is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan and North America in 1996 and PAL regions in 1997. It is the first Super Mario game to feature 3D gameplay, combining traditional Super Mario gameplay, visual style, and characters in a large open world. In the game, Bowser, the primary antagonist of the Super Mario franchise, invades Princess Peach's castle and hides the castle's sources of protection, the Power Stars, in many different worlds inside magical paintings. As Mario, the player collects Power Stars to unlock enough of Princess Peach's castle to get to Bowser and rescue Princess Peach.
Director Shigeru Miyamoto conceived a 3D Super Mario game during the production of Star Fox (1993). Development lasted nearly three years: about one year on design and twenty months on production, starting with designing the virtual camera system. The team continued with illustrating the 3D character models—at the time a relatively unattempted task—and refining sprite movements. The sound effects were recorded by Yoji Inagaki and the score was composed by Koji Kondo.
Super Mario 64 was highly anticipated by video game journalists and audiences, boosted by advertising campaigns and showings at the 1996E3 trade show. It received critical acclaim, with reviewers praising its ambition, visuals, level design, and gameplay, though some criticized its virtual camera system. It is the best-selling Nintendo 64 game, with nearly twelvemillion copies sold by 2015.
Retrospectively, Super Mario 64 has been considered one of the greatest video games of all time. Numerous developers have cited it as an influence on 3D platform games, with its dynamic camera system and 360-degree analog control establishing a new archetype for the genre, much as Super Mario Bros. did for side-scrolling platform games. It was remade as Super Mario 64 DS for the Nintendo DS in 2004, and has been ported to other Nintendo consoles since. The game has attracted a cult following, spawning many fangames and mods, a large speedrunning presence, and enduring rumors surrounding game features.
Gameplay
Controls
Super Mario 64 is a 3D platformer in which the player controls Mario through various courses. Mario's abilities are far more diverse than in previous games. He can walk, run, jump, crouch, crawl, climb, swim, kick, grab objects, and punch using the game controller's analog stick and buttons. He can execute special jumps by combining a regular jump with other actions, including the double and triple jumps, long jump, backflip, and wall jump. The player can adjust the camera—operated by a Lakitu broadcasting Mario—and toggle between first-person and third-person view.
Health, lives, and power-ups
Unlike many of its predecessors, Super Mario 64 uses a health point system, represented by a pie shape consisting of eight segments. If Mario has taken damage, he can replenish his health either by collecting three types of coins—yellow, which replenishes one segment; red, equal to two yellow coins; and blue, equal to five yellow coins—or by walking through a spinning heart. Underwater, Mario's health instead represents how long he can hold his breath, slowly diminishing while underwater and replenishing when he surfaces. As in previous Super Mario games, he starts with a number of extra lives, lost when his health is depleted or he falls into a bottomless pit. The game ends if Mario loses all his lives. When Mario finishes a course, he gains a life for every fifty yellow coins the player collected, and extra life mushrooms are hidden in various places such as trees and may chase Mario through the air or fall to the ground and disappear shortly if not collected.
In absence of the power-ups normally found in previous games, such as the Super Mushroom and Fire Flower, three colors of translucent blocks—red, green, and blue—appear throughout many stages. Three switches of the same colors can be found in secret areas that turn their corresponding blocks solid and allow Mario to obtain three types of special cap power-ups. The Wing Cap allows Mario to fly after doing a triple jump or being shot from a cannon; the Metal Cap makes him immune to enemies, fire, noxious gases, allows him to withstand wind and water currents, perform on-land moves underwater, and have unlimited air capacity underwater; and the Vanish Cap renders him partially immaterial and invulnerable, and allows him to walk through some obstacles. A shell remains after stomping a Koopa Troopa, which Mario can use to surf on water, lava, and quicksand.