It's like 75% of the way to being as good as I wish it was, but a few concerns hold it back.
The controls, while incredibly refined for a first effort, still have their quirks compared to later games. For example: why does Mario sometimes walk in an arc instead of turning around in place? When the controls work as intended, it feels amazing to long jump around 64's levels, but if you've experienced the immaculate game feel of Sunshine or Odyssey, this game can occasionally feel like a step back, even if only a small one.
While it has a greater level of completeness and polish to its mission design than Sunshine, I still feel like a few too many stars are janky or less interesting, particularly cannon stars, the wing cap, and anything to do with swimming.
Its structure that lets you grab almost any star on a particular level is nice and does a better job of encouraging exploration than the more restrictive shines in Sunshine, but the way it kicks you out after grabbing just one still discourages you from actually exploring beyond a single path each time you enter. Not to mention that starting from the same position every time only serves to accentuate how samey some stars feel. (Thank god for Odyssey's moon madness--that game's structure feels like an antidote to all the ills of past collectathons.)
Lastly, the music, while largely unforgettable, is unfortunately limited by the N64's storage space to be repeated across numerous stages. In my dreams, I see a Spyro Reignited-style remaster of SM64 that offers alternate orchestrations of the same song for each level, or something like that, but alas.
In spite of these gripes, it's still a benchmark 3D platformer and a blast to jump, kick, and dive around in--arguably more so than some of the series' later entries. (If you're able to Completely Legally back up your own ROM of this game, try the decompilation team's PC port which offers slightly improved camera control, can upscale to any resolution, and runs at 60fps. Why couldn't Nintendo get this game running at 60fps when they re-released it almost 25 years later?)
Best world: Rainbow Ride
The controls, while incredibly refined for a first effort, still have their quirks compared to later games. For example: why does Mario sometimes walk in an arc instead of turning around in place? When the controls work as intended, it feels amazing to long jump around 64's levels, but if you've experienced the immaculate game feel of Sunshine or Odyssey, this game can occasionally feel like a step back, even if only a small one.
While it has a greater level of completeness and polish to its mission design than Sunshine, I still feel like a few too many stars are janky or less interesting, particularly cannon stars, the wing cap, and anything to do with swimming.
Its structure that lets you grab almost any star on a particular level is nice and does a better job of encouraging exploration than the more restrictive shines in Sunshine, but the way it kicks you out after grabbing just one still discourages you from actually exploring beyond a single path each time you enter. Not to mention that starting from the same position every time only serves to accentuate how samey some stars feel. (Thank god for Odyssey's moon madness--that game's structure feels like an antidote to all the ills of past collectathons.)
Lastly, the music, while largely unforgettable, is unfortunately limited by the N64's storage space to be repeated across numerous stages. In my dreams, I see a Spyro Reignited-style remaster of SM64 that offers alternate orchestrations of the same song for each level, or something like that, but alas.
In spite of these gripes, it's still a benchmark 3D platformer and a blast to jump, kick, and dive around in--arguably more so than some of the series' later entries. (If you're able to Completely Legally back up your own ROM of this game, try the decompilation team's PC port which offers slightly improved camera control, can upscale to any resolution, and runs at 60fps. Why couldn't Nintendo get this game running at 60fps when they re-released it almost 25 years later?)
Best world: Rainbow Ride