General Mario Thread

Beat the original Mario 64 100%. Every star. Bowser bombed by his own bombs. He really should stop sabotaging himself. Anyway, while it's an excellent game, and most of my complaints come from N64 jankiness, it's definitely my least favorite of the 3D Marios that I've played (everything but Sunshine). The level design isn't bad, but going over the same place over and over again quickly wears out its welcome. I'm glad that Mario moved away from that type of design, though I wouldn't be opposed to it being revisited someday with more modern controls and camera.

You know...people say the camera is bad in that game, but it only becomes bad if you're using the right camera settings in the specific areas.

Like, you have to switch it up when necessary between Manual and Automatic. Better camera angles would be nice to work with, I guess.

edited 28th Jul '15 8:20:57 PM by randomness4

I never really got bumps from him after I found out he'd disappear after a while. I only really got bumps if I need them for a recipe.

It isn't a terrible camera, but Lakitu is still clearly getting used to his new job.

He needs to work on his going through walls ability, or getting the type of camera that can somehow view silhouettes behind objects.

By Partners in time, he clearly gets better.

edited 28th Jul '15 9:19:13 PM by randomness4

I don't remember having camera issues in Super Mario 64 at all.

Then again, I haven't played it since I was a kid and I never played the DS version, so my memory's a little fuzzy.

I've beaten 64 DS before. It's probably my most played non-Pokemon DS game. Camera is better there, but I do get why people don't like the controls. Never bothered me. Of course I also easy moded just about everything with Luigi. He is incredibly broken there.

I never had any camera issues either, but bad camera isn't something that tends to bother me much in games. I often only notice when it's pointed out to me.

It's because controlling 3D movement with a D-pad is a hard thing to do for some reason.

Mario 64 always gets points from me because it was more open-world than not, compared to Sunshine where there were few shines you were allowed to get "off-script," whereas in Mario 64, for instance, you could go all the way to Bowser in the Sky and skip King Bob-omb to do it, since you could collect the 6th star from the Chain Chomp instead.

In fact, the stars which required you to choose that star from the menu to be able to do them (like "Snowman's Lost His Head") always annoyed me.

Speaking of annoying, i did the balloon-popping challenge in Mario Sunshine last night. Thank god they let you quit instead of force-killing you. There's no disadvantage to quitting since dying throws you completely out of the world too. That whole thing would have been fixed with a targeting reticule to tell you where you were aiming.

I wish more 3D Mario games had a more open world to them. Sunshine had big levels but with scripted stars and the Galaxy games had very linear levels. The openness of Mario 64 is still one of my favorite things about that game.

Not every star could be loaded, so it makes sense.

I wouldn't mind them going for a more open style like in Super Mario 64, but in that case they should remove the mission selection thing rather than pretend there's a set order to them.

I wouldn't mind if you could get the stars in any order, except that doing so always forces you to leave the level. In the Galaxy games, it's more justified since the levels often change drastically from star to star, but if the levels are always the same each time you go back for a star, it'd be less tedious if you could just grab all the stars in one playthrough.

Y'know, like in the Spyro PS 1 games.

That'd be a fantastic idea. Those games were great.

Actually, I'm such a Spyro fanboy that Super Mario 64 is way too boring for me to replay. The Spyro trilogy pretty much improved on it in every conceivable way, and those are what I grew up with. Mario 64's levels just feel so... big and empty to me.

For some reason, the third one feels a little bland compared to the second one, though.

Or rather, the levels are much larger and thus it's a bit more tiring to complete them.

edited 30th Jul '15 7:09:13 AM by Zelenal

I've never been much for wandering around big areas with only limited information on what I'm trying to do, to be honest.

In fact, I'll go ahead and say it- I think Super Mario 64, while a fantastic game in absolute terms, is probably the worst of the 3D Mario games.

I think the third one's the best because it brings in other playable characters. It's got a much better variety of things to do. And, yeah, the levels are bigger, but I've memorized every inch of that game by now. I could 100% it with my eyes shut. (Also, there's an unlockable ability that lets Sparx point at gems, so you should never have the "Where's that last friggin' red gem?" problem like in the first game.)

Oddly enough, Spyro's gonna be appearing alongside Bowser and Donkey Kong in the next Skylanders game. Can't say I was ever expecting an offical Spyro/Nintendo crossover considering, y'know, he started life as a Playstation-only character...

Galaxy has never really been my favorite of the 3D Marios and infact it's my least favorite. Something about it never really connected with me. I don't think it's bad, but it just doesn't really stick out as much to me. Maybe it's the linearity of it.

I can't really speak for Galaxy 2 since it's been so long since I played and somehow I managed to lose the game. However I do remember enjoying more than Galaxy 1.

Oh, so that ability is in the third game? It was available from the start in the second.

Anyway, by the time I get it, I probably won't need it since I make sure to 100% every stage as soon as I visit it provided I don't need a friend from the next world.

Also, the music in the third game is a bit weaker. Still has some great tracks but is also has quite a few not-so-great ones (like the one that plays every time you're controlling Sheila).

Spyro actually doesn't have that problem since there's a very obvious path to follow through each stage.

edited 30th Jul '15 7:30:49 AM by Zelenal

Maybe it's cause I've played Yot D so much but I really love that game's soundtrack more than 2's. Not to say I dislike 2's, just 3's sticks out more in my head.

So I got the quick change badge in Paper Mario.

Thank goodness, though I had to make a lot of room to put it on. I'll definitely need to get more badge points again after I fill up my flower points soon.

About to enter Shy Guy's toy box. Can't remember who the boss of this place is, but I should be able to handle him.

Quick Change is such an obligatory badge that I sometimes forget it's a badge and not a standard game mechanic.