Super Mario 64 (commonly abbreviated as SM64) is a 3D action/adventure platform game released on the Nintendo 64 in 1996. The game was one of two launch games for the Nintendo 64, along with PilotWings 64. As of Jan. 7, 2017, the game has sold over 11,000,000 copies worldwide, and is the best N64-selling game worldwide. 1
Plot
Princess Peach bakes a cake for Mario, but she is then trapped by Bowser. Mario must collect Power Stars throughout the castle, progress through 15 worlds,
and beat King Bowser.
Worlds
There are a total of 15 worlds and 3 boss levels in the game.
Secret Levels
This is a list of secret levels found within the game:
| The Princess's Secret Slide | The Secret Aquarium |
| Tower of the Wing Cap | Vanish Cap Under the Moat |
| Cavern of the Metal Cap | Wing Mario Over the Rainbow |
| Toad's Secured Stars | MIPS |
Reception
| IGN: 9.8/10 |
| GameSpot: 9.4/10 |
| Game Informer: 9.75/10 |
| Metacritic: 94/100 |
| GameRankings: 96% |
| Edge: 10/10 |
| EGM: 9.5/10 |
Super Mario 64 was given critical acclaim. Today it stands as the most sold N64 game, at over 11 Million copies sold. A large majority of the praise was given to the games presentation and variety, while most criticism was targeted at the camera system. Many media organizations with "Greatest Games of All Time" lists placed Super Mario 64 on them, with some such as Nintendo Power, GameFAQs, IGN, Game Informer, and amongst others.
Characters
Glitches
There are a large amount of glitches and exploits that can be done within the game. To view a list of glitches, visit The List of Glitches.
Super Mario 3D All-Stars
On September 3, 2020, Nintendo created a special, 16-minute Nintendo Direct video to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the mainline Super Mario series. One of the announcements that caught people off-guard was Super Mario 3D All-Stars, a compilation of Mario's most well-known 3D adventures, such as Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, and of course, Super Mario 64. The compilation was released on September 18.
Prototype
An early prototype image showing Mario's actor performing, while a screen shows the prototype Mario head moving accordingly in the background, as seen on real SNES hardware.
This section covers the prototype versions of Super Mario 64 and it's never to be released prototype for the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or Super Famicom in Japan)
Super Mario 64 was originally intended to appear on the SNES, as Shigeru Miyamoto saw the capabilities of the Super FX Chip. So, they codenamed the chip Super Mario FX; however, Nintendo never released an actual alpha build of Super Mario 64 for the SNES.
Yoshi was once intended to play a larger role ingame, but the developers didn't like how the feature turned out, so they removed most traces of Yoshi. In order for Yoshi not going to waste, they placed him atop the castle.
Luigi was removed in February 1996 from the game due to camera and memory issues. The developers wanted to keep him regardless and tried to create a Mario Bros.-like minigame instead, but the fact that the N64 was sold with only one controller forced them to completely remove Luigi.
Trivia
- Although on a 64-bit console, Super Mario 64 is actually a 32-bit game.
- Super Mario 64 is actually the third 3D Mario game, beaten by the Virtual Boy's Mario's Tennis and Mario Clash. However, the Virtual Boy Games were not actually true 3D, rather 2D games enhanced by parallax depth.
- This is the first game where Peach was known as Peach. (She was originally called Princess Toadstool)
- The game has a theory called "L is Real 2401", where, allegedly, Luigi is in the game. Many strategies, such as collecting every single coin in the game, are thought to unlock him. This has been proven false. However, Luigi is an unlockable character in the DS version.
- The game was going to spawn a sequel called Super Mario 64 2 on the Nintendo 64DD. Since the console sold poorly, and was only available in Japan, the sequel never was made. In 2004, a remake entitled Super Mario 64 DS came out and featured more Power Stars, more playable characters, better graphics, and a minigame and multiplayer mode.