I missed out on the Nintendo 64 as I was a PlayStation kid, so I never had the chance to experience Super Mario 64. I’ve played and loved all of the 3D Mario games from Galaxy onwards, so I wanted to see how it all began. It’s funny because Nintendo announced Super Mario 3D All-Stars on the Switch soon after I had started playing. Oh well.

Coming in from Galaxy, Galaxy 2, 3D Land, 3D World and Odyssey, I was in for a rude awakening: the camera and controls in SM64 were SHOCKING. I’m sure they were groundbreaking at the time, but boy, the first hour or so for me was an exercise in frustration. I had a difficult time making Mario do what I wanted him to do, and was also fighting the camera which never seemed to be at an optimal position. I thought about throwing in the towel and chalk this game up to being unplayable in 2020. Games from the early 3D, N64/PS1 era rarely age well, after all.

Something compelled me to keep going though, and the more I played, the more enjoyable SM64 became. I think it was the fact that most of the stars required effort and determination to obtain. The imprecise controls and wonky cameras were just part of the challenge. Once you’ve finally reached that elusive star, the feeling of joy and satisfaction is incomparable. Eventually even the camera became tolerable, but you really had to be patient and calculated with it. Pro tip: remember to toggle the camera options where necessary, don’t just stick to one!

Shining Atop the Pyramid gave me fits! I didn’t have the Wing Cap at the time so I climbed the pyramid instead. And I fell..so..many..times.

Speaking of the Wing Cap, the flying mechanics were kind of annoying, thankfully there weren’t too many levels that utilised this power-up.

Big Boo’s Balcony also gave me a hard time, I couldn’t complete that damn wall jump for the longest, yet I somehow did the long jump on the roof and got to the star on my first attempt shrug.

There were some fun and challenging platforming to be had in the last couple of levels, Tall Tall Mountain, Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride in particular comes to mind.

I finished the game with 90 something stars:

…but I wanted to keep going, so I made getting every single star my goal. Some of the 100 coin challenges weren’t easy, but I was very persistent, and soon enough:

I came to the conclusion that Super Mario 64 is a true classic, and is still very, very fun to play in 2020, as long as you stay with it, which you should!