don't expect the same out of this update that you did out of the original. The single most important thing to remember about this game is this:
Super Mario 64 was revolutionary, and
Super Mario 64 DS is evolutionary.
Few would argue the point that
Super Mario 64 did not revolutionize video games back when it was originally released; it was the one game that, more than any other game before or after it, single-handedly brought our industry into the third dimension with beautiful form. Nowadays, however, it's two-dimensional gaming that is (tragically) nearly unheard of in this industry anymore, and 3D games are everywhere so, really, the only unique feature this game has going for it today (sans the use of the touch screen, but we'll get to that later) is that it's the industry's first truly impressive and "real" 3D handheld game. So it's a damn good thing the core game here is just so good that the fact that it's "merely" an enhanced port of a classic game doesn't bring it down.
Admittedly, if Nintendo had simply ported the game from the Nintendo 64 and added nothing new, it would have a much tougher time standing on its own two feet today. But Nintendo has brilliantly changed and reworked a lot more of the game than you'd think at first, right down to the way its simple-but-charming "save-Peach-from-Bowser" story is told. In fact, in a rather surprising change, Mario isn't even the central hero anymore; right from the beginning, you play as Yoshi and it's his job to rescue Mario, Luigi, and Wario, who have all been captured by Bowser's forces after having been invited to Peach's castle for cake. And even though you can play as all four characters once you've rescued them all later in the game, there isn't really any reason to; the game has strangely been built around Yoshi, who has the unique ability to put on any character's cap before a stage begins and assume that character's form and abilities as long as it's on (it'll come off if you take damage, but you have time to pick it back up again). Whether it's Mario's well rounded-ness (he's exactly like he was in the original), Luigi's high, floaty jumps and fast swimming, Wario's giant brick-breaking brute strength, or the green dino's ability to turn enemies into eggs and breathe fire, Yoshi can do it all. The other characters have the ability to take on the others' forms as well, but Yoshi's the only one who can do it before each stage begins and this makes the game surprisingly Yoshi-centric (except for getting a few Power Stars in the castle hub itself, and also for the Bowser levels, which you're forced to play through as Mario).
Speaking of Power Stars, there are more of those little suckers this time around. In the original, there were 120 to collect for the truly hardcore; this time around, there are 150. That's right: Nintendo has added 30 entirely new Stars to the game, divided up between eight Stars per course (meaning one entirely new "goal" for each course) and 30 Castle Secret Stars (as opposed to 15 in the original game). Unfortunately, while quite a few of the new Castle Secret Stars are brilliantly hidden, the new "in-course Stars" tend to be throwaway tasks such as stepping on a "Star Switch" (which causes the Star to appear in another part of the course) or collecting five Silver Stars to make a Power Star appear. These "new" goals are less fun and feel like they were tacked on simply to add artificially new longevity to the game. However, it must be said that, in particular, those who have experience with the original game will delight in where some of the new Castle Secret Stars are hidden…
In the original, there were a couple of isolated instances where Mario had to catch a rather fast-moving rabbit in order to get an item and move on. In this DS update, Nintendo has taken this idea and run with it, adding a whole gaggle of rabbits for each character to catch throughout the game. Each character's rabbits are hidden in different parts of the castle and can only be caught by their respective characters, but the effort is more than worth it for each rabbit that's caught, one of the character's Rec Room minigames is unlocked, and there is a total of seven additional games to collect per character. That's a lot of rabbits to catch.
But the minigames are more than worth it, and provide nearly as complete a diversion as the main game proper. All the minigames are touch-screen based and do a wonderful job of showcasing just how unique a piece of hardware the Nintendo DS is with its touch screen. There are 36 (!) minigames in all, divided into four sets of nine games per character (although the only character that seems to have any particular "theme" is Luigi with his gambling games, oddly enough). Whether you're dragging different-colored Bob-ombs to their respective piles, drawing trampolines underneath Mario to save him from freefalling off-screen, plucking petals from a flower, or any number of other things, almost every game serves to show just how versatile and flat-out cool the touch screen is, and one can only wonder what this means for the future of Nintendo DS games.
Finally we have the game's newly-incorporated multiplayer mode, which is actually quite fun if you can get three or more people together (it gets stale pretty quickly for two players). The game itself, which is basically an all-out dash to get the most randomly-generated Power Stars in a course, is simple but effective and can be ridiculously fun when the competition gets heated. The best part is that only one person actually has to have a copy of the game; all the other users can download the needed data into their DS system and the game's performance is no worse for it. The wireless multiplayer in this title, in other words, works flawlessly and makes future multiplayer gaming prospects for the system seem tantalizing indeed.
So I think that about covers it for the new stuff; everything else is just a matter of presentation in the conversion from Nintendo 64 to Nintendo DS. Let me first say that screenshots do not do this game justice; the game looks a whole lot better than screenshots would have you believe, and in fact this update looks noticeably better than the N64 version. This is doubly impressive when you consider the fact that you're playing a handheld, but either way, this version just looks better in all regards than the original, especially in the area of character models. The fact that there are more than a few better textures here is good enough, but the most immediately noticeable improvement here is in the character models; Mario and his friends are made up of a whole lot more polygons than they ever were on the N64, and I have to say that big, bad Bowser himself looks especially great when compared to his ugly, super-blocky N64 version. Nintendo wasn't lying when they said their new handheld was more powerful than the N64: this game proves it, and I imagine future games looking even better once developers figure out how to make optimal use of the hardware.
The game's fantastic soundtrack has made the system jump incredibly well and showcases the Nintendo DS' stereo sound capabilities superbly. Everything sounds just as you remember it (even though a couple sound effects have been switched around), and headphones are hardly needed to enjoy this game to its aural extent; the game sounds remarkably clear, rich, and full when heard from the Nintendo DS' own speakers. There aren't really any new tunes to speak of here (save for one lifted right out of
Super Mario Sunshine for one of the game's new mini-areas), but it hardly matters because
Super Mario 64's soundtrack still stands as one of Koji Kondo's best and is, in my opinion, classic. (That "Road to Bowser" theme will never, ever get old. It's just so good.) The game's sound effects also make wonderful use of the system's stereo sound, and each playable character has a suitably large amount of voice samples (gotta love Luigi!), giving a lot of personality to your chosen character, whoever it is.
Which leaves me to expunge on the game's only real weakness here, which is as you've undoubtedly already heard its controls. Simply put, the Nintendo DS' controls were not designed for 3D games even though its hardware engine was; the lack of an analog stick makes controlling your character a harrowing and difficult task, until you get used to it at least. Because there's no pressure sensitivity with a digital control pad (as opposed to an analog stick), those who choose to play with the standard controls must hold a button down to run (as opposed to walk). This is a jarring change to be sure, but thankfully Nintendo mapped all of the button functions admirably, and with a little practice, you'll be running and jumping with relative ease… although you'll never really stop missing that analog stick you used to take for granted. For those who want to try to emulate the N64 control experience, Nintendo has included a Touch Mode control scheme that allows one to guide the stylus or the thumb pad along the touch screen to move the character, but I found this to be awkward even after having some time with it mainly because, obviously, the touch screen lacks the force feedback that an analog stick provides, which leads to a lot of awkwardly outstretched thumbs and styluses gliding off of the touch screen. In short, I personally can't see anyone using this control scheme seriously (in other words, using it to get some of the game's harder Stars), and to be completely honest, after spending a couple of hours with the standard control scheme and learning how to play while holding a run button down, it became second-nature and I can say that I've already secured some of the game's much tougher Stars at the time of this writing. Simply put, the control issues, while definitely existent and unfortunate, are nowhere near as dire as you might have been led to believe.
In closing,
Super Mario 64 DS is definitely the quintessential "killer app" of the Nintendo DS launch, and I recommend it to all DS owners. It's really a shame that a well-updated port of an eight-year-old classic is the DS' killer app at launch, but that's a fault that lies with Nintendo and not the game. Port or not, this is a killer gaming experience any way you look at it, and I recommend it to those who have played (and even mastered) the original just as much as I do the newbies out there (and for you guys, I'm jealous; you're experiencing, for the first time, one of the greatest games of all time made even better). For those who know the original inside and out, it's my opinion that there's more than enough new stuff here to make this worth playing through again, and there's also stuff here that only those who remember the original will really appreciate. Again, it's a shame that there's not an original Nintendo (or even Mario) game to accompany this and the Nintendo DS for launch, but again, that's a fault of Nintendo's and this game is made no worse for it. Some control issues aside, one of the best games of all time has been made bigger and better. It's the evolution of a revolution.
