| Super Mario 64 DS review |
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The year 1996 saw a lot of change and event: the Taleban took over Afghanistan; life was discovered to have existed on Mars; Mad Cow Disease swept across the UK; and Mario finally entered the world of three dimensions. Even though this naturally pales beside the other world events, Super Mario 64 was a landmark in the history of video games. Henceforth every other developer out there sought to ape Nintendo's effort but none ever quite succeeded in capturing the same magical feeling as when you first saw that title. Now it has been rejigged and released on the Nintendo DS for everyone to enjoy all over again.
There's something about going back to an old friend, especially one as important as this in the timeline of video games. So many memories, so many special moments to recall from what was dubbed by many as one of the greatest games of all time. The best thing to say about this new DS version is that it still encapsulates everything sublime, brilliant and inspired about the N64 game, and then raises the bar another step by giving us much more than we had before.
Everything starts as it used to, for about fifteen seconds at least. Then not one, but three pipes appear and out jump Mario, Luigi and Wario. Something amiss here. They wander off to the castle and just behind them appears Yoshi. You control Yoshi to start with. Players who rinsed SM64 on the N64 might feel a little bemused at this point. There's a good reason for this; Nintendo prove immediately and concretely that the player is not about to experience the exact same game all over again (as Nintendo has been guilty of before with other titles, to some complaint).
The game may well be called Super Mario 64 DS, but far more characters than merely Mario are involved in the adventure. That is evident, as said, when you are initially playing as Yoshi. The other three heroes are trapped within the castle and you have to go rescue them alongside collecting the necessary stars. Each character has been given a special ability and many of the tasks that Mario was originally given to do have now been tweaked depending on which character you are playing at the time.
For example, the very first star of the game (where Mario defeated the Bobomb King) has a different twist to it. Originally, you had to run around the guy, pick him up and throw him down three times to win. Yoshi can't pick up anything however, so how can he beat him? Time for a different approach, and probably one involving those mini-bobombs running around the screen...
Once any characters have been rescued, you can change them over at will and attempt any star with any character, though only certain members will be able to earn some of the stars (due to the nature of how they react and what power-ups they can collect). There are also caps to discover that can temporarily transform one character into another in a pinch, also imbuing that character's traits. Get hit by an enemy however, and the cap drops off and starts to run away.
By tweaking, changing, updating and altering many of the challenges within the game, it means that old hands will not necessarily have a straight-forward time zooming through the game. There are also thirty new stars added to the game, bringing the total up to one hundred and fifty. Some of these are contained in new areas, the rest added to the existing levels. Thought you knew everything about the game? Think again. Some of these are actually harder to find and retrieve than any of the original challenges. Nintendo could have just left the game how it was, but instead have improved on the existing game with content that seamlessly slots in with what was already there.
Aside from the main game, there are two extra modes available. The multiplayer mode, although fully wireless and useable with only one game card, feels like a last-minute addition rather than an inclusive part of the whole experience. All it boils down to is a set of "chase the star" courses where the characters can jump, kick and pick up each other in the quest to acquire more stars than anyone else. Fun for a while, but ultimately not going to hold interest; this is definitively and primarily a one-player game only.
The other addition is a set of mini-games based on each character in the main game. A few are available from the start, and others can be earned by capturing the vast number of extra rabbits added to the game. All use the touch screen in some way, from something as simple as tapping cards to turn them over up to tensing a large elastic band or rolling a snowball down a hill. Simple in design and concept, but maddingly addictive in execution is how they are best summed up. You can quite easily spend as much time playing them as the main game itself.
The biggest potential stumbling block is the control methods available and implemented. Not everyone is going to like them and not everyone will get on with the choices available. With no analogue stick on the DS, Nintendo has given two options as a solution: either use the digital D-pad and have a button assigned to run, or utilise the touch screen by specifying an origin point and the further the touch is moved from here, the faster your character moves. Neither is ideal, but on the other hand, neither is completely useless and both of them make for reasonable alternatives.
Visually and sonically, not much has actually changed from the original release. The DS hardware is more than capable of handling the graphics engine, and on the smaller screen, gives it a roundedness and smoothness that was lacking slightly from the original. All the new areas have been given a lick with the N64-brush; in other words, if you didn't know they were not part of the original game, you'd have a hard time figuring out they had been added. All the audio has been kept (though Peach's voice may have been rerecorded as Leslie Swan has been replaced since) and all the appropriate yelps and shouts from the additional characters added as needed.
Nintendo has been accused of milking its properties by re-releasing Mario games on a new format in the past. No one was forcing you to buy them of course. Here, however, there is enough extra content to warrant buying the game regardless of whether you originally played it on the N64. The important part is that the game is still as fun, enjoyable and challenging as it was when it first came out; everything else is icing on the three-tiered cake, with the mini-games happening to be a rather thick layer of icing at that. With this game, it's definitely worth another dip into Nintendo's past. |
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System: Nintendo DS
Genre: Platformer
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1-4
Version: United States
Reviewed: Jan 2005
Writer: Mat Allen
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Pros:
- Still the same great game it was eight years ago
- Mini-games almost better than the main game
- Changes are actually quite challenging
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Cons:
- Control method will take adapting to
- Multiplayer mode is really just tacked on
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