Supah Mario 64

04-22-13 06:14 PM

TheFadedWarrior is Offline

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TheFadedWarrior

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Yo, this is TheFadedWarrior with his 3rd review, which is on Super Mario 64. You better enjoy reading this, because if you don't, I'll have to eat you... And you don't want to be eaten. A little off topic: Once upon a time, a dude named The Faded Warrior was strolling down the Vizzed board in the Review section. He read a review and didn't enjoy reading it. He got eaten.

Graphics
The graphics of this game, in my opinion, are inferior to most games. Mario and pretty much every other sprite look all blobby. It's like you can see all the layers of fat on Mario. The only actually good looking sprites are Peach and Bowser, and those are some of the sprites you see the least (peach at the beginning and end, Bowser in the 3 boss levels). I give the graphics a 4.
Sound
You can't go wrong with video game music, and this game has some pretty good tunes. Everyone's probably heard all of the songs at least 10 times, though. Yeah, I know, this game has great music, but why do people have to use the songs in every Mario-related thing? You watch a funny Mario video on YouTube - Bob-omb Battlefield theme. You play a Super Mario World ROMhack - Bob-omb Battlefield theme. There are a few songs in this game that aren't played too much, but that damned first level's theme is waaaay to overused. I mean, I like the song, but why does it have to be used so much?

I give the sound an 8.
Gameplay
This game is pretty good for a platformer. It's 3-Dimensional, it's fun, and it's pretty long (we'll talk about that later in the review when I explain the depth of the game). You only get to play as Mario, which kind of sucks, but it's still fun. The gameplay is really good, but the levels are poorly designed, seeing as there are at least 100 unintentional shortcuts. Even though this isn't a real rating here on Vizzed, I'm going to give the gameplay a 9.
Addictiveness
Seeing as the gameplay of this game is really fun, players are bound to play Super Mario 64 many times, even after they have gotten all 120 stars. It's like whenever you decide you're going to not play video games for a day, the game cartridge/ROM calls your name. I give the addictiveness another 9.
Story
Princess "Peach" Toadstool invites an Italian plumber named Mario over for cake, then gets captured by some ugly prehistoric dinosaur/turtle thing named Bowser. Mario sets out to save her with the strength of "power stars." Big whoop. Totally normal for a Mario game. They've even used the cake part many times. I give the story a 5.
Depth
This game is actually pretty long. The main story itself may not be as long as someone would hope, but you're only a little past halfway done collecting power stars after you've beaten the game. There's 120 power stars to collect, while only 70 are needed to complete the game. I have spent multiple hours on this game on my Nintendo 64, and I only have 116 stars or whatever. There are 15 courses, each with 6 stars in them, and there are also these really annoying stars achieved after you collect 100 coins in each course, and the 15 secret castle stars. I give the depth an 8.
Difficulty
This game has a bit of both easy and difficult. There's some really easy stars, such as The Princess's Secret Slide and that one where you have to take the star from a shark's tail or something, but then there's impossible ones, such as every single star from the course "Rainbow Ride." There's also an almost impossible secret star where you have to collect 8 red coins in the clouds as Wing Mario. It took me about 15 deaths to get that, and for lots of people it took at least 30. I give the difficulty a 7.
Glitches and their Frequency
This game is famous for its glitches. In fact, multiple people have beaten the game with 0 stars in under 6 minutes due to all of the glitches in this game. The main glitch, used by Mario's backwards long jump (BLJ), allows Mario to fly around the course. My theory is that when you BLJ on certain shaped objects (mainly stairs), Mario's speed value gets screwed up for a second, then slips Mario away from the object, flying past the max speed value. There are MANY locations where this is possible. There are also countless other glitches, such as crawling up the wall in certain places. I give the glitches an 8 and their frequency a 9.
Overall
This game is pretty much awesome. The graphics and story suck, but the sound and gameplay/addictiveness are great, as well as the game being long and providing challenges while still staying a moderate difficulty. This game is awesome, and if you haven't every played this game, you definitely should. Some people who haven't ever played this game before may think that it's totally overrated - NOT TRUE. This game is, hands-down, in a tie for best Mario platformer of all time with Super Mario Galaxy 2. I love this game! Overall, this game deserves a big fat 9/10 (A Grade).

~TheFadedWarrior~

Yo, this is TheFadedWarrior with his 3rd review, which is on Super Mario 64. You better enjoy reading this, because if you don't, I'll have to eat you... And you don't want to be eaten. A little off topic: Once upon a time, a dude named The Faded Warrior was strolling down the Vizzed board in the Review section. He read a review and didn't enjoy reading it. He got eaten.

Graphics
The graphics of this game, in my opinion, are inferior to most games. Mario and pretty much every other sprite look all blobby. It's like you can see all the layers of fat on Mario. The only actually good looking sprites are Peach and Bowser, and those are some of the sprites you see the least (peach at the beginning and end, Bowser in the 3 boss levels). I give the graphics a 4.
Sound
You can't go wrong with video game music, and this game has some pretty good tunes. Everyone's probably heard all of the songs at least 10 times, though. Yeah, I know, this game has great music, but why do people have to use the songs in every Mario-related thing? You watch a funny Mario video on YouTube - Bob-omb Battlefield theme. You play a Super Mario World ROMhack - Bob-omb Battlefield theme. There are a few songs in this game that aren't played too much, but that damned first level's theme is waaaay to overused. I mean, I like the song, but why does it have to be used so much?

I give the sound an 8.
Gameplay
This game is pretty good for a platformer. It's 3-Dimensional, it's fun, and it's pretty long (we'll talk about that later in the review when I explain the depth of the game). You only get to play as Mario, which kind of sucks, but it's still fun. The gameplay is really good, but the levels are poorly designed, seeing as there are at least 100 unintentional shortcuts. Even though this isn't a real rating here on Vizzed, I'm going to give the gameplay a 9.
Addictiveness
Seeing as the gameplay of this game is really fun, players are bound to play Super Mario 64 many times, even after they have gotten all 120 stars. It's like whenever you decide you're going to not play video games for a day, the game cartridge/ROM calls your name. I give the addictiveness another 9.
Story
Princess "Peach" Toadstool invites an Italian plumber named Mario over for cake, then gets captured by some ugly prehistoric dinosaur/turtle thing named Bowser. Mario sets out to save her with the strength of "power stars." Big whoop. Totally normal for a Mario game. They've even used the cake part many times. I give the story a 5.
Depth
This game is actually pretty long. The main story itself may not be as long as someone would hope, but you're only a little past halfway done collecting power stars after you've beaten the game. There's 120 power stars to collect, while only 70 are needed to complete the game. I have spent multiple hours on this game on my Nintendo 64, and I only have 116 stars or whatever. There are 15 courses, each with 6 stars in them, and there are also these really annoying stars achieved after you collect 100 coins in each course, and the 15 secret castle stars. I give the depth an 8.
Difficulty
This game has a bit of both easy and difficult. There's some really easy stars, such as The Princess's Secret Slide and that one where you have to take the star from a shark's tail or something, but then there's impossible ones, such as every single star from the course "Rainbow Ride." There's also an almost impossible secret star where you have to collect 8 red coins in the clouds as Wing Mario. It took me about 15 deaths to get that, and for lots of people it took at least 30. I give the difficulty a 7.
Glitches and their Frequency
This game is famous for its glitches. In fact, multiple people have beaten the game with 0 stars in under 6 minutes due to all of the glitches in this game. The main glitch, used by Mario's backwards long jump (BLJ), allows Mario to fly around the course. My theory is that when you BLJ on certain shaped objects (mainly stairs), Mario's speed value gets screwed up for a second, then slips Mario away from the object, flying past the max speed value. There are MANY locations where this is possible. There are also countless other glitches, such as crawling up the wall in certain places. I give the glitches an 8 and their frequency a 9.
Overall
This game is pretty much awesome. The graphics and story suck, but the sound and gameplay/addictiveness are great, as well as the game being long and providing challenges while still staying a moderate difficulty. This game is awesome, and if you haven't every played this game, you definitely should. Some people who haven't ever played this game before may think that it's totally overrated - NOT TRUE. This game is, hands-down, in a tie for best Mario platformer of all time with Super Mario Galaxy 2. I love this game! Overall, this game deserves a big fat 9/10 (A Grade).

~TheFadedWarrior~

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04-22-13 06:45 PM

pray75 is Offline

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pray75

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TheFadedWarrior : Pretty good review! There was sufficient detail to give us a feel of the game and entices us to play. Of course, I've read the game, and I think you're pretty accurate on a lot of points, but let me give you a few suggestions that I think would help you:

My first suggestion is simply to space it out some. Give us a space between the heading and the paragraph. That would clean it up a lot. I think your layout works pretty well, considering it's wide and big, so I don't think you need to change it.

My second one is that you should consider the game was made in 1996. That means that the game's not going to be up to the standards of today. When the game came out, the graphics were top of the line, and it was an amazing looking game at the time. I think you should really consider that when it comes to doing reviews and giving scores. Technology improved over time, but at the time, that was what they had to work with.

My third is also in respect to the time that the game was made. In your review, you said that they had done the cake thing before. I can't tell you if any Mario prior to that game had done it, but I'm pretty sure that the commercial success and the wild popularity of this game made it to where most of the Mario Universe finds itself piggybacking on that game. So if you've played a game with a cake in it, it's likely that the concept originated or at least was highly considered because of the success of Super Mario 64.

That being said, you're allowed to believe what you believe, but I think you should put things more into context so you can make a more fair review. Other than that, your review was excellent. Keep up the good work!

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04-22-13 06:53 PM

TheFadedWarrior is Offline

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TheFadedWarrior

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pray75 :
@The first problem: I did space the heading and the paragraph... I guess I'll just go and space it out more then.
@The second problem: Yes, but compared to EVERY other N64 games I have played (I've played a lot), SM64's graphics suck... really bad.
@The third problem: Yeah, I sort of made a mistake there... The story still gets a 5 for being a regular Mario story.

Thank you for your criticism. You ~~offended~~ made me learn about my review, so I'll try to write my next one better.

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04-22-13 07:03 PM

pray75 is Offline

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pray75

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TheFadedWarrior : I hope you ~~weren't offended~~ learned about your review (lol, thanks for that... been a long day)! I like to help out as best I can, you know?

In reality, I really hope you weren't offended. I just offer criticism to help out, and I try to make sure that many areas are explored so that your review is the best it can possibly be. You're right when you say there are better graphics for the N64. But I'm also going to say that because it was a launch title, there was less to work with there. It's all a matter of perspective, though. I'm glad you kept some contextual realm for the review, because it tells me that you don't just base things on the games of today. Definitely a good thing, friend!