| Super Mario 64 | Page 1/4 |
| Reviewer: Juho Mankila | |
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Nintendo's favourite hero, the stocky Italian plumber, jolly good old Mario is back in action, ready to hop onto platforms and enemies. Frankly I liked the previous Mario games a lot, but, even though this is more innovative and has better graphs as often, it didn't hit quite as hard as the earlier ones did. Maybe it's Zelda's fault that I didn't actually love this game, or then it's that I got Mario over two years after it was published, and as everyone knows, time is one of game's worst enemies.
When compared to Mario's predecessors, Mario 64 hasn't that much old stuff what we could've expected. Our Italian plumber is quite alone in this adventure as Luigi is missing. As well as Raccoon Mario, Star Mario, Frog Mario, Das Boot (with this green boot you could jump higher and longer in Mario 3), and Tanuki suits. Personally I think Mario 3 was the best Mario-game ever, though it was 2D, and Mario 64 is sort of bland when compared to that. Unfortunately Mario 64 doesn't offer that much variety in about any way. Yes, there are three different caps, but you get rarely the chance of really using them to your benefit. No more shooting enemies happily with fireballs, and the caps last certain amount of time, add to that, Mario can't become Super Mario when he eats a mushroom. I just wonder why they had to throw away every new innovative thing gathered in the previous games. The frightening energy bar (or whatever) is here, again, it leaves no doubt that Nintendo has taken step to the wrong direction in that department. Never does it reach the excitement-levels as in previous Marios, certainly there could have been bigger levels, more shortcuts, secret passages, powerups, and most importantly, energy bar should've been taken off, and instead used the Super- and Little Mario. Too much has been taken off, and maybe too little put in to fill the missing space up.
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| Mario's arch-enemy, Bowser has kidnapped Princess and it's your job to rescue her, once again. |
Basically, Marios' idea was always to make your way to the end of the level. Usually by moving from left to right pounding enemies, collecting coins (which played a more important role in the previous Marios) and avoiding all kinds of dangers. As Mario moved to full 3D-world, things have changed a bit. Usually the first mission objective (out of six) is to get to the top of a level. If that "top"sounds weird, I'll explain it. Instead of the left to right advancing, you now go bottom to top. You also get a nice overlook at the level when racing to the first star. That's definitely not the only thing that has changed. You now have to complete mission objectives to get stars, which you need to open up new areas. Stars are not always easily accessible, and require a lot of sharp jumping and patience. They don't have to be collected in the right order, and you might accidentally find a star that isn't the one you're looking for. One thing that bugs me is the one-sentence mission briefings. They rarely are enough clear to fully locate the stars, "mystery of the cliffside" isn't very describing.
| Juho Mankila | |