Super Mario 64 100% Walkthrough Part 11 - Wet-Dry World 

The "negative emotional aura" comes from the fact that this is an obnoxiously designed level. Everyone who plays it will recall their frustrations with navigating the level for their first time with all the awkward platforming. The part that always gave me the most anxiety as a kid was having to use the Heave-hos to get higher in the level when the water is low. If you miss, you take a significant amount of damage and it always feels unwieldy even today. There was also the fact that "Go to Town for 8 Red Coins" and "Quick Race through Downtown!" required you to enter the level at a certain height. Since I imagine most kids, like myself, didn't pay any attention to the Toad dialogue, I imagine not very many were able to figure the puzzle out very easily. Even when the puzzle is figured out, you still have that long tunnel of water to swim through with no way to recover your health. Underwater segments with breath meters are enough to make anyone anxious. It's just really easy to die in this level on your first time and I imagine many people carry their frustrations with those experiences on every repeat visit. Couple that with the level's bizarrely somber tone with an abandoned town and the strange skybox, it's no wonder you would feel uneasy returning to it. It's no more supernatural and evokes the same feelings as the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time (In my personal experience, Jabu Jabu's Belly gives me the same reaction since that dungeon used to scare me as a kid). Still, the psychology behind this phenomenon is really interesting... The iceberg rumor I'm most interested in is the "Brain diagram" (Let me remind you that's all the Iceberg image says: "Brain diagram"). I see so many conflicting ideas with this one. Some people suggesting there was a texture of a brain diagram in the files of Wet Dry World, others say that a collection of objects throughout the game can be put together to create a diagram of the human brain, and the most bizarre of all is the assertion that Wet Dry World itself is a "fully functional" model of the human brain (I don't even know what that's supposed to mean). Obviously, most of the stuff in this iceberg diagram is fictional, but it's all based at least on rumors that started somewhere. I'm interested in figuring out what exactly the basis of this "brain diagram" really is.

this world is one of my favorites, is so strange, out of the normal, but at the same time fantastic, is almost like a abstract portrait of a ancient civilization sunken in the water, but with a more extravagant landscape, full of obstacles, traps and weird beings, cool design for this level, is unique.

is it weird that i like this level specifically due to the ambience

For anybody struggling with this level to get to the red bomb just jump hi into the picture before you enter the level and the water will be much higher

If anyone wants to know what city is used for the skybox/background of wet dry world, took me 23 years to figure this out lol, its an image of Casares, Spain!!! EDIT: looks like it is Shimbad, Yemen, not Casares, Spain!!

The background in this level is one of my favorites, it really stands out.

wet dry world negative emotional aura

One of my favourite games of my childhood. I was always slightly 'haunted' by the sight of the city in the distance in this level. Childhood minds conjure up some strange thoughts 😊

This is one of the most favorite childhood games when I was a kid. For some reason, not a ton of games that came after could create that sense of wonder and magical nature of this game. The world felt so huge and mysterious. Games these days show you everything right off the bat and doesn't leave a sensation of exploring the crazy unknown.

for me, this always was the unfinished level.. I always thought something was missing.

damn this level has such a chill atmosphere

I believe the negative aura theory cause even today I can't finish the level I either feel drained, bored, or lose interest in the game entirely and don't touch the game until I feel like starting a new game again.

Wet Dry World was one of my favorite courses

I have to admit Mario 64 can be a bit surreal and unsettling at times but this level is definitely not creepy, anything but that although it is kind of a claustrophobic area

Almost everyone: "negative emotional aura😪😭😭" Normal people: "my man speedrunning this level👍"

The red coin level is such a pain!!! I can't even do the fancy jump to get up to the red guy!

I think the whole thing with this level is that it has a lot of components that made people have rather divisive opinions on it. It's essentially a test level, seems to made out of edited OOT indev assets, uses an edit of an actual photograph for BG, some people say it operates sorta like an actual human brain, it's really undetailed and messy and there really isn't an exact theme or meaning to it. Because of that, while some people being the people they are thought of it as just good or just bad, some people didn't know about many of the things mentioned above and the level's mysterious nature and wondering how it even got in the game lead to some children having fears or even nightmares. And as we know, nightmares really like to make up some bullshit that blends in and looks really well done and believeable, but isn't actually real at all. Due to many children remembering those nightmares and seeing how damaging cartridges can lead to weird, not reproducable glitches and the overall mysterious nature of this level, the fear of unknown and many other things mentioned above, once people actually started discussing it, it got quite big. Not to mention that we all see things differently and process them differently aswell. Some people actually got headaches when playing this level. In reality, it's probably nothing more than a test level that was halfassedely added into the game due to really limited development time and cartridge space, but it will probably be remembered forever. Music's still cool tho

Wow. I watched the whole thing. I didn’t know you could get two stars in a level without it ending.

I just realised that when you go to the water town, the music changes completely!

My favourite part about this course is that you can flood the entire course with a high jump in the painting!

8:57 BIP BIP BUH BWIP BWIP BIP BIP

this stage gives me nostalgia, i used to more or less like this stage.

I used to think you could somehow get into the town by walking off the corner of the level, but the slippery slopes always stopped me from trying

I know why you're here now

This level totally encapsulates the unnerving and liminal space feeling. Maybe that's why it's so catchy and mysterious

This level made me feel odd when I was a kid, a sensation that something was missing and had to find it.

Thanks for the walkthrough!

This was always my favorite map. As a kid, i would play for hours just wondering in it. Always wondering what was behind the fence, until one day i got in there, swam to the bottom to an entirely mew and different area. As a kid it was really something. I was 8 when this cane out.

don't know why but this level feels like playing on saturday 8am

Imagine someone commenting here before the iceberg....

One of my fav levels in SM64, I'm quite surprised to see the amount of divided opinions on it.

Wet Dry World as well as Rainbow Cruise from a design perspective are some of the most visually ugly levels in the game since they're less levels and more beta test rooms the developers just decided to call "levels" and this had to do with the fact how Miyamoto cut the development time for this game and the game was already maximizing its storage space so it couldn't do half the shit it wanted to do that it ended up doing in Super Mario 64 DS

Man those wind up guys that toss you around kick your ass....

I love these videos

I swear it's just the fact that the music used in this area is the same music used in hazy maze cave and other areas that give off the same mysterious vibes is the cause of people feeling so weirded out, coupled with the map being very odd already. This specific remix of the underground theme is very lowkey and mysterious sounding, almost as if you are not supposed to be in the areas it plays in.

Its all wet, no wonder no one lives here!

I really don't see what's the problem with this level, i kinda like it : It's challenging, original and the gameplay is good. And don't tell me that you can't finish it cuz you really gotta be a fucking oyster not to be able to get all the stars.

I've been watching this channel since I think 2014

Playing this level is the same feeling has weird but familiar images

I call this Level "Frustration" Because all you feel is frustrated about it. Music is nice though. =)

for some reason, i was always scared of singleplayer 3D Games. i have no idea why. i got over that 3 years ago.

as a kid I had found a way to open one of the doors in the secret village. later on a friend of mine found out that if you pushed the chairs in that building a certain way it opened up a hallway behind a closet that led to another secret village with very tall buildings with stairs and water below that you couldn't get out of when you were in. for some reason the menu and power button stopped working and we had to spend hours creatively looking for a way for mario to kill himself. we never found one and pulled the plug from the console. I didn't think much of it but my friend had recurring dreams about mario screaming in that endless hall of stairways, throwing himself off the rooftops repeatedly to no avail. I doubt this happened in any copy but hours now that I think back of it. edit: years later I found out that my firend had taken up a plumbers job and traveled a long way to work in Manhattan and had committed suicide by jumping from the Woolworth building while on the job. he was said to have been mumbling unintelligibly in a language vaguely sounding like Italian. strangely enough he had no heritage of that kind, but he his last words were supposedly unmistakable: mama mia...

Eerie yet nostalgiac.. but I didn't particularly enjoy the level as a kid and it made me feel weird yet at home. I can't reconcile my complicated feelings over this level.

5:45 Mario chucked that chuckya!! 💪🏻

I never made it here when I played this game for the shortest time, but I think it looks really awesome, or at least my interpretation of it

I can't wait for the Watch for Rolling Rocks part and the inevitable A-press jokes

You're all crazy this is one of the most fun levels in the game 😂

I remember 9:42 surprisingly distinctly. I shouldn't, since it's very much a level within a level, something extremely novel and out of place. (You don't see that kind of off-kilter decision making/design anymore. The 90s where known for it ala Myst style.) I'm not going to lie, I used a strategy guild with this game back in the day. People are right to call the level design frustrating, but it's still a nostalgia trip 20+ years later.

When I play super Mario 64 in 2020 I will get nostalgic 20 years later

My favorite level I always liked to mess with the skeeters and try and get into the town

I loved this level an this game growing up i still remember 100 percenting this

Ok the red coin one if I was more explorative would have found. Btw you can get there without the canon. With the water level high enough you can jump over that grate. 🤪

I don't know why but this map scared me on the ds version...

The skybox of this level is weird. It looks like a abandoned city, underwater. Plus, this city is in the real world. It's a city in Spain, Casares

Who's idea was it to think that the background of this stage is their brain? Because I see atlantis more than a brain

Alguien mas le da una aura triste y una melancolía profunda Bueno yo tengo 13 años y a los 7 mi primo tenia una nintendo64 yo no conocia mucho de mario 64 el ya se lo habia pasado tenia todas las estrellas pero cree una partida nueva me fui pasando los niveles llegue a wet-dry world y senti como un vacío muy profundo y unas ganas de llorar muy intensas y en la noche tuve unas pesadilla muy feas pero creo que no tienen nada que ver y bueno a mitades de año descargue un emulador y lo volvi a jugar y senti lo mismo, miraba la ciudad y sentia una melancolia y despues de unos meses ya se me habia medio pasado y luego mire el iceberg y no se es muy raro lo que siente

Gee I sure hope there isn’t some link looking characters looking to take me to a really dark room where I spend all eternity there

This was always my least favourite level in the game but I always liked the red coins in the town.

This level made me bored while everyone was scared of it. I just thought it was a boring town nobody wanted to live in.

This level is a liminal space

I never really experianced the emotionally negative aura. I always quite liked this level.

1:09 is that a skeeter? I’ve seen 3 Mario games with Skeeters and Buttons That Drain water!

The music got me bumpin’

wow where did you learn all that skill bro

Those little spider thingies used to stress me out so much as a kid chasing me on the surface 😭😭

I always think wall kickd are easier when watching the N64 version because I grew up on the DS where you could slide before wall kicking.

As a kid I was scared to go into the level simply because of these spider things. I was scared as hell of spiders

Muito obrigado pela informação 👏🏿🤝🏿🤗

this man can do it in 15 minutes yet i cant even beat it under 30

This level, hazy maze cave, and boos haunted mansion piss me off so much I won’t play for a couple days.

I made a found footage animation (similar to Backrooms videos) about this stage because the town haunts my dreams 😭😭😭

I thought the camera was the worst part of Mario 64…. Then came the wall jump

I would like to correct and inform some of the people who may end up reading this at some point, as well as share my own personal opinions: The background of Wet Dry World is NOT a location in Spain, but rather, Shibam, a town in Yemen. Apparently people confuse the skybox with Casares, Spain due to the certain locations having similar building layouts, and the red building near the top is apparently the Mosque of Mohammed Ali in Cairo, Egypt. As for the weird "negative emotional aura." thing, I don't really get unsettled by the world. The world definitely weirds me out though, and I think the background is a really fitting choice. It's a city underwater due to a flood (Or at least, I think it's supposed to be underwater. Minus the actual levels when the water is low.), which is wrong on many levels (No pun intended.). So I can understand why it may freak some people out, for me it's the visuals and how it's just unnatural for a whole city to be underwater, though I assume it's the same for others as well. As it means that if there was indeed a civilization there, it's inhabitants are most likely gone. Haven't really gotten into the whole ARG and iceberg meme thing, but the fan made "cut" themes made by people for Wet Dry World are amazing, especially one that for whatever reason nearly made me cry. I wasn't unsettled though, I found the theme mostly relaxing, the only spooky parts in my opinion were the intro and outro of the song. I can't describe the feeling it gave me, but I know others felt it as well, it's a feeling and combination of emotions that you'd only understand if you listen to it. I'll list the people that made or at least uploaded the themes I've listened to below once I find them again, I'll edit this comment once I do so. 1: Skug 2: Jim Nopédie If I made any mistakes with the facts I listed above, please let me know! I was reading it all off of the Super Mario Wiki!

Im the only who love this level due the ambience, even as a kid?

We all seem to not like this level due to the skybox being a town in Spain

I remember getting headaches playing this level as a kid... reading these comments about the obscurity of this level is consoling

Wet Dry World: Good SM64 Level. Side Effects: 09.02.97

Wet dry world positive emotional aura 😊

Hey the music in wet dry world is not so Bad and it's not so scary and Alone i wonder why people says this is a negative aura

wet dry world map itself might be a part of the background image one of the levels too is named top of the town and it has houses underground

I VERY MUCH LIKE THE WATER GAMES IN MARIO 64. I WOULD HAVE PLAYED THIS GAME WHEN I WAS MIDDLE AGED. NOW IM OLD. I BET THERE IS NO ONE IN HERE AS OLD AS I AM. IM WHAT YOU CALL AN OLD GAMER. I LL BE 70 NEXT YEAR.

I can see why people say it has a negative aura. You’re basically playing on a level that is almost like the remains of something until you get the underwater town. As a person who plays games, you’re constantly speculation where you are and what is this place . The way you go thru this level especially raising the water levels yourself, has this undertone to it. As if you were the one who flooded the city or somebody had in the past. You know there used to people there but not anymore. It’s strange

If playing on switch Drifty Joycons make this hard

This level was frustrating me so much. For reason others listed already. But also because for the town section the coins and stars, I forgot about the wall jumping lololol damnitttttttt

lol i didn't figure out that the water level depends on where you jump into the painting. had to reach the pink bomb guy with a wall jump from a spider the version i played didn't boot me out of the level when collecting a star

Negative emotional aura from this level? Perish the thought! Just because it’s a level with dreary music. And dreary colors. And no organic life around. And extreme dichotomies between either drowning in water or experiencing shallow and dry environments. And a quasi-apocalyptic subtext where the surrounding environment looks like a drowned city, and how the level actually contains a drowned abandoned town with no clear answers about either its origin, or what happened to it... ...Folks, do your part to protect the environment and combat climate change. I’m just going to sit in a corner and cry now. :(

It just occurred to me why none of the soundtrack rips of this track sounded right to me: for whatever reason, they're missing that pad drone in the intro.

It has the same music like Hazy Maze Cave.

Nice

I always liked this level when I played the DS version quite a few years ago. It’s not a very expansive course, there’s a relative lack of enemies, and it’s a place to chill and solve water puzzles. Of course, with no help from the internet I didn’t know how to unlock the red blocks or luigi, so I had no idea how to get all the stars. Good times.

Nintendo missed a good opportunity to name a level in Mario Galaxy 1 or 2 "Up-Down Galaxy"

Elevator part was so fuckin annoying when I was a kid.. Still is today

I don't understand this "negative emotional aura" stuff, but this level was certainly a pain in the ass when I was younger.

Thanks could not figure out the water level to get to the pink bomb or the 100 coins

ooh! spooky!

If hell exists it's eternity in sm64 lol

I don’t dislike because of the difficulty. Rather, how redundant the water levels were at this point and how the gameplay was not creative.

*COME ON MARIO JUMP!!*

Why is this level kinda creepy? It feels so incomplete

Why is the background town under water?