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 It's-a me, Mario! |  Peach's Castle |  A Pleasant Meadow |
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 Thwomps |  Chain Chomp |  Bowser in the Dark World |
Princess Peach invites Mario to the castle for some cake, but when he gets there, he discovers all the Power Stars are missing, all the doors are locked, and the princess is nowhere to be found. Apparently, the Koopa Court portrait painter has been working overtime, because Toad tells Mario that Bowser hid all the stars within the paintings— and we're not just talking hidden wall-safes here. Jumping into the painting behind the only unlocked door in the whole palace, Mario begins his first fully 3D adventure.
I first discovered this game quite by accident. I went to Toys-Я-Us one fine day in late 1996 to play with the demonstration model of a Play-Doh foam carpentry set that I had seen there the weekend before, only to discover a queue that spilled out onto the fire lane. When we finally got inside, I saw that the carpenter set had been replaced by a nondescript kiosk with a large, multicoloured letter N and pictures of 3D renderings of Mario all over the place. Well, I was just starting up my generations-long Mario obsession back then, so I knew who it was, but I sort of expected Super Mario World to be at the other end of the queue. Instead, it was this.
Super Mario 64 was a technological marvel for its day, but unlike all the tech magazines at the time, where the game companies all tried to dazzle each other with lingo like "64-bit MIPS processor", "dynamic vertex shading", and "non-uniform rational basis spline", my interest in it was strictly for its entertainment value and the prestige I would get at school for understanding references to it in lunchroom conversation. It had an immediate effect on my pencil sketches, my musical tastes, and what I would default to on the playground, and really propelled me into the perpetual Mario brand-loyalty I still have. I easily interwove it into my imaginary adventures alongside the Super Show, All-Stars, World, and Adventure Books. It was the biggest thing to happen to me since playing SMAS+W for the first time [checks notes] the previous year. Well, what do you want? Kids don't look back, they look forward. A year is a positively interminable span of time for a kid who barely even knows what time it is right now.
Suffice to say, I forgot all about the Play-Doh thing. It got shunted into some forgotten corner of the store and wasted away to nothing.
1000/10, would absolutely recommend for everyone, regardless of age, gender identity, or skill level. The controls aren't hard to master, and the difficulty level is a steady upward curve throughout the game. By the time you get to Bowser in the Sky, you're prepared for it. Of course, I can't really give an objective viewpoint on this game, given everything I've just said (and the 5 or 6 volumes of stuff that won't fit here). But, there's a reason why it's item #1 on the N64 15 list.
