Super Mario 64

Box art

Super Mario 64 is a 1996 platforming game on the Nintendo 64 console. It was a launch title for the N64 (along with Pilotwings 64 and Cruis'n USA in Europe), and is largely considered to be one of the most important 3D platformers of all time.

Plot

Princess Peach invites Mario to her castle for cake. However, by the time he arrives, Bowser has kidnapped the princess, attacked the castle, and stolen its Power Stars. Mario must warp through portals, often magic paintings, to retrieve the Power Stars from other worlds and restore peace.

Gameplay

The player controls Mario, who can perform a variety of actions based on controller input, terrain, and state transitions. He can move according to a continuum of speeds and directions using the Control Stick, jump with A, punch or grab with B, and crouch with Z. These moves can be combined into various advanced acrobatics and attacks. The game also features swimming controls in water, flight controls while using the Wing Cap, and other contextual controls on climbable poles, hangable ceilings, and the like.

The player can additionally adjust the virtual camera, personified by Lakitu news reporters, with C▲▼◀▶ and R.

Enemies often chase or attack Mario on sight, and can be defeated by various means. Mario has eight visible sectors of health, and can restore them by collecting coins, running through a Spinning Heart, or surfacing from water. Health represents damage taken from enemies and obstacles as well as Mario's ability to hold his breath, and in certain cases varies more granularly than the meter displays.

There are fifteen main courses in the game, inspired by hakoniwa (traditional miniature gardens arranged in boxes), and several other areas that may offer additional Power Stars, powerup-unlocking Cap Switches, and keys guarded by Bowser. Losing a life or collecting a Power Star in a course returns Mario to the hub world, encouraging the player to choose from the variety of missions to complete. The goal is to collect Power Stars and keys to open more rooms and floors of the castle, and ultimately defeat Bowser.

History

Super Mario 64 started development sometime before 1995. It was written mainly in C, and originally compiled with the SGI IRIS Development Option (IDO) 5.3 compiler.^{[citation needed][compilers for later versions?]} Select parts^[which?] were written in MIPS assembly. The Mario head screen was written by Giles Goddard in C++.^{[citation needed]}

The game was first publicly shown at the Shoshinkai show in November 1995, with the introduction of the Nintendo 64 (named the Ultra 64 at the time). Early footage of the show revealed the 50% complete beta version of Super Mario 64, which looked completely different from the final product. It was supposed to come out in December, but was delayed further, and the entire game was rebuilt.

On May 16th, 1996, Super Mario 64 was shown off at E3 in a state very close to the final product. Almost the entire game was accessible. Some small details were changed before release, such as the different star icon in the HUD, and a rock spike at the top of the mountain in Bob-omb Battlefield.

According to one of its programmers, Super Mario 64 was rushed at the end of development, and a couple of the team members were deterred from further game development due to burnout from the project.

The game was released in Japan on June 23rd, 1996, then on September 29th, 1996 in North America, and on March 1st, 1997 in Europe.

Legacy

Super Mario 64 determined design elements of the Nintendo 64 controller and Game Pak. After its hotly anticipated release, it was widely influential and acclaimed by game developers and press, particularly for its innovative player-character and camera controls and its reexplorable environments.

The game is sometimes considered mysterious or unnerving, and has been subject to enduring rumors and hoaxes. The most famous is the supposed presence of Luigi (who was planned for split-screen cooperative multiplayer until February 1996, mere months before release).

Most relevantly to this wiki, Super Mario 64 has fostered a large and dedicated speedrunning and challenge-running community. The game is widely associated with technical discoveries such as the Backwards Long Jump and other hyperspeed exploits, the cloning glitch, the collection of "impossible coins", the A Button Challenge, the presence of so-called Parallel Universes where Mario can interact with collision from far out of bounds, and an unsolved upwarp in the course Tick Tock Clock.

Game versions

There are many different versions of Super Mario 64 across regions, revisions, and distribution platforms such as later consoles.

Nintendo 64

The Nintendo 64 console is less robust than modern consoles, so its CPU is more likely to crash when confronted with errors and other unforeseen occurrences.

Japanese

The very first version of the game to be commercially released, the Japanese N64 version was succeeded by the Shindou version a year after release. The original Japanese version has a few unique glitches that were fixed in all other versions, such as spawning displacement, the lack of a coin limit, and a time stop exploit. It is also notable for being the fastest version of the game for the 1 Key category (and some others). While the text takes longer, the lack of narration makes the game shorter. The text in the first Bowser fight is avoided during the 1 Key run, so the Japanese version becomes faster.

English

See also: Version differences

The English version and all successive versions added some extra dialogue over the Japanese version. For example, Mario now says "Haha", and Peach voices over her letter to Mario in the opening cutscene and speaks aloud during the ending. This version also fixes the aforementioned Japanese-exclusive errors and glitches. It has, in general, less text than the Japanese version, but takes longer during the intro and ending due to Peach's narration.

PAL

The European release of Super Mario 64 supports language changing in the settings menu between English, French, and German. This is optimal for the ABZ Button Challenge because Start can be used to change language and the language with the least text can be selected. Due to Wii VC Round-To-Zero, however, the true optimal PAL version is not on N64. Outside of ABZ, PAL is little-used because changing languages wastes time and English is effectively identical if you do not change languages. Because of the PAL video format using 50 Hz instead of NTSC's 60 Hz, PAL runs at 25 frames per second rather than 30, another reason why it is suboptimal for speedrunning.

Shindou

The final Nintendo 64 release of Super Mario 64 was another Japanese-language revision, called the Rumble Pak Compatible Version or Shindou Pak Taiou Version, colloquially Shindou. It enabled a compiler flag to allow optimizations, which results in less lag. It also fixed the infamous Backwards Long Jump glitch, which is why it is rarely used in speedruns, except in the BLJless category. Strangely, when grabbing a pole on this version, horizontal speed affects Mario's angle. The game introduced new voice clips like "Bye-bye!" when throwing Bowser. Some of Mario's voice clips are high-pitched in this version. This version would later be used for Super Mario 3D All-Stars.

iQue (Chinese)

Main article: Super Mario 64 (iQue)

The iQue version of the game runs on the iQue Player, a rare handheld Nintendo 64 variant only released in China. The iQue version is in fact the Shindou version translated to Chinese, and as such it does not have BLJs or the Bob-omb or Bully angle crashes. By hacking a romhack by Kaze onto an iQue, it was found that the camera going to a Parallel Universe does crash the game like on the N64 console.

64DD Version

Super Mario 64 DD Version or SM64DD (called Super Mario Disk Version on the title screen) was an unreleased version of the game for the 64DD peripheral, likely made to test its load times. The 64DD was a commercial failure, and the DD version was never released. There is only one known copy of this version, owned by adonfjv, who found it at a Japanese video game store in 2014. The ROM (NDD) of this version has since been dumped.

SM64DD is effectively the Japanese version of SM64 ported to the 64DD, with most (but not all) sounds replaced with their PAL versions. For example, the red coin and the sliding star door sounds are the same as in the Japanese release. The title screen is vastly different, resembling the hidden debug mode's level select screen. Since it is on a disk, load times are increased.

The most major difference is that entering the inside of the island in Tiny-Huge Island, where Wiggler and red coins reside, will crash the game. This makes collecting all 120 stars impossible on this version. The crash is console only, and occurs due to Wiggler's health value being uninitialized (the original Japanese and USA releases do not crash from this programming oversight as a coincidence).

Wii VC

Main article: Virtual Console

The rereleases in the Wii's Virtual Console (VC) line act differently than on Nintendo 64. They are much less likely to crash. Unlike the N64, Wii does not crash from PU crashes, Bully angle crash, or Bob-omb angle crash. The emulation software also rounds doubles to floats differently from other consoles. Another difference is that it does not crash from the Address Error Exception. It is currently unknown whether the Wii crashes upon having infinity speed.

Japanese

Japanese Wii VC is actually the Shindou edition, not the original Japanese version. This is why it does not have spawning displacement or other Japanese N64-exclusive glitches, nor does it have BLJs. It is almost never used for speedrunning for that reason.

English

English Wii VC is the optimal Wii VC version for speedruns. It avoids the lack of BLJs in the Japanese version and the slower framerate of the PAL version. It is used for the A Button Challenge any% run because Bowser in the Fire Sea takes 0 A presses instead of 1 due to the double-to-float-rounding inaccuracy.

PAL

PAL Wii VC is rarely seen because it is obscure and slow. However, it is actually the ideal game version for the ABZ Button Challenge, at least for any%, because it contains both language switching and the rounding error in BitFS.

Wii U VC

Main article: Virtual Console

The Wii U Virtual Console version has no known interesting glitches that set it apart from either N64 or Wii VC. It is identical to Wii VC, except that the rounding error is absent. Like Wii VC, it ignores Address Error Exceptions. Wii U VC is often joked by speedrunners for have a high amount of input lag and it is mostly used only by new runners.

Japanese

Much like Wii VC, Japanese Wii U VC is the Shindou version. This means that BLJs and other glitches that were patched in the Shindou version are absent.

English

Also like Wii VC, American Wii U VC is the US version.

PAL

PAL Wii U VC is actually the US version (unlike on Wii VC), so it is identical to the US Wii U VC.

Nintendo Switch

Super Mario 3D All-Stars

Super Mario 3D All-Stars includes an upscaled Super Mario 64. It is the Shindou version with Lua scripts to hack in English text, new upscaled textures, and slight changes to accommodate the Nintendo Switch control scheme (for example, "PRESS ⊕" on the Mario head screen instead of "PRESS START"). The Switch does not have the Wii's rounding error, but it does ignore Address Error Exceptions.

Nintendo Switch Online

Nintendo Switch Online's expansion pack includes Super Mario 64 as part of the Nintendo 64 emulated games. Unlike Super Mario 3D All-Stars, the Nintendo Switch Online version still has BLJs.

Super Mario 64 DS

Main article: Super Mario 64 DS

Super Mario 64 DS is an updated remake of Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo DS. Its physics and controls are vastly different, and it has different content and features, such as 150 stars instead of 120 (including some replacements), more powerups, and multiple playable characters with special abilities.

There is no evidence that 64 DS shares any code with the original N64 release, although it may very likely have used the original N64 models for levels and areas. Therefore, it is usually considered a distinct game from Super Mario 64 rather than a "version" like the others described; in fact, 64 DS has its own set of regional and revisional differences.

External links

• Super Mario 64 on the Super Mario Wiki
• Super Mario 64 on Wikipedia