i get the feeling many of the people on this site probably grew up more or less around the same time i did; that, personally, being the tail end of the "wild west" of the internet, in the blossoming world of youtube and the advent of the "online game critic". personalities like james rolfe, or juan "johnny" ortiz, or emile rosales presented a wide world of gaming and criticism - both celebrating the highs of artistic and entertainment achievement and the impossibly low drudges of the medium - to my younger, impressionable self that seemed comparable to great tomes of the medium's history finally being dusted and cracked open for my own personal expeditions. my familiarity with super mario as a franchise stemmed primarily from a family friend's copies of super mario bros./duck hunt and super mario bros. 3 (two of my first ever gaming memories), and not far after that, a nintendo ds and new super mario bros. not too far after release. i'd also get ahold of sunshine and i recall recieving galaxy the holiday season of its release, but there was that nintendo 64 title which i heard so much about like a distant dream, just out of reach, that plagued my curiosity.
my first hands on exposure to mario 64 came in the form of its remake, which my lifelong best friend i can only imagine poured hours into - proudly showcasing to me various glitches and oversights in the game; my first memories with the title being watching him clip through a staircase, or the bewilderment i had watching yoshi, luigi and wario bounce around in a world i'd understood you played solely as mario in. these were those golden days of machinima, too - and mario's 64 model became synonymous with goofy early parody videos i'm sure i'd die of secondhand embarrassment digging up now, or those early memories of my mind being blown watching m.u.g.e.n. character battles as mario's render was, er, "seamlessly" transported into that vast ocean of street fighter ii-based powerscaling insanity. but i still hadn't played 64. i knew so much about it, i'd heard so many opinions and facts about it, and at an age so impressionable, you listen to those "big brother" figures online like that with ardent ears - and something within me morphed from curiosity to sort of an abject contrarianism.
well, for starters, where were the power-ups? super mario bros. 3 being my home base for mario, i'd anticipated all sorts of crazy suits and flowers and whatnot that made mario's appearance change, or give him cool powers, and what i saw in 64 just looked... lame. and those graphics sure made mario and bower and the bad guys look really silly. and why was every location so weird? why did people prefer this to the cleaned-up look of sunshine, or heck, ANY of those 2d games? that's what mario was to me then.
eventually emulation entered my life and those of you who can recall early n64 emulation probably rolled your eyes at those memories. attempting to play mario 64 on a keyboard on a windows xp-era desktop is about as joyless an experience as it sounds but it was ultimately my first impression of the game in my hands. i probably got about 10 stars in and wrote it home as not for me - and based on that experience i can't really blame my foolish young self. but this is around when my neighbors at the time, still two of my closest friends, entered the picture - alongside their n64.
long nights would be spent in my early teenage summers at their small beach cottage on that nintendo 64, my first personal exposure to some of the true landmarks of that catalogue - smash bros. 64, kirby 64, star fox 64, my first tastes of ocarina of time, banjo, bomberman 64... it was a formative time for me, and through my own emulation i was gaining more context and appreciation for the 8 and 16-bit eras, exploring my first instances of games as ART pieces. this was my first foray with earthbound, or symphony of the night, or super metroid, and my pallet was shifting. an artist myself, i began to understand and appreciate games as very much a part of that experience. and as the years crawled on i'd begin to see mario 64 in more and more games that i played - titles before and after mario 64, and the landmark place it held in the space and time of gaming it existed in became ever-clearer.
finally, i set out to finish the game completely with those friends, and it finally clicked. i finally saw what everyone in 1996 must've seen with widened, star-crossed eyes. on those long summer nights, between the eerie hum and the static glow of the crt, i felt something i hadn't had the intuition or the gift of feeling, seeing, or hearing, in any of my years. i saw the uncanny beauty and wonder of the wild expanses of the painting realms. i felt one with the controller and the unbridled joy in moving mario in tandem with my hands, i fell for the secrets and intrigue, tinted with koji kondo's defining score, i didn't want the journey to end, all 120 stars in. and it would be the first of, jesus, maybe a dozen full playthroughs i'd take on over those next years. even when i don't intend to complete the game again, i just get satisfaction from being in that world, from hopping, sliding, flipping, swimming, and flying through that technicolor dreamscape - and i'd like to think it's primarily mario 64's influence that has led to those late 90s consoles - the playstation, the n64, the saturn, the dreamcast - becoming my favorite to explore and experiment with. mario 64 is the ultimate platforming sandbox, it is the timeless, constant replayable toybox that lets you pick out how you want to spend every last saturday afternoon with it, and by god, it's one of those few truly good, heartfelt, and tender experiences in gaming i don't know where i'd be without. it wasn't my childhood game, it's not the one i have the most nostalgia from, but it might the game that, upon reflection, has watched my tastes mature and my appreciation of the medium evolve the most over time, and it's a game i think truly defines me as an appreciator of the craft and as a sprouting artist myself the most.
and the thing is, i'm sure there's millions of you who have that a story like that etched into your cartridges, too.
my first hands on exposure to mario 64 came in the form of its remake, which my lifelong best friend i can only imagine poured hours into - proudly showcasing to me various glitches and oversights in the game; my first memories with the title being watching him clip through a staircase, or the bewilderment i had watching yoshi, luigi and wario bounce around in a world i'd understood you played solely as mario in. these were those golden days of machinima, too - and mario's 64 model became synonymous with goofy early parody videos i'm sure i'd die of secondhand embarrassment digging up now, or those early memories of my mind being blown watching m.u.g.e.n. character battles as mario's render was, er, "seamlessly" transported into that vast ocean of street fighter ii-based powerscaling insanity. but i still hadn't played 64. i knew so much about it, i'd heard so many opinions and facts about it, and at an age so impressionable, you listen to those "big brother" figures online like that with ardent ears - and something within me morphed from curiosity to sort of an abject contrarianism.
well, for starters, where were the power-ups? super mario bros. 3 being my home base for mario, i'd anticipated all sorts of crazy suits and flowers and whatnot that made mario's appearance change, or give him cool powers, and what i saw in 64 just looked... lame. and those graphics sure made mario and bower and the bad guys look really silly. and why was every location so weird? why did people prefer this to the cleaned-up look of sunshine, or heck, ANY of those 2d games? that's what mario was to me then.
eventually emulation entered my life and those of you who can recall early n64 emulation probably rolled your eyes at those memories. attempting to play mario 64 on a keyboard on a windows xp-era desktop is about as joyless an experience as it sounds but it was ultimately my first impression of the game in my hands. i probably got about 10 stars in and wrote it home as not for me - and based on that experience i can't really blame my foolish young self. but this is around when my neighbors at the time, still two of my closest friends, entered the picture - alongside their n64.
long nights would be spent in my early teenage summers at their small beach cottage on that nintendo 64, my first personal exposure to some of the true landmarks of that catalogue - smash bros. 64, kirby 64, star fox 64, my first tastes of ocarina of time, banjo, bomberman 64... it was a formative time for me, and through my own emulation i was gaining more context and appreciation for the 8 and 16-bit eras, exploring my first instances of games as ART pieces. this was my first foray with earthbound, or symphony of the night, or super metroid, and my pallet was shifting. an artist myself, i began to understand and appreciate games as very much a part of that experience. and as the years crawled on i'd begin to see mario 64 in more and more games that i played - titles before and after mario 64, and the landmark place it held in the space and time of gaming it existed in became ever-clearer.
finally, i set out to finish the game completely with those friends, and it finally clicked. i finally saw what everyone in 1996 must've seen with widened, star-crossed eyes. on those long summer nights, between the eerie hum and the static glow of the crt, i felt something i hadn't had the intuition or the gift of feeling, seeing, or hearing, in any of my years. i saw the uncanny beauty and wonder of the wild expanses of the painting realms. i felt one with the controller and the unbridled joy in moving mario in tandem with my hands, i fell for the secrets and intrigue, tinted with koji kondo's defining score, i didn't want the journey to end, all 120 stars in. and it would be the first of, jesus, maybe a dozen full playthroughs i'd take on over those next years. even when i don't intend to complete the game again, i just get satisfaction from being in that world, from hopping, sliding, flipping, swimming, and flying through that technicolor dreamscape - and i'd like to think it's primarily mario 64's influence that has led to those late 90s consoles - the playstation, the n64, the saturn, the dreamcast - becoming my favorite to explore and experiment with. mario 64 is the ultimate platforming sandbox, it is the timeless, constant replayable toybox that lets you pick out how you want to spend every last saturday afternoon with it, and by god, it's one of those few truly good, heartfelt, and tender experiences in gaming i don't know where i'd be without. it wasn't my childhood game, it's not the one i have the most nostalgia from, but it might the game that, upon reflection, has watched my tastes mature and my appreciation of the medium evolve the most over time, and it's a game i think truly defines me as an appreciator of the craft and as a sprouting artist myself the most.
and the thing is, i'm sure there's millions of you who have that a story like that etched into your cartridges, too.
2 Comments
so true!!!
HylianBran
1 year ago