5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
This game will never get old.
Date of Review: Jun 1, 2000
Sony conquers the RPG's. Sega dominates the arcade ports. But when it comes to platformers, no one can top Nintendo. Super Mario 64 is hands-down and without a doubt the BEST 3D platform game ever. It is really hard to describe using the human vocabulary how great this game is.
The main character of course is the infamous Nintendo mascot, Mario. The storyline is almost nonexistent, but it's not really needed. The point is, you need to save the princess and collect stars, which, if you have enough, then open doors. You collect stars by completing small "missions," we'll call them. There are about seven different missions per level, and your only clue as to what the mission is is the title (Diving for Eight Red Coins, The Great Penguin Race, Atop the Shining Tower, etc.)There are around 120 stars I believe and a pile of levels to explore. All of the levels are accessed through paintings on the walls of Princess' enormous castle. As if this weren't enough, Mario's developed many a skill since his last games. He can now crawl, climb, punch, kick, wall jump, long jump, back flip, slide, side jump, and triple jump in addition to all of his original moves. All in glorious, free-roaming 3D. Plenty of secret levels and stars combined with tons of moves combined with the mind-numbingly large amount of places to go and things to do will keep you busy for a long time.
Which, in this case, is a good thing. The graphics are clear and crisp and... well, just great. I'd like to note personally that they made especially good use of perspective in the underwater scenes (I almost had an accident when I saw the giant eel for the first time.) And to top it all off, the sound is pretty darn good too, and suits the game very well.
So, tough critics: if, after reading this, you can't agree with a thing I've said, if nothing else, you have to admit that this game is just plain solid fun.
