I think he gets this request every single day lol. A rom of the original with all of his performance improvements to get faster framerate on original hardware would be a top tier rom hack. One of those that a lot of people just default to whenever they want to play the original.
@@jimbobcheezeburger2020in the first video about framerate improvements on his next roomhack if i remember correctly he said hed publish all of the changes and such in a patch after hes done with the roomhack
The 360 degree swimming in Mario 64 is one of my favorite things about the game, and I miss it dearly in Odyssey. I know some people find the swimming levels slow and boring, but to me they're like a therapeutic break between the manic frenzy of some of the other levels. It's a product of it's time, but the freedom to just explore a 3D space at a calm pace like that is really comforting.
The swimming mechanic felt like magic when the game was released, keeping that similar vibe might bestow a little bit of that original 1996 feeling of awe for new or younger players. It's not clunky, it's buoyant.
Yea the controls of N64 mario swiming is one the best systems I have counterend. Maybe allow for a continous A pres, but no a for up and b for down pls
@@MirrorHall_Clay true that it would be more ‘realistic’, but it goes against the precedent of other Mario games that have such a feature, like the down action of the propeller suit in many of the more recent 2D Mario’s. Since humans can’t fly with just their arms, I feel going with what people expect is more valuable than what is technically realistic.
I feel like only the removal of the super fall damage animation would makes me sad because when it happens, it's when you fail big time and even expect to die so it can really be a funny moment especially for beginners ( or playing, looking at them ) so it's cool to see an animation that emphize that instead of immediately moving on. Those are very incredible changes other than that ! I agree that what the community wants is not necessarily more difficult hack and i hope that when your main hack is being released ( i can't wait to play it btw) it can be easy for other developper to take all your modification to develop their hack from it ! And well, let's be honest, with a coyote jump added, kaizo hack can now makes jumps where they are mandatory ! Difficulty can always be there !
Same, I feel like it's unnecessary since very rarely will someone fall from that high, and it absolutely emphasizes that you just screwed up. I say it should stay.
Agreed, I think that landing animation is a good way to reward playing well. Fall carelessly from a great height, and Mario will not only recieve a lot of damage, but you'll also have to sit throught his small animation of him suffering from your actions. But, know some tricks and you'll be able to not only avoid taking damage but also keep moving swiftly.
Making the character respond better to your will is always a good idea. It does make the current levels you have easier, but you can just ramp the difficulty to make for it and still get a better experience because the player will feel it's his fault rather than the controls.
@@tonyhakston536 In my experience, even rage games will usually at least try to make the controls and (if applicable) physics solid, because difficulty derived from messing either of those up is just plain unpleasant all-around, rather than giving it the frustrating-but-addicting sort of difficulty that people play rage games for. Even games like QWOP, that do rely on intentionally-bad gameplay, have to strike a balance to extract the "this is bullshit but I can do it" feeling from the very form of difficulty that most easily brings with it a "this is bullshit and I don't even feel accomplished for any progress I make" feeling instead.
I would disagree that big fall damage is miserable by itself. Maybe if it's a result of something that you have now fixed it's miserable because it's not feedback for skill expression. But big fall damage and getting stunned is feedback saying that you messed up big. If moving Mario around quickly is skateboarding, small fall damage is like falling off the skateboard and big fall damage is like doinking your head on the stairs. It seems to me that having the possibility of bigger consequence makes your actions feel more impactful.
Falling usually comes with a loss of progress as well. A longer fall means it'll take even longer to climb back up to where you were, so I think that impact would still be felt even without any fall damage. Extra damage is just insult to injury.
Super Mario 64's physics were kinda flawed in some aspects, but they have their own charm that makes me feel great when controlling Mario around. With these changes, for some reason not only the charm remains untouched, but it even improves it removing the more annoying aspects of it! I absolutely love this :D
I agree, Mario's movements are so flawed that the movement tech that comes with it makes it feel seemless. I used to play mario 64 constantly 5-7 years ago.
I don’t like the gradual decline in wallkick speed after touching the wall. Because to get the max distance from the wallkick you still have to have frame perfect input plus max speed before kicking the wall. It might be better to have a window where he keeps his momentum and after that he looses it just like the original (but make the window longer than one frame) maybe also have some visual indicator of this mechanic. Alternatively you could also have a plateau of a few frames after hitting the wall where he keeps the momentum and then have it gradually decline. Another idea would be to not link the momentum you get out of the wallkick to the momentum he had before the wallkick at all. And make the post-wallkick momentum purely about how fast you kick the wall after touching it. Preferably also with a plateau of a few frames where you get max momentum. This might make things more consistent and easy to control but could also make it less fun.
Big fall damage is one of my favorite things in Mario 64. Nothing is as immersive as getting squished for a few seconds or falling off your feet after a big enough fall. It's what really makes you appreciate how vertical a specific level can be compared to other falls you've experienced in earlier levels. Otherwise I think these are a lot of logical updates to the game, even if I don't think they're necessarily needed.
He could've just made it so upon going below the water surface, you get a full health bit's worth of oxygen timer before losing your first bit of health. Would've prevented the instant death without changing that gameplay mechanic.
@@neehgurg2111 it's unique and quirky. This is a Mario game - health isn't a serious gameplay mechanic like it is in Zelda - nothing is serious in Mario.
fall damage in general is something the series moved away from because it's not that fun for 3D level exploration in a Mario game. you're already punished by having to climb back up to wherever you were, and for quickly descending, the fact that you can neutralize it with a kick or ground pound makes you wonder why it's there in the first place.
Amazing optimization, friend. The only issue I have is, like you said, with the swimming. Not because it isn't "good" or that it is "bad" but because it feels like it doesn't belong in the original Mario 64. It was a design choice, not a limitation of the hardware. It would be like inverting the looking controls, or inverting the A and B buttons. Not wrong per se, but a deliberate departure from the original design decisions and a change to the core game-play that we all remember.
I really liked all of the changes that were made, but how the breath meter looks makes it feel out of place and not mario-like in it's style. I think that the breath meter from the fan game super mario 63, fits in more into the game with its style
I do love all of the changes! The only one I disagree big time is in the swimming. I really prefer full 3D swimming, aiming yourself and swim in every unconventional angle that you want, I think is intuitive since this is the way regular swimming kind of works, with you picking a direction and propelling yourself with your feet and hands. I really don't like the kind of pseudo 2D swimming in which you change your altitude with a set of buttons and otherwise you move with the stick two-dimensionally, I hated it in Kingdom hearts, and there it was more necessary because of all the 2D fighting you have to do. But really in a 3D exploration game I want to move as freely as possible. I guess I just need to test how yours work to really get a feel for it. In any case you maybe could put some options in a menu to let people choose what they want. But only in the ones that really change the gameplay in a significant way. The rest of the changes are brilliant, I really like that you are making all the inputs more lenient and consistent with small corrections. Mario 64 is great, but unless you are a speed runner, everyone experience some amount of yank eventually
Agree! I vastly prefer 64's swimming to the later games. The only issue with the original swimming was that jumping out of the water sometimes felt inconsistent. But I think that could be fixed by doing something like Z+A always leaps up?
Mario isn't using the 50 menus and buttons which leads to it being annoying in Kingdom Hearts. The 2D style allows for water to be more then an pool of empty space but when you have to aim and point levels have to have that empty space so you can aim, point, and go to it. Almost all swimming in SM64 is just empty slow space and this remains true in a lot of point and swim games. Movement is slow and clunky so everything is slow and clunky. Speed it up and you can create a smoother experience.
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The big fall damage animation is pretty funny though. Why not just make it cancellable after a while? What I mean is after a short while the player can walk or jump out of the animation so that they're not stuck for too long. And if you want to see mario fall on his butt like an idiot the player can just do nothing and the full animation will play. Everybody wins.
I love all of these except for the swimming ones. i liked the way swimming was, and the healthbar thing (although yeah, very silly indeed) was something that had charm to it. Something would be worth changing regarding swimming is how inconsistent getting out of a body of water is. Sometimes you jump and it's fine, other times you are stuck in the water like it's maple syrup.
I don't know how well-known this is but Turok: Dinosaur Hunter on the N64 had a coyote timer, back in 1997. Pretty forward looking decision on that game's devs' part imo.
I honestly love the big fall damage splat. It's hilarious to watch Mario just totally splay out. It's also hilarious when he falls off like seven things because he's locked in tumble. It would be sad to see it go.
@@blueyosh43 “Jokes on you, I'm a sadist and enjoy seeing Mario in pain.” - By the Sadists Or “I enjoy being punished, give us 1 HP please!” - By the Masochists. Take your pick, really.
@@blueyosh43 Maybe I am just a masochist, but it makes games more exciting for me when I know there are consequences for making a mistake. This single change would make Bowser in the Sky less punishing because sometimes if you fall off, you tumble all the way down to the bottom and most likely die from fall damage. but if you become actionable the moment you land, you could just jump away from the ledge or ledgegrab or something.
Wall slides make wall kicks too versatile imo. Wall kicks were always something you had to plan out in sm64, and giving the player the ability to just slide down the wall to correct for whatever mistake they made feels too lenient.
The big fall damage animation is pretty funny though. Why not just make it cancellable after a while? What I mean is after a short while the player can walk or jump out of the animation so that they're not stuck for too long. And if you want to see mario fall on his butt like an idiot the player can just do nothing and the full animation will play. Everybody wins.
Personally I'd just have a modified swim system, giving mario an underwater ground pound, do something to the exiting water mechanics, and increasing the speed overall.
Okay final comment. Sometimes when doing wall kicks, it feels like it just doesn't work where I think it should. Like Mario doesn't enter the wall kick preparation animation at all, He just goes "oomph" and falls way too often. Could be worth looking into.
It looks and feels really awkward with Mario having the same animation when doing the spin falling faster thing. Mario should do a little drill spin animation when holding z while spinning like how ground pounding after spin jumping works in odyssey. Otherwise it's perfect!
Personally if I was making a hack I'd try making dive be "B in midair" and making kick be "B while holding A". The latter is already how you can perform the kick on the ground, so it feels intuitive to me for that to be the way you do it in midair. That said your solution is good too, since it's built around what people already tend to do to solve the inconsistency. Aside from that the only thing I'm not sure about, and just sorta need to play for myself, is the swimming you mentioned. When you say it works like Odyssey, do you mean it works like Mario's swimming, or Cheep Cheep's swimming? I'm pretty sure you described it more like the latter but I just wanna be sure.
Not only was Mario 64 one of the first 3D platformers, but it was also a launch title for the N64. It was a brand new genre, on brand new hardware. Of course it's not great. They were just making it up as they went along.
one request, if possible: put some very well guarded secret, like banjo-kazooie's frozen key, something the player can't reach right now, but many months later you tell how to do it with a series of 'sidequests' that leads to the secret being achieved. i would be awesome!
I love both the original and your improved control scheme. I don't know how feasible it is, but think it would be cool to have an option in the menu to swap between "Classic" and "New" controls!
I agree with pretty much all of these except for the swimming changes and possibly the breath changes? but mostly the swimming changes. I LOVE how mario 64 and banjo handle swimming, and modern games instead going for "a is up, b is down" kinda annoys me
So one thing I just realized needs to be fixed is on the title screen with Mario, when you drag the cursor to the far left or right while holding his nose or something it starts to fail to detect that you are holding said part. So the grabbing sound starts to repeatedly play while keeping it in 1 spot.
Also, fundamentally changing the swimming controls is kind of.. I don't know. To me, it would feel off not pressing the A button to move forward, and timing its presses right to get the maximum speed. It feels like going up and down would feel better, but moving forward would be worse, unless I'm perceiving things wrong. That's the only change I'm not like, completely sold on. I just think it's a very questionable decision. edit: Nevermind! I see your reasoning now. If you aren't going to have levels like Jolly Roger Bay, then the newer swimming controls would indeed work better. Original's are still better, just not for the levels you're making. Still though, how is accelerating at maximum speed going to work? Would you just.. Tap the joystick up every second?
(1:49) A bad Nath formula is when you choose to play as Nath in 100% Orange Juice, but don't bring any Battle cards to make use of Nath's passive ability to power up when any Battle cards are used.
I do disagree with the water breathing bar. At least for the original game, I'm fine with it in mods. In the original games water areas were designed with this in mind, even replacing "hearts" that would otherwise heal you up.
I hope I get a flash cart for my N64 soon. I have had my N64 longer than other consoles in my collection that I already have ways to unofficially play games on. You produce the c9ntent the top my list for trying. Quite Amazing what you've done and continue to do.
Kaze! Not sure if you've addressed this in the past, but one area I've seen new players get frustrated is with Mario's wall-collision head-bonk animation. It's interesting that if you keep the stick engaged, Mario will hit a wall and enter "wall-hug" mode, while letting up on the stick just before hitting will cause a "head bonk." I'd lean toward taking the bonk out entirely, or at least shortening the bonk animation, as it's frustrating in a similar way to the landing-from-a-great-height animation. While we're at it, maybe shorten the stuck-in-snow animation too.
@@DarkStarCoreX Well aware! I'm saying, even moreso. Though just shortening the default animation would be enough. My suggestions were more for people who are younger and didn't grow up with early 3D games.
I rarely comment on things but I just want to say that I greatly enjoy your videos. You put so much time and consideration into the choices you make and present it in such a clear, concise, and entertaining manner. Your tone is respectful, giving viewers a well-informed perspective without making them feel as though they are being spoken to condescendingly. Your visuals and casual memes makes this feel so accessible and fun!! Thank you for sharing and I look forward to whatever you’re working on next!!
I love the work and dedication you have to this game. Most of these are obvious improvements: invisible ceilings, missed inputs, etc. Regarding the jump kick vs dive: I've always had the idea that it would be cool that the jump kick vs dive worked like it does on the ground. On the ground, no matter how fast Mario moves you can go neutral and press B and he will do the punch. If you could be schmooving in the air and go neutral to do a kick to get that little bit more distance in a jump I think it could open up some cool movement options. A couple things I'm iffy on are things like swimming controls, perhaps that could be an option? Also the new wall collision makes it technically a better game and makes more sense, but could be overall less fun for speedrunning if there were no wall clips. Just to be sure, with the new wall kick momentum change, could we still do something like owl-less now that 2nd, 3rd, etc frame wallkicks retain more speed? Overall though this work is insanely good and we all appreciate what you do for the game!
He did add that change with the kicks, only you have to hold back for a brief period. Holding neutral in midair would feel really unnatural if you ask me to be honest.
@@DarkStarCoreX Yeah, he did mention that he did make it easier to get a kick. However he said it's if you hold back, and if your speed is below 38 (He said this at 15:25). This would mean if you get a lot of speed (like 50+ speed) and then jump, but you see you need a little more distance to make it - then you would still get a dive instead of a kick when holding back. I only say holding neutral because that would be consistent with the way it works now on the ground (with fast speed: holding direction = dive, holding neutral = attack/strike) which is what we already do on the ground to grab things quickly, like the bomb in bomb clip for example.
@@SwiftHobo Fair point, but I think my main problem is that it will be heavily exploited, because you could find a way to built up a ton of speed (i.e. diving down a slope or better yet, a blj) then go neutral to kick and skip the entire stage, especially because your horizontal momentum translates into vertical momentum. I guess an easy solution is to have it work exactly like it works on the ground, meaning that you have to hold neutral for an exact amount of frames or you dive, or lose all your speed. This negates the issue of casuals skipping an entire challenge, but also adds speedrun potential. To be honest that's probably how you meant it and I just read it wrong, because the way I read it is you can just hold neutral and you have an extremely big window to hold forward again, and the only punishment is losing a bit speed from holding neutral.
Also to answer your question about owlless working: no, it likely would not, as for owlless you need a 1st or 2nd frame wallkick, however it's unlikely that there'll be a star which can be skipped by performing the same movement as owlless.
What would be cool is a demo of a single stage that we all know and love and the ability to turn the changes on and off. Nothing quite like experiencing the changes first hand when you can compare them back to back.
Only change I dislike is the removal of the big fall damage animation. Weirdly enough it felt satisfying to see mario fall and stumble on his ass after a huge fall
About the only change I disagree with is the complete removal of big fall damage. I agree that the animation takes a bit too long, but the complete removal feels off. Maybe just shortening the time Mario spends on his back and quickening the get-up animation would help.
Giving Mario a separate air bar, also makes it so that air bubbles are not just a coin that doesn't increase your counter. Some changes I would add or change on SM64: 1) When Mario exits water, he should only heal a sector of health, and there should be a timer of five seconds, keeping this healing method from working (a guard againts spamming). This should make this mechanic more balanced so players can't rely solely on it. Keeping it as is, makes any hazard that is near the surface of the water insignificant, so this should give more flexibility to map makers. I wouldn't remove it entirely, because it is a staple of the game, and it makes sense that if Mario is drowning and he just breached the surface, he would feel a rush of adrenaline that would heal him a little, it also gives players more leeway if they decide to dive again. 2) Also, coins don't heal Mario in any other game, although I understand why they did it here, it makes taking damage not that big a deal if you have a single coin nearby. Instead of removing this mechanic and forcing map makers to put hearts all over the map (or invent some other healing mechanic) I would maybe make it, so that Mario only heals if the coin counter is a multiple of five. Casual players would start to collect coins if they notice they are low on health, but now they would need more of them, so they would only be safe to take damage on an area that has many coins. Advanced players would learn to keep their coin counter just below being a multiple, so they just need one coin to heal in case of emergency. Red coins would heal you the same, regardless of your coin counter and blue coins would always give you a full heal. This makes their behavior more unique and one that relates to their rarity. 3) Underwater shells should be a different model than sliding shells, or at least a different texture. Their timer needs to be increased too, otherwise they are not very useful. They should also dissapear as soon as Mario touches ground, because they have no effect on land and so it's pointless to have Mario hold them on land. 4) Make Bullet Bills faster than Mario's running and MAYBE make them deal more damage. They are a joke on their current state and could be a great hazard with these changes. I would also remove their despawn timer, since it's just silly; if you were concerned about overloading the game with bills, you can make it so that a launcher won't spawn another bill until the one it spawned has despawned, which they would do by colliding with an entity or a wall. The increased speed is not unfair to the player, since they could dodge them by taking sharp turns, taking cover on some geometry or simply changing elevation. I would also introduce a red variant that can chase Mario vertically! 😱 and unlike the regular one, this one can't be stomped. 5) I would add a red koopa variant, that takes the initiave and charges at Mario, its shell can have the same effect as the green one. 4) Either remove or revamp the coin score display. The current system can't go beyond 255 and even overflows back to zero! Unlike the counter in the level that can go to 999 and remain the same with further coins. Even assuming we don't use infinite coins glitches and we make the score be able to display up to 999, it still wouldn't be helpful, since if the player was looking to collect every coin on a level, they would have no clue how many they missed! So therefore, the coin score should display the total amount of coins in the level, next to their current score, like: [56/125]. Removing the feature would not generate controversy, since it frees up a little bit of space for other things and would be consistent with other Mario games that keep a global counter for all levels. 5) Adding a frog suit would be great! Allowing to swim faster and take sharper turns as well as remain underwater indefinetly! On land it would force you to hop around, but it would also give you longer and higher jumps. Then again, a frog cap may be more in line with the limitations of the N64, otherwise the wingcap would have just been a Tanooki suit. But something about Mario hopping like a frog without appearing like one, doesn't sit right with me. Then again a Tanooki suit would have different behaviors than a wing cap, like doing tail swipes, turning into a statue (could be ommited) and being lost based on damage rather than a timer. (fluttering is already kind of a thing with the wing cap, because if you hold A while falling with it on, you fall slower and can cover greater distances). 6) A fire flower should be easier to implement and could open the door to mechanics involving fire interacting with certain enemies or certain map elements. 7) I never understood why make Pirahna plants sleep by default. It just makes them less of a threat. If would make more sense if they were awake by default and the map maker could set a flag to make them sleepy variant (with a longer timer for going back to sleep). They should also be more sensitive to noise, so the only way to avoid them waking up is to either be far away or crawl next to them, with all other movements and attacks triggering them (bumping into them by crawling should also count). I would also make all Pirahna plants be able to spit fire to offset they being stuck to one spot or at least make the ones that can shot a different texture. 8) Scuttlebugs are just glorified Goombas; they need more distinctive behaviors. Like if a Goomba notices Mario, it should notify all nearby Goombas so they can all join the charge at once. Goombas could also be stacked like later Mario games. Scuttlebugs could for instance chase Mario by climbing walls and be able to idle on walls and ceilings. 9) Losing Mario's hat doesn't need to be a mechanic and removing it would free up animation slots as well as avoid many glitches associated with that. Klepto could be modified so instead of stealing your hat, it steals its own star back, making it possible to reduce your star count by at least one. 10) The first two Bowser fights should take three hits and the last one should take five, with the stage falling apart after the second hit. Of course bombs would need to respawn to avoid a softlock and glitchy behaviors of Bowser, (like missing the stage after trying to jump back in) would need to be fixed.
Not sure I agree with your frame 1 wallkick fix. Making the speed vary depending on when it's pressed could make it feel inconsistent. There's not much visual feedback, so a casual player might not realize that the timing has an effect. This could lead to situations where a casual player tries to wallkick up onto a platform, does it with late timing and barely doesn't make it, and then assumes that the wallkick can't reach at all. Even if they decide to try again and make it that time, it would still probably leave them confused as to why it only works sometimes. Then from a speedrunning perspective, this could make precise wallkick setups harder. If you're trying to wallkick and land in a very specific spot to set up a second jump, or just land on a very narrow platform, the inputs required to do so could still be frame perfect, since pressing a frame early or too late will end up giving you a different result. I think a better fix would be to either remove the wallkick variance entirely, so wallkicks always result in the same speed, or widen the 1 frame wallkick window to something more doable, but still hard like 2 or 3 frames. It would be especially cool if you added some particle effect or sound effect for a perfect wallkick to tell the player that they did it successfully.
I don't know if SM64 _really_ needs Cayote time tbh It's nice to have yes but part of the game design of 3D Mario in general is the "close enough" level design where you wont really need to make any super precise jumps that require a few more frames to make a movement
I can't wait to play your SM64 rework on real hardware. The exact same game but with all these improvements, so amazing. It would be neat if a debug menu is possible where we could turn on/off these different improvements, but there are so many this would probably be too much work. I'm happily waiting to replay this game for the first time in over 20 years once you finish, it's gonna be so fun!
I'm surprised you used Mario Maker footage instead of SM64DS footage for wall slide. It was certainly one of my favorite additions, glad to see it backported
Swimming controls and big fall damage shouldn't be changed. When I first played Odyssey, I was genuinely disappointed that swimming was different from 64.
Some of these oddities were things I didn't even actively notice anymore, but them getting fixed is a very good thing in my opinion and I don't think there was anything I'd actively disagree with. I do think the downward acelleration for the spinning jump could be upgraded to some kind of semi-groundpound, maybe with the downside of not being able to cancel it once you started, similar to how such situations are handled in newer Mario games. Glossing over the comments, the new water physics seem to be the most controversial change. I think they are great, as long as the level design compliments them. I don't think they would work in vanilla SM64 without any changes though. That being said, if you want to make a demo, it would be great to have a place to test the water physics too, even if it's just a simple box filled with water. On other thing in regards to that, even if it has nothing to do with the physics themselves, is the design of the air meter. It does what it has to do, but I think a radial design, similar to the meters in Super Mario Galaxy would not only look better, but also take up less screen estate than this long bar.
Great video! As a game designer myself, I’ve always said that the difficulty in a game should not come from controls not doing what you want, but rather the controls should be your metaphorical toolbox for overcoming the game’s obstacles.
I remember screensharing SM64 hacks in call with a friend of mine, whose never really played or seen the game before, and at some point after watching he asked how I'm doing the dive vs. kicking in the air. I then took the next 6 minutes or so explaining how exactly it's determined whether you'll dive or kick, to which he simply replied "...Jesus Christ. Just make it an extra button or something!" Which is to say, THANK YOU for implementing these more noticeable QOL features alongside the more nitty-gritty ones. It really helps for those of us who'd rather have a directly fun experience than one that requires 6 minutes of explanation on how to dive/kick.
@@blueyosh43 i guess the way i phrased it did make it seem that way, but those minutes were moreso a discussion than just me ranting about specifics, to be fair. he was curious and asked questions, which i gave him (at least i think) pretty solid answers for
The work this community has done decompiling, analyzing, and fixing this game is honestly a testament to the creativity and power humanity has when it works together on something it loves. Simply incredible. 👏
Ok, using Odyssey's swimming controls is a massive mistake for Super Mario 64. The fact of the matter is, SM64's water levels have significant amounts of verticality and were designed around having full 3D swimming. Odyssey's swimming controls may be _supposedly_ easier to pick up (more on that after I finish this first point) but they don't mesh with the level design and would take away a lot of the dynamic feel of SM64's water levels. As for the claim that Odyssey's swimming controls are more intuitive... not really. In both cases it's a deviation from the conventional surface controls, so you have to relearn them anyway. One thing to consider is how much you have to think about the swimming controls. Odyssey's are, in effect, based on cardinal directions relative to the camera. So to go a specific direction you have think about which control to use. Whereas SM64's are point-and-shoot - you aim Mario where you want to go and then tap or press and hold the A button to swim.
I never had a lot of problems with the sunshine pyshics, for me they work really well (For most of the times). The only parts that i hated the pyshics were on the lillypad minigame and in the pachinco machine. (Sorry for bad english)
If, theoretically, you do ever release a plain "optimized" Super Mario 64 with just your bugfixes and optimizations but the same old content, I hope that you only include the first 2 categories of fixes. It's true that some of the improvements would objectively make the game better, but there is a certain charm to some of the antiquated design choices that you just don't see nowadays. The wall cling and slide down before you jump feels great for example. It's super forgiving and grants you a great deal more precision in how you wall jump. But part of me likes how this game requires a more precise approach to the wall jump before you do it rather than being able to just initiate a wall slide and then figure out when to jump off afterwards
Hm, the healing properties of water are one of the best design decisions of Mario 64 I think. It reduces Mario's "status" to one eight-bar gauge. No money, arrows, bombs, air, movement upgrades, spells, etc.
@@KazeN64 I agree with Kaze in this one. Healing with water feels like an oversight. An air meter is simultaneously more intuitive while also making the game harder, which is something you don't see often. I think it is a perfect change. I am not sure about changing the swimming controls though lol
I think the roll out of a forward slide is a bad idea. The forward slide is supposed to be the player truly committing to their action for maximum speed. Giving such a free out makes the regular slide completely useless when you might as well forward slide. The ability to escape out of it in a more costly manner makes sense. Perhaps with a forward flip jump that launches Mario some distance forward, or perhaps cancel it with Z for a pound that would safely end the slide, but kill all momentum. EDIT - Will your hack require the expansion pack (used by Rogue Squadron, Donkey Kong 64, and various other games) to run on real hardware, or are you targeting the launch N64?
The only thing I didn't like was the long fall damage animation removal, seems like a shame to delete animations. Perhaps a middle ground could be to still play it but make it cancelable or "techable"/mashable, making it go faster.
'minimizing the input output barrier' is minimizing surprise. i don't know what it is about never again casually being primed into the controls as if that is not such a rich place. you can decide on arbitrary stuff like coyote time but it is a short term gain that comes with a long term cost in 'skill expression' also known as going outside (sensory deprivation)
These are mostly great changes, well done! The one I'm most hesitant about is being able to roll out of a belly slide on a downward slope (29), but I can understand why you'd want to change this. I usually try to avoid belly slides in general for this very reason.
I'd say letting the health bar also function as an oxygen bar underwater works fine, has charm to it. Only fix needed there is giving the first bit of health the same "oxygen timer" as all the others, instead of instantly being removed.
The deadzone thing might be intentional as an "anti-deadzone" to compensate a percieved loss of movement area, but considering the deadzone is only off-by-one it's likely a programming error.
I know its not something you have any plans for, and can respect that 100% because i get it: your entire motivation for all of this is to create your own ideas rather than just re-imagine someone else's. But I can't help but imagine a "de facto" sm64 mod with the entire original game intact with all of these changes, but also has access to all of mod's added levels. Just imagining all the cool ways the overworld castle could be modded to have more hub areas to access new or even hidden levels, or even having a second overworld altogether accessable in some way. It feels really cool to think about in a nerd-indulgent sort of way.
love the wall slide, I only played mario 64 after playing more recent 3D marios and the wall jumping was always one of the most weird feeling moves after being used to modern wall jumping.
@@user-sl6gn1ss8p I believe it would. Ocarina runs in default at 20FPS cap and it still drops lower. So a nice optimization pass could push it at worst to locked 30.
@@arciks11 oh, yeah, sure, the performance stuff would be nice, I meant more things like the ones in this video, they seem like they'd matter much more for mario
Another possible thing to change: funnily enough, a few hours later Pannen dropped a video about why some 1-ups don't flicker before disappearing. The answer boils down to a place in the code that controls the 1-up's visibility when it should have been controlling its activeness. A minor issue but one that fits in the "oversights" section. Great vídeo, btw.
Mario doing a half circle when you turn around is SOOOO annoying! I don't play this game enough to even remember some of these behaviors, but the damn half circle thing annoys me just to be reminded it exists.
