Hey, everyone! This time, I give you a serious dose of nostalgia, by reviewing the game that set the standard for all 3-D Mario games. Does the accessibility scores level up to this accolade? Or does Mario pretty much, stands a snowball's chance in hell to rescue Princess Peach?
Let's find out!
During the mid to late 90s, there was a big push from standard, sprite-based 2-D graphics, for example, the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive, here in the UK) to fully 3-D-based graphics. On the PC side of things, dedicated hardware solely built on rendering graphics already was in production, numerous manufacturers, for example, Nvidia (which is still currently producing GPUs today!), and 3DFX.
As you can probably tell, developers were actively trying to use as much power from those graphics cards as they can. Examples of these are Sega's racing titles, for example, Sega Rally, Sega Manx TT SuperbikeAnd horror-based rail shooter, House of the Dead.
As for the red team, (Nintendo)Star Fox (StarWing, or StarFox in the USA,) which used the 3-D graphics processor built into the cartridge itself.
In 1996, this aggressive push to 3 dBased, 64-bit hardware came to consoles as Nintendo's, released the world's first 64-bit console, the Nintendo 64 was released in Japan, and North America, March 1, 1997, in Europe and Australia.
The console itself had a plethora of stellar, industry-defining releases. FZeroX, the legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (later Majora's Mask), Star Fox 64 (Lylat Wars in Europe) and Super Smash Bros to name a few.) But, one of, if not in the game that really put this hardware on the map is this game.
Super Mario 64 was originally released on June 23, 1996 (again in Japan and North America, in terms of the European release, it happened on the exact same day as the console's regional launch date.
This game is ranked as the best selling game for the Nintendo 64 console, racking in a massive 11.89 million copies in the consoles life cycle, to put things into perspective, Super Mario 64 had slightly higher sales than Pokémon Stadium, and super smash Bros put together(5.55 the super smash Bros, and 5.45 Pokémon Stadium)
SOURCE: My Nintendo News
As par for the course, the game is set in the Mushroom Kingdom, our the protagonist, Mario received a letter from Princess Peach, inviting them to the castle, and successfully tempted him with a freshly baked cake obviously, just like a portal the cake was a lie. Princess Peach once again, gone abducted by Bowser.
It is up to you to navigate through the various areas inside the castle, collecting power stars, hidden in each level, defeat Bowser, and save Mario's sweetheart (again, for the sixth time!)
The accessibility scores are as follows –
Visibility 10
There are no colour-coded elements double cause any issues for a colourblind player. On the power gauge, the number of filled wedges indicates how much power you have left. If your power ahead zero, you lose a life and you will have to restart the level from the beginning. So, a colourblind player will experience no issues when playing this game.
Audibility 10
Due to the very limited storage capacity of a standard N64 cartridge, this game has no spoken dialogue. So, therefore every dialogue that any NPC (nonplayer character) says to you is all text-based. Back in those days, we had to use imagination to fill in the blanks.
Mobility 7
Let's start with the negatives. This game's camera controls is extremely gimmicky. You use the C buttons to rotate the camera zoom in, go into the first person, or zoom out. Due to the sheer size of the N64 controller, this is difficult to operate when playing with a mobility impairment. However, with recent hardware, for example, the controller that is compatible with the Nintendo switch, this criticism is non-existent. This is due to the "twin-stick" style of modern controllers.
Gameplay 10
This entry in the super Mario series paved the way for all 3-D Mario games, for example, super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy. The levels are both challenging and fun, each and every level has a grand total of six stars to find. When you enter a level, a clue to where the star's location is is shown, for example "can the eel, come out to play?"
With an average playtime of 18.5 hours (if you are intending to collect 150 stars in the game) this game has a more lifespan when taking N64 titles into account,.
In summary, super Mario 64 is a classic title that truly put the Nintendo 64 on the map, like Metal Gear Solid, it still has that timeless feel that can be played time and time again.
Although playing this classic on Switch seems unlikely at best, due to the digital version of 3-D All-Stars is no longer available in the Nintendo Eshop, and finding a physical copy seems to be like trying to find the Holy Grail!.
OVERALL SCORE 92.5%
See you guys in the next review!
SpartanCommander1990 out
Roll out, Spartan Legion!¬
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