Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 is a 1996 platform game for the Nintendo 64 and the first in the Super Mario series to feature 3D gameplay. As Mario, the player explores Princess Peach’s castle and must rescue her from Bowser. Super Mario 64 features open-world playability, degrees of freedom through all three axes in space, and relatively large areas which are composed primarily of true 3D polygons as opposed to only two-dimensional (2D) sprites. It emphasizes exploration within vast worlds, which require the player to complete various missions in addition to the occasional linear obstacle courses (as in traditional platform games). It preserves many gameplay elements and characters of earlier Mario games as well as the visual style.

Producer/director and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto conceived a 3D Mario game during the production of Star Fox (1993). Super Mario 64’s development, handled by Nintendo EAD, lasted approximately three years; one was spent on designing, the next two on direct work. The visuals were created using the Nichimen N-World toolkit, with Miyamoto aiming to include more details than earlier games. The score was composed by Koji Kondo. A multiplayer mode featuring Mario’s brother Luigi was cut, and rumors spread of his inclusion as a hidden character. Along with Pilotwings 64, Super Mario 64 was one of the launch games for the Nintendo 64. Nintendo released it in Japan on June 23, 1996, and later in North America, Europe, and Australia.

Super Mario 64 is acclaimed as one of the greatest video games of all time, and was the first game to receive a perfect score from Edge magazine. Reviewers praised its ambition, visuals, gameplay, and music, although they criticized its unreliable camera system. It is the Nintendo 64’s bestseller, with more than eleven million copies sold by 2003. It left a lasting impression on the field of 3D game design, featuring a dynamic camera system and 360-degree analog control, and established a new archetype for the 3D genre, much as Super Mario Bros. did for 2D side-scrolling platformers. Numerous developers have cited Super Mario 64 as an influence. It was remade as Super Mario 64 DS for the Nintendo DS in 2004, and it has been ported to other Nintendo consoles.