After years of reviewing b-grade and lesser known platformers, it's time to take on the king. Super Mario 64. SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS: / nitroradofficial / nitrorad / nitrorad
As per the piano being beaten, I remember hearing something about that being an earlier thing you could do in the game but they made it invincible at the last minute, so they forgot to change it in the book.
On the other hand, you CAN actually kill Snacker in Banjo-Kazooie. You've gotta time your use of eggs quickly enough and aim right or dive at him from the shore with the Wonderwing active.
I remember my first getting into the infinite stairs to the last level. Me and my brother ran up the stairs for 10 minutes, as the music made us more and more nervous. I started saying that was no way we could get to the top and that we had to go back, but my brother didn't want to look back because he was afraid of the stairs being infinite to the way down too. He asked me to go down the stair for him, but I didn't want neither because I also was afraid of that possibility. After running up the stair a bit more, we decided to head back, and when we saw that we didn't have moved nothing our minds were blown away... and also relieved that we were not forever trapped in the staircase.
Jairo, the Cow Oh my god, I love these nostalgic childhood stories. They are so cute and amazing and you only have experiences like them as child. I’ve definitely done stuff like this before playing games with my brother and family when I grew up even though I’m too tired to remember any stories at the moment. I loved your story though, Jairo. It’s great to hear and took me back. ^_^
@@justanotheryoutubechannel yeah, I love this kind of stuff. It's like writing a book/story about a game, but from your perspective in the first time you played it, full of these moments that are unique for each player! It was like me and my sister, when we first played Super Mario Galaxy 2, and we just had no idea how to outrun Peewee Piranha, and since we didn't know at the time there were walkthroughs or guides online, we checked the Tutorial DVD for some tips, and we then realized we could actually attack it. Given it was the first Mario game we ever played, and we were 9 and 6 (with me as the oldest), it wasn't that embarrassing at the time.
23:22 Trust me, you weren't the only kid that wasn't terrified of the piano, that pretty much summed up childhood me as well, right down to the giant fish in tinyhuge island part. Between that, the robot sharks from Spyro 2, and the Lurker Shark from Jak and Daxter, I was terrified of the idea of being eaten whole by some aquatic monster as a kid. Heck, going back to play Mario 3 for the first time, I'm still terrified of big bertha.
BayLaugh Animations Yeah, the piano was already there and it just wasn’t scary, while the big cheep cheep just comes out of no where, and then B O O M, you’re dead.
@@NitroRad Honestly, actually, none of the SM64 enemies really terrified me that much. Ocarina of Time, however... whew, those Redeads terrified me as a Kid. Replaying it years later, I was able to thank my lucky stars I never made it past the Water temple and was dumb af, otherwise I would have ran into the lovely Dead Hand. Either that or I did run into him and it's a repressed memory.
Just wanted to say "Hey, thanks!" for making these kinds of nostalgic videos. My only brother passed away this year and watching these videos of yours has taken me back to a better time when me and my brother would have an absolute blast playing through amazing games like Mario 64. Finding/watching your videos has been a bright spot in what has been a very difficult year for me, so thank you for making them!
Did you know? Mario 64 was actually just a re-skin of Doki Doki Panic 2. The Doki developers were so mad, they fueled their rage into a game, a product of hatred, of disgust. That game was... Bubsy 3D
Jak and Daxter does not exist. It is a fake game that was never made and no one has ever heard of it. Including you and I. Just like other fake games like Banjo Kazooie and Gex.
Thank god someone finally put into words how i feel about mario 64's jumps. Sunshine has fludd, galaxy has the speen, oddessey has the cappy dive jump thing. But mario 64 doesnt give you a get out of jail free card and it makes every jump feel earned. But i also understand that it can make 64 hard to get into
I played through the entirety of SM64DS, and yeah, you have to think quite well about the jumps you have to make. I remember not varying my jumps all that much in Mario Galaxy 2, though maybe that was because I was younger, but even still, the controls in there feel snappier, the there isn't any dumb knockback from bad landings, and the SPEEN is a good save. Despite Galaxy 2 having a lot of death pits, it's still less stressful than 64... But I still had a really pleasant time with the game, way more than I expected in some stages. I expected Lethal Lava Land to kick my ass, Hazy Maze Cave to be exhausting to explore, and Shifting Sand Land to be unpleasant. But no! LLL was pretty fun, especially with the Koopa Shell riding, that was super fun! HMC was quite exciting to explore! SSL... ok yeah, still not a fan of the death sand pits, or the fact you can't leave the pyramid, but even still, it was all way more fun than I anticipated! Tall Tall Mountain? Way less taxing than I expected, didn't die from falling nearly as much as I expected, and I didn't even need to climb the whole thing every time! Tick Tock Clock was fun to experiment with, even if I had to climb it more times, one too many times I'd say. Really, even Tiny-Huge Island, with stupid Klepto, and the stupid bottomless pits where there should be water, and those stupid tiny ramps that make you slide off the whole thing to your death instead of water, and the stupid tiny enemy knockback... it still wasn't as painful as I expected. Some of the stuff I did made me feel tense and stressed, as I wasn't all too confident on the controls, but I still did it nonetheless without any issues! Screw Rainbow Ride tho. Not bad, I still enjoyed it, but way too overkill with the death by falling, for an entire Course nonethless.
As a kid I though there was a secret outside the castle. I never knew how to unlock the cannon by the little lake, but when I found the secret slide behind the Peach panting and how it was the same one as on the front of the castle. I though that by unlocking that cannon and launching into the Peach picture on the front of the castle was how you saved her and unlocked her as a playable character. Forget L is Real, I say P is real!
14:29 True. In my opinion, Toy Story 2: Buzz lightyear to the rescue subverts the "kicked out of level by collectable" simply by giving you an option to either leave a level or search for more tokens.
I just remembered that Pac Man had a series of 3D platforms himself: Pac Man World. You should take a look a those since basically everyone only thinks about his arcade game but never his platforming series.
I was a dumb kid. I never had that moment of "Wait, it's Mario in 3D?!" I got the game along with the 64 and all I knew was that it's a video game and it's Mario. Whether it was 2D or 3D didn't matter to me. But I spent countless hours playing it. I would explore the castle thoroughly and every level trying to find any secrets. I would go to the Metal Cap switch room and really explore it. For some reason, I felt like there was something special about that room, other than the metal cap switch. I always found it cool how you get there by entering Hazy Maze Cave and if you let the water current take you, you end up outside the castle. The interconnected world in the game always amazed me. It's been years since I played it. The Switch needs a Virtual Console. I want to replay this!
Super Mario sunshine to this day is my number 2 favorite game. It was 1 until Skyrim. Bought a game cube off a guy at work. Used to play for hours with my girlfriend at the time. She used to work nights, and i days. She'd go around collecting extra life's while i was at work. I'd come home, and loose them all. When i got stuck, she would try. Things i was horrible at she was good. We beat it together. That right there is why i married her.
I completely agree with everything. I love this game, but it has problems. I thought I was the only one dying a lot in Super Mario 64 although I’m very good at the game. I really like how you don’t have to have a double jump to have good platforming, but I do like what they did in Super Mario Odyssey, how you can use Cappy to either stop momentum or give you an extra action after you jump on him, but it’s not easy to use at first and how it’s not necessarily, but it helps to do some really cool stuff. I love power ups, although people usually hate them in this game due to them being very situational, but I really like them, Metal Mario being my favorite. I like how the metal suit was brought back in Super Mario Odyssey.
I also forgot to touch on the fact that the ability to turn was really hard, especially in Super Mario 64DS.with it only having a D-Pad. I’ve died a lot playing it just trying to get the red coins in Bowser’s first place.
So, you've probably heard like a billion people talk about how this Open Area Is A Very Smart Design Choice Because It Allows The Player To Grow Accustomed To The Controls
I remember I discovered your channel when I saw the video stating that you were gonna do RU-vid full time and I thought "Cool... who the heck is this guy?". Fast forward a few months and your one of my favourite RU-vidrs. You deserve way more subscribers, dude!
"There are games that set standards, create genres, and move the industry forward". Although the common folk typically abbreviate this to just "Nintendo games".
Not necessarily... Most of the times, yeah, but there are those games that set a standard on their own for different genres, made by different entities. Sega, Sony, maybe Microsoft, Midway, Rockstar, Capcom, Konami when it didn't suck, Ubisoft when it didn't suck, indie games, Activision when it didn't suck, not EA, there was a lot of development in the world of games... for better or for worse. I mean, the game Slender: The Eight Pages, as basic and bare as it was, paved the way for those free roam stalker horror games. It's a genre that some see as cheap horror, but it's an entire game genre nonetheless, and when done right, it can be great!
Honestly Mario 64 needs a remake for the switch since SM64DS doesn't play well with a D-Pad. All these mistakes could be fixed and it could feature the best of both versions!
I also never understood what was so "scary" about the piano. When I was a kid I never made it to the part with the big fish but I imagine if I did, it would have scared me too.
other than the fact that it's some kind of screamer you can use a little logic and observing it. It's a living object that has teeth and is really loud. Maybe it never scared you because big boy's not afraid of that, it's easy to understand that it made a lot of kids scared.
I really love how you can master this game, it's so fun when you're really used to the mechanics. I really don't think the N64 control stick is bad at all, maybe if yours is in bad shape, you should buy a new one and hope it's in better shape. The Final Bowser did genuinely scare me as a 5 year old lol I had to turn off the game and then I was able to do it the next day lolol. Love the video
You really really need to play Jak & Daxter. You bunched it in with all the games that "just add a double jump", but there is so much control in Jak & Daxter with the roll and spin mechanics. It would be a magnificient game for you to experience and I know you would make a great video out of it!
I want to make my own game based around the "every painting/picture tells 100 words" phrase, but with real life paintings, but like... if they were interpreted by an imaginative child. Like, the Mona Lisa would have a rennaissance era level, but instead of being realistic it would play off stereotypes and romanticisation the rennaissance. So, for example, there would be fantastical wooden steam punk-esque machines designed by ol' Leonardo da Vinci and they would each have their own gameplay elements. There's so much potential in this concept because there's so much art. You could visit the medieval era and fight knights dragons and save the princess, you could visit the wild west and blow up gold mines on dusty cliffsides, you could take to the seas and explore massive fleets, you could go to a Victorian era neighborhood and solve murder mysteries with Sherlock Holmes and the list goes on as long as there's new art concepts to explore. You could even subvert expectations and go off the wall by having a level look very average, but then when you enter the stage you'd realize there was some hidden element right out of the field of view of the painting, for example, maybe some Norman Rockwell painting looks super average 1950s American suburbia, but then you realize it's in a post apocalypse and that on idealic scene was the only one remaining. If any coders are reading this and are interested in helping me make this please find me 😐
The N64 was my second console after the GASP. I had Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64, Glover, all of the 64 Bomberman games, and of course Banjo Kazooie and Tooie. Kirby Crystal Shards, and Pokemon Snap... I never knew how good I had it with games when I first played it because my brother gave them all to me. I honestly cherish the memories this console brought me, and the groundings that resulted playing these games a bit too much. I remember when I was in high school, I had a boyfriend, and we would frequently play games together. Like, it was our go to to spend time with each other. He had never played Banjo Kazooie. I freaked out, and we took turns getting puzzle pieces and had a blast. It was genuinely magical seeing him react to the game for the first time, especially on our huge, modern living room tv. Modern day games are fun, but it's always important to look back at the past to see how far we've come. Even though I was a bit late to the party, I still got to experience the genuine charm of these old games and I'm incredibly thankful for it. Keep up the great work Nitro Rad, and don't ever forget to look back on things that for you where you are today.
Also haha, I was the opposite. There was a sign that said "don't become dory's lunch," and I spent a while pounding her back and swimming to her front to see if she would eat me. I do t think it's possible for it to actually happen tho.
11:00 Yeah I gotcha, moving around with momentum like Mario (displayed here) is like parkour. Although it’s sorta unrealistic with the somersault job because it’s too high and the dive to suddenly push you forward, you would treat every other move set as a good flowing motion. Double jump kinda throws everything off because it’s not physically realistically possible. *edit:* guess it also relies on the level design too. I guess Mario 64 is really is considered the most revolutionary game. And deserves every love and reward that it has received.
I like how you didn't shy away from how much the game aged but didn't blow it out of proportion. I see so many reviews that never even give the time of day to the camera, not saying a nice thing about it. And they love to rag on the controls. And here you are saying, "the camera and controls do work... most of the time." With those other guys, you might get the sense that Mario 64 is near unplayable in this current day, when it's just not. It's a good balance, more representative of the game, and I'm glad you did it, Nitro.
Wario World is pretty short (I ended up finishing it in 4 hours when I rented it a long time ago) but it's a damn good time. If I remember correctly, it was also developed by Treasure, my favorite developer, so I highly recommend it if you ever get a chance to play it.
Kind of funny to see another person not being afraid of the piano but instead being afraid of all the same stuff I was. Also, "Tiny, huge island" has great level design. It's like every time you get in to it to get a new star you've learned how to get it or spotted a possible way to find it thanks to getting the last star.
Every time I play a classic title on the N64 the control stick is so stiff that it eventually breaks. I grew up with Playstation’s full 360 degree control stick so I guess this is bound to happen eventually.
FearlessOtaku 99 Just get a good third party controller. Though the stubby stick is useful since most N64 games are built for them (OOT64's aiming is good enough with the original stick, not so much with a GameCube stick)
Stiff? the N64 stick is anything but stiff. That's what I don't really like about it. Since it's so lose and quick and doesn't have as much resistance as modern controllers I very often overshoot targets and precision is very difficult since I can't really push the stick halfway.
Man am I glad there's someone else who feared the insta killing fish Bubba instead of the mad piano. 25:27 I had no idea this was even a thing other than Tick Tock Clock's timed platforms system.
Currently doing a first playthrough of SM 64 (late, I know) and I didn't know about the wing cap or shifting sand land course... Thanks dood! Great vid btw, earned a subscription.
Okay, so from what I can gather, the reason it says you can defeat the mad piano in the guide book is because the guide book was made during an earlier build of the game, meaning that at one point, you actually *were* able to defeat the mad piano. However, as development went on, this feature, along with a few others, were removed, but the guide book was not updated to compensate for this.
Mario 64 probably still has my favorite 3D Mario movement system ever. Odyssey has real smooth Mario controls, but Mario 64's gimmick free system is still very versatile and just feels great. It's just pure 3D platforming!
I think it's why Mario made the transition to 3D so much smoother than Sonic did. Mario 64 is extremely basic and generic. They focused on just making Mario good to control and then made stages to use that control. No multiple characters, no gimmicks, no expensive cutscene's and the powerups were just changing Mario's properties and not even the physics. They don't change his weight, feel or give him any new moves. I think if Sega had made Sonic adventure in a similar way it would have gone over way better. Maybe something similar to secret rings but with tighter controls.
Yeah the sense of mystery is what I think makes this game so good. Just the atmosphere you get from looking and seeing the star in the cage in Whomp's Fortress or behind the chomp's gate in Bob-Omb Battlefield, thinking, "Wow, I wonder how you get that."
Another great vid! I'm glad to see Your channel growwing, I've been with ya every since LISA and am glad to have been introduced to so many new great obscure games!
Eh, I'd say Smash Ultimate was way better than Mario Odyssey. Unfortunately, YT doesn't show exact dates for comments, so if this was made before that game came out, then that's my mistake.
Those are certainly a lot of good points you made in regard to getting kicked out of the level each time you got a star and had to travel to the same places over and over. For my let's play, I've cut out the recording of me going to the same place again and again if there wasn't anything different about how I went there before.
I was such a chicken shit that the Peach painting turning into Bowser freaked me out the first time I saw it that I kept avoiding it until I had to lol
The DS remake solves plenty of problems and adds more playable characters. I wonder if they will ever remake Sunshine and put Waluigi or Shadow Mario as playables. It would be rad... as long as it has a joypad instead of D-pad.
Finally, an honest review of Mario 64 recognizing how it hasn't aged as well and isn't as amazing as people say it to be. That being said, I'm gonna beat it
I think with each full 3D Mario game since this came out, starting with Sunshine, conintuing through Galaxy 1 and 2, and finally with Super Mario Odyssey, Nintendo has been trying to render SM64 obsolete. And with each attempt, they come ever closer. In a lot of ways it's really hard to go back after playing Odyssey, but even still, the core of SM64 is so strong that I think it'll be enjoyed for many more years.
A lot of people shit on the DS remake, but I loved it, and frankly didn't have the same issues people seemed to mention about controlling it with the d-pad. Worked fine to me.
Apparently certain courses like Tick Tock Clock were given wider pathways and platforms to make them less aggravating to navigate. And yeah, I honestly didn't have problems with using the D-Pad most of the time except when it came to controlling Wing Cap Mario. Thank God for Luigi's incredibly broken backwards somersault!
GreenTengu97 I have only played the remake with an Xbox 360 controller so I can't comment on the controls but the rest of it was good!, Don't like it as much as the N64 version though.
By "beat the piano", they didn't mean "defeat the piano". It's obvious to assume that 'beat' is being used as a synonym for 'defeat', as in to "beat in combat", but the book is trying to say that you can "beat" it in the sense that you can sneak around it and collect the coin that it guards. It's obvious that this really wasn't worded in the best sense. Clearly the immediate assumption is that you can defeat the piano, so they really should have said something like "out-manoeuvre the piano" or "conquer the piano" - something that doesn't have connotations of a combative encounter.
Going back to watch this/finally watching it after replaying Mario 64 and actually forming an opinion on it. It's so impressive how much you've improved presentation wise. Everything here is good, your points are great & the script flows well, but your delivery on the lines have improved so, so much, your current videos don't even feel like you're reading from a script. Mario cap off to you Nitroman
maybe it was one of those "copyright traps" ??? where an author puts in deliberately fake info to catch someone copying their work like they used to do with encyclopedias and maps with fake streets and towns
9:24 You could actually just do a kick to change direction so that you'll land in the drop zone. Also, 19:12 any time Lakitu is difficult, you can press R to switch to the Mario Camera and Lakitu will move the camera to whatever angle you want, and even automatically move behind you if you stay still (albeit slowly). Make sure to zoom it out, though, because when zoomed in, the camera is right behind Mario, so you often can't see enough of the area to do any platforming anyway.
Crash Weezerman On DS the flimsy DPAD is a bit hard to do diagonals with. The 3DS has the Circle Stick that still only recognizes 8 inputs on DS games but it makes diagonals easier and "feels" nice
I have never played Mario 64. I was born on 2000 and I am a PlayStation gamer so I have played Crash Bandicoot but not Mario... Well I actually have played the very first Super Mario Bros but what am trying to say is: Nitro Rad thank you for explaining this game like we don't know it cause I don't!
I just found your channel and I gotta say you have very high quality videos on every aspect (video quality, editing, writing, delivery). Subscribed right away!
Sonic adventure 1 kind of proves why starting Mario in an empty but varied location was a really good move. I remember as a kid being really overwhelmed and instantly defeated as I had no clue what to do.
There's loads more videos about this game out there but Im digging how in depth you go with your thoughts on stuff like design and controls. Great work as usual!
(you could take this with a grain of salt, I probably might just be nostalgic here) I totally get why people don't like getting booted out of a level when they're used to other collect-a-thons just letting you go on. I liked Mario Odyssey a good deal, but I didn't love it. Most of the time when I got a Power Moon, it just felt like "okay, you beat that objective, let's move on." In Mario 64, most of the objectives were level-wide, and they felt like huge accomplishments, so it only made sense to be booted out of the level. I only started playing Banjo-Kazooie recently, so Mario 64's style of collect-a-thon just... made a lot of sense to me. When I first heard people complaining about this aspect, I was like "why? That's just how it's supposed to be!" But I totally get the complaint.
Another fantastic review! This is one of the best SM64 review I've watched in a long time. Most reviews just talk about how great and influential it was but not many take the game into a modern context. 64 is a game that shows how far we've come in just 20 years.
I cant believe just a year ago discovering your channel you had 19,000 subs, now you almost have 54,000 if you keep this up you will hit 100k in another year:)
Well gosh diddly darn. This game is why I love Mario, the character is energetic and happy. He’s truly amazing. I agree with a lot of your points. Bowser’s laughing in the different rooms scared the shit out of me. I have a few suggestions for what you should review next. 1. Sonic 3 & Knuckles 2. Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse 3. Sonic Mania 4. Super Mario Odyssey 5. Freedom Planet. Anyway, great review my dude! Definitely one of the best reviews you’ve put together!
in the red coin missions for this game, SGB (The Super Gaming Brothers) did them and the 100 coin stars in one mission for the most part. their channel name is also a bit of a misnomer. only two of them (Johnny and Elliot) are brothers, or half brothers (maybe step brothers at the furthest) the third guy (Matt) is just their friend who was an occasional guest but then became a mainstay of the channel. Covid-19 sucks BTW. Apologies for the unrelated tangent in your comments, James. I just needed somewhere to say that last bit.
Daimon Shaw I fucking love Sunshine, it has issues but I wouldn't pick any other Mario game over it (unless you count Luigi's Mansion as a Mario game.. if so I would take that every time).
+Nitro Rad It's 2017 and bullet points are used en masse, old timer. Keep up with the times B-) +MechaMinilla99 Good for you, man. I also have a soft spot for inferior sequels.
heyyy that's a very good video. i really gotta agree with the points you made on the controls (and level design) and also the fact that you went quite in-depth when explaining your points
Excellent review as always, James! It's odd how rare we get Super Mario 64 reviews-- perhaps because it's one of those 'been there, done that' occasions, but regardless, it's always nice to take a step back from the new and indie titles and look at the past. ...AndIknowthisruinstheentirespielbutyoushouldtotallycheckoutBlueOmenOperation
Another great review, James! I've been waiting for this video for a long time and it didn't disappoint. I like how you were not afraid of pointing out this game's flaws despite how much you love it. It truly is a legendary game and, dammit, you made me want to replay it :)
