It's-ah Mario, in Three Dimensions, on Two Screens!

Author's Rating:

Pros: It's an enhanced version of a medium-defining game!

Cons: The little annoyances from the Nintendo 64 version still exist

The Bottom Line: 
Will head wings be the next level of human evolution? What about raccoon tails that allow you to fly?

Author's Review
Let's suppose for a minute you've not only redefined an outcast entertainment medium, but redefined it in an all-time fashion so it becomes the template for every bit of work in that medium that follows yours. 

Most people would be pretty satisfied with themselves after doing that. 

Most people aren't Nintendo video game guru Shigeru Miyamoto. Miyamoto decided that creating the template for literally every platforming video game EVER wasn't good enough, so after doing that he created the template of every action/RPG released for the next three console generations. Then when video games hit the third dimension, he defined 3D video games for pretty much their entire existence. 

"It's-ah me, Mario!" That floating image of Mario's head drifted across countless Nintendo 64 store demos, and so it came to pass that history repeated itself and Mario once again became the My First Video Game Character for a generation of little kids, as well as adults who now felt like kids again unlearning and relearning the ticks of a newly added dimension of a game board. ALL gamers of the first Generation Y wave have played Super Mario 64. Since it arrived at the advent of the Playstation, not all of them OWNED it, but we all PLAYED it. Like its ancient 8-bit ancestor, it was one of those universal video games that became an easy point of reference because everyone knows how it is. 

One of the launch titles for Nintendo's innovative 64-bit portable console, the DS, was a remake of Super Mario 64 called Super Mario 64 DS. This means that everyone going into the game is familiar with the drill: Instead of proper level progression, Mario jumps in and out of magical paintings many times, trying to accomplish some object which will result in him collecting a magical star. The more stars you collect, the more paintings and game areas are revealed. And like Mario's re-released older siblings on the Game Boy Advance, Super Mario 64 came with its own set of pleasant little enhancements, most notably the game room and the extra levels and the ability to choose between Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and Wario. 

Of course, you do have to get around Super Mario 64 DS's first curveball in order to break open the game. You start as freaking Yoshi, which you didn't do on the Nintendo 64, and you have to unlock Mario after grabbing a number of stars as him. Now to be fair, Yoshi isn't all bad - he can still attack with his long tongue and float briefly. But still, he walks slowly, and doesn't have the same abilities as Mario. So if you're walking into the DS version of Mario 64 for the first time, don't expect to simply dash off to your favorite star-gathering missions. 

Yes, it makes a difference. A lot of the new missions are character-specific, and that's even seen in the titles of some of the new ones. You can grab transformation hats to make things easier, which transform you into different characters, but unlocking all of the characters can be a real test of patience. Plus when you use the hats, one shot turns you back into whichever character you were before. To be fair, though, the concept of switching characters isn't entirely an annoyance. The new character-based missions are mostly very challenging and creative, plus the ability to switch characters can make missions which were too difficult on the Nintendo 64 a lot more tolerable. I find that Luigi is probably the best all-around character in the game, with his ability to run on water and jump long distances. Wario is the most challenging because he's the slowest and his jump is low, quick, and difficult to control, but even he has his moments. 

The mini-games are unlocked by grabbing rabbits. Each character has his own set of mini-games. Luigi's games are all card games, and Yoshi's feel more geared toward little kids. All of them utilize the stylus in one way or another. My favorite mini-games are one in Mario's set in which you sort pink and black Bob-ombs, and one in Wario's games where you fire a giant slingshot at Bob-omb paratroopers to prevent them from destroying flowers. 

As for the regular game itself, the missions can vary greatly and can range from easy to insanely hard and frustrating. Certainly an added mission is not anything I would ever complain about, but additions are what they all are, and many of the more frustrating aspects of the Nintendo 64 version are still in this game. The slide missions haven't gotten any easier, and you're still going on those scavenger hunts red coins and hitting a switch to reveal a star which nine times out of ten will disappear before you can get to it. But no game is perfect, and these missions are only bumps in what are otherwise excellent levels and puzzles. In one level, you can adjust the water level, another takes place inside a giant clock, another allows you to switch between being the a giant in a mini-land and a mini in a giant land, and the game even includes a haunted house. The single thing I don't like is that so many levels are situated over bottomless pits. It's far too easy to fall to your untimely death. 

There is an astounding variety of things to do, and like any game in the Shigeru Miyamoto ouevre, thinking outside the box provides its own rewards. You can go anywhere within sight, and the game even provides alternate methods of transportation to help you get to points you can't reach on foot. There are cannons all over the place to get shot out of, and Mario can grab a feather power-up which causes his hat to sprout wings. Shigs finally did flying i a practical way - you jump three times, and it launches you into the air. 

The graphics and sounds received the usual transitional updates. The graphics aren't quite so polygonal in Super Mario 64 DS, and the animation runs a little bit smoother. However, some of it stall appears stiff: Wario and his odd shuffle is the first example, and a lot of the bad guys also move pretty stiffly. The sounds are, as far as I can tell, unchanged from the Nintendo 64 original. The music isn't quite as famous as the themes from the 8- and 16- bit days, but it's very catchy and the underground theme from the original Super Mario Bros. game is the background music for an underground level. The sounds are all the classic Mario sounds, like the coin collection ching and the crushing sound of breaking blocks. And yes, the "It's-ah me, Mario!" which introduced so many of us to the Nintendo 64 version - and the world of 3D gaming itself, for that matter - is still in the game!

Things get a bit sketchy with the controls. The touch screen and stylus combination was meant to replace the analog stick on the Nintendo 64, but considering how much of the game is seen through a chase lens, this method is highly redundant. If you have to turn on a dime when running fast, the stylus is just devilish because Mario's speed depends on how far you place the stylus from his onscreen spot, and getting him across a tight turn or a narrow chasm with the stylus is damn near impossible given those circumstances. Most people will opt to use the control pad, but that comes with a set of problems of its own because it's stiff. You're using a four-direction d-pad to try to move in literally any direction. And that brings to mind the question of why the hell Nintendo never figured to use the circular d-pads on any of its controllers, but I won't get into that. 

Another console, another Mario game to help it off the ground. The eternal Nintendo story, but has anyone tired of it yet?